ROBUST discussion

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/3...

I was browsing through discussions on books that I have read and came across this gem. Third comment down had me in stitches.

I sure hope that person was never a student of mine! How about the spelling of "Sweedish" at the top? Or is that a joke of which I am not aware?

Whew! It's time to go outside in the sun and wind for a walk. People are a hoot. (still laughing)

Larsson's most avid fans, the ones who obsess about such details, are a very *special* class of reader.

You get the feeling, especially talking to the most avid, diehard fans, that before Larsson the last book they read was prescribed at school.

I read a book. I forget about it. I read it again, other details jump out. I forget about it. 10 years later I read it again, more details jump out. I forget about it.

I cannot fathom why people obssess over books to such detail. I read to enjoy, not to live and breathe the characters afterwards.

I remember a comment made by a professional storyteller when I was attending one of her classes. She said that stories choose us. I think that different details jump out based upon our age, circumstances, and what we bring to the reading of a particular title. I love re-reading my favorites. I usually wait so it's like reading them for the very first time just as you say but I discover dialogue (quotes that you have to save), plot nuances and setting descriptions that are remembered as brilliant.

Makes me scratch my head.

Y'all are overlooking the fact that you're constant readers. Constant readers grow a familiarity with the conventions of literature, and discrimination is mainly a matter of practice at reading. The importance of so many of Larsson's most avid fan being incidental, accidental, intermittent and occasional readers is that they do not have the background to grasp that Larsson repeatedly breaks the conventions of literature and his genre for no good purpose at all.

For Larsson's readers, the "details that jump out", the boring anorak stuff, the endless lists, the iterated tourist treks, are fascinating because that is important in their lives (just listen to the young adults talk in the phone shop or the computer store). But most of all they felt connected to a large crusade for abused women. They become very angry when one points out that Larsson made up the unreferenced "quotes" on his part-titles about x (hew-yooge) percentage of women in Sweden being the subject of sexual violence.

I also think that the advent of the ereader has given the sort of teenager who wouldn't be seen dead in a bookstore, and in the school library only under compulsion, a channel to acquiring books of choice, where the teenager feels in charge, not subject to the judgement of others. That surely accounts for part of the huge surge in trash literature, vampires with bling and suchlike. I'm not surprised that such kids obsess about details. Who didn't, as a teenager and young adult?

Frankly, I don't care what they read, as long as some of them acquire the habit, and a few of those move up to decent writing. In the end its the habit that is important, the arrival, not the point of departure.

***

I might also point out that the smartest paperback editor I ever worked with never overlooked mentioning that he (speaking for readers) really loved the detail I put in. Sometimes I suspected that he had an assistant mark the technical passages for him, and that he read only those. He was a very successful editor for a very long time.

Frankly, I don't care what they read, as long as some of them acquire the habit, and a few of those move up to decent writing. In the end its the habit that is important, the arrival, not the point of departure.


Well said and I second that!

Andree: "Frankly, I don't care what they read, as long as some of them acquire the habit, and a few of those move up to decent writing. In the end its the habit that is important, the arrival, not the point of departure..."

Ja certainly true. I'm just very astounded at levels of education where people do not seem to grasp basic principles of geography and culture. But then I am used to a more global point of view than what is currently being taught in some schools.