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That last one hits home. In high school in the early 2000’s I had to read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. It was awful and clunky and boring.
Smash cut up a few years ago when I turned 40 - I thought, “maybe I’ve got a different view now and this will be better”.
Nope, it’s all boomer you shit about “kids these days”.
I was about to down vote you until I remembered the meme format. I commented elsewhere, but here’s Shaun’s video on harry potter
Yeah, I was afraid that it might not have been clear.
I relly liked them as a kid, but now I agree with Ursula K Le Guin:
I have no great opinion of it. When so many adult critics were carrying on about the ‘incredible originality’ of the first Harry Potter book, I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a ‘school novel’, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited.
My nieces and nephews are currently getting into Harry Potter (their parents enable them) and I really hope that the nostalgia-hype is over, once my child is in that age.
Damn that’s a very accurate critique, mind you I find few adults care about the ethics of the fiction they consume (and I don’t mean that as purity testing, but like if you’re going to show ethics make them reasonable or interesting
I never could finish 1984. I got maybe halfway through it and was like 25% interesting world building, 25% a sad, bitter, sexist person lamenting the way of things (particularly that be can’t just fuck every woman, but also the lying totalitarian goverment) but also having no spine to even consider doing anything about it, and 50% him sneaking around to fuck some horny manic pixie dream girl against the rules. Unfortunately, id have probably enjoyed it more if I had read it at 16
Just cause you only liked something when you were young doesn’t mean it isn’t good. Everyone talks about the perspective you gain as an adult, but people don’t talk enough about the perspective you lose along the way.
It’s also possible that it’s genuinely good for people of all ages, yet you just obsessed over it in your teens and made yourself sick of it. Like I did with Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Which I admit appeals to the cynicism of youth, but it was recommended to me by a 50 year old, it’s not just for teenagers dammit.
There’s also re-reading books you read as a child and going “Oh, this influencing my development makes a lot of sense”
I’m pretty sure either Black Beauty or White Fang turned me into whatever the hell I am now
That happened to me when I reread the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. Those books really influenced a lot of my thinking in a good way.
Les Mis was this book for me, if it wasn’t obvious by my username.
Hmmm. Was it? Or were you just a theater kid who was jumping on the bandwagon trends of the time? (Kidding)
Dune. I have read it 6 times.
The first time was rough. When I was 15.
The 6th time was still difficult.
But it fucking does something to my mind every single time
I’ve read first 6 Dune books when I was a teenager. It had a profound effect on me. I am reading it again, just finished book 4. I think I understand the phylosophical and religious references a bit better, but it’s still a very difficult book series.
Yeah I gotta do my 4th read through og Children, God Emperor, Chapterhouse, and Heretics now. Dune and Dune Messiah weren’t any easier, but dang are they enlightening when you get through it.
Paul’s throne room. Gosh. I hope Villeneuve gets it right in Dune: Part 3.
blushes in 4th read through of wheel of time
I wasn’t enjoying Blood Meridian. What life experience do I need to enjoy it?
No, no, you’ve got it right, that is not a book you should enjoy, just understand. If you ever meet someone who got enjoyment out of that book then you need to kill them before they kill you.
It’s like reading the bible when you’re an adult and realizing the evil character is God.
First time I read Lord of the Rings I believe I was 11. And I hated it. Because I was 11. Also I think it was just the first part, Fellowship . Thankfully I’ve read it maybe half a dozen times since then and I’ve loved it more and more each time and it’s been an entirely different book every single time.
I just reread the series a few months ago. Seeing the Shire suddenly jump from a place of ordinary happiness to a place where Frodo has to sneak from place to place, depending on the discretion of his neighbors, hits a lot differently now than it used to…
Thanks, maybe I should try again.
Reverend Insanity.
Reading it now feels slightly like a dnd lonewolf murder-hobo campaign but protagonist is obsessed with telling you he is 500 years old.
Tho I do like the world still.
The first ever book I read in a foreign language, turned out to be a lot different from what I remembered when I picked it up and re-read it maybe 2 decades later after having mastered that language.
When I was a kid I absolutely loved the Narnia series, to the extent that I was depressed when I finished the last one. As a young adult I tried to reread the books and was stunned at how heavy handed the Christian propaganda was.
Has anyone watched that Rupert the Bear cartoon recently?
Most racist shit I ever saw. Turns out a vestige of my childhood was Rupert hanging out with his Asian friend Ping Pong and a bunch of long nailed, thin moustached “Chinamen”. Gollywogs level stereotypes and bullshit.
It’s rare to be actually, physically agog.
I remember Rupert the Bear being great when I was a child. Let me pull up some episodes real quick
I think there’s some on YouTube.
And I got the name wrong, it was “Pong Ping” which is somehow worse
“did you put your name in the chalice harry?” dumbledore said calmly
The threequel.
