A young woman I know sent me the link to an article that I admit comes from an unusual source for “First Thoughts,” but one that amused me: Favorite Books of the Secretly Jerky. If you can’t (always) tell a book by its cover, you can often tell a man by his reading, and the article’s insights seem to me accurate. For example:
Secretly Loves Himself More Than He Loves [Anything]: Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand.
He’s not going to feed your fish when you go out of town, and he’ll be mean to your mom.
Secretly a Blubbering Manchild: Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger.
I’m not saying this is a bad book. This is a pretty good book! I’d still like to raise two points. One, when a dude says it’s his favorite, I automatically think “So he hasn’t read anything since tenth grade English.” And two, any time a person over the age of 18 tells you how much they identify with Holden Caulfield, it’s a warning sign. Like a warning sign with flashing lights and shrieky sirens and a third alarming thing. I mean, I’m not telling you how to live your life, ladies. I’m just letting you know what you’re walking into. Do it with your eyes open.
If any of you have additional suggestions, please add them. I love The Lord of the Rings and write on apologetics, but I’d be a little nervous if a young man interested in one of my daughters told me that either was his favorite reading.
August 3rd, 2011 | 11:39 am
SECRETLY IS AN AIRHEAD AND INCAPABLE OF HOLDING A RATIONAL THOUGHT IN HIS HEAD: THE LITTLE PRINCE, Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
“One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.” In other words, don’t expect me to get a real job. I plan to sit at home, write poetry, commune with nature, and smoke some ganja, all the while bemoaning the mindless hustle and bustle of life in an oppressive United States.
August 3rd, 2011 | 11:44 am
A couple of thought-experiments:
(1) What would be the books that one *would* want a suitor of one’s daughter to read, or, if one is someone’s daughter, what books would one *want* one’s suitor to read?
(2) If one is not a daughter but a son, what books would one want — and not want — one’s lady-friend to read?
August 3rd, 2011 | 12:10 pm
Gee, I don’t think I’d let a guy date my daughter who HASN’T read “The Lord of the Rings”!
August 3rd, 2011 | 12:37 pm
Better a “Lord of the Rings” suitor than the “American Psycho.”
August 3rd, 2011 | 1:43 pm
SECRETLY HAS ANGER ISSUES: Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk. If that’s their favorite book, chances are they miss all the subtext and wished Tyler Durden stuck around a bit longer.
SECRETLY A PIT OF UNRELENTING SNARK: Three-way tie: Any Dilbert Book, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams, and any Terry Pratchett book.
For Tavener, here’s some books for women:
SECRETLY A ROMANTIC PERFECTIONIST: Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen. If they start talking about the Colin Firth miniseries, run away.
SECRETLY WANTS YOU TO SLEEP WITH YOUR BEST MALE FRIEND: Vampire Knight, by Matsuri Hino, although any manga on the shelf of a woman 21 or older may be suspect. If she is buying a lot of plastic wrapped ones with pretty boys on the cover, and M4M keeps popping up in her Goodreads recommendations, be warned.
SECRETLY WILL DUMP YOU FOR THE BIKER DOWN THE ROAD: Any of the Sookie Stackhouse series. Heck, any adult fantasy/romance with vampires, werewolves, weretigers, wereleopards, and others. I fantasize about being in love with dangerous creatures that might make me one of them or kill me!
SECRETLY IS AFRAID OF BIG SCARY MEN: When The Cradle Will Fall, by Mary Higgins Clark. Check out her thrillers list and read the books. If the heroine is a woman, and 99% of the time the villain is a male who does things like kidnap children, get ready to do a lot of subconscious reassuring.
August 3rd, 2011 | 2:12 pm
Secretly plans to bore you to death, or seriously sneaky at getting around trick relationship questions: Moby Dick.
Because, c’mon, nobody has actually read Moby Dick to call his bluff who has lived to talk about it.
August 3rd, 2011 | 2:17 pm
Reads Karen Kingsbury but NOT Pride and Prejudice or Emma or Jane Eyre because they’re “not Christian – a woman who lives in an insular subculture and will bolt the moment real romantic interst rears its ugly head.
Won’t read Terry Pratchett or Douglas Adams, ever – a man who takes himself too seriously.
August 3rd, 2011 | 4:11 pm
Nah, Pratchett and Adams appeal to the people who take themselves too seriously. They appeal to an engineer personality, and those tend to find humor in dry cutting wit and snark. Plus, all three of them tend to get the atheist fundamentalists in droves. Test them by handing them a Spider Robinson, Robert Asprin, or Esther Friesner sf novel and see if they like it. Or see if they poke fun at themselves rather than at others.
Kingsbury is tough because the people who read her are evangelical christians, and that is a whole other dating issue. The original list was secular. I’m not even sure how many under 25 people read her. But no one tries to spin Kingsbury into the sign of an educated person, or assumes she has something to teach society.
August 3rd, 2011 | 4:30 pm
I just want to encourage everyone who reads the article to also read the first 30 or so comments. There are some really meaty recommendations sandwiched in among them.
August 3rd, 2011 | 10:54 pm
@ Mark. Last summer my nephew was reading it while on a family vacation and my brother then picked it up. They were engrossed. I borrowed a library copy, annotated no less, and loved it! Once a few people in one family read it, conversations get sprinkled with MD allusions and laughter ensues.
Any other MD fans?
August 4th, 2011 | 11:14 am
You don’t want your daughter dating someone who thinks that no one has read Moby Dick just because he hasn’t or he couldn’t or he won’t. Insert any other book for Moby Dick and the principle also applies.
August 4th, 2011 | 11:23 am
And you don’t want your son getting interested in, let alone dating, a girl into vampires, et al. In the end, she will want to be “just friends” and have him listen to her talk (and talk and talk) about how badly she was bit by her latest Drac.
August 5th, 2011 | 9:34 am
[...] Books of the Secretly Jerky is a brief and humorous analysis of five famous books. (Hat tip: First Thoughts with its own interesting comments) Related Posts:A Mathematical Approach to HamletNot the 50 books [...]
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact