My favorite part of Changing Places (a bi-campus campus comedy by David Lodge) was the party game called Humiliation. Each person names a book they are expected to have read, but haven't. Everyone who has read the book puts their hand up. The person who cops to never having read the book with the largest number of avowed readers is the winner. It's called "Humiliation" because "you have to humiliate yourself to win."
Naturally it's a hit with the English faculty. One particularly competitive professor claws his way to the top of the heap by swearing that he's never read Hamlet (and loses his job as a result).
Would you be able to win a game of Humiliation? What book would you choose as your trump card? I've been trying to figure out what my best bet would be.
This is not a real Wednesday Reading post, but they'll pick up again next week, probably.
Naturally it's a hit with the English faculty. One particularly competitive professor claws his way to the top of the heap by swearing that he's never read Hamlet (and loses his job as a result).
Would you be able to win a game of Humiliation? What book would you choose as your trump card? I've been trying to figure out what my best bet would be.
This is not a real Wednesday Reading post, but they'll pick up again next week, probably.
Comments
There's another book, Small World, with some of the same characters. I was planning to put off reading it until I've read some of the books I already own, but it made me laugh out loud on the first or second page, so I might just go ahead; we'll see.
Edited at 2016-04-17 05:03 pm (UTC)
I wouldn't be shocked to learn that someone hadn't read it, American or not. Actually, it's hard to think of something I'd be shocked by, especially outside the context of an English department -- I have a pretty patchy cultural literacy myself.
I can't think of any one book that I'd expect everyone to have read. But it'd be possible to create a list of books that I'd expect people to have read at least one book from. Like a list of Shakespeare, or children's classics.
Did you read a lot of Australian writers in school? We read almost nothing that wasn't British or American, but I think that was partly just my own high school being sloppy. Exceptions: a couple of short stories (Joyce, Alice Munroe, Kafka) and "The Doll House" by Ibsen. No Australians. :(
But for books... 'Great Expectations', perhaps? Or 'The Odyssey'!
I sabotaged myself by reading a bunch of Great Books in middle and high school that I now remember nothing about. I can't honestly claim to have never read A Farewell to Arms, for example, because I know I did, but I also can't remember a single thing about it except that it's not the one about the Spanish Civil War (I think???)
*HUGS*
but your chains!I think I've gone through too many "Must read ALL the classics!" phases to win, though. I could pony up Lord of the Flies? Or maybe The Tempest or Twelfth Night - although I could only use The Tempest if seeing the play doesn't count.
I bet the winner would be anyone who could solemnly swear they had never read Harry Potter.
I've read all the above-mentioned books except Great Gatsby, which I downloaded from Gutenberg and managed a few chapters, because my teenage nephew and his cousin were solemnly discussing it one day, and believe me, they had read it! I know those two. I thought if they could, I had better give it a go.
I liked it all right when I read it in high school, but I liked it a lot better when I re-read it and was no longer required to notice painfully obvious things about the eyes and the ash.
Edited at 2016-04-17 11:57 pm (UTC)
(My sister used to brag about never having read Harry Potter, but eventually she gave in. Now she's a hypercritical Harry Potter fan who can talk for hours about how much HP worldbuilding sucks).
In the book group I just joined, the way for me to actually win is to say, "I tried Neil Gaiman and I don't feel like trying any more." My prize is to have four people asking me whether I've given Neil Gaiman another try yet at every subsequent meeting.
I have had a similar Neil Gaiman experience. I liked one of his books, Coraline - although not in the "I feel a fervent need to evangelize about this book!" way that other people seem to like Gaiman - and haven't really gelled with any of the others I slogged through. But nonetheless certain friends are certain that if I only read one more, I will see the light and join the Cult of Gaiman.
The annoying thing about the Neilvangelism that I've encountered is that (certain) people treat it like a test of sincerity: I can't really like fantasy/sci-fi/reading at all if I haven't accepted Neil Gaiman into my heart. I shouldn't let this attitude put me off, but it does a little.
Please do post about Harry Potter! I will rant about worldbuilding with you, and change my opinion 100 times, and probably try to draw a bunch of unnecessary parallels with the Cormoran Strikes.