There is tension in the den. The Foxes are all a-quiver with anticipation, and emotions are running high.
“Why is this?” I hear you cry. “What ails the little Foxes that they should be all come over?”
We’re going to be bad. We’re going to be very bad. For one week - and in the nicest possible way, you understand - the bravest/most foolhardy (delete whichever does not apply) amongst us are going for the jugular of world classics, mega bestsellers and iconic characters.
We’ve all experienced it. You finally get around to reading that masterpiece of world literature or the modern work of genius that’s been at the top of the bestseller lists for weeks, and slowly … v-e-r-y slowly … it begins to dawn on you that you’ve read more rewarding bus tickets. What floats the boat of the reading millions simply doesn’t do it for you.
Here, then, are those that we have NOT loved.
Coming attractions will be two foxes at each other’s throats over Jude the Obscure (which should be a bit like nude mud wrestling, only more seemly), our resident Russian Fox laying into Tolstoy, our US vixen cutting Ernest Hemingway down to size and then jumping on the pieces, a bit of a hatchet job on a runaway 2004 mega-seller and a (possibly suicidal) assault on one of the most iconic romantic heroes in Victorian fiction.
You are cordially invited to wade in and start swinging … but please DO remember that we’re only having fun. Sort of.
Flour bombs, pickaxe handles and rotten tomatoes at the ready …
How marvellous!! More of this kind of thing, please! - though I must admit to loving “Jude the Obscure”. All that doom, gloom and depression - so uplifting …
I must say - am I allowed to say? Oh I do hope so! - how much I hated that dreadful “Kite Runner” (load of old tosh about children - I didn’t get much beyond p15 before I lost the will to live) and I found that thing about the Ukrainian tractors (which was so awful that I can’t even bear thinking about the title) to be totally clunky and absolutely NOT FUNNY. Achingly bad indeed.
I could go on - but I feel cleansed now for having even said those two, so I’d better let other people in on the fun. Lordy, but it’s like an enema - thank you!
:))
A
xxx
Whee, this sounds like a wonderful idea! Go for it, Foxes, and I will be checking in to make sure this is serious tomato-slinging, not a few underipe cherry tomatoes that just bounce off.
And I must echo Anne - I hated the Kite Runner, I forced myself to get to half way before flinging it aside, and the Ukrainian tractors also held absolutely no appeal. Could I add Saturday by McEwan to that list - made me want to rip all my hair out one strand at a time. And Girl with a Pearl Earring…
OK, sorry. I’ll leave the ranting to you guys.
Tania
Yes, Saturday was awful and ruddy Chesil Beach was no better. What’s happened to McEwan - has he been swopped for an alien?? The reading world demands to know …
However, must admit to (sorry, Tania!) loving Girl with a Pearl Earring - one of my all-time favourites, sorry …
==:O
A
xxx
Ahkkk–the pressure! How can we possibly live up to such an entertaining introduction?
Ooooh Anne! I can’t BEAR Jude (particularly all the clunking sexual imagery) but I liked Tractors (again, strangely, featuring some blatent sexual imagery in key role.) Don’t know what this says about me.
Rant away.
I’m sure, as usual, noone on Vulpes will agree with each other, so I can’t imagine anything can be taken too personally.
This sounds like it’s going to be a blast! Hemingway and Tolstoy are big enough to take it, I’m sure. I never made it through Anna Karenina although I didn’t dislike it. I just knew from page one how it would end, and couldn’t face getting there, via a lot of grass harvesting.
You’re right. It is very cathartic.
Spot on, Mhairi. I’m looking forward to it too. As Anne says, it’s good to get these things off your chest.
I just knew from page one how it would end, and couldn’t face getting there, via a lot of grass harvesting.
Made me really laugh. Though I liked Levin’s grass-harvesting.
The throats the foxes are gunning for do seem to be exclusively male. Bit of girl-on-girl never goes amiss.
All male you say?
The iconic romantic hero had a creator, Sam.
Girl-on-girl you say, Sam? Coming up!
True, but it just sounded as if it was the hero and not the creator who was going to get it in the neck. Heathcliffe, at a guess? Anyhow, Mhairi handbaging Winterson - now that I’d pay to see.
Well … Let’s just say the creator isn’t going to escape scot-free …
And Heathcliff? Could be …
Love this intro, Mhairi. Gorgeous picture too!
“Coming attractions will be two foxes at each other’s throats over Jude the Obscure (which should be a bit like nude mud wrestling, only more seemly)”
LOL!