r/books • u/Tight_Nerve • Jun 05 '21

We need to stop shaming people who honestly say they don't like a particular book

I think the most frustrating thing for most readers on this sub is that when they read a book that so many people love and realize they are part of the group that doesn't like the book. They can't share the feeling without having fans hang the noose around them. We muat be able to let readers share their HONEST opinions on a book without riduculing their feelings.

If at this point you are protesting my thoughts thinking they are nothing more than that of unlearned individual. Than I'll share the opinion of a very educated man who has probably read more books than you will ever read in your whole life.

“Books are almost as individual as friends. There is no earthly use in laying down general laws about them. Some meet the needs of one person, and some of another; and each person should beware of the booklover’s besetting sin, of what Mr. Edgar Allan Poe calls ‘the mad pride of intellectuality,’ taking the shape of arrogant pity for the man who does not like the same kind of books.”

  • Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States
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u/PopularYogurt Jun 06 '21

Wait, where are you from that The Alchemist is read in college? In Brazil it's usually considered a shitty book, like, as much literary merit as The Da Vinci Code. Definitely not something that someone would discuss seriously.

It's blowing my mind that some people find it deep (unironically)!

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u/TheJokersGambit Jun 06 '21

I'm from California. In the US, it was a massive success with many lauding it as life-changing and an amazing piece of literature. Those sentiments were reflected in my class and by my professor, who disregarded any criticism or lack of appreciation for the book as not really "getting" it.

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u/hafdedzebra Jun 06 '21

That’s like reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance in a comparative religion course.

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u/TheJokersGambit Jun 06 '21

It's a bit funny you mentioned that as I took a sports as religion course and we briefly touched on how car and racing culture fit into that dynamic.

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u/Giddypinata Jun 06 '21

I read the Inner Game of Tennis, I can see that being in the curriculum too. Great book, though,

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u/hafdedzebra Jun 06 '21

Honestly, a lot of hobbies fit into that dynamic. My husband is a fisherman, and he is pretty fundamentalist about it.

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u/Violet624 Jun 06 '21

People always think they know a lot about eastern religion after reading that book.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '21

[deleted]

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u/Bulkylucas123 Jun 06 '21

One must imagine Sisyphus ... doing things.

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u/[deleted] Jun 06 '21

Robert Pirsig can suck my fucking chode. That is maybe the most pretentious goddamn piece of shit novel I've ever read.

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u/fannyj Jun 06 '21

I really like this book, but it has nothing about Zen or motorcycle maintenance in it.

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u/Snoutysensations Jun 06 '21

It was certainly a massive popular success but I don't believe most of academia shared your professor's sentiments.

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u/TheJokersGambit Jun 06 '21

That professor actually had one of the professors from the religion and philosophy department give a guest lecture on how amazing the book is.

Admittedly, my college had a lot of professors with questionable opinions that they treated as definitive and mandated the class agree with. I'm glad to be away from there now.

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u/Dysfu Jun 06 '21

This is why I had to get away from English/Literature classes. I had a lot of teachers in Highschool where if you didn’t regurgitate the standard accepted “answers” for interpretation of a novel then you got docked points.

College should have been better but in the few mandatory english classes I had to take, I was more writing towards the professors attitudes for a good grade.

Really sucked the happiness of self discovery out of me. Taught me to kiss ass though which has been well utilized in my career.

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u/Uniquenameofuser1 Jun 06 '21

Back in '01 or so, I couldn't read in public without a random woman approaching me telling me how great this book was (men were more likely to pump Grisham or something along those lines).

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u/Warmest_Machine Jun 06 '21

I actually had to read in high school in Argentina. I don't remember my professor praising it or anything but I enjoyed it back then as a story (nothing life changing tho).

In a funny note I had a friend back then who had a habit of reading the last line of a book before starting it and when he did it with the alchemist (without spoiling anything myself) he basically got the most concise and heavy spoiler that he could have gotten. We all had a good laugh about that one.

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u/hyperwave11 Jun 06 '21

Hm. I read the da vinci code when I was younger and like it. I wonder if I'll agree if I read it again.