You know, at least with Dan Brown I can pretend it's some kind of travel guide on acid (bonus paranoia!).
I have heard so much greatness about Larsson's book, which did not appeal to me much in summary but I picked it up at the bookstore, read the first few pages, and put it down. This has been my guilty secret until now: it was boring. Another friend posted about reading it and commented that it wasn't until she was over halfway through the book that it became interesting.
Whut?
No, sorry. Perhaps I'm a victim of the instant gratification society, but really, I need something to work with in the first ten pages. Argh.
So glad to read your letter to the author, here. It makes me feel less a philistine.
IN RE: Dan Brown. Jessa Crispin, aka my favoritest contemporary literary critic once wrote this:
Like a lot of people who care about books and writing and sentence structure, I was initially horrified at the success at Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Then I realized what it meant: 80 million people read a book about the removal of femininity from the Catholic Church, about how Jesus liked women and prostitutes and screw-ups and freaks, about how the Bible was edited by men in power, about how Jesus' divinity was not universally accepted. They read the book, and now it's in their brains, like a vaccination against patriarchal monotheism, even if they don't do anything with the information.
IN RE: Instant gratification:
Look. We're not youngsters anymore, you and I. I mean, we're not old. We're still youthful, but we don't have oodles of time in front of us to wait for that thing to suddenly become the thing we want. We did that already. We did that with our ambitions. We did that with our marriages. And I'm certain we've done
( ... )
I should have known to avoid it, as I have avoided it, because of it bestsellerlyness. I mean, suffice it to say a book that appeals to 90% of the reading public is not going to appeal to me. Does that make me a reading snob? Damn skippy, and proud of it.
I feel kinda a bad now since I know I recommended the book to you. On the other hand I really loved the series of books. I do agree that the expository dialogue is clunky, but it didn't bother me that much. That kind of dialogue is much more annoying to me in something like Dan Brown. Let's face it, Larssen is by far a better writer than that hack Dan Brown. (Plus, he's not so nutsy as Brown either.)
I normally would have avoided Larssen because I'm wary of anything on the bestseller lists, but this time I was glad I did read it. Oh, well to each his own.
Oh, don't feel bad. Different strokes and all that. Sometimes, my best friend recs books to me that I can't get into for the life of me. Reading tastes are as personal ass any other taste, so I don't judge others what they like, which is something I remind everyone of my Gaiman-freak friends who can't understand why I don't worship him as they do (good storyteller, not-so-great writer, imo).
I just think in this case, I would enjoy the story more in movie format.
Comments 6
I have heard so much greatness about Larsson's book, which did not appeal to me much in summary but I picked it up at the bookstore, read the first few pages, and put it down. This has been my guilty secret until now: it was boring. Another friend posted about reading it and commented that it wasn't until she was over halfway through the book that it became interesting.
Whut?
No, sorry. Perhaps I'm a victim of the instant gratification society, but really, I need something to work with in the first ten pages. Argh.
So glad to read your letter to the author, here. It makes me feel less a philistine.
Reply
Jessa Crispin, aka my favoritest contemporary literary critic once wrote this:
Like a lot of people who care about books and writing and sentence structure, I was initially horrified at the success at Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code. Then I realized what it meant: 80 million people read a book about the removal of femininity from the Catholic Church, about how Jesus liked women and prostitutes and screw-ups and freaks, about how the Bible was edited by men in power, about how Jesus' divinity was not universally accepted. They read the book, and now it's in their brains, like a vaccination against patriarchal monotheism, even if they don't do anything with the information.
IN RE: Instant gratification:
Look. We're not youngsters anymore, you and I. I mean, we're not old. We're still youthful, but we don't have oodles of time in front of us to wait for that thing to suddenly become the thing we want. We did that already. We did that with our ambitions. We did that with our marriages. And I'm certain we've done ( ... )
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I normally would have avoided Larssen because I'm wary of anything on the bestseller lists, but this time I was glad I did read it. Oh, well to each his own.
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I just think in this case, I would enjoy the story more in movie format.
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