Tophat665

No, there's Joyce in the list, and Pynchon. If find both of their attempts at cleverness to be definition tedious. Sylvia Plath too, and her depression and complaints are evey bit as tedious no matter what kind of evocative language they're wrapped in. Henry James could make an appearance on the list (maybe), and he is the man who made parentheticals a style don't.

Pretentious reading doesn't so much have to do with whether or not the book is any good - most of the books listed are excellent; some are crap. It seems to me that a pretentious book is the kind of book that, if someone were to see you reading it or carrying it, they would say, "Hmm, he sure is trying to look intelligent and profund," unless they just said, "Goddamn college sissy-mary."

Pretentious books take in depth looks at things that should be patently obvious to anyone with two nerve cells to rub together. The Plague is a perfect example - What society says of a person has zip to do with whether or not they are a good person. Pretentious books use 50 cent words where 10 cent ones would be more clear. They use 20 words where four would get the same point across to more people. They are primarily about showing how bright the author is, and secondarily about what they are ostensibly about. Prentetious books have phrases in foreign languages that aren't translated into the books main language.

Basically, pretetious books are written for an Audience. If you are not a member of that audience (French intellectuals in the late 1940's trying to come up with an intellectual argument for the implications of WWII in the realm of ethics, for instance), then the best you can do is pretend to some part of that mindset. That is the definition of pretentious.

Note that there is not necessarily anything wrong with that. I really enjoy some of Umberto Eco's books, and they don't get much more pretentious that that. So to say a book is pretentious is not a value judgement on the worth of the book, but moreso on its context vis the reader's.

I could go on, but I am starting to write pretentiously.

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