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Happy Ides of March! Presumably none of you need beware.
And in a non-sequitory kind of way, let me make it perfectly clear that I understand Walt Whitman's place in the American canon, but I still don't like his poetry very much. And the same can be said of Watchmen.
One of the books that I'm reading at right now has a huge chapter on Whitman that I just finished slogging through, which kept reminding me of a friend I had back in undergrad who, when I said I didn't like Whitman's stuff, went on and on about his importance to the canon etc. Which I understand perfectly well, but it's not going to make me rush out and buy Leaves of Grass and read it of an evening.
The same sort of thing happened with another friend and Watchmen a few years later - I told him I was not blown away by it because the themes in it were not new to me, coming to it so many years after it had been written. His response was to tell me, over and over, that nothing like it had ever been written before. Which I know perfectly well. But it doesn't change the fact that my reading experience was less "WOW! This is AMAZING!" and more "Been there, done that, don't like any of the characters, whatever." I don't think I'm going to all of a sudden turn around and go "OH MY GOD I am BLOWN AWAY by this!"
And in a non-sequitory kind of way, let me make it perfectly clear that I understand Walt Whitman's place in the American canon, but I still don't like his poetry very much. And the same can be said of Watchmen.
One of the books that I'm reading at right now has a huge chapter on Whitman that I just finished slogging through, which kept reminding me of a friend I had back in undergrad who, when I said I didn't like Whitman's stuff, went on and on about his importance to the canon etc. Which I understand perfectly well, but it's not going to make me rush out and buy Leaves of Grass and read it of an evening.
The same sort of thing happened with another friend and Watchmen a few years later - I told him I was not blown away by it because the themes in it were not new to me, coming to it so many years after it had been written. His response was to tell me, over and over, that nothing like it had ever been written before. Which I know perfectly well. But it doesn't change the fact that my reading experience was less "WOW! This is AMAZING!" and more "Been there, done that, don't like any of the characters, whatever." I don't think I'm going to all of a sudden turn around and go "OH MY GOD I am BLOWN AWAY by this!"
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My oldest daughter turns THIRTEEN today.
...I had the same experience with Asimov. My dad (who actually looked enough like Asimov to have been mistaken for him on occasion) was a huge fan, and kept trying to ge me into the Foundation books. I read the first, and while I was willing to admit that it was obviously Important Science Fiction, it really didn't float my boat. He never quite understood.
I have come to realize recently that I feel the same way about Akira, which for years I tried to convince myself I LIKED because no self-respecting anime fan would NOT like Akira. But I never just want to watch it.
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While, totally bias-ed-ly, I think Tezuka's works are mostly in the second, because people are still saying new things about them even though they've been imitated right down to the protagonists' outfits for fifty years. For all that everyone calls it a classic, I don't think I've ever heard anyone having a conversation about Akira that lasted more than three minutes.