Doug Anderson
06-23-2003, 11:25 AM
Michael <erosewater@ziplip.com> writes:
in article bd5a1j$p4tls$1@ID-123442.news.dfncis.de, Tai at tainuiti@yahoo.com wrote on 6/22/03 4:19 PM: Brian wrote: On 22 Jun 2003 17:57:02 GMT, whansami@aol.com (WhansaMi) wrote:>> You read 800 pages in 1 day?>>>> --Brian>>>> Hey, Brian. We can soothe over our feelings of inadequacy about> that by telling ourselves that Cari just isn't SAVORING the> experience like we are. ;-)) That's the approach I'm taking with my> husband. <hee>>> Sheila My wife is trying to get me to read these books so badly. I just find it nearly impossible to believe someone can read 800 pages in one day. That is of course unless they are a speed reader. But still... almost seems impossible. Easy Peasy. I certainly read fiction that fast. My 12 year old son read the first 400 pages of it in less than three hours. He'd have kept going but I confiscated it at 1am on Sunday morning. We wandered into our local shopping mall at around 2.30pm on Saturday to go to the supermarket and picked up a copy at Kmart. The centre was hectic as usual on a Saturday but there were no queues for the book in any of the bookshops. Then I held on to it until he'd finished his homework and gave it to him at bedtime. (Because I'm a very mean and evil mum!) But frankly, I'm going to come off as a grinch because I really can't understand the hype over the Harry Potter books. They are reasonably good children's fantasy but there is far better adult fantasy around. And better juvenile fiction, for that matter. I've read the first three but I'd had enough by then and probably won't pick up the next two unless I have nothing else to read. I think Harry Potter is a good thing, within reason. They're books that mix drama and humour well and the characters are reasonably complex: Severus Snape, for example, at least thus far, serves "good" while being personally loathsome. The books don't take themselves too seriously, either, unlike a lot of things adults aim at children. The more children's literature I read, the more fascinating I find the darkness - my wife describes the Lemony Snickett books I've read have been like Dostoyevsky for children.
No, Lemony Snicket is _much_ more humorous than Dostoyevsky. Lemony
Snicket is more like English Victorian literature than like Russian,
anyhow.
The problem is, all the books are the same, and the jokes get repeated
over and over again. My kids don't mind this, but I do.
in article bd5a1j$p4tls$1@ID-123442.news.dfncis.de, Tai at tainuiti@yahoo.com wrote on 6/22/03 4:19 PM: Brian wrote: On 22 Jun 2003 17:57:02 GMT, whansami@aol.com (WhansaMi) wrote:>> You read 800 pages in 1 day?>>>> --Brian>>>> Hey, Brian. We can soothe over our feelings of inadequacy about> that by telling ourselves that Cari just isn't SAVORING the> experience like we are. ;-)) That's the approach I'm taking with my> husband. <hee>>> Sheila My wife is trying to get me to read these books so badly. I just find it nearly impossible to believe someone can read 800 pages in one day. That is of course unless they are a speed reader. But still... almost seems impossible. Easy Peasy. I certainly read fiction that fast. My 12 year old son read the first 400 pages of it in less than three hours. He'd have kept going but I confiscated it at 1am on Sunday morning. We wandered into our local shopping mall at around 2.30pm on Saturday to go to the supermarket and picked up a copy at Kmart. The centre was hectic as usual on a Saturday but there were no queues for the book in any of the bookshops. Then I held on to it until he'd finished his homework and gave it to him at bedtime. (Because I'm a very mean and evil mum!) But frankly, I'm going to come off as a grinch because I really can't understand the hype over the Harry Potter books. They are reasonably good children's fantasy but there is far better adult fantasy around. And better juvenile fiction, for that matter. I've read the first three but I'd had enough by then and probably won't pick up the next two unless I have nothing else to read. I think Harry Potter is a good thing, within reason. They're books that mix drama and humour well and the characters are reasonably complex: Severus Snape, for example, at least thus far, serves "good" while being personally loathsome. The books don't take themselves too seriously, either, unlike a lot of things adults aim at children. The more children's literature I read, the more fascinating I find the darkness - my wife describes the Lemony Snickett books I've read have been like Dostoyevsky for children.
No, Lemony Snicket is _much_ more humorous than Dostoyevsky. Lemony
Snicket is more like English Victorian literature than like Russian,
anyhow.
The problem is, all the books are the same, and the jokes get repeated
over and over again. My kids don't mind this, but I do.
