So I’ve finally read Davy, by Edgar Pangborn. For those of you who haven’t perused the volume, it goes something like this:
Ye gods, this thing is dated.
Do you mean this as a joke? Because, at face value, it’s a perfect example of a reader who completely misunderstood the point of a book, and whose knowledge of the period is less than rudimentary. It’s a brilliant riff on the idea that a reader’s limited experience and knowledge is the fault of the book.
So, I admire your sense of humor. I think you’re right in attacking that sort of ignorance.
Ah, the good old “If you don’t like it, that just means you don’t understand it.” :rolleyes:
Tell ya what: Why don’t you take this as an opportunity to describe why Davy is so awesome? (FTR, I don’t actually think it’s bad qua bad as a book. OTOH, you can’t pretend that the thing ain’t dated like a polyester leisure suit.)
Alternatively, you could also perhaps post a disrespectful summary of another well-regarded work you don’t like…
Okay, I’ll play. Catcher in the Rye:
Holden Caulfield: whine whine whine whine LIFE SUX for misunderstood teenagers! whine whine You know what I hate, like, more than anything??? I hate hypocrites who whine!!!
(I know that’s part of the point, but it just didn’t do it for me. I even read it as an adolescent, but just could not ever sympathize in the slightest.)
Here’s the plot to “The Stranger” by Albert Camus
Oh, look Mom’s dead. (wandering around music) dum-de-dum-dum boring funeral dum-de-dum-dum-dum eating in a cafe dum-de-dum-dum-dum fucking my girlfriend dum-de-dum-dum-de-dum hey Ramond where you goin’ with that gun in your hand dum-de-dum-dum OW! The sun’s in my eyes! Whoops! Killed an Arab. Dum-de-dum-dum-dum stupid trial dum-de-dum Hey defense! Defense! How ‘bout objecting when they bring up my Mom’s funeral? No, huh? Dum-de-dum-de-dum-dum Don’t need no stinkin’ chaplin dum-de-dum oh, aren’t the stars pretty? dum-de-dum Meaning of life de-dum-dum (guillotine sound) ThhhhheeeeeoooooooooTWAWK! THE END.
(Actually, I don’t think the book gets as far as the guillotine, but I sure wished it had back in high school.)
From a thread in the Pit:
I think I read “Atlas Shrugged” when I was around 14.
Any Shakespeare play:
A bunch of people in weird clothes speaking weird English do stuff. Misunderstandings happen. There’s a swordfight. Everyone lives happily everafter (comedy)/everybody dies (tragedy). The end.
“Stranger in a Strange Land”
Lauded in its time, today it reads more hopelessly dated than Star Trek’s “Way to Eden” (Yaaaay, brother!) and is as earth-shakingly controversial as frosting Mini-Wheats on only one side.
Citizen Kane
This guy nobody liked died and nobody missed him. Someone he never met gave him a truckload of money for no apparent reason when he was just a little kid with a sled. He blew all the loot on tacky statues no one could see, singing lessons for some bar girl who couldn’t hold a note, and a newspaper that pissed everyone off all the time. He ran for mayor and lost. He wrote a list of principles that he violated one at a time. And his last word, “Rosebud,” was… Oh fuck it. It really wasn’t that important.
Truman Show
Some guy’s whole life is a tv show, he figures it out and he leaves for the real world where a surely much more interesting movie would be taking place had they bothered to show us that.
Moby Dick
Gloomy young man named Ishmael seeks adventure on whaling ship. Finds weird roommate. Picks out Pequod ad on Craigslist. Receives symbolic warning (“You’ll be sorrry!”), ignores it. Captain turns out to be weird. Embarks on weird voyage. Captain gets even weirder. Ishmael discovers sensual delights of whale parts. Captain enters state of ultra-weirdness. A weird fish appears. Attempts are made to capture fish, who has another agenda. Nearly everybody dies, with the unfortunate exception of the exceptionally boring narrator, without whom we would not have wasted many hours trying to explain symbolism.
Fahrenheit 451.
Society: Burning books is great! It’s totally fun, and a great thing to do! Yay burning books! There shouldn’t be any books! Thank God that unexplained event happened that led inexplicably to this dystopia where we all know how great burning all books is!
Fireman, who somehow got this job as a person who burns books: I wonder if burning books might be bad?
His boss: You’re in trouble!
Fireman: (successfully flees, outwitting a robot dog who’s fooled by the old ‘jump in the river and lose his scent’ bit)
Blade Runner
He’s a replicant too you fools!
Star Wars:
Whiny farmboy, military deserter, and smarmy crook help a paramilitary group commit treason.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
Utterson: I can’t figure out why Jekyll puts up with this Hyde fellow.
Dr. Lanyon: I saw Hyde turn into Jekyll.
Dr. Jekyll: Yep. I’m Mr. Hyde.
Utterson: You coulda said something.
Wait…who’s the deserter?
Lord of the Rings:
A group of heroes try to destroy a magical ring to stop the forces of evil from taking over the world, but enough about that, let me spend the next couple of dozen pages to describe this lovely swamp.
Obi-Wan. A stretch, to be sure, especially considering the later movies, but, Leah and Obi-Wan’s commentary about his history both suggest a deserter.
(And, yes, he had reason to desert, but the point is being disrespectful, not fair.)
Han Solo would be, but then isn’t he the smarmy crook?
Much of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work:
Beautifully written observations which turn out to be largely wrong wrong wrong.