Literary cases make me laugh. First of all, I’d like to know what makes a book a case. The number of copies or the quality of the work? Seems most of the times the quality has no connection with the notion of case.
Usually I tend to avoid these renowned cases. Every single time I was involved in one, I felt the urge of terminating and annihilating. I also desperately wanted to scoop the brain out of my skull. It’s not a question of being a snob as many think when you tell them this is your automatical behavior. I know, maybe part of it must be caused by my total lack of sense of humor. But what has sense of humor to do with bad literature, cheesy literature, mock literature, affected literature? I just can’t do that to my brain, that violence. Pretending you like something just because the rest of the planet is raving about it is not the question. I could never reach that point in any case. What’s worse is the insufferableness. Life’s brief, the wise people say, so why do I have to waste time on crap just because anybody else’s doing it? To be inside the trend instead of being booed because I’m outside of it? Like I care…
Fashionable books are often badly written or, more often, badly conceived. Writing correctly isn’t that difficult, but thinking correctly is definitely more. I mean badly according to a reasonable conception. If we’re talking about selling, most of those cases are perfect, so perfect it’s scary. But what about the actual need to say something significant? Not necessarily significant for the public, it could be the writer doesn’t give a damn about it. How to blame one that doesn’t consider the public? If the content is good, or at least if it says something, on whatever level – style, meaningness, both – somebody will eventually get it and appreciate it. Probably it won’t be a whole mass of delirious people, but delirious people should be in asylums, not in bookstores… or libraries.
This to say I’m very mad. I’m mad at the fact I have this book labeled as “literary case of 2008″, this The Elegance of the Hedgehog, that I happened to receive as a present and that screwed up the purity of my intentions of starting some book I might have liked. It’s not that I didn’t consider avoiding reading it, but it seemed rude. Because well, other times I cowardly got rid of other cases, and iterations can become dangerous habits. But after the first 100 pages or so I feel I’m being deprived of my freedom and intellect. Such a shallow, pretentious, insincere book it is. It’s awful to have to read books that are offsprings of exhibitionists with huge egos, intellectuals with a washing machine instead of a heart. Makes me want to smear mud all over the place to regain contact with something that doesn’t smell of cheap conceit and pedantesque aridity. Apparently I don’t like the book for the wrong reasons, at least according to average criticism. Leaving apart the supporters for the reason we’re in different realities, I’m taking into consideration detractors: they don’t like this book for petty reasons. I can agree on the inenarrable boredom, but its being complex? I was thinking it’s pretty much a corny and mediocre work, too stereotypal for something that aspires so much to the heights of philosophical speculation. What is that, philosphy for dummies? Apparently it is convoluted and arduous, though I don’t know which aspects or parts of it are. I assure I put some effort into it, I tried resisting the desire to cast that specimen of violation of human rights into a wastebasket and select something else from the nearest pile of books. My reading experience is turning into a snorting and frowning feast though. I don’t know if I can go on like this much longer.