Stuck on Repeats

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Adder

Apparently I'm a giant sexist for not being interested in the hunger games or fifty shades of gray or Harry potter or whatever Barbara Kingsolver writes.

It couldn't be that three out of four of those are trash/juvenile and the fourth just doesn't sound interesting.

To prove it I will say: women make no sense.

Someone called you a sexist because of this? That's just silly.

That said, try The Poisonwood Bible. It's excellent. I've read others by her but they were nowhere close to that.

Hunger Games was a decent movie, though without kids I wouldn't have seen it. I don't see the point of reading that or Harry Potter as an adult.

Someone calling you a sexist because you aren't interested in a softcore porn series about a sexually submissive female (that was written by a man, I think) should have their head examined.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

Hermione has some nice robe meat.

I just wanted to see that phrase, from you, again. Carry on.

[Sparklehorse]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Someone called you a sexist because of this? That's just silly.

That said, try The Poisonwood Bible. It's excellent. I've read others by her but they were nowhere close to that.

Hunger Games was a decent movie, though without kids I wouldn't have seen it. I don't see the point of reading that or Harry Potter as an adult.

Someone calling you a sexist because you aren't interested in a softcore porn series about a sexually submissive female (that was written by a man, I think) should have their head examined.

Apparently I am also a woman hater (self-loather?) since none of those first three books interest me either. I have read several Barbara Kingsolver novels and enjoyed them at the time but they weren't particularly memorable. I don't think I ever read The Poisonwood Bible though.

I also didn't enjoy the show Rome all that much (sorry Atticus's wife), at least based on season 1. I'm pretty interested in ancient Rome and watched the first season after someone recommended it during our trip to Pompeii and the other Roman and Greek sites around Naples. Like The Tudors, it seemed more like Dallas or Melrose Place in a different setting than a show with much historical accuracy.

[dtb]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

It's great stuff, really wonderful, even if it's not quite Dostoevsky. Or Pushkin.

I only got around to reading it four or five years ago, which, since you're a young 'un, means about the same time of life as you.

You may find this surprising (I know I do), but the character I most admire is Alexey Alexandrovich (Karenin). He's nebbishy, I know, but I find him to be the most sympathetic and true. I'm not sure that's what Tolstoy was going for, but, there it is.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally Posted by Sparklehorse

Apparently I am also a woman hater (self-loather?) since none of those first three books interest me either. I have read several Barbara Kingsolver novels and enjoyed them at the time but they weren't particularly memorable. I don't think I ever read The Poisonwood Bible though.

I also didn't enjoy the show Rome all that much (sorry Atticus's wife), at least based on season 1. I'm pretty interested in ancient Rome and watched the first season after someone recommended it during our trip to Pompeii and the other Roman and Greek sites around Naples. Like The Tudors, it seemed more like Dallas or Melrose Place in a different setting than a show with much historical accuracy.

I've never watched Rome but I've heard good things, so maybe I'll try it. I didn't particularly love Pompeii, but I think the boobies might make Rome a better experience.


Seriously, though. The Poisonwood Bible. I read it ages ago and there are details of it that still stand out in my aging, addled mind.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Adder

Apparently I'm a giant sexist for not being interested in the hunger games or fifty shades of gray or Harry potter or whatever Barbara Kingsolver writes.

It couldn't be that three out of four of those are trash/juvenile and the fourth just doesn't sound interesting.

To prove it I will say: women make no sense.

I find it difficult to believe that a mere lack of interest in those books got you called "sexist." I would bet that it was, instead, the way you expressed the lack of interest. Maybe a little mansplaining was involved?

And Atticus? "Robe meat"? Really?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by dtb

You may find this surprising (I know I do), but the character I most admire is Alexey Alexandrovich (Karenin). He's nebbishy, I know, but I find him to be the most sympathetic and true. I'm not sure that's what Tolstoy was going for, but, there it is.

I'm more a Vronsky fan myself. Sometimes, you just have to ride Frou-Frou to the limit. I'm not sure Tolstoy meant us to admire all these people.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by dtb

You may find this surprising (I know I do), but the character I most admire is Alexey Alexandrovich (Karenin). He's nebbishy, I know, but I find him to be the most sympathetic and true. I'm not sure that's what Tolstoy was going for, but, there it is.

Was he the one played by Woody Allen in the movie?

I keed, I keed. Anyway, I am really looking forward to the movie after seeing the previews. I am a sucker for big-budget costume dramas. Keira Knightly in fin de siècle (I know, not quite -- but still) gowns? Doomed love? Horses? Codes of honor and betrayal? Cast filled with impossibly beautiful women on top of Keira? Sign me up!

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

I've never watched Rome but I've heard good things, so maybe I'll try it. I didn't particularly love Pompeii, but I think the boobies might make Rome a better experience.

Fair warning: the boobie factor does not even REMOTELY approach Game of Thrones levels, at least in Season 1. I'm hopeful for Season 2 because Mark Antony takes center stage and that dude was a major horndog.

Also, if you were upset by Wire spoilers in the NYT, keep in mind we're talking about a series of historical events in which every major character rather famously goes out for cigarettes at one point or another. It's not about the who-what-when-where someone gets the knife, but a lot of exposition about the why. (My wife's been frustrated that they threw in a sexual backstory to many of the assassinations so far, when to her mind very few things of the time were done for Love and far more were done strictly for power or in the abstract interest of the dying Republic.)

[Sparklehorse]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

I've never watched Rome but I've heard good things, so maybe I'll try it. I didn't particularly love Pompeii, but I think the boobies might make Rome a better experience.


Seriously, though. The Poisonwood Bible. I read it ages ago and there are details of it that still stand out in my aging, addled mind.

Pompeii is also overrated unless you somehow enjoy visiting sites that are literally falling down around you. Herculaneum was much less crowded, smaller and better preserved. The highlight of that particular trip was Paestum which I still think about often. My desktop wallpaper is a photo I took of one of the temples there, for example.

The Fires of Vesuvius by Mary Beard is a compelling read about ancient Rome and has the added bonus (in my mind, at least) of being nonfiction.

I'll put The Poisonwood Bible on my reading list.

[Sparklehorse]

Originally Posted by dtb

You may find this surprising (I know I do), but the character I most admire is Alexey Alexandrovich (Karenin). He's nebbishy, I know, but I find him to be the most sympathetic and true. I'm not sure that's what Tolstoy was going for, but, there it is.

Which translation are you reading?

[Sparklehorse]

Originally Posted by Atticus Grinch

(My wife's been frustrated that they threw in a sexual backstory to many of the assassinations so far, when to her mind very few things of the time were done for Love and far more were done strictly for power or in the abstract interest of the dying Republic.)

This pretty much sums up why I find the show annoying. That's a prime example of 21st century soap opera crap being glommed onto an "historical" show.

[Fugee]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Someone called you a sexist because of this? That's just silly..

I agree -- unless Adder did something stupid like say he thought women's fiction was all crap.

Hunger Games was a decent movie, though without kids I wouldn't have seen it. I don't see the point of reading that or Harry Potter as an adult.

I've read both series and enjoyed them both quite a bit, but then again I don't read a lot of "serious literature." I read for entertainment and they are entertaining. The books are -- as is usually the case -- much better than the movies.

My BIL, who rarely reads fiction, read The Hunger Games series because a co-worker loaned them to him. He loved the books.

Someone calling you a sexist because you aren't interested in a softcore porn series about a sexually submissive female (that was written by a man, I think) should have their head examined.

I completely fail to see the attraction of the Fifty Shades series of books. Maybe if it were something amusingly unexpected like the powerful older billionaire being sexually submissive to the young woman.....but even then I don't understand the appeal of BDSM.

Unless they hired a stunt double, the author is a woman. She came to the local B&N for a signing and apparently people lined up like crazy.

My Friends of the Library group got donations of a couple of copies of these books. I'm going to take advantage of the popularity and charge a lot more for them at our book sale next week.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Fugee

I agree -- unless Adder did something stupid like say he thought women's fiction was all crap.

Last weekend, I suffered through a discussion with a half dozen women of all the best selling crap women's fiction they had read recently and loved. The coup-de-grace was how much they were looking forward to that Potter woman's new book. Not all women's fiction is crap, but it astonishes me how successful the marketing people have been at addicting women to utter and total schlock writers like Ian McEwan or Jodi Picoult when there is so much good stuff out there for the reading. Kind of like the way they've convinced men that golf is enjoyable. WTF?

The only reason I care is because these books sound vaguely interesting after a discussion, and you think you're missing out, so every now and then I pick one up and read it. Ewwww.

All of which is just to say the genre deserves a certain amount of trashing. Even if there are a few things that fit in the genre that do qualify as wonderful reading.

[Pretty Little Flower]

Originally Posted by Fugee

I agree -- unless Adder did something stupid like say he thought women's fiction was all crap.

When women's fiction is not crap, it's just called "fiction."