Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Robin
Choosing not to read such attitudes doesn't mean trying to rewrite history. It simply means that one is making a choice about how one spends one's limited recreational reading time. It's easily possible to acknowledge that that is how people were while also deciding "I'd rather use my spare time reading something else, something I will enjoy reading."
|
Sure--but it also means that you cut yourself off from ALL the great classics, too. I mean, if you're not going to read anything with attitudes that don't reflect that which is construed as "correct" today, you can't read Austen. You can't read anything from the Golden Age of detective fiction, including Sayers, Christie, Chandler, etc. You can pretty much read NOTHING before, well...maybe 2010.
Now...I'm
sure that this isn't you, Uncle Robin, but I've found that those who typically espouse this tend to be
highly selective in what they consider "offensive" versus what they don't. Some will assert that they won't read, say, Stout (Rex Stout, Nero Wolfe) because there are a few books with offensive language or stereotypes in it, but they'll read Austen without blinking an eye--which depicts an age in which women are little better than chattel, and
utterly dependent upon MEN (and making a good marriage) to come out okay. Under the primogeniture rules, well, they're just
screwed--and hey, that's just
fine to read, but if Rex Stout's characters utter the "n" word, well...that's unreadable. My point is, people very rarely seem consistent in this "I won't invest time in this offensive-to-me-literature" application. But then again, people are rarely logical or consistent in anything, so I'm not sure why it should surprise me in this, either.
To me, deciding to eschew "offensive" literature would be horribly limiting, but sure, each and every person has to make their own choices about what they wish to do. We all make those choices, those decisions, every day, in what we choose to watch, see, read, and upon what we will and won't invest our very sparse recreational time. So, yes, I agree with your point.
Hitch