Discussion over an article published Sunday night on the NY Times website dominated my email inbox today. Given the fact that so many SM readers are hyper-literate (or at least think they are) this simply had to be shared, discussed, and dissected to death here as well. Ready yourselves:
We’ve all been there. Or some of us have. Anyone who cares about books has at some point confronted the Pushkin problem: when a missed — or misguided — literary reference makes it chillingly clear that a romance is going nowhere fast. At least since Dante’s Paolo and Francesca fell in love over tales of Lancelot, literary taste has been a good shorthand for gauging compatibility. These days, thanks to social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, listing your favorite books and authors is a crucial, if risky, part of self-branding. When it comes to online dating, even casual references can turn into deal breakers. Sussing out a date’s taste in books is “actually a pretty good way — as a sort of first pass — of getting a sense of someone,” said Anna Fels, a Manhattan psychiatrist and the author of “Necessary Dreams: Ambition in Women’s Changing Lives.” “It’s a bit of a Rorschach test.” To Fels (who happens to be married to the literary publisher and writer James Atlas), reading habits can be a rough indicator of other qualities. “It tells something about … their level of intellectual curiosity, what their style is,” Fels said. “It speaks to class, educational level.”
Pity the would-be Romeo who earnestly confesses middlebrow tastes: sometimes, it’s the Howard Roark problem as much as the Pushkin one. “I did have to break up with one guy because he was very keen on Ayn Rand,” said Laura Miller, a book critic for Salon. “He was sweet and incredibly decent despite all the grandiosely heartless ‘philosophy’ he espoused, but it wasn’t even the ideology that did it. I just thought Rand was a hilariously bad writer, and past a certain point I couldn’t hide my amusement.” (Members of theatlasphere.com, a dating and fan site for devotees of “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead,” might disagree.)… [Link]
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p>I confess, I went to theatlassphere.com to see if Vinod had posted a dating ad there. The article goes on to conclude that you must be incredibly shallow if you dump someone based openly (or secretly) on the fact that their taste in literature sucks compared to yours. In fact, it wasn’t until I read this article that I wondered, for the first time in my life, if I was shallow. Am I destined to be “Baioed“? Not only would the pre-32 year old Abhi break up with a girl if she had ever in her life waited in a line for a Harry Potter book, he may also have dumped her if she didn’t like Mos The Cure (yes, I am a music snob as well). However, the new Abhi is reflective about the depth of his shallowness, mostly because he had been completely unaware of it until recently. The new Abhi wants to change. There have always been hints. Let me tell you all about one recent break-up. Well, it still feels recent but I guess it has actually been a while.
It was a blogger. I read this person daily and they opened my eyes to new things (even stuff I didn’t care about like Bollywood was made mildly tolerable). About a year into the relationship the cracks started to show. I think we both saw them but…its hard to give up on something that you’ve invested time in together. Eventually they went their own way. And then, just recently, after I wrote this book review he wrote this counter review, and I knew we weren’t meant to be together. The passive aggression (see the second stab) over literature is plain for all to see. A good friendship was a better idea. He just doesn’t get my rawer tastes.Def
Continuing on with the article, I realized how formulaic some of our behaviors have become in this internet age. For example, I confess, I’ve done this (and I’m sure many of you have as well):
Still, to some reading men, literary taste does matter. “I’ve broken up with girls saying, ‘She doesn’t read, we had nothing to talk about,'” said Christian Lorentzen, an editor at Harper’s. Lorentzen recalls giving one girlfriend Nabokov’s “Ada” — since it’s “funny and long and very heterosexual, even though I guess incest is at its core.” The relationship didn’t last, but now, he added, “I think it’s on her Friendster profile as her favorite book…” [Link]
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p>Even if it didn’t work out, a scar on your heart in the form of a good book feels tolerable. When I thought about it I realized that some of my previous failed “relationships,” that were in retrospect marked by unsustainable high highs and low lows, were foreshadowed by literary incidents. I once dated a girl that loved Lolita by Nabokov (brilliant) but also liked Waiting for Godot by Beckett (pretentious waste of time).
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“You mean you haven’t read it yet? I read an advanced copy. She really has outdone herself” |
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p>Being South Asian makes it even harder with respect to finding literary compatibility, especially if you want to date someone desi or someone who is dating you because they find you exotic. There is the added pressure of having to always know when the newest desi-lit book is coming out so you can be prepared to sound like an expert on it. Well you know what? I don’t read desi-lit! Gasp
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p>The single best line in the article however, has got to be the following:
Compatibility in reading taste is a “luxury” and kind of irrelevant, Levy said. The goal, she added, is “to find somebody where your perversions match and who you can stand…” [Link]
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p>That really is a transcendant statement. I’ve never heard it put so concisely and correctly. I recently went on a date with a girl that confessed to being a Chopra (yes, that one) fan in her younger days. The old Abhi would have snuck out the bathroom window. The new Abhi finished the date only to learn that some of our perversions matched.
Baby steps.
What about a girl who pre-orders Harry Potter books ? 🙂
That most definitely counts as a line 🙂
Once I gave a guy I had a crush on a copy of The Gulag Archipelago. (It’s one of the books that “changed my life” — read into that what you will.)
He loved the book, but (sadly) not me.
Abhi, I guess we’re not a match due to both my line-waiting and cosplay for Harry Potter.
I don’t know your perversions yet 🙂
Well, one of them is cosplay…
I’ve always found this desi devotion to Ayn Rand fascinating. It reached a whole new level for me when I was reading Stephen Alter’s recent book about the filming of Omkara when he recounts this conversation with Vishal Bhardwaj:
What are books?
I think its just intellectual snobbery to break up with some one because you don’t like their literature taste. oh you don’t read “insert authors name here”! you must be rather dumb.it should be enough that your partner is interested in literature and intellectually curious. if he/she does’nt agree with you that ayn rand is a bad writer or that chetan bhagat’s books are silly, it does’nt make him/her dumb in any way. rather, if you say you don’t like ayn rand and can’t give rational arguments, you are just being superficial…why don’t you also wikipedia summaries of other authors viewpoints for cocktail conversations.intellectual curiosity should always trump taste.and btw, is’nt it rather un-ayn randish to proselytize her philosophy. after all, if you like howard roark and his individualistic ilk, don’t go on acting like a dumb ass and telling everyone about how great they are. try being howard roark for a few days and may be your actions will convey it. I suppose laura miller broke up not because ayn rand is bad, but because rand’s disciple could’nt live up to her standards.
a topic that speaks to my heart ! i have been a steadfast bookworm since the age of 7. Have a Bachelor’s degree in English. My boyfriend? Hadn’t read a single novel until after he met me. Somehow, we work.
I know man! Almost every desi (i.e. DBD) I know in his twenties has gone through one or more Ayn Rand books. Dunno if they are as popular in ABD’s or American’s in general. I see them in all the bookstores, so some one must be buying them…but then again this is NJ 😉 also, was’nt there was a south park episode about fountainhead.
Could it be that her take on life (devil may care individualism) is extremely appealing in that idealistic post school pre work phase called college? you have just started learning about your chosen profession and dream of wild success in the next 5-10 years? who better as a mentor than a gal talking about self-reliance, independence, being true to your passions as opposed to money etc. so if you are in your late teens, and dream of making it on your own against all odds, ayn rand’s philosophy meshes with that attitude really well.
maybe greenspan is a “secret dbd”.
Straight up cosplay, or also LARP action?
(Just asking, not trying to match perversions!)
Good post, Abhi! I’m a Dostoyevsky fan, but it might be a bit too much to read too much into one’s literary choices without being as, Fussel might say, hopelessly “middle class.”
So I was looking over at the 100 best novels and 100 best nonfiction lists in a small attempt to dephilistinize myself. Why do I get the feeling that the top 20 or so books in the reader’s lists for both categories seem to be sharply skewed towards libertarians and Scientologists? It leads to comedic gold: “Psychiatry: The Ultimate Betrayal” (presumably, a problem) is narrowly beaten by what could be a proposed solution: “More Guns, Less Crime”.
Has someone been pranking Random House? Does this mean that all my market capitalist advocate friends and I should read up on Xenu and volcanoes and octopuses? Or should I just visit a shrink instead?
I don’t think it’s necessarily shallow to screen relationship “potential” based on literary or musical tastes – we’re all snobs in some way or the other – some people go for looks, height etc which is broadly genetically determined while at least with cultural tastes, they’re acquired (more so than looks save for the scalpel argument). It’s just sort of more acceptable to side with nurture than nurture isn’t it?
a favorite topic so had to speak out..
I don’t know why I liked this sentence so much..
haha.. I also find it funny that Ayn Rand features thrice in the fiction and twice in the non-fiction top ten list pingpong pointed out
I agree that its shallow to break up with someone over literary tastes, but will find it hard to also respect someone who says they like Da Vinci Code
pingpong, asking more out of ignorance, how are the top 20 fiction books.. maybe libertarian, but sharply skewed to Scientology?
Oh my god … I think the beginning of the end of my last proper relationship may have started over an argument (or rather my disdain) for Harry Potter.
I tried, I was bored, his next tactic was to read a chapter every night to me before we went to sleep (with different voices), we had to stop four chapters in because I was snorting with derision too loudly and he was getting annoyed. I argued that I’ve been spoiled by a devotion to Tolkien and Pratchett and that frankly I couldn’t get past the image in my head of Granny Weatherwax busting around the corner to give the Potter folk an earful for being so flippin earnest … snob, philistine, and ‘you just don’t like it for the sake of liking it’ (no honey, I don’t like it because it’s crap) were some the charges levelled at me … I think it was pretty big of me not to bring up his collection of Doctor Who novelisations …
I’m pretty sure he held it against me after that, we certainly never talked about literary fiction ever again.
In all fairness, a mutual love of Shakespeare and absurdist playwrights (yes, Beckett, and yes, Waiting for Godot) was a part of getting together in the first place.
And I confess, I’m shallow enough to admit that I would possibly avoid someone who loves Dan Brown novels …
The Friendster thing is spot on! Because I’m considered “the smart/artistic one” in the family, my sisters routinely used to add books and films I read/watched (regardless of what my opinion on them was!) to their lists, as a sort of proof of credibility and variety. I’ve come across people who list a bunch of chick lit titles, then throw in a Pamuk or a Rushdie. I’m sure it’s meant to convey eclecticism and a fun-loving nature coupled with depth and intellectual ability, but really, the ruse is pretty obvious.
Perhaps prior to dates, Librarything and not Google should be the checking up tool of choice! 😉
Yes – it does seem rather shallow to break up with someone coz of different tastes in books / music / art / food etc. But then it is equally shallow to get involved with someone coz of similar tastes in books / music/ art etc. Many DBDs read Ayn Rand but more than a few dont particularly understand or enjoy it, but rather pretend to enjoy / agree with it. I must confess I was one of the pretenders. Now I could care less. As someone who is a Connoisseur of libraries, I believe that different genres of books meant to be enjoyed on different occasions. Marx could be read on the grass in a college campus. One would read the Bard on a cold winter evening by the fireplace , while a Dan Brown / Harry Potter would be read on a Sydney – LA flight. Different books for different situations.
Congrats. I take it that the date finished with more than a few gasps 😉
I screen more on sense of humour than anything else though I’m a music snob: appreciation of Brit humour is a must. If he’s not in stitches after reading Douglas Adams or watching Monty Python it’s not going to work out.
For me, bad spelling is the deal breaker. This way I can both judge book reading tastes at a meta-level and find out if they read at all or not. One of the smartest people (something else I screen for) I’ve met couldn’t write a sentence straight. I would have made an exception in that case but we didn’t even get to the third date. So I guess the orthography test is a good one after all, one that I can rely on when my judgment gets cloudy
Oooh I hear ya Meena. Although mine is a taller test, obscure NZ humour like Flight of the Conchords on HBO (10pm! Thursdays?… I think I only have the DVD because we don’t have fandangled things like HBO in NZ, only 4 channels and one is an endless repeat of a 1998 version of a Country Calendar special on different types of fence wiring. No, really).
I think it’s a lot easier when you live in a city/country that has a lot of the artsy-cultural-y things you like, whether it’s cool little art galleries or better gigs or indie bookshops and cafes…it’s the humour and the place, not the books! I have a BA in English too (someone seems to have listed that as a credential so I figured it must count for something other than a $20,000 debt certificate)…and I try to shop at indie bookshops and I like belle and sebastian and feist…but really, I think some random 80’s unknown actress said it best on Sleepless in Seattle… (I can feel the rotten tomatoes being thrown by film snobs, right now! I like David Lynch! kinda)…
there are some people you wouldn’t kick out of your bed for eatin’ crackers, and there are some you would…and while ayn rand or dan brown or jk rowling might be contributing factors, i doubt literary street-cred is the ultimate test of any relationship.
Abhi, the bad news is I’ve been cheating on you with another prominent desi blogger. Try and be strong for your readers.
The good news is you both dumped me over my (superior, of course) literary tastes within a 24-hour period. You shallow buggers:
Finally, I shall end with the quote of the day, from the Economist review of Salman Rushdie’s “The Enchantress of Florenceâ€: ‘Mr Rushdie ought to bear in mind that a novelist is at heart a storyteller, not a serial creator of self-delighting sentences.’ What baffles me is that there are actually many people who love those self-delighting sentences, such as the good friend who sent me the above link, Manish Vij. [Link]
I will point out that the preceding line in the review is: ‘Rushdie’s mediocre writing exceeds most novelists’ best.’ And liking The Kite Runner is definitely a disqualifier.*
*Unless you look like Padma Lakshmi, who had never read a Rushdie novel when she started dating the Salman.
Yes reading books is very useful as far as i am concern i am a voracious reader mostly of Srila Prabhupad of ISCKON,My wife is not a good reader so what? we get along well
Are you sure? Have you asked her how she feels about you lately?
Oh, the fiction list (reader’s list) had three of Ron Hubbard’s books (Battlefield Earth, Mission Earth and Fear) in the top 10. Even if one were to say that this is skewed towards science fiction more than Hubbard in particular, Hubbard is ranked higher than Heinlein and Douglas Adams (a little unlikely, given the style and content of their writing). The non-fiction list (again, reader’s list) has Hubbard’s Dianetics at #2, while #11 is an attack by Bruce Wiseman on psychiatry. All this taken together seems to point towards a sampling bias among those who voted in the poll, possibly due to self-selection.
Background info: Scientology & psychiatry, Battlefield Earth (novel), Battlefield Earth (film).
Frankly, i would just be grateful to meet a guy that actually reads books and not just mags. Screw it if his taste is different.
The NYT article: classic case of privileged white people in Manhattan scrutinize navels, find universal truths. Will desis follow suit?
Yeah, but can James Patterson issues be considered books? 😉
Abhi, you will be happy to know that Oscar Wao won again. Check out Diaz’s quote at the end. Love the man and loved the book!
My social life was so pathetic, I consciously chose not to overlay my book-snobbery as a filter. It worked out brilliantly. I ended up marrying a dyslexic who is crazy smart, but who remains unconvinced that I am not a perv for liking Lolita.
As for Ayn Rand – most DBDs have read it in college, because a secret American Capitalist organization printed thousands of bootleg copies and flooded street stalls with them. Ayn Rand and Linda Goodman too. I never read Rand, because I tired of hearing about her from (non)friends.
I loved this article — I thought it was funny and kind of right-on, at least for my friend cohort. I remember the first time I got into a heated conversation with a close friend over literary tastes. We both liked Love In The Time of Cholera (consensus: poetic), but we disagreed on Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness (her: brilliant, me: self-consciously hip) and Joyce’s Ulysses (her: masterful, me: only on top 10 lists because no one actually reads it). I think we stopped discussing books after that.
That said, the two comments I appreciated in the article were re: perversions (v. true), and also the recognition that two people may love a book for very different reasons, rendering book-compatibility an artifact.
Also, it’s interesting that there’s no real parsing out of likes/dislikes. I find Dan Brown’s writing atrocious, but my mom loved The Da Vinci Code — I don’t think this makes her less literary, it’s just the difference between watching a shlock movie and a film. I think I would go insane if I only read high-brow fiction and non-fiction.
I can’t believe the number of commenters here who think it’s shallow to judge the potential of a relationship based on literary tastes! You must mean beyond a basic, minimum level of shared tastes, surely? Because how is it shallow to like (or not like) someone for their mind, as opposed to their face or body?!? Really, someone tell me, what ELSE are you supposed to go by?!? Granted, if both parties read literary fiction, then whether or not you both LOVE Middlemarch (or Atonement, or William Trevor’s short stories) or merely feel lukewarm about it is probably not a total dealbreaker. But if one person’s reading Ian McEwan and the other is reading Sophie Kinsella — well, I’m not going to say it could NEVER EVER work because I never say never, but come on, surely the chances of it working are fairly low? There are always exceptions, including the people who’ve spoken up above, but really…..
Haven’t done LARP since sixth grade.
I fully agree (from experience) that it is important that the other person has qualities that one can put up with! If you are looking at a long term relationship, remember, it is these qualities that you are going to live with for a very long time! That said, it would be meaningful (and lots of fun) if there are some common tastes that go beyond mere agreement or mild enthusiasm. My husband and I were both voracious readers (that was several aeons ago, before we had children!) and we have lots of common authors/books we love. Once, we spent an entire evening wondering the name of a particular author – both of us had read stories of his when we were 12-14 and both of us were certain we knew who was being talked about and yet…we did not remember the author’s name. We couldn’t go to sleep….finally my husband fell asleep, while I kept wondering and reading another book, meantime. Suddenly, I yelled out: “RUSKIN BOND!” and he woke up, excited to hear the name, after which we both stayed up, searching for his books online. 🙂
Abhi,
Baby steps! I’m proud of you.
Didn’t I buy you a book for your birthday one year? Some of my most meaningful friendships are when there is a book exchange and the books shared are life changing. As for relationships gone bad, I knew it wasn’t meant to be when my ex gave me Ayn Rand and Edward Abby. I’m more of an Eggers and Fraer fan.
Reg #20: “my_dog_jagat” said: “For me, bad spelling is the deal breaker”
I agree! Back in the days when I was looking out, I’d tell my friends, “This guy did not even pass through the email test”! 😀 I have been called the neighborhood grammar Nazi, but then, we all have our pet peeves, don’t we? I used to feel strongly about spelling and that I couldn’t live with someone who could not spell (even often used words) correctly. Looking back, I feel that maybe that was rather condescending, but….could I really put up with that? With my husband’s current job that takes him out of town every week and my own busy schedule, we barely get time to talk and a lot of our communication is by email – would I like it if every email had lots of spelling mistakes?! No, I would not. I’d get irritated and when I am angry, I am sure I’d say: “…and you can’t even spell properly”!
Whatever matters to us deeply – we need to be certain that the other person shares it/is compatible on the issue. Otherwise, we are setting ourselves for expectations that won’t be met and will result in disappointment and anger.
So… just to throw in my 2 cents here, I always thought I’d end up with a guy who read the same books I read, listened to the same books I listened to, etc, but as it turned out, I fell in love with and married a man who didn’t read much at all but played video games instead. Needless to say our taste in music was VASTLY different too. It worked out beautifully though – he still listens to my opinions on books, and I still listen to his critiques on video games, and we both have some exposure to music we wouldn’t have listened to otherwise. In then end, there wasn’t really a conflict so it didn’t really matter.
Things might have been different if he had said he liked “One night in a call center” though.
er… that’s “listened to the same music..”
I think nixing someone based solely on the books you like or music isn’t shallow, it’s stupid. Two people can like or dislike the same exact thing, but come at it from totally different directions.
38 · deepal said
Absolutely. For Abhi and other estranged lovers I recommend the following book as a solution – How to talk about books that you haven’t read I have it in my collection but haven’t yet read it 🙂
An interesting article, Abhi. In 7 years, I never saw my ex-husband read even one book, while I read constantly. And he hated that I read so much, that should have given me a clue how our relationship would end up.
Absolutely. For Abhi and other estranged lovers I recommend the following book as a solution – How to talk about books that you haven’t read I have it in my collection but haven’t yet read it 🙂
Here is another interesting review of the same book by Bayard in New York
Reading Ayn Rand is something you do in high school when you’re trying to expand your intellectual horizons and to look cool because you get that whole “eugenics thingy”. That’s my snobby bit. Reading Rand is all part of the journey – so is reading Camus, Nietzsche, Nabokov, Beckett. In defense of Waiting for Godot, it’s best seen rather than read. Camille, since it’s on your list, the BBC has done a fine job of recording Ulysses, you can listen to it and follow along in the book – total cheating but fun and you can cross it off your list.
This idea of picking a partner based on the compatibility of his reading list with yours is narrow-minded. But, I will say, I’m now looking at Rob in a whole new light after learning he’s a fan Dostoyevsky.
pingpong, you’d have more fun with the lusty librarian – Nancy Pearl’s reading list.
Great article! I am a bookaholic, have always been, got married to a man who thinks fiction is a waste of forests (discovered this after we were well and truly married:-)). 14 years and 2 kids later, we just amicably inhabit our parallel universes. Our most recent purchases at B and N: him- “Military Jets”, me – “Other Boleyn Girl”. Both happy.
I never read books. I only read book reviews. They tell me everything I need to know about the story plus the literary criticism. Saves time and having to think, and allows me to converse seemingly intelligently about a huge range of books.
Ever since High Fidelity, every semi-literate hipster I meet has his or her Top Ten books, movies, albums, etc. I’ve decided that more than political, artistic or any other preference, I’m no longer dating anyone who makes lists. Or maybe I should just stop hanging out with semi-literate hipsters.
Oh my. I was first exposed to intellectual snobbery over Ayn Rand around 20 when I met an older desi boy who was full of angst, was questioning his religious upbriging and talked about Ayn Rand to no end. I think till about 28/29 (enter the real world) I really related to a lot of the philosophies and pretended to be an Ayn Rand snob myself.
Alas on the other side of 30s it started to lose water and I lost interest and moved onto more boring things like History. I used to think I read a lot (yeah another self absord desi notion) till I met my husband. He listens to books on tape and goes thru about 10 books a month. WTF. We never discussed books and literature when we met and I didn’t discover our common love of History well into our marriage.
Of course he also knows nothing about blogs, has never read mine, uses the internet to check mail, car reviews and get sports updates and isn’t on Facebook but recently while cleaning when he discovered copies of Dan Brown and a biography of Barry Goldwater and an old copy of the National Review he declared rather loudly that had he known my literary tastes before he proposed he wouldn’t have!
Of course when he fell asleep during a recent showing of Romeo and Juliet and admitted to me after that he hated Shakespeare and could care less for his literature my so called intellectual snobbery came rushing into my head. Too late now that we are already married!
😉
I guess this kind of bakwaas gives intellectual cover to the class obsessed ivy-league wallahs who only wanna hang with their own kind…sorta makes the most puerile snobbery OK..
Instead why not just say – look i have a very fancy, expensive and mostly useless education, I also have a lot of anxiety due to the fact that I dont really come from money, and so there is no way I am gonna hang out with some barsati college state U type…
I think Ayn Rand appeals to so many DBDs because of the theory we hold dear that we ‘make’ it based on our own merits (i.e., it provides an argument for anti-reservation folks).
On another note, my husband didn’t read much when we started dating (kinda strange, since his father is a writer)… but he was intellectually curious enough to read things I recommended to him. He now reads all the time, and has certainly moved on to developing his own tastes. My point is, rather than booting someone because he/she doesn’t meet your literary requirements, try to develop it as a habit together.
do comic books qualify as literature?
Did somebody say puerile snobbery ??