Why I Dropped the Book Meme
Posted by Richard S. on May 4, 2008
I removed the book meme post because I decided I didn’t like it or my answers (sorry, Darren, hope you aren’t offended). The truth is, I just don’t like novels a whole lot in general and haven’t for a long time (at least judging by those that I find published and sitting on the bookshelves), with some rare exceptions - and those exceptions can resonate with me, sometimes for a while. But novels are a highly overrated medium, as far as I’m concerned, and they’ve never been the biggest influence on me. (As I said, even back when I was reading a lot of fiction, I really liked short stories more.) Also, if I were to list, say, the 26 novels that I did like the most or were the greatest (relative) influence on me, they certainly wouldn’t come out as one novel per each of 26 authors corresponding to each letter of the alphabet. Those rules in the book meme were too restricting - and I didn’t find them fun. Moreover, because of all those limits - only novels, one per author, one author per letter in the alphabet - I ended up typing a list that didn’t accurately reflect my present tastes or written influences.
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P.S. Of course, my ideas about what I like or what influences me can change. For instance, I was completely off movies for a long time, and then I got back into them - mainly through Indian movies, Bollywood and Kollywood. (That’s one of many reasons why I’m spending all my time on the other blog now.) But I think one reason for that - aside from this refreshing exposure that I got to movies from another culture and tradition - is that I started to watch movies in a different way, opening my mind up a little in terms of being able to appreciate different aspects of performance and production.
Maybe I’ll appreciate novels in a different way too sometime…
I like going through phases, always changing or, even better, expanding my influences and tastes, and I think I’m doing more of that now than I did when I was younger, especially more than when I was much younger. (One way, once again, that I seem to go against the stereotypes and expectations that people have regarding aging or “maturity” - which I’m not necessarily proud of, because I think it would be smarter to fit into expected patterns, since people who do so get along much better in this world.)
