Jim of Seattle wrote:Ah, OK, you're really young after all. Just when I was starting to think you were mature beyond your years (sigh).....
I think David Sedaris is a terrific example of a mediocre writer people have gone all apoplectic over. I read one of his books. I didn't laugh much if at all.
It's a matter of taste, friend. I mean, he writes for the New Yorker, a pretty decent magazine for that sort of thing. Me, I'd say that Dan Brown is a good example of that, along with Hemingway. I have English major friends that hate Hemingway, love Sedaris, hate Dan Brown, ones that love Hemingway, are Sedaris-neutral-to-positive, positive on Dan Brown, ones that love Wilde and Joyce and think everything else is bollocks.
What I meant by my previous comment:
Da Vinci Code seems like a novel written to be popular, and from what I've heard from my friends is that it's too clever by half. I like the Indiana Jones series of films, but I'm not going to pretend that they changed my life or that they have anything to do with reality. I see
Da Vinci Code and I see something with very little chance to be anything much better than your average Dean Koontz or Tom Clancy novel.
I'm sick of stupid conjecture shit about the Catholic Church and the Illuminati and Mona Lisa's smile and freemasonry and etc. etc.
Stigmata was shit,
Tomb Raider was shit,
Angels and Demons was shit,
Left Behind was shit. That new Jerry Bruckheimer film,
National Treasure, I have every reason to believe that'll be shit. I hate shit that acts intelligent but is about intelligent enough for me to figure out what's coming up five minutes ahead of the book or film. Sixth Sense didn't impress me, Unbreakable, Signs and The Village made me roll my eyes. The Others had a good enough cast that I was only a little annoyed with how things went down.
Then, whatever. I haven't read it, maybe I'd like it if I did, but I don't intend to read it. Make fun of me as you will.
tviyh wrote:anyway i read a book of short stories a while ago called "NAKED"
yes, David Sedaris wrote
Naked.
Freudian Slip wrote:I don't really understand what you meant by the first statement(s). How does the mere act of reading someone else's ideas "make" YOU feel "clever"?
Uh, I'm operating on the assumption that there's a lot of people who like to figure out puzzles, like those in Da Vinci Code, and then feel good when they're proven correct. Example: My stepmom watches a lot of CSI and Law and Order, and is always projecting what's coming up. "That's the sweater that the murderer was wearing!" "No, he can't say that, because that proves he was at the scene of the crime!" That kind of shit. I always want to say "Jesus Christ, Robin, we fucking know, everybody that's seen anything ever and knows anything and has any power of deduction knows. Why the hell are you parroting this shit. Jesus. Jesus Christ." But I don't because I'm courteous. Anyway, point is, people like to figure things out, it makes them feel smart. Even if they're dumbasses who liked Oprah's Book Club until it started getting all Gabriel Garcia Marquez and John Steinbeck on them. Those kind of stay-at-home moms love that Da Vinci Code shit.
"It is really true what philosophy tells us, that life must be understood backwards. But with this, one forgets the second proposition, that it must be lived forwards." Søren Kierkegaard