"literary snobbery meme"

[stormsewer]

In a mood for procrastinating, I guess. This is via the artist formerly known as Mysteria. I'm afraid it will come off more geeky than snobby.



1) What author do you own the most books by?

In the place I actually live right now- Neal Stephenson
Including free books downloaded via my Kindle app- Lord Dunsany (though I've only read one book by him to date- The King of Elfland's Daughter)
Including books in boxes at my parents' house- probably Terry Brooks (snobfail!)


2) What book do you own the most copies of?

I guess that's a tie between the Tao Te Ching (two different translations) and the Nausicäa manga series (in English and Japanese). (Though I actually consider the manga vastly inferior to the movie. Particularly the last half. So sue me.) I guess I have the Book of Mormon in several languages, as well.

The book I've most frequently purchased for others is probably The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson

3) Did it bother you that both those ques­tions ended with prepo­si­tions?

Hell no. That's a ridiculous rule.

4) What fic­tional char­ac­ter are you secretly in love with?

I guess I'll have to go with Death from Neil Gaiman's Sandman.

4a) What fic­tional char­ac­ter would you most like to be?

Gandalf

4b) What fic­tional char­ac­ter do you think most resem­bles you?

Victor Frankenstein

5) What book have you read the most times in your life?

That darn Book of Mormon again, probably.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

7) What is the worst book you’ve read in the past year?

I think I'll have to go with The God Engines by John Scalzi.

8) What is the best book you’ve read in the past year?

That's tough. For fiction I'll go with Wireless by Charles Stross. For non-fiction, I'm undecided between Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond and The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell.

9) If you could force every­one you tagged to read one book, what would it be?

Also tough. Probably one of the non-fiction books in #8, or maybe Collapse by Jared Diamond (though I now suspect it of being overly alarmist; time will tell, I guess).

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for lit­er­a­ture?

I guess I'll have to second Ms. Roberts and go with Salman Rushdie.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?

I would like Hayao Miyazaki to do Gormenghast.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer.

13) Describe your weird­est dream involv­ing a writer, book, or lit­er­ary char­ac­ter.

Once I dreamed I was writing a story about a writer who wrote a story about a narcissistic woman. Upon waking up, I still remembered the end of the story, which I transcribed as follows:

"But would anyone ever see, ever really know, who she really was? Would anyone ever realize that I would treat her like a queen, like a goddess? That I would open my vein for her to drink?

But they never just drink, they bite in with both canine teeth, sucking away the sushi that lies just beneath the surface, leaving just enough that you don't realize just how much is gone, that you still jump in gladly with both feet without stopping to remember that you can't swim, until after one New Years' Day argument when you realize that there's nothing left."

14) What is the most low­brow book you’ve read as an adult?

Thankfully I have actually avoided the Twilight books. So I guess it's Real Ultimate Power: The Official Ninja Book by Robert Hamburg. A gift from my brother, bless his heart. It's a cool book, though.

15) What is the most dif­fi­cult book you’ve ever read?

Let's go with The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. It was strangely compelling, though.

16) What is the most obscure Shake­speare play you’ve seen?

Probably The Winter's Tale.

17) Do you pre­fer the French or the Rus­sians?

I am moderately well-versed in the French, but I've never read a work of fiction by a Russian (though The Brothers Karamazov is a perennial lurker in my to-read list). So, French, apparently. Those Russian books are all so long!

(Oh wait! I did read A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovitch by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in high school. Wasn't too long, either.)

18) Roth or Updike?

Haven't read either.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?

I've only actually read Sedaris, but I've enjoyed a lot of stuff at McSweeny's Internet Tendency.

20) Shake­speare, Mil­ton, or Chaucer?

I might say Milton, had I read any. Chaucer seems like more trouble than it's worth. Shakespeare, then?

21) Austen or Eliot?

Brontë, Emily!

22) What is the biggest or most embar­rass­ing gap in your read­ing?

Hmm. Charles Dickens, maybe. I read Tale of Two Cities in middle school, but that's about it. Or those Russians.

23) What is your favorite novel?

I'm not too keen on "favorites" these days, but since this is about being snobby, having mentioned The Tale of Genji above, I'm tempted to go with that for its immense re-read value, evocative poetry, and ability to immerse the reader in a culture far more foreign and weird than anything I've ever encountered in the modern science fiction and fantasy genres.

24) Play?

In snobby terms, En attendant Godot by Samuel Beckett. Honorable mention to Huis Clos by Jean-Paul Sartre.

25) Poem?

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot. (When I started I was worried about failing at snobbery, but I think I'm starting to do alright!)

26) Essay?

I'm going to go with "What I Believe" by Bertrand Russell. (He won the Nobel Prize for Literature. Totally snobby.)

27) Short story?

Probably something by H.P. Lovecraft, though it's hard to pick a favorite. (Less snobby. Lovecraft is pretty trendy these days, but he was not to my knowledge particularly so when I was reading him most voraciously, about fifteen years ago.)

28) Work of non-fiction?

Perhaps one of the two mentioned in #8.

29) Who is your favorite writer?

Maybe Neal Stephenson. Though there are up-and-comers on my list like Charles Stross and Kij Johnson.

30) Who is the most over­rated writer alive today?

Though some people whose opinion I respect really like him... I'm going to have to call out Cormac McCarthy.

31) What is your desert island book?

I will again follow Ms. Roberts and go with the Tao Te Ching. Though I'm pretty confident in that choice.

32) And … what are you read­ing right now?

The Virginian by Owen Wister. Also intermittently reading Borodin by Serge Dianin, which is a rather dry biography of my personal hero.

Comments

[sweetevangeline.livejournal.com]

I cannot wait to see Breaking Dawn. I am positively gleeful at the prospect of seeing how they spin the books.

[stormsewer]

I'm about ready for that whole thing to just go away.