A Wednesday for the Perplexed

[evelyn_b]

What I've Finished Reading

The Island by Aldous Huxley. Let's be honest with ourselves for a second: the only reason I'm haunted by the feeling that I'm not being fair to Aldous Huxley is that I know he has fans whose taste I respect, not because I'm actually of two minds about the thing. It's not like Lawrence Durrell where I couldn't shake the

Comments

[liadtbunny]

Getting through a boring book is impressive and it's all over now!

Yes, comedy doesn't last too well, the dodgy parts tend to kill of the laughs.

[evelyn_b]

There are exceptions! Northanger Abbey is several times older than Confederacy but still funny even though I'd never read any of the books it was making fun of. Wodehouse has the occasional dodgy part but doesn't tend to depend on them, and the best Wodehouse stories are still breathtakingly funny. I probably see more exceptions than examples, just because the exceptions are more likely to stick around.

Huxley doesn't need my help to be a famous writer, so I'm not going to feel bad any more about not understanding him.

[liadtbunny]

I'm suffering from a bout of problematic Shakespeare "comedies" grumpiness which is colouring my view of old funnies!

[evelyn_b]

Hah, that would do it! I feel like the local Shakespeare companies would benefit from just declaring a hundred-year moratorium on productions of The Taming of the Shrew, but they just keep trying to make it funny, bless their hearts.

[lost_spook]

This is probably not Huxley's fault - but actually I'm just saying that because I can't justify my dislike: in my heart I think it's totally Huxley's fault.

If the author bored you, it's got to be at least a little bit their fault. I think you should definitely blame Huxley! ;-)

[evelyn_b]

:)

Boredom is so subjective, though! One man's thrill is another man's tedium! It's possible that Huxley has written a great book here that I'm just stubbornly refusing to engage with because it doesn't have the things I like. I don't really believe it's a great book, but I am stubbornly refusing to engage.

[osprey_archer]

YES I'M GLAD YOU'RE READING THE OUTSIDERS, it was one of my favorites when I was in middle school, clearly I am brain twins with your sister. (Actually I think that's just a book that lots of people love in middle school. It has so many EMOTIONS.)

According to the movie, Socs is pronounces Soshes (with a long O). In my misspent youth I always just said it socks, though.

[evelyn_b]

:D Did you also watch West Side Story a hundred times? Knife-fighting juvenile romantics was her jam. That and horses.

I like it a lot! I appreciate the EMOTIONS and the way Ponyboy idealizes or romanticizes his friends, if those are even the right words, but I also can't help feeling (as I never did with The Hunger Games) that I might be too old for it - that I might have been too old for The Outsiders for a very long time now.

(My sister said "Socks," too).

[osprey_archer]

Alas, I saw West Side Story for the first time this year! Although when I was a teenager I might have been put off by the "teenagers making bad choices because of looooooove" part of the plot, which is integral to any Romeo & Juliet adaptation, so perhaps it's just as well I waited.

I feel like The Outsiders is an id-fest that you need to read at a very specific age for it to really sock you in the FEELS. Afterward, there are still things about it to appreciate, but probably not in the same way as when you're thirteen.