The Big Read Top Five:
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
All Top 100 -style lists are wrong. So this really shouldn't have depressed me but it did. Favourite book is even more ridiculous than favourite film. Novels are not like films, even if a load of barely literate cocks in this survey chose Gone With the Wind and would, no doubt, have chosen the Star Wars annual, if it was applicable. Twats.
It's rare that people read a book over and over. You can't read a decent novel in 90 minutes, like you can with a film. They take effort, require mental input. And so choosing your favourite book is designed to say much more about yourself than the book itself. And that's why this is so depressing. Why aren't people ashamed of picking children's books - and fantasy books at that?
Why can't they chose a book they've actually fucking read?
I'll tell you why. It's because we hate cleverness. We fucking loathe it. In France, philosophy is a respected trade. Thinking about stuff is good. Here, we'd rather watch SHIT television. We immerse our minds in crass, thoughtless crap to escape the tedious, homogenous mess of our snivelling existence.
|
|