novels

Write what you know and read what you like

My university years.

A story on Slate has sparked a bit of commentary about reading and snobbery. I suppose it’s easy clickbait – nobody wants to feel inferior about their choice of pastime – but once you read the sell, there’s really not a lot more to it:

Read whatever you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you’re reading was written for children.

Hm. Throughout there’s more of this looking-down-the-nose kind of thing, somehow suggesting that eye-rolling and enjoyment of what may be crap-lit are mutually exclusive. What I don’t understand is where speculation like this

These are the books that could plausibly be said to be replacing literary fiction in the lives of their adult readers. And that’s a shame.

or

But if they are substituting maudlin teen dramas for the complexity of great adult literature, then they are missing something.

comes from. I mean, aside from hanging the whole thing on what adults might be doing.

(more…)