The biggest one I can think of is The Catcher in the Rye. It is a good book, and if someone likes The Catcher in the Rye it means they are well-read. If someone says it is their favorite book then they probably identify with it too much and missed the point.
What are some other examples of this that you know of?
by Strong_Site_348
23 Comments
That book by Nabokov?
inb4 someone says Lolita
Harry Potter probably? plenty of people grew up with those books without making it their entire personality to the point of defending hate screeds from a weird old lady spiraling out of control in her castle.
1984, or any of the “bigger” dystopian novels.
The Prince.
Opposite of what you suggest: The Little Prince. If you *don’t* think it is one of your favorite books, I definitely have questions. And if you only kinda like it, you missed the point.
>If someone says it is their favorite book then they probably identify with it too much and missed the point.
How could you possibly conclude that from the simple fact of it being their favorite book?
counterpoint, they see it as their favorite cause they understand the point.
Art does not dictate morality. Your favorite book can tell you a lot about one person, but it cannot tell you if someone is good or bad. There are a million reason why a book can be attractive for someone.
One can like 100 years of solitude either for the beauty of the prose, the family dynamics, the magical realism, the historical context, or a bunch of other stuff.
People can say “Oh, if you like Lolita then it is a red flag”. Really? Literally one of the most beautiful books ever written and it’s weird for you to understand why can someone prefer it over other lesser books.
All the Ugly and Wonderful Things
A little life. How can that be your fav book?!?!?
Some of Dawkins’s stuff and similar entry-level atheism works. People occasionally manage to build their entire personality around them, and it’s not a good look. If you want to promote critical thinking, being a condescending prick ain’t it, chief.
what a fun question
The Jungle
American Psycho
Anthem or Atlas Shrugged
for kids: any Roald Dahl or Orson Scott Card
Anything by nietzsche, sartre, or camus.
I really don’t see having read Catcher in the Rye as being well read, just young and probably male.
The Wasp Factory
It more on the reason it’s their favourite. Simply being their favourite tells you nothing about them. Catcher in the Rye being someone’s favourite book doesn’t inherently mean they didn’t understand it or relate too much.
Steppenwolf. Mainly just associate it with a human land mine who considered it his favourite book.
Anything by Ayn Rand?
I am a bit tired of people that make books their own personality or that attribute personality traits based on books read.
Books that you read and like don’t imply you’re a bad person or a good person. If that were the case, all religious people that read the Bible/Quran/Torah/ etc would be the quintessential good and altruistic person.
If someone read Mein Kampf it doesn’t mean they’re a raging nazi, same as reading books where horrible things happen doesn’t mean you are a killer/rapist/whatever . And it doesn’t even mean that you condone violence.
Books don’t make you gay, they don’t make you evil, arguably we can say they don’t even make you smart – they can increase your knowledge, but that’s not the same as being smart.
Associating a book with a personality trait, or thinking that they can cause X and Y it’s such a simplistic and distorted view that can only stem from lack of critical thinking.
If X book = bad person/good person we wouldn’t need psychologist now, would we? Or police, for that matter. We could weed out the bad apples before they committed crimes, just arrest anyone that buy and read forbidden books.
The fact that banning books is a thing , again, in the US, speaks volume on how incredibly stupid this notion is.
That’s a narrow point of view, to judge someone by the books they like.
Books are supposed to help broaden your perspective and process complex emotions. Sometimes a book will resonate in unexpected ways. This is not a tell to a person’s morality.
This mentality is what leads to book shaming and book bans.
I read Catcher in the Rye last year for class and it’s one of my favorite books. Holden reminds me of me circa 2017-2021, and Catcher taught me that if I can have compassion for Holden and recognise him as a kid who’s hurting rather than as just a douchebag, maybe I can also have a little bit of compassion for myself.
Blood Meridian 🚩🚩🚩
What a strange thing to think a reader would embrace such a narrow concept.
dumb post and (mostly) dumb responses…