NYT goes trolling - "Adults shouldn't read read YA fiction"

[Keza_WA]

Wow there must be something wrong with me then cos I really enjoy young adult books and why should they be the only ones to enjoy them?

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

Are you saying that shame and guilt are the same?

No. I'm saying what we feel shame and guilt about is sometimes based in our culture. Of course shame and guilt are also often closely related I think. If we do something that we feel shame for having done we may also have feelings of guilt about having done them as well.The difference is that we can feel guilty about doing something all by ourselves, but shame is more of a reaction to how others perceive what we have done. If you steal a candy bar from the local convenience store you may feel guilty about having done so, but you don't necessarily feel shame. On the other hand if you are caught trying to steal that candy bar and it becomes generally known that you attempted to steal it, then you will not only feel guilty for having tried to steal it, but will have to deal with the shame that comes with being caught trying to steal because now everyone knows that you are a thief. So one is more internal and the other is more external.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by steven522

* Follows link and reads brief NYT article *

Hey, wait a minute. I actually re-read the Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing and following "Fudge" books again just a few years back with my daughter when she read them for the first time. I don't see this as being any different than someone sitting down and watching an old TV show from their past with their child. And the time these were published were pretty close to my actual 4th grade experiences, so this would be a literary equivalent of sitting down and watching The Wonder Years.

Now, on the flip side, although I see no problem with reading any form of publication from weekly magazine to classic lit to Doctor Seuss, those adults who line up a midnight to be the first to buy their own copy of the next YA craze have always stuck me as being a little odd. But then, I'm not the kind of person who would willingly wait in a long line at any time be it for book, movie or three dollar toaster.

I remember the part where Fudge wanted to pet the bears. lol. I read "Tales of a Fourth Grade nothing" and I think the sequel as a kid too. Poor Peter, how much he had to put up with from his little brother.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by Phogg

Guilt is not learned.
Infants look to their parents to see if they got caught.
Changes to guilt can be inculcated, but the basic mechanism is inborn.

Sounds like you heard one of my Pastors sermons Phogg. He talked one Sunday about the inborn sinful nature of human beings and how even a little kid knows when they've been bad. Of course I imagine such a discussion could get very metaphysical or philosophical very quickly.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by tvuongpham

Ditto.

YA novels aren't super complex in presentation but topics aren't necessarily watered down.

I read HP, and Hunger Games Trilogy. Good reads complex ideas engagingly presented -not too complex method.

I am sure I had a different experience than my 10 yo daughter who blazed through the HP and HG series. She is an advanced reader and it is a challenge to find age appropriate books for here.

Point being the topics of the novels are important. Look at Animal Farm, very simple book on the outside.. very deep disturbing, complex theme/message on the inside.

What about Lord of the Flies? The Hobbit?

HG isn't a tween romance novel, so not easy to dismiss. haha

HP has been heavily criticized for its simplistic writing and language structure.. I think that just conveys both the writer's style and voice.

I dunno. Read what you like as long as you are reading.. How many "adults" read something other than a newspaper or magazine lately??

Some good points. Animal Farm is basically an allagory on communism I believe but it is also an interesting tale. Likewise Gulliver's Travels poked fun at human culture I think and even ridiculed it to an extent, but many only see the movie with Richard Harris or some other tame version. Golding left out girls on the plane for Lord of the Flies because he was certain that sex would creep in if they were included. Anyway fiction has a long history of being deeper than what many see. Look at the old fairy tales if you don't think so. Not the Disney versions, the originals. Some of it was pretty gruesome reading. They weren't meant just to entertain back then but to teach something. Take Red Riding hood for an example. Her red cloak is said to symbolize that she is entering puberty, her grandmother on the other hand is ill. We never learn from what, but it's possible she was in menepause. So Red riding hood goes off the path and encounters someone who means her harm. In the original version the wolf is killed but Red Riding hood doesn't climb out of the wolf's stomach whole. It was re-written later to be more sanitized.

[slex]

I have no problems with adults reading YA literature. After all, I myself read such titles occasionally (and sometimes like them). What I don't like is the mania and obsession surrounding some of these titles and the reaction towards those who don't. Just take a look at the negative reviews for the Hunger Games at goodreads and the following backlash.

It is one thing to say "I read the Hunger Games and enjoyed it", it is a totally different claim that the Hunger Games is a literature of the highest quality, with an original plot and complex characters. And there are people who make such claims. In my opinion they either don't read much, or have fallen for the craze. This is not something that goes only with YA bestsellers - I remember something similar with the Da Vinci's Code (I can see how someone can enjoy it for its entertainment value, but there were people who touted it as philosophical and thought-provoking), though it never reached such proportions.

It is also a related, but a somewhat different question of whether the much hyped titles from the YA genre in the latter years are really that good when compared to other titles from the same genre which only get a fraction of the attention. I think not. But the reasons why some get all the attention, and others not, are beyond me. It's not always the quality of the writing, this I can tell.

[Prestidigitweeze]

Interestingly, we've moved from people expressing hatred toward an entire paper based on a single article to Texans telling us how much they hate New Yorkers. Meanwhile, no New Yorker in this thread has ever expressed hatred toward Texans or their newspapers.

I myself am not only a New Yorker but a person who was yards away from the second WTC tower when it fell, and who went to the site directly to try to give assistance to people who couldn't breathe. The only time I ever mention it is when people talk about how self-involved New Yorkers are. Apparently, I’m not too self-involved to risk my life for a heavy-set old woman in a K-Mart jacket gasping for air.

The moronic thing about hating New Yorkers as a group is that most of us aren't really from New York at all. A lot of the people who died at WTC weren't even from the States.

Never once have I or anyone else on MR suggested that New York is the center of the U.S. All I've done is point out to certain so-called nationalists that the U.S. itself isn't the center of the world.

Never once have I seen any New Yorker on MR express anything quite so arrogant about their own state as the congenital humility with which our two Texans invest everyone else in the country. But I've seen plenty of arrogant anti-intellectual snobbery from some of the offenders on this thread.

It’s also interesting that many who hate New Yorkers the most self-identify as patriots. Where were those people hours and days after my fellow Americans in NYC were hit?

Even when I was growing up in Vancouver, BC and Portland, Oregon, I was observant enough to notice -- without bitterness or resentment -- that a disproportionate number of cultural events took place in NYC. If you can’t admit that without being resentful or nasty, then it’s you, not New Yorkers, who have a problem. I loved living in Portland even as I noticed the greater number of concerts taking place in New York.

What makes New York a great city has always been the immigrants and artists, most of whom die in obscurity and never claimed to be superior to anyone. The energy of New York is in the exact opposite place than some of you are suggesting. It's in the ideas of newcomers and visionaries who are often close to poverty. By looking down on them collectively, you prove yourselves to be the elitists and snobs.

If you want to complain about the arrogance of individuals on Wall Street, or of six-figure lawyers you've had to deal with personally, I can commiserate with you more than you know. But that isn’t about New York. It’s about those stupefyingly self-involved individuals, wherever they happen to live. Individuals from Portland can be pretty arrogant about their city, too, as can some I’ve met in Austin and San Antonio. Sociopaths know no city.

I could mention my dealings with a few memorably awful people in Texas -- people with names like Mr. Hunter Horn the Fourth, who wasn't happy in my presence unless he was voicing his massive hatred of Yankees in general and Jews in particular. But that would be misleading, because a lot of witty, modest, creative, whip-smart and kind people also live in Texas.

And finally, I could dwell on the fact that I hate -- and I mean, truly, utterly hate -- reading The Hunger Games, the Twilight Series or the Harry Potter books. It isn't that I look down on people who enjoy them; it isn't even that I've avoided trying to read them. I actually bought The Hunger Games recently just to give it a chance, and I don't believe in the idea that labels should determine a book's ultimate audience. I tried to understand what was good about those books and ended up disliking the content and style even more.

But that doesn't make me an elitist any more than your enjoying those books makes you childish or stunted.

Alice in Wonderland, The Cockatoucan and Speaking Likenesses were read by children, too, and I happen to love those books, so let's not make the NYT writer's asinine mistake in the name of defending what that writer trashed. You don't have to descend to the level of a jerk just to tell us you disapprove of what another jerk is saying. The minute you do so, the jerk who wrote the article has won because your generalizations are as uninformed and intolerant as theirs.

Yes, I do read specific columns by individual writers who are published by The New York Times, just as I avoid other pieces by individual writers who are published by The New York Times. Suggesting that those writers are all part of the same elitist swill-churning cabal is monumentally ignorant. Even now, there are prize-winning journalists and novelists who publish articles in that paper, and some of them actually deserve the prizes they've won. The name of any paper is only relevant as a placemark for columns by individual writers.

People around here have said they’re tired of Apple and Kindle-bashing and I can appreciate that. Well, I don’t think the people who run this site appreciate New Yorker-bashing, either. I used to like two of the participants in this thread, but I’ve lost a lot of respect in the past half-hour.

And just to make the idea of trashing the NYT over one article even more ridiculous, the person who wrote it isn't even a columnist or staff writer. The author, Joel Stein, is a regular columnist for Time Magazine.

[bill_mchale]

Originally Posted by slex

I have no problems with adults reading YA literature. After all, I myself read such titles occasionally (and sometimes like them). What I don't like is the mania and obsession surrounding some of these titles and the reaction towards those who don't. Just take a look at the negative reviews for the Hunger Games at goodreads and the following backlash.

Well, many modern artists say the purpose of art is to evoke a reaction from the viewer. In that way, I would guess that the Hunger Games has succeeded brilliantly.

It is one thing to say "I read the Hunger Games and enjoyed it", it is a totally different claim that the Hunger Games is a literature of the highest quality, with an original plot and complex characters. And there are people who make such claims. In my opinion they either don't read much, or have fallen for the craze. This is not something that goes only with YA bestsellers - I remember something similar with the Da Vinci's Code (I can see how someone can enjoy it for its entertainment value, but there were people who touted it as philosophical and thought-provoking), though it never reached such proportions.

Or perhaps you are missing something that they see. Katniss actually is fairly complex as far as characters in popular novels go. The series (as a whole) is also an interesting meditation on whether the cost of violence is ever offset by what is achieved through it.

It is also a related, but a somewhat different question of whether the much hyped titles from the YA genre in the latter years are really that good when compared to other titles from the same genre which only get a fraction of the attention. I think not. But the reasons why some get all the attention, and others not, are beyond me. It's not always the quality of the writing, this I can tell.

I agree that sometimes the quality of the writing is not what attracts people. I think it might be that these books tap into primal elements that many (though probably not all) people feel. With the Hunger Games, it is the horrors of childhood. Modern Highschool may not be as vicious as the Hunger Games, but to a teenager who is not in the right clique, it might feel that way (And many adults, from their younger years can still relate to that).

--
Bill

[ProfCrash]

And to think, I was excited this morning when I saw that The Serpent's Shadow (The Kane Chronicles, Book Three) was released.

I read books for pleasure. I read some that are meant for adults and some that are meant for young adults. I can't help it that I found the Maze Runner trilogy more interesting and captivating then IQ84. I finished the Maze Runner trilogy in a few days and only made it about 1/3 of the way through IQ84 before deciding that there were elements that were interesting but over all the pacing was far to slow and I was bored.

So tonight I will read about Egyptian Gods and Magic through the lens of a kids book, I don't know that it even qualifies as a young adult book, and smile. Because it will have an intersting plot and do some cool things with mythological gods that I would not have expected. I also know that in another 5 years or so I will be able to recommend American Gods to my Nephew knowing that he actually knows most of the Greek and Egyptian Gods because of reading these types of books. Heck, I was able to discuss the Greek Gods with my 9 year old niece because she loves Percy Jackson.

This is the same 9 year old who can tell you the entire plot line of the Warrior Cats series (something like 15 books that are actually decent sized), list which cats are in which clans, who holds what position, and the different government styles of each of the clans. She is 9 and she can describe an entire political and cultural enviroment for this cat based world. It is actually really impressive, and more complex then you would think. I think this means that she is not going to have too many problems understanding the US Constitution when she gets to that stage in school.

Some of these books and series are pretty complex. They prepare kids for delving into some pretty complex concepts later in their life. I have no doubt that my nieces and nephews, all are readers, will not have a problem reading Dune, the Foundation Series, and Dickens because they have been learning how to understand and remember details from the various books that they read.

Now, I do not think Cat Warriors is on par with the Hunger Games, I am not sure 9 is the right age for Hunger Games, and I don't see too many adults getting into the Warrior Cats but to write off YA or even some Kids literature as meaningless and not complex is flat out silly.

[Prestidigitweeze]

I was just thinking about this, and there is in fact an experience like YAL which I appreciate and enjoy as an adult: The original Shin Megami Tensai series for the PS2. Specifically, Persona I-IV remind me of The Hunger Games series insofar as they offer practice exercises in social interaction that aren't so much moral as they are mandatory for survival.

There tend to be the same kinds of presumptions about gaming as there are about the books many of you like. And like a person reading a YA book might feel in public, I'm a bit sheepish when rocking a PS Vita on the train. People seem quite invested in the costume jewelry of intelligence, and concerned about what a grown man is supposed to be doing. But a book like Ficciones by Borges or Pale Fire by Nabokov is a game as well, and I would argue Persona III involves levels of thought and sophistication which pre-vidgame adults -- no matter how old -- might do well to cultivate. If my mother were still around, I'd love to have bought her a copy. It would have made her feel less alone at times, since the player is always talking to an ally or instructor. She might have left the game feeling as if she'd spent a few hours talking with old friends.

[Greg Anos]

Originally Posted by Prestidigitweeze

Interestingly, we've moved from people expressing hatred toward an entire paper based on a single article to Texans telling us how much they hate New Yorkers. Meanwhile, no New Yorker in this thread has ever expressed hatred toward Texans or their newspapers.

I myself am not only a New Yorker but a person who was yards away from the second WTC tower when it fell, and who went to the site directly to try to give assistance to people who couldn't breathe. The only time I ever mention it is when people talk about how self-involved New Yorkers are. Apparently, I’m not too self-involved to risk my life for a heavy-set old woman in a K-Mart jacket gasping for air.

The moronic thing about hating New Yorkers as a group is that most of us aren't really from New York at all. A lot of the people who died at WTC weren't even from the States.

Never once have I or anyone else on MR suggested that New York is the center of the U.S. All I've done is point out to certain so-called nationalists that the U.S. itself isn't the center of the world.

Never once have I seen any New Yorker on MR express anything quite so arrogant about their own state as the congenital humility with which our two Texans invest everyone else in the country. But I've seen plenty of arrogant anti-intellectual snobbery from some of the offenders on this thread.

It’s also interesting that many who hate New Yorkers the most self-identify as patriots. Where were those people hours and days after my fellow Americans in NYC were hit?

Even when I was growing up in Vancouver, BC and Portland, Oregon, I was observant enough to notice -- without bitterness or resentment -- that a disproportionate number of cultural events took place in NYC. If you can’t admit that without being resentful or nasty, then it’s you, not New Yorkers, who have a problem. I loved living in Portland even as I noticed the greater number of concerts taking place in New York.

What makes New York a great city has always been the immigrants and artists, most of whom die in obscurity and never claimed to be superior to anyone. The energy of New York is in the exact opposite place than some of you are suggesting. It's in the ideas of newcomers and visionaries who are often close to poverty. By looking down on them collectively, you prove yourselves to be the elitists and snobs.

If you want to complain about the arrogance of individuals on Wall Street, or of six-figure lawyers you've had to deal with personally, I can commiserate with you more than you know. But that isn’t about New York. It’s about those stupefyingly self-involved individuals, wherever they happen to live. Individuals from Portland can be pretty arrogant about their city, too, as can some I’ve met in Austin and San Antonio. Sociopaths know no city.

I could mention my dealings with a few memorably awful people in Texas -- people with names like Mr. Hunter Horn the Fourth, who wasn't happy in my presence unless he was voicing his massive hatred of Yankees in general and Jews in particular. But that would be misleading, because a lot of witty, modest, creative, whip-smart and kind people also live in Texas.

And finally, I could dwell on the fact that I hate -- and I mean, truly, utterly hate -- reading The Hunger Games, the Twilight Series or the Harry Potter books. It isn't that I look down on people who enjoy them; it isn't even that I've avoided trying to read them. I actually bought The Hunger Games recently just to give it a chance, and I don't believe in the idea that labels should determine a book's ultimate audience. I tried to understand what was good about those books and ended up disliking the content and style even more.

But that doesn't make me an elitist any more than your enjoying those books makes you childish or stunted.

Alice in Wonderland, The Cockatoucan and Speaking Likenesses were read by children, too, and I happen to love those books, so let's not make the NYT writer's asinine mistake in the name of defending what that writer trashed. You don't have to descend to the level of a jerk just to tell us you disapprove of what another jerk is saying. The minute you do so, the jerk who wrote the article has won because your generalizations are as uninformed and intolerant as theirs.

Yes, I do read specific columns by individual writers who are published by The New York Times, just as I avoid other pieces by individual writers who are published by The New York Times. Suggesting that those writers are all part of the same elitist swill-churning cabal is monumentally ignorant. Even now, there are prize-winning journalists and novelists who publish articles in that paper, and some of them actually deserve the prizes they've won. The name of any paper is only relevant as a placemark for columns by individual writers.

People around here have said they’re tired of Apple and Kindle-bashing and I can appreciate that. Well, I don’t think the people who run this site appreciate New Yorker-bashing, either. I used to like two of the participants in this thread, but I’ve lost a lot of respect in the past half-hour.

And just to make the idea of trashing the NYT over one article even more ridiculous, the person who wrote it isn't even a columnist or staff writer. The author, Joel Stein, is a regular columnist for Time Magazine.

A question was asked in post #35. It seemed to be a serious question, so I chose to answer it. I'm sorry if the answer offended you, but I stick by my words.

You will note the question was not about Texans, but about "There seem to be two big main corporate hate objects on this board -- Big 6 publishers, and The New York Times." This board is not limited to Texans, it is world wide.

Whatever news, articles, editorials, and advertising, (and all blends of the previous) form the worldview that a media organization is defined by. It doesn't matter whether you are talking The New York Times or Rupert Murdoch (or say, The Economist). These worldview are not random musings, they are the responsibility of those controlling the respective organizations. They are chosen by their respective controlling director(s), and I am certain that what they disseminate has the (at least tacit) approval of senior management. (Or somebody is going to get fired fast.)

What sells in the 5 boroughs of New York may not sell in Boise, Idaho; Houston, Texas; Yokohama, Japan; or Perth, Austrailia. The expectation that it should can be even more annoying than the content itself...

[QuantumIguana]

There are just a few papers with a national following. The NYT is one of them. I don't know that it should sell outside of NYC, but it does.

[voracious71]

One thing I cannot abide is a snob. I read everything, I read popular fiction, literary fiction, horror, YA and children's books, etc. I do this because I love reading. More than that, reading is an essential part of my being. It all comes down to a good story. That's what keeps me turning pages.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by QuantumIguana

The idea that it is widely hated outside of New York is simply a fiction.

I think this thread contains some evidence it isn't just fiction.

Of course the right hates the Times the most, but it goes far beyond that, sometimes into a general dismissal of attempts at a journalism which minimizes bias while presenting a wide variety of views.

[QuantumIguana]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

I think this thread contains some evidence it isn't just fiction.

Of course the right hates the Times the most, but it goes far beyond that, sometimes into a general dismissal of attempts at a journalism which minimizes bias while presenting a wide variety of views.

That there are people who hate the NYT I don't dispute. But the NYT wouldn't have such a national following if it was so widely hated as some suppose. The intensity of dislike can make things seem more widely disliked than they really are.