John Milius swiped that line for his King Conan script. Probably unfilmable, but a great read.
Unpopular opinions about books
- Iniciador del tema DykesDykesChina
- Fecha de inicio
-
🚨 DDoS attack. Tor is stable: https://kiwifarmsaaf4t2h7gc3dfc5ojhmqruw2nit3uejrpiagrxeuxiyxcyd.onion/.
🔎 Please read my article, How to Dox Anyone: A Liz Fong-Jones Story. (Xitter), (Substack). -
Want to keep track of this thread?
Accounts can bookmark posts, watch threads for updates, and jump back to where you stopped reading.
Create account
- Registrado
- 18 de Nov, 2020
I just on rare occasion like reading for pleasure.
- Registrado
- 13 de Jun, 2016
It’s trash. Once someone has truly learned to read fluently, I’m going to say 10-12 for some kids, maybe 13-14 for others, they should be reading adult fiction and non-fiction. They should aim high and search for books that have subject matter or stories of specific interest to them. A lot of it may go over their head, but it’s challenging them with new concepts, realities and perspectives on the human condition that’s important - anything but pandering.
Pandering specifically to adolescents has created a garbage industry, with mostly untalented, lazy writers producing psychobabble woke nonsense. Lots of it verges on propaganda or porn. It offers nothing intellectually challenging or engaging.
Kids should be going for books that contain all the unvarnished reality and ugliness in the world they’ve been sheltered from or want to learn more about. When I was 11 I was getting The Exorcist and Steven King novels because it was “scary stuff” for adults and had curse words. What ended up being most interesting to me wasn’t the scary monsters, but the realistic depictions of adult interactions, thinking, relationships and reactions. This led me to reading really good fiction a few years later. The real adult world depicted in the books was more interesting than the fantasy elements to my kid brain.
A history podcast I was listening to has one host took learning Greek and Latin very seriously as a teen. He explained all the reading material in classes were “the censored” versions,. However, if you really learned to read Latin you could go to the library and get the original, uncensored versions and read all the juiciest stuff. Basically boys were keen to perfect their Latin so they could read Suetonius uncensored and get all the details about how sexually depraved and sadistic certain emperors were.
Oddly, this morning my seven year old picked up an old paperback copy of “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Frankl that had gotten knocked on the floor. They asked me what the book was about. I attempted to explain it, starting with the concentration camp experience and observations that led to the doctor coming up with x and x philosophical and behavioral concepts. After my two minute explanation the kid said, “so show me the pages where all the horrible bad stuff in the prisons happened and people died.”
A history podcast I was listening to has one host took learning Greek and Latin very seriously as a teen. He explained all the reading material in classes were “the censored” versions,. However, if you really learned to read Latin you could go to the library and get the original, uncensored versions and read all the juiciest stuff. Basically boys were keen to perfect their Latin so they could read Suetonius uncensored and get all the details about how sexually depraved and sadistic certain emperors were.
Oddly, this morning my seven year old picked up an old paperback copy of “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Frankl that had gotten knocked on the floor. They asked me what the book was about. I attempted to explain it, starting with the concentration camp experience and observations that led to the doctor coming up with x and x philosophical and behavioral concepts. After my two minute explanation the kid said, “so show me the pages where all the horrible bad stuff in the prisons happened and people died.”
Thread tax: Just like the OP I too found the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit boring af, but I only attempted to read them at 14. I found The Hobbit so boring that I noped out at page 60 and instead chose the only other book available at the library on my assigned reading list. The unabridged! version of Les Miserable. I chose 1,500 pages of Hugo over 300 pages about Hobbits. It was an accident, I don’t think I would have chosen Les Mis, but since it was the only book on the list still available (kids rushed to get the shortest books on the list) and I found The Hobbit that boring, I did it and it ended up having a profound impact.
I actually found the depictions of 19th century French poverty, crime and cruelty more fascinating than any fantasy world. The fact that this was the reality for millions of Europeans less than 150 years ago blew my mind. I’m sure I would have a very different experience reading it as an adult today and probably 50% of the book was way over my head at 14, but just the details about the daily existence and reality of people had a profound impact on me. Pretty sure it’s why six years later I read Stendhal and Celine. I still put two books by Celine as some of the best and most important I’ve ever read. Had I not accidentally had to read Les Mis I might have not discovered that realism is what I really wanted from fiction, and that I didn’t like fantasy. Eventually it led me to reading nothing but non-fiction, but intend to get back to fiction.
Reading non-fiction exclusively also helped me appreciate the importance of realism in fiction. Reading Les Miserable can give you a far more expansive view, depth of feeling and understanding for life in 1850’s France, than what the factual history books can offer.
Reading non-fiction exclusively also helped me appreciate the importance of realism in fiction. Reading Les Miserable can give you a far more expansive view, depth of feeling and understanding for life in 1850’s France, than what the factual history books can offer.
- Registrado
- 10 de Abr, 2021
A handy tip to understand if you're reading about an unknowable eldrich horror or a regular monster that can be killed is the presence of Conan the Barbarian.
- Registrado
- 21 de Feb, 2025
From what little I have read of The Song of Achilles it is basically Brokeback Mountain but based on Greek Myth. I signed up for cool Greek Mythology stuff not gay sex between 15 year olds. I don’t know if this is unpopular but I don’t care I don’t like gay shit
- Registrado
- 28 de Dic, 2014
Milius has been savagely mistreated by Pedowood. Doubt that is an unpopular opinion here though.