Hate My Favorite Book? I Hate You!

Okay, okay, maybe that's overstating it a wee bit, but not by much. For many readers, someone who dislikes their favorite book is inherently suspect, certainly untrustworthy, guilty of poor judgment at best and more likely engaging in subversive activities. I, too, am guilty of this genetic prejudice. When I learn that someone dislikes The Great Gatsby, I figure there's not much point in talking to them any longer and quite naturally wonder what other unsavory vices they've performed in the past. Now, I know students are forced to read TGG when they're too young to appreciate it and no one likes to be manhandled into reading anything. But it's a great book! Rather than working myself into apoplexy, however, I'll simply refer you benighted souls to So We Read On (2014) by Maureen Corrigan, the NPR book critic, who has explained and enumerated the manifold virtues of TGG far better than I can. But why this visceral reaction to something that seems like a relatively tame difference of opinion? If someone doesn't like coconut, I feel sorry for them that they're missing out on this tropical culinary pleasure. The joy of a Mounds bar. But I don't dislike them. I'm baffled, confused, and pitying, but there's no animosity. We don't all like the same things (of course if you don't like chocolate you are a communist). Similar emotions exist when people don't enjoy the music I like. Too bad for you. And I don't expect others to appreciate the films or TV series I love. But books are different. Books touch a certain part of us, they're private and personal even as we know they're a public product. But our favorite books are a secret treasure, a special moment we want to return to again and again. And for someone else to have read the same book and not felt as we did? To have touched that gem and not appreciated it -- unforgivable. Such a lapse in taste, judgment, intelligence. How can we even coexist with them? They are far too different. The true difference between people is not race, religion, or choice in t-shirts: it's the books we love. 🐢