Partway through The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, I made a very important realization. I am a book snob. I have been since I was young. After devouring The Babysitters Club series in elementary school, there was a scary time of limbo where I could find no books to excite me. Then middle school came along and I discovered Huxley and Steinbeck. High school and college brought on even better reads with Roth, Irving, Vonnegut, Nabokov, and countless other great authors showing me how to fully command the power of words. I get word-drunk off of unexpected phrases and vibrant descriptions. Now I get restless with the light buzz of a weak book. If I didn’t strive for a career in publishing, I would feel like a complete tool.
Still, I do not want to demean other people’s interests, but it seems inevitable. My friends went to see The Lovely Bones today because they loved the book, and I told them I could not go because I hated it. I had to hide my smugness when they returned disappointed. They just need to read the right book to change their perspective, I think to myself. Then they will understand why I can spend hours in the school library, with books they assume are only for class.
Being jaded at twenty-one is a fate too bleak to stomach. I just like to be surprised and made to think, even in my entertainment choices. Maybe even grow a little. Do not give me a Disney princess storybook ending. In movies, Give me Thank You For Smoking, Garden State, and most recently, Up in the Air.
Yet I cannot truly have a high horse because I gobbled up the Twilight series. Just read it, if you dare. I hate Bella for being a bitch to Edward about sex. Myers is a Mormon, peddling abstinence in a very confusing way because of the sexual energy pervading the books. This is what the kids are reading. No wonder everyone is fucked up.
I am grateful that I have found some people at school and here that have similar taste. Otherwise, I would be intellectually starved. If you trust my judgment, check out We Are Now Beginning Our Descent, by James Meek. It’s unexpected and poetically orgasmic.
"Words can be like x-rays if you use them properly. They'll go through anything." - Aldous Huxley
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I love how you always quote other people. It's like the icing on the cake to another sweet blog. I just have recently started reading again and hope to discipline myself to read more. Kind of wonder what I'll be gobbling up next.