Boy-Lit
I'm trying to read Catch-22 right now. I've been trying to read it for about a month. I kinda like it. But I get really irritated by it sometimes. And I have developed this theory that it's a guy-book. Have any of you read it? What do you think?
Other guy books in my mind, are Catcher in the Rye, Confederacy of Dunces and anything by Hemingway.
Now it's not that I can't appreciate these books. But there is something about them that strikes me as being really about the "man condition" instead of the "human condition."
It's the flippancy of Catch-22, the cause-less anger and rebellion of Catcher in the Rye, and the stoic, subdued, almost MIA treatment of emotion in Hemingway.
Whaddya think?
posted by Marcia @ 9:50 AM
3 Comments:
I totally agree on Catch 22. I tried to read it a few years ago, but didn't get very far.
Catcher in the Rye, on the other hand, I loved. Well, actually I read it first in high school and I hated it. But then I read it again in college and loved it.
Which leads to two of my theories about literature:
1. There are too many great books out there to spend time trudging through books I don't like. I have stopped forcing myself to read books I think I should like.
2. Sometimes you just have to come to a book at the right time. Good example is Catcher in the Rye. This has happened to me a couple of other times as well - sometimes you're just not in the right space for a particular book, but you get there later.
I agree with your points about not trudging through books that I don't like and also the right book at the right time theory. But what do you think about the gender thing? Are some of these great books (and I actually think that all these books I mention are great books) about the man condition? I would assert that Catcher in the Rye captures a certain angst and anger that tends to be more the male experience of adolescence. Not that girls don't have anger - but that the book in general taps more into the classic male adolescent experience than the female one. Am I cracked here?
While I am not qualified to opine on whether you are "cracked", I'd just like to say that Confederacy of Dunces is one of the outright funniest books I've ever read. I mean SCREAM out loud funny. I actually had to look up two words I didn't know--"eructations" (excessively loud, crude belching, can also include flatulence) and another word I can't remember off the top of my head. Some friends and I tried to get the rights to make an opera out of it, but we got preempted by Drew Barrymore and Will Farrell for the movie. Not like they're making much progress, but they DO have more money than us...
PS, I'm an old friend of Nancy Drew's...
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