# The SDMB book burning **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 31, 2006, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200 "2006-12-31T10:01:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/121 "2007-01-04T13:34:24Z")
[QUOTE=Illuminatiprimus] That’s where it ends. The film [Starship Troopers] decides to have a completely different protaganist and main story, it sets the start of the story in a version of Argentina where everyone is American (why no-one there speaks Portugese and looks very white is never actaully explained - one can assume it’s because in the future the whole world will be like that…), [/QUOTE] I would have to guess that they don’t speak Portuguese in the movie, because 1) they speak Spanish in Argentina, and 2) the producers wanted it to appeal to an American audience, so they released it in the language most commonly spoken in the US. As for the skin tone of the leads in the movie. All the characters were upper class, and IIRC the Argentinean upper class are of European decent. > [@](#): > > the military in the film is run by idiots, the mobile infantry is protected in battle by t-shirts that show off their pecs (as opposed to functional armour), you get promoted in the mobile infantry for punching other soldiers in the face and acting like you own the joint (just like in real life militaries I’m sure :rolleyes: ) and the society described in each are actually quite different. Now these are valid gripes about the movie. And you’ll have no argument from me. ---
**Author:** ![muzzynyc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@muzzynyc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muzzynyc)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/122 "2007-01-04T15:29:06Z")
_Fahrenheit 451_ Just for the irony. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/123 "2007-01-04T15:42:21Z")
[QUOTE=Illuminatiprimus] Another one (or many): a wide selection of chic lit starting with anything by Jane Green or Lisa Jewell . You know before you open them that the heroine will realise that her male best friend is her true love after being mistreated by a few tall, dark and handsome bad boys (and probably a sub-plot about someone having an abortion). The fact that they’re published at all is only slightly less depressing than the fact that they sell so well - it’s like feminism never happened. [/QUOTE] Why is feminism incompatible with chic lit? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/124 "2007-01-04T15:57:39Z")
[QUOTE=kung fu lola] Anyway, to atone for the flirting I will go back on topic and say that if I went to a book burning and no one brought the 1977 edition of _The New Secretary’s Deskbook_, I would volunteer mine. In the section on “sexual harassment”, it basically tells you that you have to suck it up and re-arrange your habits, office, and life so that the office lech has no access to you. Because as the victim, you are clearly responsible. I know that was the thinking of the time, but to see it laid out there so naked… it makes me want to do something desperate. [/QUOTE] “Laid out there naked,” eh? 😃 [wink-wink, nudge-nudge, oh, you know you love it, honey, admit it] ---
**Author:** ![Mollie\_Magill](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mollie_magill/32/20882_2.png) [@Mollie\_Magill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mollie_Magill)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/125 "2007-01-04T16:16:15Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] “Laid out there naked,” eh? 😃 [wink-wink, nudge-nudge, oh, you know you love it, honey, admit it] [/QUOTE] Your lawsuit and resulting restraining order say “No,” but your eyes say “Yes.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 4:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/126 "2007-01-04T16:38:43Z")
[QUOTE=RikWriter] Just the way Zinn made a school textbook out of his own personal political beliefs. [/QUOTE] I don’t think it was meant to be a school textbook. Never heard of a school using it, anyway. Though if I were teaching a high-school U.S. history course\* I would be sure to include it, plus a right-wing equivalent (is there one?), as supplemental reading (let the kids examine things from all sides). Along with [_Lies My Teacher Told Me,_](http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0684818868/sr=1-1/qid=1167928586/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-8502527-0286334?ie=UTF8&s=books) by James Loewen. \*All right, **college** U.S. history. It’s probably hard enough just to get the HS kids to read _The American Pageant._ ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/127 "2007-01-04T16:41:16Z")
[QUOTE=Regallag\_The\_Axe] _The Butlerian Jihad_ by Brian Herbert. A cheap, boring space opera that just happens to be set in the Dune universe. [/QUOTE] Here’s please use my House Harkonnen - House Atreides - House Corrino trilogy for kindling. I’d sell my copies to a used bookstore, but it would leave me feeling as if I’d littered, spit from a ferris wheel, sold cigarettes to a minor or done some other, similarly antisocial act. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/128 "2007-01-04T16:41:23Z")
[QUOTE=Illuminatiprimus] Really? But Starship Troopers was a great novel with some very challenging takes on modern liberal society and the role/necessity of violence and force within it. Was Stranger in a Strange Land an inferior earlier attempt or a resting-on-his-laurels antecedent? [/QUOTE] [_Starship Troopers_ was published in 1959, _Stranger_ in 1961.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_A._Heinlein_bibliography) ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/129 "2007-01-04T16:43:03Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I don’t think it was meant to be a school textbook. Never heard of a school using it, anyway. Though if I were teaching a high-school U.S. history course\* I would be sure to include it, plus a right-wing equivalent (is there one?), as supplemental reading (let the kids examine things from all sides). Along with [_Lies My Teacher Told Me,_](http://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/0684818868/sr=1-1/qid=1167928586/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-8502527-0286334?ie=UTF8&s=books) by James Loewen. \*All right, **college** U.S. history. It’s probably hard enough just to get the HS kids to read _The American Pageant._ [/QUOTE] I used People’s History as a text in 8th grade history. One of the side benefits of (1) growing up in liberal Maryland, and (2) having the incredible Manfred Smith as my teacher. It was really an eye opener. There is a right-wing equivalent, purposely written as such. It’s called A Patriot’s History of The United States. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/130 "2007-01-04T16:44:54Z")
[QUOTE=Ludovic] Hijack: hmmm, I guess in a sci/fi and fantasy genre I’d expect different definitions of “monstrous” :), since the most common reason given for not liking the book is that it implies too strongly that it could happen, and that it isn’t that hard to evolve such a society out of simple human nature. [/QUOTE] 😕 That’s an actual reason given for **not** liking it? (I’ve never read _A Handmaid’s Tale_ but I saw the movie.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/131 "2007-01-04T16:49:27Z")
[_Nimitz Class,_](http://www.amazon.com/Nimitz-Class-Patrick-Robinson/dp/B000IOEQ1M/sr=1-1/qid=1167929214/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-8502527-0286334?ie=UTF8&s=books) a military thriller by Patrick Robinson. A friend gave it to me to read. So stupid, plodding, dull, wooden and jingoistic, I couldn’t believe the first publisher shown the manuscript didn’t hire someone to kill the author. ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/132 "2007-01-04T17:23:36Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] 😕 That’s an actual reason given for **not** liking it? (I’ve never read _A Handmaid’s Tale_ but I saw the movie.) [/QUOTE] I guess I meant that “the book implies that it could happen here as an inherent part of human nature, _while this is not the case_”, which would be objectionable as a flaw if both parts were true. I can’t comment on either clause, having one-upped you by not having read the book _or_ seen the movie (but did see a PBS interview with the author, who came across as much more reasonable than I had imagined, but not enough to make me read the book.) ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/133 "2007-01-04T18:57:03Z")
**Ludovic** - the question was effectively “Gilead is a monstrous society - discuss”. I had to explore in detail what monstrous would mean as well as give supporting evidence from the text to support my argument (without it being there in front of me, which was a bit of a bitch). If I had my paper I’d transcribe the answer for you to decide for yourself, but unfortunately I didn’t get it back after the exam. I didn’t just write “Yes it is.” and get an A for that, and if I had (given that it was a 100% exam module) something would have been drastically wrong with the person who marked my paper! If you’d read the book you probably wouldn’t need to ask for qualification on the word “monstrous” - you’d be using it yourself to describe what Gilead is (it really is utterly vile). **Maus Magill** - all valid points, and I concede that I didn’t know that Argentinians spoke Spanish (I was confusing them with Brazilians). I admit that a trip to wikipedia would have told me otherwise, but I was too lazy to do that (my bad). **BrainGlutton** - the same as for Starship Troopers, the book and the film of Handmaids Tale are worlds apart. A hugely significant difference between the two is that in the film you find out straight away that the narrator’s name is Kate, whereas in the book you never get told her name (and therefore only ever know here by the name Offred - even her identity is not her own in that society, which is part of the idea that it’s an utterly hateful place to be a woman). Another massive change: the ending is completely different, to the point where the message of the book is lost in the film. I could list lots of other problems with the film if you’d like although it will have to go in a different thread as it would be quite long. Again I studied the book at A-level and really enjoyed it, so I won’t be able to stop myself writing in fine detail quite why the film was a pile of crap. It might just be easier if you read it and see for yourself, which I thoroughly recommend it as a very challenging and stimulating book. To answer your question “Why is feminism incompatible with chic lit?” - it’s not intrinsically, but in practice it always seems to be (I’m familiar with feminist theory and am clear what does and doesn’t constitue compliance with it, and these books don’t). All the chic lit I’ve read seems to be about women struggling to find true love in the modern world, often by behaving in a way that is liberal and mdoern yet not actually very feminist i.e. they’re not choosing lives which make them happy, they’re trying to be men and single and realising it’s wrong to do that so give up by just getting married, sometimes for no apparent reason). An example of a potential chic lit plot: “Penny, a highly paid and successful ball breaking woman in London’s top law firm, suddenly realises her career is not enough and she wants to have a baby. But how will she get a father given that she’s never had a third date! A hilarious tale of trying to navigate the modern dating scene looking for a baby (and maybe, just maybe, finding love on the way). Fine out what happens when one woman realises that the courtroom isn’t the only place to win.” So similar to a genuine chic lit blurb you can barely tell the difference. So, fine on the surface, but dig a little deeper. Why exactly is a ball breaking _woman_ suddenly doing a professional 180 to suddenly decide to have kids? Why is it that this has been enough until now but suddenly isn’t? If a woman were that intelligent and financially well off she could easily have her career and a baby (probably even without needing a man to complicate things) and be very happy with the result. I’m not saying it’s the ideal of all women, but it happens enough and I refuse to believe all such women are deluding themselves that they’re happy without a man but deep down they know they’re kidding themselves. And strange that there are no books about men doing the same thing because it’s happening a lot more now, hence the rise of demands for paternity leave and similar flexibility for fathers as for mothers. Even stranger that the women involved always high powered and successful women (again suddenly realising that they’ve missed out on true love/that they let him get away/that they don’t like their life as a competetive soccer mom anymore and want to just live in the country with nature/that they haven’t got it all as a single woman who can have casual sex on tap/that they want a baby etc etc). I’ve yet to see or read a chich lit book that was about a lowly paid woman working as bus driver thinking that her career wasn’t rewarding and that she went to university to become a successful and highly paid professional against all the odds stacked against her by an unsupportive husband, friends and family who secretly didn’t want her to rise above them (which would be a much more relevant story for millions of women in the world given that it mirrors reality). These books (written by women for women) appear to suggest that successful women who don’t follow traditional female roles will inevitably realise that their life isn’t fulfilling and they’ll eventually hanker for one or more of the “traditional” values (be it marriage, children, a simpler life or what have you), which I think is vaguely insulting to all the feminists (self professed or not) who choose to live in a way that isn’t traditional and really enjoy themselves doing it. The same books never seem to be about women aspiring to be more than “just a woman” and achieving their goal after a struggle, surely a much better message for women to be writing books about. Could it be (shock horror) that the publishing industry secretly prefers these kinds of books because they’re easier to write and sell to women aren’t that intelligent or who don’t read a lot? Can anyone say opiate of the masses? I know what Germaine Greer would say (well, shriek). I would level the same charge at sex and the city which pretends to be about women doing what they want in the modern world, but is actually about women struggling to do what they want in the modern world whilst constantly wondering if they’re doing it right by not getting married/wanting to get married/settling down and having babies, and permanently questioning if being a single gal is all it’s really cracked up to be (whilst nearly never showing a similar crisis of conscience in men). If it was possible for me to meet the character Carrie in real life I’d tell her point blank that she’s the source of all her own misery, as she was proposed to by a man she loved and she said she didn’t know if she could commit. Funny that, given she’s spent previous three series trying to get a man who didn’t treat her properly (and who she constantly described as emotionally unavailable) to do the same thing. A great way to demonstrate that women aren’t really capable of recognising what would make them happy, and that they’re more likely to chase after the Mr Bigs of this world than actually find someone who loves them. Even worse, if it was possible for me to meet the character of Charlotte from that show I would never get tired of punching her in the face as punishment for being a living example of how women’s rights can be set back by women themselves as much as by men (which as a pro-feminist man I don’t think is a good thing). Have I over-rationalised this too much or should I carry on? **Onecentstamp** - I really enjoyed those books, so it would be a shame to see them burn. However I think they were good because they piggy backed directly onto Dune, not because they were terribly well written (one feels they had no real ideas of their own and so had to recycle a lot of books that followed Dune - like the idea of no ships). ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/134 "2007-01-04T20:18:12Z")
_Sphere_ by Michael Crichton. [Worst ending in all of literature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_%28novel%29). (Spoilers in link, but you really shouldn’t bother reading that steaming pile of poo if you haven’t already wasted part of your life doing so. Even if you like some of Michael Crichton’s other books. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.) ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/135 "2007-01-04T20:35:32Z")
[QUOTE=Anne Neville] _Sphere_ by Michael Crichton. [Worst ending in all of literature](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sphere_%28novel%29). (Spoilers in link, but you really shouldn’t bother reading that steaming pile of poo if you haven’t already wasted part of your life doing so. Even if you like some of Michael Crichton’s other books. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.) [/QUOTE] YES! Horrible ending. Abrupt. Implausible. Unsatisfying. It was so bad I had to reread the last ten pages or so to make sure I hadn’t missed something. Cell, the new Stephen King book, has a bad ending, but Sphere is worse by far. ---
**Author:** ![Dob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b2d939/32.png) [@Dob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dob)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/136 "2007-01-04T21:41:21Z")
The last 6-7 books by Robert Jordan in the Wheel of Time series! Let the flames run high so that the women of the land can stand around and pull their braids, and the men can talk to themselves about how they dont understand women!! ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/137 "2007-01-04T22:15:08Z")
I know someone who loves the wheel of time series and is living in abject terror of him dying before he “completes” the series. From what I know of it it’s kind of rambling on without actually reaching a meaningful conclusion, so maybe better to just make up your own ending if you like it that much (or let someone else take the helm if he does die). ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/138 "2007-01-04T22:18:33Z")
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp] YES! Horrible ending. Abrupt. Implausible. Unsatisfying. It was so bad I had to reread the last ten pages or so to make sure I hadn’t missed something. Cell, the new Stephen King book, has a bad ending, but Sphere is worse by far. [/QUOTE] The precis on wikipedia makes it sound like an interesting concept and that the ending is good too. I’m assuming that a summary doesn’t accurately convey what the book is like. ---
**Author:** ![fortytwo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/f9ae1b/32.png) [@fortytwo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fortytwo)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2007, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/139 "2007-01-04T23:21:02Z")
The book(s) that I disliked more than any other are those of “The Serrano Legacy” by Elizabeth Moon. A six book series and somehow I managed to read three before going mental and throwing the third book away from me where it landed in the apple tree, then the stream (I was sitting in my garden at the time). I like horses, really I do, but when reading science fiction I don’t care to know how to choose a good racehorse, or one that can jump over fences either. Neither do I want a blow by blow account of the parts of a horse (did you know the gaskin is the region between the stifle and the hock?) There’s plenty more I hated about this series but I can feel my blood pressure rising again so on to the fire with the Serrano Legacy. In a way though I blame myself, the first three books were titled, Hunting Party, Sporting Chance and Winning Colours, and there’s a clue there that I clearly missed. The one small crumb of comfort I can draw from this sorry tale is that I bought the series second hand, so I only wasted £3 instead of about £36. Yippee ☹ ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2007, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200/140 "2007-01-05T00:16:35Z")
[QUOTE=Bosda Di’Chi of Tricor] The Works of Anne Rand. Nuff said. [/QUOTE] Also Ayn Rice. 😉 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-book-burning/386200.md?page=8)