Reading Circle Community Group
A group for folks in all walks of life in any situation that want to expand their minds or occupy themselves away from a pressing matter and delve into reading good literature. Activities will include but are not limited to discussions on books read, recommendations on what to read, and critical analysis to broaden appreciation for old and new literature.
I have decided after much deliberation, that the public library system wither needs a huge overhaul in its services or it should be completely eradicated and all public libraries should be converted into parking lots.
My own neighborhood library is a beastly place. I am certainly not dubbing everyone's town library a cesspool, but mine happens to be, what I think, a part of Dante's journey into hell. I suppose it's not been recorded into that path of infernal hell fire because like the Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross in Harry Potter, it's not visible and is known only to those who have the power to see it. I am going to postulate that the public library system falls somewhere in the end of Ring Three (those harmful against God, nature, and art, as well as usurers) and
Circle Eight (The Fraudulent).
I thought it was just a sensitive sense of smell during pregnancy that made me think that our neighborhood library smelled like urine, brussel sprouts, and dead wombats. I had taken Jaquelin there as a compromise of activity since lumbering anywhere that required me to move my body became increasingly difficult.
I like books.
She likes books.
A trip to the library would be an excellent place to both not move too much and also have a world of new and exciting literature available to Jaquelin.
Upon entering the building, I felt the sudden urge to dry-heave due to the smell, but quelled it, thinking I was being overly-sensitive to some patron that was having some bodily problems. I figured some time in the establishment might desensitize me to the odor, but to no avail
The smell never dissipated, and I am convinced that sometime in 1956 something large died in the air ducts and has been rotting there since, as I could locate no one person from where the particular smell was emanating. Rather, it rest heavily on the air, like a consumptive and aromatic fog.
To make matters worse, because the employees and volunteers that work the circulation desk (no pun intended) are all seemingly in their nineties, the heat was running at full-force when it was 70-something degrees outside.
It was and still is like walking into a real instance of a shit sandwich.
The children's section, while quaint and cute, was teeming with children who were not attended by their parents and took to throwing books, screeching, and assorted misbehavior. To my horror I saw a small child ripping pages from a picture book. I felt sadness at that sight.
Jaquelin chose her books and we promptly left, choosing in two weeks time to return the books through the drop-off rather than have to set foot into the nightmarish book sewer again. Luckily, our local community college has a children's section in their library, so all is not a loss, I suppose.
Maybe it's just this particular library that has gotten run down, but there are fundamental flaws within all of the libraries across America.
You'd think I'd be a huge advocate of a place that houses my eternal love affair with books. Sadly, this is not the case. Were the libraries only to carry volumes of books that are deemed proper literature, than I perhaps would shift my stance on the somewhat uselessness of the buildings.
However, with the dusty, yellow-paged and dog-eared copies of the masterpieces, there is an inordinate amount of pure rubbish that somehow was able to convince some insane publishing house to print. And sell. And someone must have bought them in enough quantity that they have ended up in circulation at our friendly public libraries.
Romance novels.
I am sorry if you are a fan of the genre...not because I fear offending you, but sorry that your taste is so bad.
Who am I to judge, you say? I have perused the genre in question, to see if I could figure out its draw...but I have come up without answer. I suppose the existence of these horrifying excuses for words on paper can be likened to the existence of shows like Jerry Springer and 'Professional Wrestling. I had the displeasure as recent as today to catch a glimpse of a Jerry Springer episode. Ellorie was playing with the remote control and flipped to it, and I squinted at it, first surprised that the show was still on the air, and then completely baffled as to why there was a large man dressed in a baby bonnet and a diaper sitting in an inflatable pool and an equally large woman taking off her shirt to expose her shockingly alien-looking flabby stomach on national television. In equal oddity, the camera then panned to hand puppets as audience members. Who watches this? Who?!
Romance novels are the death of everything good about literature. The formulaic plot and the raunchy sex romps that are described by using words like 'member' and pulsing, hot volcano for sexual organs riddle each and every novel in the same ridiculous manner. Bordering on comic pornography, these atrocities are well in stock at all public libraries.
It's horrifying.
Magazines that have no quality informational value.
People, The National Enquirer, Teen Bop...
Exactly what need is there to have these rags in a public domain that should be a place of academic fellowship? To what to they give a hand in teaching? Celebrity gossip? How will the presence of these magazines aid in any sort of learning.
There should only be instruction, informational, and academic DVD and VHS cassettes in the libraries. The fact that I see Disney DVDs and the like occupy a huge shelf in the back is ludicrous. How is borrowing Aladdin or The Lion King at all a learning experience? National Geographic, History compilations and the like should be what sits in that back shelf.
There shouldn't be the option of these things in a library. If libraries are to exist for the benefit of society, they should carry tools that advocate learning, with no exception. People would still patron them and access what is readily available, even if it happens to actually expand their mind, rather than dull it.
My own neighborhood library is a beastly place. I am certainly not dubbing everyone's town library a cesspool, but mine happens to be, what I think, a part of Dante's journey into hell. I suppose it's not been recorded into that path of infernal hell fire because like the Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross in Harry Potter, it's not visible and is known only to those who have the power to see it. I am going to postulate that the public library system falls somewhere in the end of Ring Three (those harmful against God, nature, and art, as well as usurers) and
Circle Eight (The Fraudulent).
I thought it was just a sensitive sense of smell during pregnancy that made me think that our neighborhood library smelled like urine, brussel sprouts, and dead wombats. I had taken Jaquelin there as a compromise of activity since lumbering anywhere that required me to move my body became increasingly difficult.
I like books.
She likes books.
A trip to the library would be an excellent place to both not move too much and also have a world of new and exciting literature available to Jaquelin.
Upon entering the building, I felt the sudden urge to dry-heave due to the smell, but quelled it, thinking I was being overly-sensitive to some patron that was having some bodily problems. I figured some time in the establishment might desensitize me to the odor, but to no avail
The smell never dissipated, and I am convinced that sometime in 1956 something large died in the air ducts and has been rotting there since, as I could locate no one person from where the particular smell was emanating. Rather, it rest heavily on the air, like a consumptive and aromatic fog.
To make matters worse, because the employees and volunteers that work the circulation desk (no pun intended) are all seemingly in their nineties, the heat was running at full-force when it was 70-something degrees outside.
It was and still is like walking into a real instance of a shit sandwich.
The children's section, while quaint and cute, was teeming with children who were not attended by their parents and took to throwing books, screeching, and assorted misbehavior. To my horror I saw a small child ripping pages from a picture book. I felt sadness at that sight.
Jaquelin chose her books and we promptly left, choosing in two weeks time to return the books through the drop-off rather than have to set foot into the nightmarish book sewer again. Luckily, our local community college has a children's section in their library, so all is not a loss, I suppose.
Maybe it's just this particular library that has gotten run down, but there are fundamental flaws within all of the libraries across America.
You'd think I'd be a huge advocate of a place that houses my eternal love affair with books. Sadly, this is not the case. Were the libraries only to carry volumes of books that are deemed proper literature, than I perhaps would shift my stance on the somewhat uselessness of the buildings.
However, with the dusty, yellow-paged and dog-eared copies of the masterpieces, there is an inordinate amount of pure rubbish that somehow was able to convince some insane publishing house to print. And sell. And someone must have bought them in enough quantity that they have ended up in circulation at our friendly public libraries.
Romance novels.
I am sorry if you are a fan of the genre...not because I fear offending you, but sorry that your taste is so bad.
Who am I to judge, you say? I have perused the genre in question, to see if I could figure out its draw...but I have come up without answer. I suppose the existence of these horrifying excuses for words on paper can be likened to the existence of shows like Jerry Springer and 'Professional Wrestling. I had the displeasure as recent as today to catch a glimpse of a Jerry Springer episode. Ellorie was playing with the remote control and flipped to it, and I squinted at it, first surprised that the show was still on the air, and then completely baffled as to why there was a large man dressed in a baby bonnet and a diaper sitting in an inflatable pool and an equally large woman taking off her shirt to expose her shockingly alien-looking flabby stomach on national television. In equal oddity, the camera then panned to hand puppets as audience members. Who watches this? Who?!
Romance novels are the death of everything good about literature. The formulaic plot and the raunchy sex romps that are described by using words like 'member' and pulsing, hot volcano for sexual organs riddle each and every novel in the same ridiculous manner. Bordering on comic pornography, these atrocities are well in stock at all public libraries.
It's horrifying.
Magazines that have no quality informational value.
People, The National Enquirer, Teen Bop...
Exactly what need is there to have these rags in a public domain that should be a place of academic fellowship? To what to they give a hand in teaching? Celebrity gossip? How will the presence of these magazines aid in any sort of learning.
There should only be instruction, informational, and academic DVD and VHS cassettes in the libraries. The fact that I see Disney DVDs and the like occupy a huge shelf in the back is ludicrous. How is borrowing Aladdin or The Lion King at all a learning experience? National Geographic, History compilations and the like should be what sits in that back shelf.
There shouldn't be the option of these things in a library. If libraries are to exist for the benefit of society, they should carry tools that advocate learning, with no exception. People would still patron them and access what is readily available, even if it happens to actually expand their mind, rather than dull it.
The romance novels that I speak of are not to be confused with the European and to some extent American Romantic period begins at least in the 1770's and continues into the second half of the nineteenth century. I think the American period lasted longer. This is vastly, vastly different than the Fabio novels that I speak of.
I'm speaking of the tripe that follow the same formulaic, nonthinking plot--I.e. VC Andrews, Jackie Collins, and yes, unfortunately Danielle Steel.
Said pornography and violence in literature is not an issue if it has some symbolic or underlying meaning, with the attempt to enlighten and justify or validate a point, as the Bible tends to have. Though not religious, I see the Bible as a fantastic work of literature, in which can be sought to make sense of other literary greats.
Even Gone with the Wind has much poignancy and can be called upon to revisit a time in American History that is a staple in our lives. Not really considered the romance novels that I am talking about...
But I still hold firm that if the 'fluff' were extricated form the libraries, patrons would find amusement and enlightenment in real literature.
As an aside, Romeo and Juliet may have the backdrop of love in the plot, but it is certainly not a romance. In fact, I'd tend to choose that as the last sort of genre under which the play falls.
Thanks for the input, it's nice to see new members. My opinion is in no way the law (though I think it'd be nice if it was...) And all have right to read, think, believe what they choose in the exception that it doesn't hinder anyone else,...
Cheers.
I'm proud of myself. I typed this with one finger while eating an ice cream sandwich.
~debbie