A few months ago I joined a book club with my cousin. I'd been wanting to join a book club for quite sometime but I was never able to find one in my area. My cousin won't read "those" books so we joined a general fiction club and since then I've discovered two things.
1. I enjoy general/literary fiction less than any other genre
and
2. I seem to be a very different type of reader than readers of general fiction
I've never been a big fan of general fiction but every now and then I will pick one up that sounds interesting or that I've heard a lot of buzz about - 9 times out of 10 I don't get what all the fuss was about. Well as I go to these meetings I'm realizing that the other people in the group seem to take away a lot more from these books than I ever do. They find all kinds of hidden meanings and parallels to their own lives, life lessons, things that change their perspective on this or the next thing. Meanwhile I'm sitting there and my biggest contribution is "I thought _________ was a jack ass."
Okay - so there's a little bit more to my comments than just that but I don't notice all those other things in the book and I've been really trying. I notice the characters and their growth, the authors storytelling ability, the plot, the actual story, writing style which the others may note in their observations but there certainly isn't a lot of discussion on it.
There is a certain amount of book snobbery going on as well. It's not blatant "genre fiction is trash" snobbery but when last months women's fiction choice was originally announced there was a certain amount of eye rolling that went along with it and although most of the members did enjoy it they were certain to say "even though it had no substance" or something along those lines. Also someone mentioned that there were a few other book clubs at the store and one of them happened to be a paranormal romance book club. When one of the older ladies questioned what a paranormal romance was the general answer was "Oh it's basically sex with vampires". Well no it's not and I find it irritating that someone who works in a bookstore can have that opinion. There is an employee there who is always sticking her ______ recommends sticker on paranormal romances and she has enjoyed some very good ones. I would think that you could at least maybe say "Hey ______". "I don't get this genre but since a lot of customers seem to enjoy it maybe you could recommend a good one to me so I have a better understanding of it".
Oh well. What can you do? I've thought about joining the paranormal romance book club but they seem to be reading a lot of book 2's, 3's, 4's etc. which would mean having to read 2 or 3 books prior to the book club book and that would be a bit of a paranormal over dose for me.
4 comments:
LMAO, Danielle! *sigh* This is one reason I don't join bookclubs anymore, not because I don't enjoy fiction -- I do -- but because of the snobbery that goes on. They're very narrow-minded as to what has "substance" etc... (while going into ecstasy discussing what I think is a piece of crap).
I rather ponder fiction on my own and enjoy my books with no "substance" as well, without having to hear somebody else's self-righteous opinions about my reading habits. ;P
"while going into ecstasy discussing what I think is a piece of crap."
LMAO - that is a perfect description :)
I love it!
You know what? I read for enjoyment... the pleasure of getting swept up in a story and caught up in the character's lives... the sort of read where you have no metacognitive blah blah going on ("oh, yes... one can clearly see the misogynist subtext there - for provocation of course... the author playing it against the current zeitgeist...")GET OVER YOURSELVES! I want to be gripped by the story, I want to laugh and swoon and have a great time, and i especially love it when I miss the characters at the end. Fun, people... that's why we all loved a story back on our mum's and dad's knee... FUN
Noelani - I completely agree. I don't really get it because I joined a book club to talk about the book but I find after the first few minutes there is very little talk about the actual book and more talk about what its supposedly means.
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