Things that piss me off #442
Aug. 28th, 2003 07:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
andrewduckerIf I read one more comment that journals/blogs are pointless and full of people whining on about their insignificant lives, I'm going to go mad with an axe.
Anything that leads people to write for their own personal pleasure is a good thing. Anything that gets people to communicate with each other is a good thing. Even if they're logging on to tell people how much they think gay people suck, they're putting themselves out there and engaging in a kind of dialogue. They've opened themselves up and spoken. And doing so means they're more likely to end up in dialogue with others, learn to understand others and join in the human race. People's lives may well be dull and boring. Their writing style may be excrable. But their writing can only get better with practice, and anything that makes them put themselves out there in the public domain and gives them the impetus to want to be heard has to be a good thing.
On a similar note, I feel the same way about people whinging about kids reading Harry Potter. Sure, they're hardly the best written books in the world, but anything that encourages anyone to read is a good thing. Reading leads to reading more and sometimes even to thinking. Putting people down for it strikes me as pointless elitism and cynicism.
Phew, that feels better.
Anything that leads people to write for their own personal pleasure is a good thing. Anything that gets people to communicate with each other is a good thing. Even if they're logging on to tell people how much they think gay people suck, they're putting themselves out there and engaging in a kind of dialogue. They've opened themselves up and spoken. And doing so means they're more likely to end up in dialogue with others, learn to understand others and join in the human race. People's lives may well be dull and boring. Their writing style may be excrable. But their writing can only get better with practice, and anything that makes them put themselves out there in the public domain and gives them the impetus to want to be heard has to be a good thing.
On a similar note, I feel the same way about people whinging about kids reading Harry Potter. Sure, they're hardly the best written books in the world, but anything that encourages anyone to read is a good thing. Reading leads to reading more and sometimes even to thinking. Putting people down for it strikes me as pointless elitism and cynicism.
Phew, that feels better.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 11:46 am (UTC)Don't ask me why.
Anyway, now I have to go look up excrable.
Also, my blog's mostly full of scripts & comedy. If I'd known I was allowed to engage in gay-hating and what not, I'd have been posting a lot more. (Remember, if you don't know me, you can't assume that's not sarcastic, so have a nice cup of shut the hell up. ;)
Adam
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 12:46 pm (UTC)The standard advice works here, too:
Don't like it?
Don't read it!
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 02:33 pm (UTC)Don't read it!
Overly simplistic advice is often...useless. I hear that phrase most often on mailing lists when people get off-topic and spammy.
And the fact is, at least on mailing lists, it's a real pain in the ass to set up filters for oh, twenty of the spammiest fuckers, and a few of them do actually say something useful occasionally. It would be smarter, and more sensible for them to abide by list rules rather than expect two-hundred other people to treat them like special cases. That's why I favour list-owners who have (and use) an iron hand.
Of course, you're talking about journals, which is an entirely different thing. Still, I really hate seeing cliches touted proudly, like, "Don't like it?! Don't read it." Cliches are always too simplistic for any given situation and discourage actual discussion.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 01:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 02:28 pm (UTC)Putting people down for it strikes me as pointless elitism and cynicism
Two things I'm rather good at are elitism and cynicism. *sigh*
On a more serious note, what gets me more than kids reading Harry Potter is adults doing it. When I was twelve or thirteen, my sister had to tell me, "The material you're reading is too immature. You have to start reading on an adult level." So I did, and it was one of the best things I could possibly have done.
People need to stretch in order to grow, and that means reading *more* than children's bestsellers, Mercedes Lackey, and Harlequin romances.
At the basic core, however, you're right. It's elitism and just plain tiredness. If I here one more person natter on in an insipid fashion (not actually saying anything that interests me) about how GREAT the Potter books are, I'm going to tell them to dam(n) the freaking gushiness already.
It's another fad, just like thong sandals and tight little t-shirts. I honestly can't see it as being any better than that, or the pop-psych books that actually have no use.
It's like saying, "Eat more candy, because sure, it'll make you actually WANT the good food. Or maybe watching low-brow television will make you more interested in art films." It just ain't true.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 02:35 pm (UTC)As someone who just finished reading "Markets and Choices in a Free Society" and owns all 5 Harry Potter books, I don't think that reading juveniles is incompatible with reading adult books.
And I think that a lot of adult novels lack any kind of sense of wonder, fun or real excitement, which the Harry Potter books do extremely well.
I'm about 80 pages into Revelation Space, which is critically acclaimed and described as "The most stunning and original alien artefact in modern science fiction" on the front cover, and I'd rather be reading Potter 6, if I had the chance. Reynolds writes better prose, but Rowling writes better stories.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 02:42 pm (UTC)Mmm, which is not at all what I meant. Of course it's not incompatible. What I understood you to say was that reading Potter would lead to increased reading in other areas, which is not necessarily true. Also, by implication, there's the suggestion that Potter is the only thing that *can* get millions of children to read.
And I think that a lot of adult novels lack any kind of sense of wonder, fun or real excitement, which the Harry Potter books do extremely well.
A lot of books, period, lack wonder and imagination. I think adults tend to get jaded as they get older, too, and it's harder to reach that, "Ooo, new, shiny!" part. But plenty of well-written adult books exist.
"Kushiel's Dart" for example, left me cold with embarrassment over the cliched, poorly written stuff inside, but my the intro to my creative writing textbook had me in tears.
(Still, I have no doubt that Rowling writes better fiction than a lot of the sci fi out there. Have you ever noticed that a lot of the people who write science fiction don't understand characters, something a children's writer is likely to be much better at?)
no subject
Date: 2003-08-29 01:28 am (UTC)Oh lord, SF writers who can't do people. Steven Baxter, Greg Egan the list goes on. Those two are good at the science, though. I want somebody who is pretty good at both. Ian Banks is probably as close as I can think of right now.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-29 01:25 am (UTC)'Chasm City' is better, IMHO.
I'd rather read any of his stuff than Harry Potter anyday.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-29 01:21 am (UTC)I don't see the point of specifically 'kids' books apart from for teaching purposes.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 05:52 pm (UTC)I read Chaucer, I also read Gordon Korman (great YA lit, a Canadian to boot).
I have seen smart people who say they do not like reading devour HP ad then say "What now?" Their friends then suggest other things and then before you know it they are reading for pleasure. Very likely no where near the volume of others, but they are reading nonetheless.
I call my fun YA stuff "book fluff" and sometimes it is exactly what I need.
I still write bad angsty poetry, sometimes it is just what I need.
And I still get a good dose of the "classics" and the new.
Katja, who is sleep deprived and rambling,... again. Go ahead, die of not surprized.
no subject
Date: 2003-08-28 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-29 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-08-29 12:22 am (UTC)