I hope you're one of the best minds of my generation, because I'd love to see you naked.

[the_deep_magic]

Link from Neil Gaiman's Twitter: an article about a dating site that matches people based on their love of books.  I don't know how seriously to take it, but I'd love to meet a guy who's read (and enjoyed) Geek Love or Narcissus and Goldmund (which is like the sweetest subtextual gay love story ever and would make a perfect Pinto AU*).  Also included in the article is a delightful list of literary pickup lines.

So, I'm curious: are there any books that, if you saw on a potential significant other's shelf, you'd immediately think "yup, we're compatible"?  Or, conversely, any that would be absolute dealbreakers?  Obviously a shelf full of Dan Brown or L. Ron Hubbard is a huge red flag.  But I also think there's a Nietzsche Threshold -- two or three books is acceptable and even desirable; more than that says "whack job who's going to start throwing the word ubermensch into daily conversation."

Also, fic rec from the kink meme: Together by jumpmybones for a Pinto reincarnation prompt.  It's a short one, but full of so many heart-rending and sweet details.

*Srsly, even the physical descriptions of the characters match up.  Obviously would have to be tweaked a bit, as they aren't together or even communicating for most of the book, even though they're there in each other's thoughts all the time.  Sigh...  I would write it if I weren't a) already committed to a dozen other things and b) certain I'd horribly mangle it.  Repressed!monk!Zach and romantic!artist!Chris

Comments

[babykid528.livejournal.com]

This becomes a problematic question for me, lol! (Of course!)

Before I even answer, I freaking LOVE Dan Brown!! XD So if potential life partner also love Dan Brown, then I'm more than okay with that. Robert Langdon is a *Sexy* character and Tom Hanks only made him more so! ;-)

But to really answer the question, I want to say Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury, which should come as no shock to anyone who knows me, since I live, breathe, and die for that novel, BUT it would depend upon how said potential life partner feels about the novel. If he/she isn't in love with Quentin and Caddy and doesn't adore Benjy and abhor Jason and doesn't think it's the most beautiful work of fiction ever created, and can't at all see my gender theory/queer theory arguments about it, then that's not gonna be a lasting relationship. lol! They don't have to agree with me, not completely, but they have to accept my theories and feelings as valid, because I won't be seriously arguing about this book for the rest of my life with them. It's not happening! :-P

It'd also be really cool if he/she loved Walt Whitman, Paradise Lost, and knew Eavan Boland. <333333333

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

You are entitled to your opinion on Dan Brown. I will leave it at that. ;o)

Would you believe that I have somehow made it to the age of 26 without ever having read any Faulkner? It's one of those things that's on my list, but keeps getting pushed further and further down on the list because more exciting things come along. Do you have a recommendation for where I should start?

Oh boy, you asked me to talk about Faulkner and look what happened ;-)

[babykid528.livejournal.com]

HAHA! That's all I ask for, freedom of opinion! ;-)

HOW?!?! (O_O)

I was made to read As I Lay Dying in senior year of high school (granted it was AP Lit, but still). I'm very shocked! *nods*

The best place to start, I think, is with As I Lay Dying. It's not my favorite, but it is still really excellent (multiple narrators, unreliable narrators, a bit of mystery, fucked up family dynamics, a dead body). And it's his easiest to follow. From there you could read Light in August (that might *actually* be his easiest to follow when reading, but I never had the chance to read the entire thing).

The Sound and The Fury is pretty much the most amazing book I've ever encountered (though Madeleine L'Engle's A Ring of Endless Light will always hold my favorite book of all time title just because it had such a profound impact on my entire adolescence, but that's beside the point). However, TS&TF is really difficult to read for most people (you'd probably be fine with it, but just in case I wouldn't want you to be completely turned off from Faulkner on your first go). It's got multiple narrators (4), like AILD, and a couple of them are unreliable (Quentin more than anyone lol), but the family relationships explored and outlined in it are SO complex and beautiful and disturbing and GAH! LOVE! They are LOVE! :-)

And whether you take my advice about waiting to read TS&TF or not, absolutely heed this warning when I tell you DO NO TOUCH Absalom, Absalom! first! Just, PLEASE, don't do it! lol! At one point in time it held the world record for longest sentence ever. Most paragraphs are 4-5 pages long, and that story has four narrators too, but their narrations run together and, in some cases, overlap. It's just very bogged down and sloooow, even though I really like it as well (it deals with the same Quentin from TS&TF and his father and college roommate are all the same, so it's actually a really good idea to read this one *after* that novel, especially since there's a kind of love triangle detailed in A,A! that is meant to be a kind of mirror for Quentin and Caddy's relationship detailed in TS&TF of course, I don't see it exactly as that, but that's a whole paper-length other story ;-) ).

Re: Oh boy, you asked me to talk about Faulkner and look what happened ;-)

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

Well, I didn't have to read any Faulkner in high school, and after that I pretty much tried to avoid all American Lit classes like the plague because they were all "OMG LET'S FAP TO NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE" and that was just. not. happening. Like, I actually had to drop one course because I knew if I finished it out, there was a slim but real chance I would never want to pick up a book again. Through some finagling I managed to fill that particular course requirement with a Greek myth class.

Anyhow, thanks for the recommendations! I think I'll check and see if the library has AILD and go from there.

Re: Oh boy, you asked me to talk about Faulkner and look what happened ;-)

[babykid528.livejournal.com]

(O_O) OMG I *LOVE* American Lit!!!

I was never forced to read Hawthorne in college, but I actually kind of liked him, though never overwhelmingly. I have a weakness for New England writers though. ;-)

Of course, for someone who loves American Lit, I do hate Hemingway with a burning, fiery passion! But once middle school was finished I managed to avoid his novels and only had to suffer through his short stories, thankfully. :-P

Re: Oh boy, you asked me to talk about Faulkner and look what happened ;-)

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

You can keep the New England writers! I don't know what it is about American lit that turns me off so much, but I just don't seem to like anything written in the U.S. before about 1960. Exceptions: Poe, Fitzgerald, and Eliot (though he emigrated to Paris, so I'm not sure he counts). Oh, and Emily Dickinson in relatively small amounts.

We're in agreement about Hemingway, though.

Re: Oh boy, you asked me to talk about Faulkner and look what happened ;-)

[babykid528.livejournal.com]

Oh the irony... I hate Fitzgerald! lol! *shakes head*

I used to think I hated American Lit myself, before college, but being force-fed Steinbeck, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald can do that to you. *shrugs* But I love Kate Chopin, the Irvings (Washington and John), Arthur Miller, Faulkner, Dorothy Allison, Whitman, some Poe, Alcott, L'Engle, Capote (though I've only read In Cold Blood), Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Harper Lee... and I won't go on. :-)

What's your favorite geographical genre of lit then?

Re: Oh boy, you asked me to talk about Faulkner and look what happened ;-)

[the-deep-magic.livejournal.com]

I'll give you Harper Lee and Arthur Miller... actually, I'm good with most American dramatists: Beckett, Shepherd, Albee, Williams.

Oh, Tennessee Williams. We did one of his in college, and this is the conversation I had with a friend of mine:

Me: I hear we're doing a Tennessee Williams play next semester.
Friend: Yeah? Which one?
Me: Don't remember.
Friend: Well, it's sure to be a light-hearted farce about heterosexual Northerners.

Anyhoo, when it comes to lit I'm a pretty hardcore Anglophile: Shakespeare, obviously, but also the Romantics, the early sci-fi writers, and a bunch of random others. I do like contemporary American authors quite a bit -- John Irving is actually my favorite. Also: Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood (okay, she's Canadian, but I'm counting it), Barbara Kingsolver...