Honestly an issue with most brand/franchise "communities." It's why I stick to general subs.

Yeah, I'm not about to jump on someone for just not liking a book, but mental illness is neither a cute quirk nor an everyday emotional struggle, and people co-opting them causes actual problems for those of us with them. This doesn't really seem like it's an issue with a difference of opinion over a book at all.

The suggestions are going to change as the new people join and old people leave and new books are published, though...

Sitting in the common room of Happy Vale Nursing Home, the cheery nurse asks me "Do you want to play Bingo or do a jigsaw puzzle?"

"I want to read 'Finnegan's Wake' aloud - in a group."

"If you're going to be like that, Mr. Smith, we'll have to send you back to your room."

Last year I read Young Mungo, and there was so much Scottish slang and colloquial language that I had to stop quite often and look things up. (Found a great website/lexicon of slang terms that I referenced frequently!) If I hadn’t, my understanding (and enjoyment) of the novel would have been diminished significantly. Looking up those terms didn’t pull me out of the story; it deepened and enhanced it :)

I mean, part of the problem really is the insistence that your taste is objectively superior. You can criticize something while still acknowledging that your opinion is only that, and without using combative language that alienates people of differing tastes.

From this comment, it seems like you're too far to the other extreme.

I'm sorry

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-15VC4Yxzys

*cries in Arrow

That's sounds terrible to me

My Irish Literature professor, whom I respected a lot and who taught me to appreciate Joyce’s Ulysses, assured us that Finnegan’s Wake is a work of genius, but he didn’t try to assign it to undergraduates. It seems to be designed for Ph.D. dissertations, but that means it’s quite hard for ordinary readers to understand. Wikipedia has a detailed chapter-by-chapter summary as well as a collection of scholarly opinions about what it all means, if you are interested. But when reading the article you can see that the Wikipedia authors struggled to create a typical synopsis.

Wikipedia quotes Joyce himself comparing the book to a dream, but that doesn’t really clarify much. Yet Joyce insisted that every word had a purpose, if not several purposes, and that there’s a reason it took him so long to write the book. Having studied Ulysses, I believe him, the man was a genius. But I’m this case he was so devious that very few people can fully appreciate his genius.

That said, I feel sure there are now many resources for decoding every line of Finnegan’s Wake on the internet. I’ve always wanted to tackle it by reading and listening to an audio version at the same time, then turning to the internet for enlightenment. But it does seem like a big commitment, and there are always easier books to read.

You can start whatever sub you want...

That attitude seems to... not be age relative.

If your comment is a shit take, as evidenced by the downvotes, doesn't that mean that belief in the hive mind is the correct position?

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>I read this book years ago and didn't think much of it when I finished

This is kind of where I am, too. It had its moments, but I was expecting more after all the build-up!

Reddit is still the better of the social platforms for reasonable discussion, but it gets worse with every platform that bans porn...

I think it depends. I will never get over having read A Place of Greater Safety, and it'll always be why I now know French and have a lasting interest in the Revolution, but that one, what happened is not only real but even unimaginably worse knowing more of the history. I know it might seem obvious to have been expecting it but I really wasn't, either. It also personally connected with me (disabled) because Mantel drew on her experience with health issues and how they're part of the historical personages experiences too.

Purely fictional sad endings, especially if you have a sense of unfairness about it, it might come back to you when you think about it but I haven't really had that feeling last more than a few days. Keep doing other things.

I guess I feel the same... if somebody tells me what to read or watch, I likely never will in part because it feels like an expectation. On the other hand, I still keep a Goodreads going because I sometimes check things out based on what my friends are reading. We don't ever actually communicate on that platform, but it's in some ways almost like a quiet conversation is still going on.

OP got Sanderson-ed.

Okay? Nothing to do with him. There's almost nobody in the northern hemisphere who isn't currently benefiting from their [literal or political] ancestors' colonialism and there's not a whole lot any of us can do about it.

>In such a setting there shouldn't be any white people, as pale skin didn't develop until fairly recently.

You are talking about earth, the real world. In a fictional world, it could work the other way round as well. Light skinned races becoming darker over time if they migrate to a sunnier part of their planet.

You're the second person today to recommend I read Dan Simmons. I'll have to check it out.

I read this book years ago and didn't think much of it when I finished, to be honest. But the descriptions of bullying and Elaine's self harm have stuck with me even when I can't remember most of the plot. Those scenes just come back to me at random moments.

I can't say I love the book, since I barely remember most of it, but certain scenes definitely affected me.

Never give up. This sounds like a good bucket list goal.