Tender isn't the night.
Jul. 22nd, 2004 10:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
davywavyOne of the problems of having spent my formative years gamely reading all of the world's great literature that I could get my hands on is that these days I'm having to make do with the world's ho-hum literature instead.
This thought struck me with force this morning as I was looking for somehting to read on the train to work and my eye alighted on the half-read copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the night which has been sitting by my bed for some weeks. Like the copy of magical beasts and where to find them in Harry Potter, it squats there, malevolently daring me to try and read it, glaring vilely and promising dire retribution should I so much as pick it up.
For the life of me I can't understand how Fitzgerald has got the reputation he has (apparently he's a regular on A level English Lit reading lists); his prose is supremely unengaging, his characterisation repetitive and leaden, and his preoccupations (not matter how rich, successful, and pretty you are you'll never actually be happy. So ner) bloody irritating. This book reminds me in some ways of Yukio Mishima's Forbidden Colours; in that I'm bloody well not going to let it beat me, so I'll put my head down in a determined way and make it to the end if it kills me.
This leads me to the question I'm asking of you lot today; who, in your opinion, is the most over-rated "great" author? Is it perhaps Dickens, whose tiresome 'jokes' and supremely punchable characters are so beloved of English teachers everywhere? Perhaps it is Anton Chekov, who could do with just lightening up? Or perhaps someone more modern like Will Self, who you just want to punch and punch and punch until he takes the hint and stops? Let me know your thoughts.
Oh, and if anyone can recommend anything good to read I'd be grateful. I've got bloody Albert Camus next unless anyone can save me.
This thought struck me with force this morning as I was looking for somehting to read on the train to work and my eye alighted on the half-read copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the night which has been sitting by my bed for some weeks. Like the copy of magical beasts and where to find them in Harry Potter, it squats there, malevolently daring me to try and read it, glaring vilely and promising dire retribution should I so much as pick it up.
For the life of me I can't understand how Fitzgerald has got the reputation he has (apparently he's a regular on A level English Lit reading lists); his prose is supremely unengaging, his characterisation repetitive and leaden, and his preoccupations (not matter how rich, successful, and pretty you are you'll never actually be happy. So ner) bloody irritating. This book reminds me in some ways of Yukio Mishima's Forbidden Colours; in that I'm bloody well not going to let it beat me, so I'll put my head down in a determined way and make it to the end if it kills me.
This leads me to the question I'm asking of you lot today; who, in your opinion, is the most over-rated "great" author? Is it perhaps Dickens, whose tiresome 'jokes' and supremely punchable characters are so beloved of English teachers everywhere? Perhaps it is Anton Chekov, who could do with just lightening up? Or perhaps someone more modern like Will Self, who you just want to punch and punch and punch until he takes the hint and stops? Let me know your thoughts.
Oh, and if anyone can recommend anything good to read I'd be grateful. I've got bloody Albert Camus next unless anyone can save me.
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Date: 2004-07-22 02:30 am (UTC)Blake I love. I don't know many of the French poets, but actually, for Barmy, Molliere is pretty good.
I have a deep love for the romantic poets, but that's more of a giggle thing, though some is genuinely beautiful. Wandered lonely as a cloud indeed!
Yes! The Romantics
Date: 2004-07-22 02:39 am (UTC)Re: Yes! The Romantics
Date: 2004-07-22 02:42 am (UTC)So soft, so calm, yet eloquent
The smiles that win, the tints that glow
But tell of days in goodness spent
A mind at peace with all below
A heart whose love is innocent
Byron. Who thankfully can write no more! Now spooky kids carry on his tradition of maudling sentimentalist crap!
For a sample of this, see http://www.livejournal.com/users/glytterpixiebat/
she added me, so I checked it out. I am presuming she is 12 years old and slightly subnormal, so have refrained from saying anything
Re: Yes! The Romantics
Date: 2004-07-22 02:46 am (UTC)Re: Yes! The Romantics
Date: 2004-07-22 02:47 am (UTC)ARGH!
Re: Yes! The Romantics
Date: 2004-07-22 03:46 am (UTC)So he wrote this poem as a farewell to her. She was immensely flattered by its crassly sentimental nature, as dwere most people in the circles they both moved in. But his friends at the gentlemen's clubs realised was crassly sentimental and purposely so. He was signalling to them what a frigid bitch he thought she had been to him - her face is 'eloquent' but there is only peace 'below'.
So it was an ironic joke at the woman's expense, and a signal to other rakes not to waste their time on her.
As for the Brontes, they were writing within the terrible strictures placed on women at the time - they repeatedly try to make what they write conform to the moral standards of the day, but other more contentious stuff keeps slipping out, particularly at the level of the language itself. Yorkshore parson's daughters writing in the mid nineteenth century who manage to celebrate adultery, violent sexual passion, incest and necrophilia in their novels get my vote anytime.
Couldn't agree more about Bridget Jones though. It delights me every time I check out the bookshelves in charity shops and there are 3 or 4 copies of her wretched drivel, along with a couple of copies of the Spice girls (Spiceworld?). I am sure the two are linked.
The Brontes
Date: 2004-07-22 03:49 am (UTC)I was rooting for him all the way through, and I thought the moralistic death was a cop-out. I wonder if I would have enjoyed it so much without a visual representation to work upon?
Re: The Brontes
Date: 2004-07-22 03:52 am (UTC)I find visual representations of literature always assist my less able students.
Re: The Brontes
Date: 2004-07-22 03:57 am (UTC)If I were a Bronte character I'm just glad I wouldn't be Heathcliffe, due to him being hopelessly insane.
Actually, I could see myself being compared to Gilbert Markingham in some ways.
Re: Yes! The Romantics
Date: 2004-07-22 02:43 am (UTC)So soft, so calm, yet eloquent
The smiles that win, the tints that glow
But tell of days in goodness spent
A mind at peace with all below
A heart whose love is innocent
Byron. Who thankfully can write no more! Now spooky kids carry on his tradition of maudling sentimentalist crap!
For a sample of this, see http://www.livejournal.com/users/glytterpixiebat/
she added me, so I checked it out. I am presuming she is 12 years old and slightly subnormal, so have refrained from saying anything. She spells dark "darque". Ouch.
Re: Yes! The Romantics
Date: 2004-07-22 04:05 am (UTC)You must be paying off karmic debt at an accelerated rate
Re: Yes! The Romantics
Date: 2004-07-22 04:12 am (UTC)