remindmeofthe | (no subject)

So I finally figured out how to use the school's bookstore website to check out what I'll need to buy for books this semester. (Why did I just figure this out after three semesters here? Because I didn't fucking know I could. They don't tell you any of this shit, you have to find it out for yourself. I really miss SMCC sometimes. They understand how to make themselves easily accessible to their students.)

Okay, first, the list that comes up includes the ISBN code. Isn't that sweet, how they think I'm not going to take that shit and run with it to Amazon to find used copies even cheaper than their used copies?

Second, the list for my US Popular Culture class, which is a History class, is longer than the lists for both my English classes put together. I am not fooled by this for a second - those classes have anthologies - but I was entertained by the fact that I will be reading multiple novels for a history course.

One of said novels, which I will not be reading, is Catcher in the Rye. HELL TO THE FUCKING NO I HATE THAT BOOK SO MUCH. SO FUCKING MUCH. FLAMES! FLAMES ON THE SIDE OF MY FACE! Seriously, it's not worth giving myself a stroke from rage because I can't reach into the book and beat Holden Caulfield senseless. Hate. HATE. HAAAAAATE. And you know what's funny? I know people on the internets who hate that fucking book as much as I do, but people IRL are always shocked, SHOCKED I SAY, that anyone could possibly hate it. So this should be interesting.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Count me among those internet people, man. Fucking stupid book.

Hrrrrrgh. I mean, I can see why we'd study it in a US Pop Culture class, because it is heavily influential and a cultural landmark and blah blah BLAH but I also hate it so much that I am actually less annoyed than I would be otherwise about the inclusion of The Great Gatsby on the list. I didn't like that either, but the mere thought of rereading it doesn't inspire me to ragey capslock like CitR does.

... I never actually finished that book. I think I read the first 50 pages or so. I don't recall why I stopped...

What I remember was not particularly interesting, though XD

I figure, if you've already read the book (assuming you have, since you hate it so much XD ), there's no point whatsoever in reading it again :B

It was a decade ago, but I agree with this sentiment. We read an excerpt of it in another class a couple of semesters ago, and it was more than enough to remind me of why I hated the fucking thing so much.

I LOVED CATCHER IN THE RYE! It's one of my favorite books ever. :O

Regret to inform you that we can no longer be friends. ;)

Just as well. I can't get over the fact you HATE Catcher in the Rye. D:

With capslock, no less!

I absolutely loathe the word "phony" because of that goddamn book.

I distinctly remember being driven crazy by his calling everyone "old [Name]." I was just like FUCKING STOP THAT.

It was that book that totally broke my viewpoint on the word 'literature'.

"This whiny crap? You call this Literature?

Okay, I'm so done with all of you."

~fist bump of CitR CAPSLOCK!HATE~

At one point someone theorized that I didn't like it because I'm an adult. I was like, "Yeah, no, I had taste when I was sixteen too, thanks."

Okay, I didn't phrase it quite like that, and I understand what the person was getting at, but when I was sixteen, you know what? I could still tell Holden was an asshole. And when I tried to venture that theory in class, my teacher pretty much blew me off.

Yeah, you and me both sister. It was a defining moment in my understanding of literary criticism as "who can blow the most impressive smoke up my ass".

Although, my husband took a class on the same title in his Executive Protection course work, because apparently that title comes up time and time again among stalkers and other borderline personality types with extreme boundary issues. WHO KNEW.

OMG IMAGINE THE FUCK OUTTA THAT.

That's kind of awesome, actually, in an I-am-not-even-surprised kinda way.

Count me in the "shocked, shocked" category. Not gonna say it's one of my all-time favorites, but I certainly don't hate it and think it's so much part of the zeitgeist that you can't say no to it.

On the other hand, I love Lolita more than life itself and I've spent over two decades defending that choice.

And yet I am saying a big fat NO to it. NOOOOOOO. ;P

I read Lolita once, but I can't really remember what I thought of it. I'm not sure I was able to properly appreciate it.

i hate it too! and the great gatsby. after those two i didn't read any american literature for ages!

Yeah, we have to read The Great Gatsby, too. Which I also hated, but not with the violence I have for CitR, so I'll give it a shot.

A week later, but I can't resist:

I hope you're happy now, you killed J.D. Salinger with your capslocks! D:

Seriously though, I am also in the fucking hate it category. I read it when I was about 13, so supposedly the right age to identify with Holden's bullshit and even then I thought he was a complete jackass.

I also didn't believe anyone has *ever* talked the way he did in the book -- I just couldn't get past how totally artificial the writing was. It was so obviously written if you know what I mean, in that annoying self-congratulatory New Yorker my aren't we real writers writing real lit-er-a-ture style that I have no time for at all. Another something I don't have time for? Rich privileged white boys in the 1950s boo-hooing about how the world is so unfair to them. Screw you Holden and while we're at it, screw you too Jim Stark in Rebel without a Cause.