Letters to the Editor
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AKA
What do you think of Phillip Roth? I thought his PLOT AGAINST AMERICA was overrated and his THE HUMAN STAIN was a bit slow-going, but that last had an ingenious premise. Some say he's the best living American writer.
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Durian Joe
Is Azhar Nafisi the only Iranian author you know? Try some Chubak or some Sadek Hadayat instead. Read "The Blind Owl." Believe me, from your remarks its a read that's right up your alley. You make me chortle, you make me scoff, take your blinders right the fuck off.
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I'm not sure I'd break up over a book
It really depends on who the person is, and why they have the particular book they have. I own some fairly appalling literary trash, myself; my bookshelves are not 100% highbrow.
To me, books are a proxy for intelligence, and I do unashamedly admit to looking for intelligence in the people I date. Both of the serious relationships I've had were with people whose literary tastes were very different from mine, and that's just fine with me. As long as the person in question reads something and isn't a moron, I don't care what books he reads.
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What book would make him/her irresistible?
I think if I saw a Christopher Moore novel on someone's shelf, I'd forgive any amount of Ayn Rand.
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This article cracked me up
Seriously, if women are wondering why it's so hard to find a good man- this idiocy of rejecting men for their literary taste is a huge reason why.
I love Alice Munro, Grace Paley, Raymond Carver- 20th century short stories. My husband is a science fiction and history freak. Who the hell cares? If I feel the need to discuss books, I join a book club. Literary taste is not going to get you far when you need to pay the bills, divide up childcare and household duties and whether he's really good at satisfying you bed.
I keep trying to explain this concept to my hyper intellectual single friends, but to no avail. :(
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"Lolita in Tehran"
I liked it. I was a child during the hostage crisis, and other than "Persia was great, Iran is evil", my history teachers kinda glossed over that whole area, history and culture. "Reading Lolita", while hardly a complete history, was interesting in how the author used Western lit as the lens through which she critiqued the turmoil in her own country. I remember being particularly
struck by the discussion of the European-educated Irani girl and her response to the "Death to America!" flag trample, as well as the huge instability of the Revolution in itself (like nearly all political revolutions, it's not a monolithic Regime Change, but a chaotic mess thats' oppressive for the Revolutionaries as well as the population at large).
I've just finished reading Nabokov's "Lolita" (something I've avoided, but "Reading Lolita" made me wonder what was so great about it), and while I can't say it's a favorite of mine, I can appreciate the craft of Nabokov's storytelling.
On another note, I recently read Alice Munroe's 'Runaway" and really enjoyed it. Well-crafted, beautifully written, and demanding the reader's attention.
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Problem is...
...there's a group of women out there that are so violently opposed to anything having to do with reading, that they only claim to have read and loved the most popular drek (i.e., the aforementioned 'DaVinci Code', 'Notebook', or whatever Der Oprah-er commands), if only to "fill in" the empty field in their profile.
Please note, I've learned this from experience, having given these women the benefit of the doubt, only to discover that the last thing she's actually read were the bio-blurbs for the latest "American I-dull" contestants, out of the on-screen TV listings, which she'd gladly like discuss with you, for hours on end.
As a sad note, I'd once gotten a second part-time job as a stack-monkey at a well known bookstore chain. The pay was negligible, but my reasoning was that it'd at least keep me off of the couch. Plus, I was going under the fairly safe assumption (or so I thought at the time) that the women I'd meet there would at least know how to read, instead of going to bars and clubs, where the women would only know how to drink.
My assumption was rapidly disproved (it turns out books are pretty, and can be used to decorate, but under no circumstances are they to be opened...), and I now have my nights free.
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Savage fields calls from detractors and airs them regularly.
Once in a while he let a call through where the person accuses him of being bad.
Hey AKA, I called Michael Savage once
I told him he reminded me of Hitler. He heard me, but oddly enough, his radio listeners didn't. Go figure.
I guess you just weren't witty enough. Not surprising considering the quality and nature of your output on Salon.
It is an obvious comparison, comparing Savage to Hitler, but alas, not really accurate. Sure, you get the histrionic blowhard rantings. Anyone who listens to Savage a while understands it is for effect and not some sort of serious characteristic of his personality. He essentially plays the role of the angry noble savage, the one being pressed on by degenerates who only want to destroy civil, decent society, you know, LIBERALS.
What is important is not his delivery, but his message. And most of the time, exccept when he rants against porn or libertine behaviors (in my opinion), he is spot on.
Leave it to liberals to miss the message and only see the delivery, it seems to be a disease of the left. I get trashed not for my message but for my delivery all the time on here.
It is not by mistake that Savage has emerged as the third most popular radio host in the USA, with not only right wingers, but also those on the left and in the middle listening to him.
HECK, he is the only one doing what the DEMOCRATS CLAIMED they were going to do, to purge Washington of the Bush cabal that is destroying our nation and our culture.
You have something against America maintaining an intact culture and nation? Just WHO is the enemy of America???