Does it get more trivial than this?
I’m hard-put to think of many things more inconsequential, trivial, or sophomoric than Gentlemen’s Quarterly magazine. Still, they made a stir a few days ago by including the Bible in a list of “21 books you don’t have to read,” calling God’s word “foolish” and “ill-intentioned” (https://www.gq.com/story/21-books-you-dont-have-to-read).
I have to admit I agree with their assessment of some of the books on their list as a waste of time. That’s why I avoid stuff like Catcher in the Rye. But where it really gets interesting is when they tell you why certain books are bad and tell you what you ought to read instead.
The article is by “the editors of GQ,” taking shelter in the kind of anonymity found among a shoal of herrings.
Yes, the 21 bad books are bad because they are–sure you don’t want to take a guess, before I tell you? Go ahead, think about it, I’ll wait.
Right! The books are… Racist! Excessively masculine! Not enough Women of Color in them! “The editors” prefer books in which the male characters act like girls with beards, or, even better, in which there are no male characters at all. They don’t, for instance, want you reading Robert Graves’ first-person memoir, Goodbye to All That, about the nightmare of service on the front lines during World War I. See, here and there, Graves made a “Racist” comment–so it’s goodbye to his book.
They don’t think you should read Lord of the Rings, but skip telling you why.
And they don’t want you reading the Bible at all. Want to protect you from Jesus, don’t you know.
As fantastic as it may seem, the age we live in now is full of supposedly smart people who reject forgiveness of sins and eternal life.
It embarrasses me to be living in it.
These ideas (if you could even flatter them to call them ideas) are so trivial and silly, when I was a kid, if anyone came up with this garbage, they would have had to stand with their nose in the corner until their brains became operative again.
It’s unfortunate to be defeated, no question about that. It’s worse to surrender while there’s a shred of possibility to avoid doing so, but to simply capitulate and leave one’s dignity behind is a travesty, yet the is exactly what the author of the article is suggesting.
The reviewer who recommends The Notebook in place of The Bible apparently hasn’t read the Bible. His ignorance shows through.
GQ is overrated!
Agreed! Who cares what these people say? They have no importance other than a byline in a magazine. So what?!?!?!?!?! Just because someone in in print, or on TV, or sings songs played on the radio or acts in movies, that doesn’t make their opinions worthwhile.
GQ is a magazine for gavones who care what other gavones think about their clothes.
I guess. It certainly doesn’t sound interesting to me.
Exactly! Their ratings determine their “opinions.” “Hair gods”? – LOL! There’s an old Irish saying: “Oh, to have the gift to see us as others see us.” GQ and other rags are incapable of insight. And remember that song title “Blinded By The Light”? Keep on shining yours, Unknowable.
GQ is just pandering to their audience. The writings in the Bible have endured for thousands of years, have changed the course of Western civilization and world history, and have affected the lives of untold billions. When GQ can exceed those standards, then maybe I will listen to what they have to say.
Ironically, my militant-atheist mother thought the Bible was a beautifully written book, with much wisdom in it, and she even quoted parts of it on occasion. She thought the religion was untrue, but that didn’t spoil the Bible’s beauty for her, any more than her disbelief in Roman paganism spoiled the glories of The Aeneid for her. The editors of GQ must be less secure in their atheism than my mother was in hers — which means that there’s hope for them. They may yet be saved. (I have similar hope for my mother, who towards the end of her life seemed to have stopped fighting the idea of God, and who kept a Bible near her until she could no longer read.)
However, I do agree that Salinger and Hemingway have been overrated, but my reasons are different from those of the GQ editors. As for Henry James, I think it was Richard Armour who once joked about a reader who got trapped between a set of parentheses in a James novel and wandered back and forth helplessly until he starved to death. 🙂
We read “The Ambassadors” in collidge. I read a lot of things in collidge that never did me any good.
More imbeciles. Just what this fallen world needs. Imbeciles who read imbecilic rags.
Phoebe, you just gave me a great laugh. Thanks. I had never heard the story about the guy helplessly caught between parenthesis! 🙂
Here’s another thing that will probably arrive here soon – along with the foreseeable attendant frustrations:
http://www.nowtheendbegins.com/china-bank-first-ever-all-robots-no-humans-now-the-end-begins/
There are already too many human beings who can’t stop imitating robots.
Right you are, Lee! As evidenced by the GQ article 🙂
“GQ” is a failing magazine as Donald Trump would say. Who cares what they say? Talk about ignorance on display. They think “Huckleberry Finn” promotes racism when it is just the exact opposite.These GQ editors are laughable.
Good point, Huckleberry Finn was a masterstroke of teaching people that blacks were human. Clemens was making a point with this story.
Liberals think that depicting slavery as something that actually existed is the same as trying to bring it back–except, of course, when demanding “reparations” for something that ended 150 years ago.
The character “Jim” may have been the first opportunity some readers at the time would have had to contemplate the humanity of the slaves. He was a good man, a kind man and he had feelings. Huckleberry was confused, even puzzled, but he eventually understood something he had never before imagined.
GQ is a sodomite pedophile cult. The editors worship Baphomet and drink human blood at Molech sacrifice rituals. Who cares what they say? Jesus Christ is the Word of God and shall soon come with flaming fire taking vengeance upon these.
Gee, you’d think they’d try to conceal that.
Evil has become bold.