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What makes someone well read?
I agree that it's both. Without quantity, and diversity of all genres and quality scale you have nothing against which to measure and draw a subjective opinion.
I just typed "what does well read mean" into google and the description for "well read" there is "having a lot of knowledge from reading widely; knowledgeable"I read widely, I've learnt a few things. So I suppose I am well read.
On reading my last sentence, I think I might have phrased it slightly wrong haha. Not many people have read me ;p
Lol Shaun!I would say, generally, that well read means quantity rather than quality. (With the proviso that it's not 17,000 Mills and Boon novels)
My friends think my catchphrase is "I read that in a book once". It's a very poor book indeed that you learn nothing from, even if it is just "well I won't read that author again!"
What makes someone well read? The ability to pretend to understand a James Joyce novel :)
It is too dark and damp down a well to read much.
A person is well read if they like the same books as I do. :D
Patti (baconater) wrote: "A person is well read if they like the same books as I do. :D"So I'm not well read then ;)
Depends on what period of history you are from."Well read" in the Middle Ages meant that you had a severe haircut, lived in a monastery and spent an inordinate time colouring in the first letter of each chapter that you were copying with a quill pen whilst watching the horizon nervously for Vikings.
In the Elizabethan era, "well read" either meant that you were rich and knew your Shakespeare from your Jonson, or you were poor and had progressed from making your mark with an inky fingerprint to scrawling an X.
In the Victorian era, it meant that you knew your Byron and Blake(rich kids) or your ABC and scripture (poor kids).
In the 1960s, it meant that you had a secret copy of Lady Loverly's Chatter, plus you had read all of Portrait of the Artist, half of Ulysses and none of Finnegan's wake.
In the 1970s, you had read Watership Down before Simon and Garfunkel waxed all gushy about bright bloody eyes.
In the 1980s, you discovered Iain Banks before anyone else.
In the noughties, you held long conversations with like-minded people about how close the Lord of the Rings films were to the books. And you bought a kindle.
In twenty teens, you threw down Fifty Shades in disgust. Not because of the smut, but because of the writing.
The literature of the English-speaking world is very dominant today, but would expect someone who is well-read to have knowledge of the literature of other countries and cultures. It is all very subjective though.
I thought well read meant that you had read and were knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects.
I have a copy of Being Well Read for Dummies...
Im just Simply Read
It's obvious, if you've bought and read my book, you're well read.Every author will tell you that :-)
Well I meet most of Will's criteria apart from having read Finnegan's Wake and not read Lord of the Rings.I even had the severe haircut until I started growing my hair again at 50!
What I know about literature would fill a book but what I have yet to learn would fill a library ;@0
My quest continues joyfully!
I always thought a well-read person was someone who's read more books than me. So that's you, Sarah!
I may have read more Kath but you are better equipped to digest, analyse, edit and review them. The fact that you have also joined the ranks of esteemed authors makes you the 'better read' in my book ;@)
Apart from foreign literature,presumably someone who is well- read would also know the classics, as well as a wide range of later work, such as Iris Murdoch, or Martin Amis.I find that people who commute tend to be well-read as they are often reading, for an hour or so a day, for years.
Philip (sarah) wrote: "I may have read more Kath but you are better equipped to digest, analyse, edit and review them. The fact that you have also joined the ranks of esteemed authors makes you the 'better read' in my bo..."Somebody's getting a Christmas card this year :)
Kath wrote: "You are such an auld cynic, RMF! ;)"Guilty as charged :)
In my defence, I had trouble potty training! :)
Anyway, I shall return on topic. Was in a bookshop the other day and glanced through Ulysses. Anybody who can read that is not only well read, but brave and courageous as well!
R.M.F wrote: "Was in a bookshop the other day and glanced through Ulysses. Anybody who can read that is not only well read, but brave and courageous as well!."I've read it twice.
If anything I feel a bit of a fool for wasting so much time on it.
But back then I thought reading 'literature' and being 'well-read' mattered.
I am more well-rounded. In the stomach area.
Gingerlily - Elephant Philosopher wrote: "I am more well-rounded. In the stomach area."Well, yeah. Who needs a mere six-pack when you've got the entire barrel.
Gingerlily - Elephant Philosopher wrote: "Or even a tun?"Indeed. No point in half-measures.
Is it wrong to say that I prefer reading Andy McNab to Joyce? Please don't cast me out of this group! :)
I'd rather have my teeth filled than read Joyce. He's too... thingie for me.
I've not read any McNab, but I know I'd prefer it to Joyce.
Joyce is a ***** **** **** !
R.M.F wrote: "Is it wrong to say that I prefer reading Andy McNab to Joyce? Please don't cast me out of this group! :)"I'd rather read Mcnab these days.
I heard someone say the other day that genre fiction is written to be read and literary fiction is written to win prizes.
James Bond said that he was an expert on giving up smoking because he had done it so many times.I can say the same thing about starting to read Ulysses. I keep wanting to take Joyce to one side and tell him how to use ?*&^ing speech marks like everyone else.
Will wrote: " I keep wanting to take Joyce to one side and tell him how to use ?*&^ing speech marks like everyone else. "Oh, yes. That is irritating.
There is nothing that quite elicits the world-weary sigh like someone 'challenging the conventions'.
It is a sentence like this one from the very first page...- Thanks, old chap, he cried briskly. That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you?
Okay, so I can spot that "Thanks, old chap" is speech. I've got that. It comes between the dash and the "he cried briskly".
But what about "That will do nicely."??? Is that speech or the narrator describing the action? I'm guessing it's speech because it sounds like speech. But I'd really like some speech marks to be sure.
Why in the name of all that's holy couldn't he have written:
"Thanks, old chap," he cried briskly. "That will do nicely. Switch off the current, will you?"
The funny thing about my copy of Ulysses is that the first twenty pages or so are falling out, but the remainder of the book is pristine. Faded, yes, but with pages unturned by human hands.
Will wrote: "The funny thing about my copy of Ulysses is that the first twenty pages or so are falling out, but the remainder of the book is pristine. Faded, yes, but with pages unturned by human hands. "That is not unusual.
I once had a second-hand copy of Finnegan Wake where only the first couple of pages showed any sign of use.
Unlike Lady Chatterley's Lover where the loose pages are in the middle?
Will wrote: "Unlike Lady Chatterley's Lover where the loose pages are in the middle?"I remember when you could tell where the dirty bits were in library books by the colour of the pages.
And where it fell open when you laid it down flat.
Or when old videos from Blockbusters suddenly went grainy and flickered in to black and white.
Kath wrote: "I'd rather have my teeth filled than read Joyce. He's too... thingie for me."I've never managed to get past the first few pages of Joyce. Life's too short and I like to read something cheerful.
What about Samuel Beckett? Although he wrote plays, not books, he was, strangely, a fellow Irishman, although often wrote in French, and I find a similarity of grimness about the two.
Ha! Just had a chat with Dave about this thread.He said 'anything that makes me want to throw it across the room is "literature"'
Makes me sad, that.
When did 'literature' become synonymous with pretentious crap?
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Ha! Just had a chat with Dave about this thread.He said 'anything that makes me want to throw it across the room is "literature"'
Makes me sad, that.
When did 'literature' become synonymous wi..."
It's always been that way as far as I know - most of the books I give up on are "literature".
Anyhow, this is for Dave. Slightly NSWF but still one of the best critiques of Hemingway out there... http://youtu.be/tJeEVVYV8xE
I feel ill if I don't read something every day.Does that count?
Thinking about it, a lot of the best 'literature' that is still read was written just as commercial novels, even 'pot boilers'. There was nobody more commercial than Dickens.But there's stuff like Joyce (who I've never even bothered trying to read, having read so much about him) that has always been pretentious crap and doubtless always will be.
It is entirely possible that one of the writers on this group will be regarded as a literary figure, probably in a century or so when their books are out of copyright and their family make not a penny from it.
Jim - that's a tad harsh. Admittedly Ulysses went way over my head but Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a proper bit of story telling. And there are fewer better collections of short stories than Dubliners. The Dead in particular is a damn good read.I don't think there's a clear dividing line between "literature" on the one hand and "commercial" on the other.
Instead there's stuff we like and stuff we don't like. I've never been able to enjoy Jane Austen, for example. It doesn't matter whether her writing is classed as literature or romance or whatever. It just doesn't turn me on.
Will, I have dipped a toe into some groups (and usually fled) in which even mild criticism of Austen would be enough to have you tarred and feathered.Oh, and I'd rather read Roddy Doyle than Joyce..
Yup. I have been involved in similar discussions over the years. It seems that it's okay to dislike Joyce but Austen is sacred!
Will & WillI like Austen, I have never read any Joyce (& don't feel tempted) and read as little Dickens as I could get away with when they were handed to me as set books in school. So you can quite safely tell me that you like or don't like something.
I read what I think I will enjoy (& stop reading it if I discover I am mistaken)
I will admit to reading "trashy books" - but I don't see that I am hurting anyone by doing that.
I avoid books that "they" say "everyone should read this book" - because I know that it will most probably be totally boring and also that those experts have most likely not read more than a summary of the book themselves. Perhaps I might miss a gem - but there are so many books that I want to read anyway, and plenty of authors I enjoy reading who are still writing more books.
I would rather read books recommended by people who share my taste, and have no patience with people who want to insist on forcing their views on me. If I want to disagree and say that I found a book boring, pathetic or that it was the worst thing I have ever read I should be able to say that without having people up in arms.
Will & Will - makes us sound like a firm of solicitors! ;=)
I think its a bit of both, you have to have read a wide range of books.
One of my colleagues thought I was well read the other year, as I didn't buy into the Fifty Shades phenomena, and was reading classics (it was a month challenge, but he didn't know that, only that I was talking to him about George Orwell books). He's asked me a couple of times since what I Am reading, and as it is normally a crime book, he seems to have changed his opinion and now doesn't talk to me about books!! I like to read what I like to read and I'm not interested in conversations about prose and stuff, or even if anyone I talk to in person knows the author.