Don't Trust Snakes: I swear to God, if I had it to do over again I would not have blown off <i>The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte</i>

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“I know where I'm headed.”

ROGER THORNHILL

Monday, March 31, 2008

I swear to God, if I had it to do over again I would not have blown off The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Seldom will a work of journalism amuse me on as many levels as the essay "It’s Not You, It’s Your Books" in yesterday's New York Times Book Review:

It is elitist in that charmingly semi-aware way one encounters most often in publications with "New York" in the title.

It screams "Could only be written by a woman!" and, reassuringly, it was.

"Rare is the guy who’d throw a pretty girl out of bed for revealing her imperfect taste in books." (Those FOOLS!)

It contains the classic line "Pity the would-be Romeo who earnestly confesses middlebrow tastes."

It equates being "a reader" (of fiction, mostly) with being intellectual, informed, interesting.

It contains the classic line "When a guy tells me it changed his life, I wish he’d saved us both the embarrassment."

A writer reports that her partner (not interviewed) "doesn't like to read."

I could go on, but she had me at "Pity the would-be Romeo who earnestly confesses middlebrow tastes."

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