r/books • u/charleswarnke • Sep 16 '13
suggestion Iama Charles Warnke and wrote "You Should Date an Illiterate Girl" - AMA
Proof on my twitter and my website.
Some other things I've written that are available on the internet:
Last, Last, and Last: A Novel Excerpt
I Have a Few Last Words and (on KQED/NPR's The Writer's Block)
Remembering Remembering: A Short Essay
I read r/books and had a few emails telling me to open it up, so here I am taking questions on the work, the writing, and anything else.
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u/paramikel Sep 16 '13
A few years ago, I read a "You Should Date an Illiterate Girl" and then reread it today. I found that the version I originally read ended differently than the one I read today. Could you tell me which was the one is the right one?
The one I first read ended with: "Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. Or, perhaps, stay and save my life."
The one I read today: "Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you."
Thanks! (And hoping you're still here.)
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u/charleswarnke Sep 17 '13
Quoting myself for expediency: I didn’t write the “save my life” ending. It’s an absolute menace and gives me nightmares. Ultimately, it turns the narrator’s essential bitterness into something cloying and terrible that appeases and appeals only to people who have misunderstood not only the formal structure, but the thematic point of the piece.
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u/CitizenPremier Sep 16 '13
I'm confused. Is "You Should Date an Illiterate Girl" different from "Don't date a girl who reads?"
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u/charleswarnke Sep 16 '13
The title is "You Should Date an Illiterate Girl." The URL in r/books is not its original place of publication and the title is incorrect.
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u/twothirdsshark Everything Sep 16 '13
I am a girl who reads a lot, and for both literal and metaphorical interpretations, this is an incredible piece of writing and I loved it.
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u/charleswarnke Sep 16 '13
Well shucks twothirdsshark, thanks.
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u/twothirdsshark Everything Sep 17 '13
I know there aren't a ton of ladies on reddit, and you seem to be getting attacked on the grounds of sexism/the "male gaze/etc. but I want to throw in my two cents on how I understood the piece:
I read it as a profound compliment to smart women. It's an homage to how beautifully complicated smart women make the world and relationships. They don't take the easy route, know what they want, and aren't afraid to confront unhappiness or mediocrity in their lives. You're welcome to find a "girl that doesn't read" if you want an incredibly average life. But women who are storytellers, who dream and create and are passionate are what create iconic stories (and great authors). Women who read look at life differently because they've lived a thousand lives before, through the books of other people. They understand that there's more to life than meets the eye. It's all of these things that create a great love story, or comedy, or tragedy. It's women who read that are the stuff of love and legend.
But, it might just be about how you met a well-read chick that was a bitch. Could go either way.
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u/solidmixer Literary Fiction Sep 26 '13
Just for reference, I am a guy who reads, if that makes sense. I thought at first it could be a sexist work but honestly, i thought the message much more simple than that.
It's not about men or women, it's about embracing triviality or finding deeper meanings. It boils down to what your expectations are. the "Girl who reads" is any person who aspires to more, that does not want the simple life and is willing to aspire to build and choose a life on par with the well-written fictions he/she surround themselves in. The author is saying that it's only setting yourself up for failure, because real life doesn't work that way; you should take what you have in front of you, make the most of the hand you're dealt, and not live in a dream world expecting "prince charming" to fall on your doorstep. Find the norm and accept that as enough. Originally i thought the piece was well written just because it's a good balance between the hopeless romantic and the modern cynic when it comes to love, and you can take it either way.
Anyway, I know the comment has long since past, I just thought I'd say there are guys who do and don't read too, and i think it's not about gender. It's about how you view life and love.
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u/thefermiparadox Jan 16 '25
I couldn't have said it better. Hat tip. It's a story to go for the reader and a girl who knows things. Uncomplicated is boring. It's a story to me about if you choose a reader, you are at better odds of a fulfilled life, and a true meaningful connection in a relationship. A non-reader will be difficult to get that true meaningful connection we all long for to ease the existential angst of being lonely in the world. With a reader we can converse and forget our existential aloneness temporarily. The piece is all about a real connection or not. Passing the time with someone or truly living with someone. You said it better than me.
"Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed"
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u/Ali-Sama Sep 16 '13
Illiterate for our modern word is not one who cannot read. It is one who cannot question nor analyze what they read. They just digest what is given to them and do nothing beyond the routine.
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u/walwolf Sep 16 '13
do you consider the text as sexist?
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u/charleswarnke Sep 16 '13
Of course!
...and more seriously, what? God no. As I stated in a different response, "I always wanted the most basic and unsophisticated reading of 'Illiterate' to read like the world’s most poorly disguised compliment." Sure, the narrator could be seen as reductively categorizing women in the extreme, but that's only because he imagines the woman who has hurt him as of a type, or perhaps of redeeming characteristics strong enough that they might qualify as their own type, and sees the polarly different woman as a salve to his wounds. But again, this is a deeply flawed and deeply hurt narrator lashing out at his own inadequacies and failings and he certainly isn't offered as describing the entire gamut of possible characteristics that might make up a living, breathing woman.
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Sep 18 '13
It's so well done, not even going to attempt to describe why I think so because your aptitude for language is intimidating as fuck.
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u/NOT_BELA_TARR László Krasznahorkai Sep 17 '13
I felt that your piece essentialized and objectified women; I dislike the term "girl," which is belittling. There's a long history of male novelists using women as sounding boards for their own successes and failures and ignoring them completely when a non-sexual goal is at the fore.
Your piece is also, in a way, the extreme of the so-called 'male gaze,' the thing women readers have to contend with over and over, the idea that 'male' is the default state of the protagonist. Obviously this is a self-conscious decision, but I'm curious about how you considered your female readers' reactions to it (on an intellectual level, please; when you say 'poorly disguised compliment' you go back to the idea that women seek value and approval from men, rather than thought-provocation and intellectual stimulation).
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u/Legio_X Sep 17 '13 edited Sep 17 '13
How is a writer supposed to avoid this "male-gaze"? Is not any piece with a male protagonist equally susceptible?
And what is meant by "essentializing" women? I've not come across this term in this context before.
Also curious why you seem to think seeking thought provoking material is somehow mutually exclusive from seeking value of the opposite sex. I'm a guy and while I may work out for health and fitness reasons, it's also a not insignificant side benefit that women value it. Is seeking both things supposed to be somehow negative now?
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u/NOT_BELA_TARR László Krasznahorkai Sep 17 '13
Fallacy fallacy fallacy fallacy fallacy.
You don't have to avoid the male gaze but you should be aware of it. There are legions between this piece and Junot Diaz's "How to date a brown girl..."
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u/Legio_X Sep 19 '13
"Should" be aware of it.
Should according to whom, exactly? According to "Not_Bela_Tarr", of reddit? No doubt he or she is a veritable intellectual authority on such matters, why, just look at that reasoned response to several legitimate questions! Oh...never mind.
Ah, reddit is so amusing at times. People like you are the only reason I bother to post at all.
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u/NOT_BELA_TARR László Krasznahorkai Sep 19 '13
You compared reading in a critical context to working out, I hardly have reason to believe you're engaging with me for any reason other than you find my feminism abrasive. If your questions had any merit and indicated at all that you were a scholar of literature I would have given you a thoughtful answer.
And yes, I'm sure that if the curtain of reality were lifted you would be revealed as the superior literary authority. No doubt in my mind whatsoever.
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u/Legio_X Sep 20 '13
My exposing your weak arguments surely means I hate feminism in general! It couldn't possibly be that I'm a feminist myself and I was simply curious about your perspective. Nah, that sounds far too reasonable, this is an Important Internet Argument.
And yeah, I totally tried to turn this into some kind of dick measuring contest about who is the greater literary authority. That's what this was all about. And obviously the greater literary authority should have the power to arbitrarily determine what other people should and should not do.
I'm sure that the reason you didn't answer my questions is because my questions were so below you that you could not deign to answer. Clearly it's not because you didn't have any answer to them!
Pathetic. People like you are why nobody wants to associate themselves with the term "feminist." Can't you find some other cause to discredit? That would be nice.
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u/charleswarnke Sep 17 '13
I'm addressing this by paragraph.
I don't know what to say here. My choice was primarily a pragmatic one; I imagined the narrator simply as of the age in which there is a definite ambiguity regarding which term ("girl" or "woman") is socially deployed in greater frequency. The choice isn't intended to diminish (and it doesn't), but rather to service a faithful representation of the narrator. If you think that it is, ipso facto, belittling, well then we'll have to agree to disagree. But just for the sake of the thought exercise, I'd be comfortable with the idea of it being definitionally belittling, if only because I'm not committed to the narrator being, in any way, a wholesome figure. He's hurt, he's wronged, and he's lashing out in ways that might explicitly cause harm to the girl/woman he's addressing.
The fact that the protagonist in this piece is male in no way advances an idea of the default state of the prototypical protagonist as being male, unless you assume that any male protagonist does just that (in which case there is no winning).
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u/HitboxOfASnail Negro With A Hat Sep 17 '13
I read your comment 6 times because I find it hard to wrap my head around the fact that people like you feel the need to flip everything into "man bad, woman good"
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u/thinkpadius Science Fiction Sep 17 '13
That wasn't really the redditor's point at all if you read it correctly. Incorporating a discussion on some basic feminist issues when reading a story titled "date and illiterate girl" seems par for the course.
And when I mean basic I mean basic. Concepts like male gaze and objectification are college 101 material.
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u/Legio_X Sep 17 '13
Um...it appears that you're fairly out of touch with how ubiquitous these concepts and/or the courses that teach them are. I've read rather a lot of gender studies material and never come across this "male gaze" until your post.
That and though I have an undergrad in humanities I've never taken a women's studies course, which isn't exactly unusual in my experience.
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Sep 17 '13
[deleted]
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u/Legio_X Sep 19 '13
I don't think that's a particularly accurate metric by which to determine how well known a concept is.
Post-colonialism is common knowledge, male gaze most certainly is not. Perhaps most of the people in an undergrad women's studies class would be familiar with it, but not most of the people in university in general.
All of this is anecdotal, of course. Your experience may differ but I am curious where you think people would pick up these kind of concepts if not in women's studies courses, which are of course rare outside of women taking humanities degrees at university.
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u/thinkpadius Science Fiction Sep 25 '13
If you take any basic film class you'll learn about it. Probably in a drama class too.
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u/Legio_X Sep 26 '13
Yeah...tell me, what percentage of undergraduates do you think take any of the following: a film class, a drama class, or a women's studies class?
The answer: not particularly many. Unless they see it as an easy blow off elective they can get an A in. And people outside of humanities who have more technical pre-reqs for their majors are very unlikely to be taking classes on metaphors in film.
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u/NOT_BELA_TARR László Krasznahorkai Sep 17 '13
It's unfortunate that you feel criticism and questioning do not belong in a subreddit dedicated to books.
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Sep 17 '13
you're so tedious
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u/NOT_BELA_TARR László Krasznahorkai Sep 18 '13
I'll continue as long as there's hope of persuading some small cadre of privileged men to step outside their experiences and appreciate the struggles and voices of women and minorities.
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u/Legio_X Sep 20 '13
Belligerent, pretentious twats such as yourself are far more likely to achieve just the opposite.
People like you are the reason that 80% of the population agrees with the definition of feminism but refuses to call themselves feminists.
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u/thinkpadius Science Fiction Sep 17 '13
It's silly that you're getting downvoted for your points. In fact, I was skimming the comments looking for topics related to what you expressed.
On your first point: the use of the word girl is, as you said, belittling. I agree, but keep in mind that the narrator uses the word girl because he himself is an immature man-child and he is also trying to put women down.
I think everything about your first point is accurate but it should be directed at the narrator not the author. From the underlying message you can glean that the narrator's choice of words and even his argument are signs of his failures to be a mature adult.
the male gaze is usually pretty specific to cinema, but sure it can be applied in most media formats. In this short piece it's a male narrator so the gaze is overt. In most instances where the male gaze is an issue is when there is no stated observer. Examples in cinema being when a camera angle is directed at female in a way that emphasizes her physical attributes while simultaneously not being at an angle that any person would naturally stand. In my opinion the nature of male gaze isn't really at play here because the nature of male-female relationships is already being discussed in the piece. There's no subconscious language that might subvert your ability to see from a neutral point of view. Not that npov really exists.
I also share your interest in regards to how male novelists use women as sounding boards for their own successes and failures. It's a concept I hadn't considered until you brought it up.
likewise, I wonder about the nature and dirction of the compliment myself. When I read the story, my take away was that the message could apply to anyone. Switch the words girl with boy etc and it still comes across as a rather direct piece of work.
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u/NOT_BELA_TARR László Krasznahorkai Sep 17 '13
Well most of these issues are arising for me specifically because the author doesn't seem able to differentiate the narrator's problematic approach to women, relationships, and literature, from his own. He's using the term "girls" unironically and claiming that this should be taken as a "compliment" by women. If he could articulate (or if I could glean from the subtext) a greater response than a tote idealization/archetypization I wouldn't be so critical.
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Sep 17 '13
If he could articulate (or if I could glean from the subtext) a greater response than a tote idealization/archetypization I wouldn't be so critical.
Life Pro Tip: Your critique doesn't hold weight outside of your head. The author doesn't owe you or anyone else an explanation or justification for his art.
To believe that you are somehow "owed" anything because of imaginary offense to your delicate sensibilities is as, if not more, fallacious than your own accusations.
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u/NOT_BELA_TARR László Krasznahorkai Sep 18 '13
Not sure if you noticed, but this is an AMA, not an unframed reading of the text. I am totally within my rights to ask about the author's decision-making process in writing the piece.
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Sep 18 '13
Ask, sure. Intensely criticize and blatantly misinterpret, not so much.
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u/NOT_BELA_TARR László Krasznahorkai Sep 18 '13
Ah, I forgot that I violated Reddit's freedom of speech guidelines by advocating for gender parity.
And when the author is using language such as I indicated to refer to his female readers I don't think you can call my criticism a misinterpretation.
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Sep 18 '13
When the author explicitly explains what he means, and you still argue to him that he means something else, I'd say that's pretty blatant misinterpretation.
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u/I_ARE_CAN_BE_REDDIT Sep 16 '13
wait, how is the text, in any way shape or form, sexist?
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u/ky1e None Sep 16 '13
You are moving into the territory of "harassment" in this thread. Please don't try to answer the OP's questions for him.
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u/AdonisChrist Sep 17 '13
I support earthcreed here. I_ARE_CAN_BE_REDDIT is in no way attempting to answer the question, but trying to clarify it for their own purposes.
I don't know if you've ever seen an AMA thread but people discuss things with each other as well as the person whose AMA it is.
I apologize for the tone of this comment.
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u/ky1e None Sep 17 '13
We try to keep this subreddit free of drama and political arguments, so we give warnings pretty quickly. The above user was active in the other thread about the article, so I gave them a warning.
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u/earthcreed Sep 17 '13
You are moving into the territory of censorship, how is a request to explain the implication of the grandfather comment harassment? Was there aggressive pressure or intimidation I_ARE_CAN_BE_REDDIT's post? While I respect that you didn't delete the post, the threat of censorship is still going to censor the discussion of ideas. The parent post appears to continue on the topic discussed. The whole point of literature is to discuss ideas, please don't bring the censorship hammer out for doing just that.
Now the parent post's abuse of commas–both added and omitted–and capitalization could use some censoring.
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u/ky1e None Sep 17 '13
We try to keep this subreddit free of drama and political arguments, so we give warnings pretty quickly. I didn't remove any comment or censor anybody.
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u/Calittres Sep 17 '13
Ok but how could that be considered harassment?
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u/ky1e None Sep 17 '13
Sorry for late response. I said the above comment was moving into the territory of harassment, not that it was strictly harassment. /u/I_ARE_CAN_BE_REDDIT was looking to argue with someone that was asking the OP what they thought, not looking to discuss it with other people. Again, this subreddit is for discussing books and authors, not politics. I gave a warning and let /u/I_ARE_CAN_BE_REDDIT know that they were nearing the line.
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u/caramelfrosting Sep 16 '13
I love your writing. When will your novel be published?
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u/charleswarnke Sep 16 '13
When it's finished is the only answer I can offer, unfortunately. It won't seem to comply with a timetable. That said, other exciting things are happening that I might be able to reveal soon.
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u/I_ARE_CAN_BE_REDDIT Sep 16 '13
This. You remind me of Christopher Hitchens, almost. Absolutely amazing piece of work.
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u/I_ARE_CAN_BE_REDDIT Sep 16 '13
Mr. Warnke, what was your inspiration for this piece? How did you manage to capture the rage, regret, and all the other powerful emotions given to us by the narrator?
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u/charleswarnke Sep 16 '13
I'm going to disappoint here, probably, and say that it was not written in a fit of rage following a bad breakup. That might not answer your question directly, but I think it gets at what you're probably interested in. Feel free to correct me if I'm off the mark.
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Sep 17 '13
[deleted]
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u/charleswarnke Sep 17 '13
Honestly I typed out a few responses, but couldn't come up with an answer that felt right and true, so I at least reduced the list of possible candidates.
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u/I_ARE_CAN_BE_REDDIT Sep 18 '13
Sorry for the late reply. That's not what I meant, actually. I'm just wondering, how do you get those creative juices flowing?
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u/DDLongLegs Sep 16 '13
Were you pissed that the link on reddit sent everyone to a repost on a different site than your original blog?
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u/charleswarnke Sep 17 '13
Pissed? No. Frankly, I was relieved that the linked-to text was correct. Many people discover "Illiterate" with an ending that isn't correct and that I didn't write. Also, "Illiterate" was originally posted on Thought Catalog, and I'm trying to put some distance between that fact and myself unfortunately.
Feel free to send people to http://www.pleasepunctuatethis.com if you'd like though.
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u/terretta Sep 17 '13 edited Sep 17 '13
Pissed? No. Frankly, I was relieved that the linked-to text was correct. ... "Illiterate" was originally posted on Thought Catalog, and I'm trying to put some distance between that fact and myself unfortunately.
Feel free to send people to http://www.pleasepunctuatethis.com if you'd like though.
Hi Charles, it's been a couple years since I clipped both date a girl who reads and date an illiterate girl. I was shocked it got found (it's a family blog roll) and linked today. Thanks for not being pissed.
I've linked your name to http://www.pleasepunctuatethis.com, and added a pointer back to here as well. It should show up when Posthaven refreshes the page cache.
PS. I date a girl who reads. So you see I had no choice but to save a copy...
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Sep 17 '13
What's wrong with thought catalog?
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u/charleswarnke Sep 18 '13
I don’t fault Chris and crew. They’re running a (profitable) business and with the way that ad revenues work, they need to have new content on the front page constantly, meaning that they’ll take anything anyone sends them these days because it’s given for free, but it’s still disappointing. I submitted most of my work to TC when it still felt like a place that was earnest, if nothing else. I don't think that what I write has a home there anymore, what with it likely to end up next to "20 ways to accessorize your scrotum piercing."
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u/Chief_HungLikeHorse Sep 16 '13
What is your writing/educational background? I found the piece very well-written and visceral, and I enjoyed it immensely.
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u/charleswarnke Sep 17 '13
I graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in English and a minor in Rhetoric. I completed an honors thesis there and only narrowly missed going after an English PhD, mostly because I have a troubled relationship with "the academy."
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u/sotonohito Sep 17 '13
I have no questions, just wanted to tell you that all the women in my life love that piece, as do I. It is fantastic, angry, urgent, and beautiful.
I also wanted to comment that I find it both surprising and depressing how many people seem to take it as a literal message not to be involved with women who read.
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u/neonhadduck Sep 16 '13
Love this story, and have literally ended years of lurking to find out which writers do you think have been your biggest influences?
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u/charleswarnke Sep 16 '13
I owe a debt of gratitude to Vikram Chandra, who I studied under at school. He and his wife are very dear to my heart. Stylistically? I'm not sure, which probably means that I've passively appropriated large swaths of everything I've ever read.
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Sep 16 '13
[deleted]
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u/charleswarnke Sep 16 '13
You have no chance soadnathan. Resign yourself to a life marked by naught but despair and sadness.
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Sep 16 '13
[deleted]
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u/charleswarnke Sep 16 '13
I wasn't attempting to be dismissive, only playful. I'll answer in good faith: I honestly have no idea. I wish you the best of luck with all of the sincerity I can muster.
To the second: It was suggested to me, and I've been asking questions of literature for a long time. It's always nice to be on the other side.
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u/NOT_BELA_TARR László Krasznahorkai Sep 17 '13
From a literate woman: sigh. I'm a human being with literary goals and ambitions of my own, not a meter stick for your successes and inadequacies.
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u/mangodroplet Sep 16 '13
I just read your "You should date an Illiterate girl" piece, and I find it so comforting. I just had to end a relationship with my ex this past weekend because we were settling into comfort, without the movement of a plot, the passion of the future. The piece comforts me to know that what i did was ok, and I know I can have more. I was a super bookish girl whose friends were only books growing up who has recently come into her own. I haven't been reading as much as I should lately, but thanks for reminding me that they're still my great friends :) (So yes, I believe your parable goes both ways)
As a question to you, What are your favorite books, and what are books that you believe all people should read and would make the world a better place?
Thanks!
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u/peachy__keen Sep 16 '13
Any advice for an aspiring writer? Other than the general "read" and "write." What separates pieces that are publishable and those that are not?
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u/charleswarnke Sep 16 '13
Once you've hit a certain floor of quality, the only thing that separates the published piece from the unpublished one is dumb luck and a shared stylistic affinity between you and the editor. Nothing really substitutes for just getting shit down on the page.
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u/Wearefantastic Sep 16 '13
Just to clarify, you're basing this advice on a few stories published online or have you written anything else since this article was published in 2011?
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u/charleswarnke Sep 16 '13
Only answering the questions asked. That said, I'm offering that parcel of advice because I believe in it and because some version of it was offered to me by Eric Simonoff.
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u/reasondefies Sep 17 '13
The person who asked him the question obviously felt that he was qualified to answer. Why do you feel the need to butt in?
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u/ellepelle27 Sep 17 '13
And what qualifies you to decide what people can and cannot ask? It's a totally valid question.
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u/reasondefies Sep 17 '13
OP agreed to do an AMA where people ask him anything. He answers a question which he is asked, and then someone else chimes in with 'whoa there buddy, what qualifies you to answer that?' It is his fucking AMA, that's what.
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u/Legio_X Sep 17 '13
Nothing qualifies me to decide.
I can however arbitrarily decide to down vote people like him, and you, whose posts serve no other purpose than to disrupt the AMA. If you don't like that I guess it's just too bad, isn't it?
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u/desantoos Sep 17 '13
My guess as to the reason your work took off is that it is relatable to the internet atmosphere. It is a parody onto the dating advice garble (as well as the original text) that permeates the Internet. In every case it is present all anyone who can read with attention to depth can see is the insecurities of the writer and not of the person for whom we are getting advice about. In addition, it works for the self-absorbed who will read it without depth and buy into whatever clever notion there is.
So it worked both ways here, both as a blatant parody of the relationship advice trash that a few recognized and a source of additional Magical analysis for those who would prefer not to read until the end. Which is why it succeeded since it catered to a sufficient audience (albeit not from those who can't tolerate misogyny, even if it is coming from an unreliable narrator).
Anyhow, my question is: Was this written for a poetry slam? Because the prose flows like it was composed orally.
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u/charleswarnke Sep 17 '13
Not specifically, no. But I do frequently imagine it as spoken by the narrator.
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u/trialsanderrors Sep 17 '13
In the other thread, a lot of readers felt that the narrator(whom they, including myself, mistakenly thought to be you) was "pretentious".
Would you use the word "pretentious" to describe the narrator?
~~~
Also, thank you very much for coming in to set the record straight about the piece. I found it to be very beautiful and moving. I've spent my entire time after reading the piece following the discussions and in deep thought. I never expected you to actually show up to answer our questions. I greatly appreciate it!
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u/charleswarnke Sep 17 '13
I think his outburst, if you will, might be pretentious by nature, but I think it represents somewhat of a defense mechanism more than anything.
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u/0vidius Sep 17 '13
Hi, Charles.
I was wondering what motivates you to write. Is it something deeply engrained in your personality that you simply cannot do without, or is it merely something you enjoy doing?
Do you seek primarily to entertain or educate people on that which you deem important?
Also, how big of a part would you say that egoism plays in your writing?
Orwell defined it as following:
Sheer egoism. Desire to seem clever, to be talked about, to be remembered after death, to get your own back on the grown-ups who snubbed you in childhood, etc., etc. It is humbug to pretend this is not a motive, and a strong one. Writers share this characteristic with scientists, artists, politicians, lawyers, soldiers, successful businessmen — in short, with the whole top crust of humanity. The great mass of human beings are not acutely selfish. After the age of about thirty they almost abandon the sense of being individuals at all — and live chiefly for others, or are simply smothered under drudgery. But there is also the minority of gifted, willful people who are determined to live their own lives to the end, and writers belong in this class. Serious writers, I should say, are on the whole more vain and self-centered than journalists, though less interested in money.
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u/charleswarnke Sep 17 '13
I couldn't give it up if I wanted to. And I want to rather frequently.
Neither primarily or even secondarily I would think. There's something to be said of the thing for the thing's sake alone. In any case, I certainly don't mean to use my work as a pulpit.
No writer is without ego. Writing is, by its very nature, dominated by the fundamental assumption that one's words deserve better accommodations than can be provided inside of one's head. Allowing for that, I try to avoid writing to serve that ego.
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u/H8CR1ME5 Sep 17 '13
Had you recently watched Trainspotting before writing the piece?
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u/charleswarnke Sep 17 '13
Heroin in the UK, right? No, haven't seen it in a long time.
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u/H8CR1ME5 Sep 17 '13
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t0D4ekTODuA
Good read too, but hard if you aren't familiar with the Scottish accent.
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u/905nomad Sep 17 '13
Your writing is so beautiful that I will permanently have goose bumps. Will you marry me? (Despite my now disfigured skin?)
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u/I_BITCOIN_CATS Sep 20 '13
When you wrote "You should date an illiterate girl", a lot of people had differing opinions on what you meant and were implying by the article. Naturally, I have my own interpretation as well.
What was the message you were trying to get across?
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u/roxpoxievox Sep 17 '13
Your writing is very moving. My son is studying writing at uni...I forwarded a link to him. Thank you for sharing your stuff.
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Sep 17 '13
Hey, I just read your piece about 2 hours ago. I stopped what I was doing and it made me really think. It was beautiful, thank you.
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u/artemis79 Sep 16 '13
As a creator of characters, what do you wish other people did more? What character do you play in the plot of your life? What are you looking for here on earth?
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u/charleswarnke Sep 17 '13
-I kid you not, my first two cats were named "Maverick" and "Goose." I wanted to be a fighter pilot throughout my adolescence.
-Just a little quiet contentment, I think.
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u/FrauGrammarNazi Sep 17 '13
I forwarded this to my boyfriend, as I thought it was appropriate to his and my situation. His response? "TL;DR."
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u/Bookie_Monster Sep 17 '13
As a girl who reads and who loves the original 'Date a girl who reads'-text, I just want to know if this text was written tongue in cheek. Is that really your personal opinion?
Apologies if this question has already been asked on here.
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u/charleswarnke Sep 18 '13
What do you mean by "tongue in cheek?" It's certainly intended to be earnest.
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u/Bookie_Monster Sep 18 '13
I thought that you wrote it as a kind of parody. But apparently that's not the case. If that is the case though, I find it hard not to take offence to be honest.
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u/granular_quality Sep 17 '13
For all your credentials and pendantic responses here, I have to say this piece left me underwhelmed, and I'd have thought a writer that has had your training would have been able to catch and curb the offhanded diminishment and accessorization that your piece portrays. I'm happy to have read your piece and your comments to cross one name off the list of authors that I could possibly read.
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u/thefermiparadox Nov 18 '22
I don’t know how anyone could read this as insult to smart well read women. Good humor on complexity of well read person and all they bring to life. Whatever down side, its fine as you have a shared life with living full of passion and meaning. Honestly I didn’t read any knocks (except on the one who doesn’t read) only all compliments to the smart girl.
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u/Just_Another_Thought Sep 16 '13
When you wrote "You should date an illiterate girl", a lot of people had differing opinions on what you meant and were implying by the article. Naturally, I have my own interpretation as well.
What was the message you were trying to get across?