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Originally Posted by sonicl
I love to read, but I think that the biggest obstacle to people enjoying reading is that they read what they feel they ought to read, rather than what they want to read. They force themselves to read Camus and Cocteau (for example) because they believe it is an important intellectual exercise, but their brains aren't necessarily ready for philosophical meanderings. People need to read the Dan Browns and the J K Rowlings in order to get their brains used to the exercise of reading and understanding.
That said, I prefer to use reading either as education or entertainment, rather than as an intellectual exercise.
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Ok, serious point moment - while, in pricinciple, I don't have a problem with 'lower' literature (if you'll excuse the provocative terminology), I do have a problem with laziness. Which is to say, just as with anything, your skills become somewhat stale if you continue to operate at a single level. I forget who the quote is from, but there's a lot of truth in [paraphrased, badly] "If your favourite book is Lord of the Rings when you're 13, that's ok; if it's still your favourite book at 30, you've got a problem".
I'm not suggesting that everyone should jump from Enid Blighton to Hegel; you're certainly missing out if you don't give some of the alleged 'classics' a bash. I think there's a dual problem at play, certainly in anti-intellectual Britain - the first that 'classics' are treated with a degree of austerity and reverence by those who don't read them - for instance, Ovid, Homer, Virgil, Dante and most Latin/ Greek poetry is not, by any means, the
deepest and most significant literature - it's all about fucking, bums, titties, willies, farting and having a good ol' Bacchanalian knees up and a rumpus. The other problem is that those who read it perpetuate the wankishness. Nearly every classics student I've met, and nearly every Lit student I've met can be so unbearably prickesh about literature that is, at core, a good read (to some readers).
People who fear the classics because it's 'too clever' are missing out; people who edify the classics because they're 'too clever' are missing the point.
I think what you're saying about Camus is pretty accurate - you're (supposedly) meant to read it and stroke your chin at how amazing you are for recognising the alienation as a metaphor for [etc etc] and it's disappointing for a great many people if those points pass you by. I found Camus slightly tiring, and I certainly didn't empathise with his characters (a necessary condition for the philosophical tropes gassed on about by the wankish boors, methinks).
On the subject of the Bible (and boy, is that argument dull as piss already), I was going to say, anecdotally, that I know a chap who is cripplingly dyslexic with most Western fonts, but has no problem with Coptic scripts and pictographic languages (Chinese etc). That's something I find fascinating, and slightly weird.