OMFG....

[tabaqui]

Okay guys, you know i don't do this kind of post but...

What in the *fuck*?

I just called my local bookstore, which is a pretty awesome bookstore for the smallness and crumminess of this town... I needed a copy of Captain's Courageous. Not exactly an obscure book. And it's by Rudyard Kipling - not exactly an obscure author.

The person who took my order? Who is *not* a sixteen year old kid? Had no clue.

Didn't recognize the title. Didn't recognize the *author*. Had me *spell* it. I mean...good fucking lord. And was all 'oh, wow, he has a lot of books!' when the 'Kipling' list came up on her computer.

*What the fucking fuck*, people?

*flails*
*has no clue*

Comments

[innie_darling]

It's a little scary, I think, how much gets lost from generation to generation. When I taught college, my students looked blank when I said "Tennyson" or "Keats." If I said, though, "A thing of beauty is . . ." they could complete the quotation.

On the other hand, kids these days are getting books from so many more cultures and lifestyles that there's a way to see the fragmentation of canon as pretty damn cool too.

[shakatany.livejournal.com]

Are people not Kipling anymore *g* Have they never heard of Kim or The Jungle Book or Gunga Din or ...? Also all these books were made into movies. What are they teaching these days?

Shakatany

[cormallen.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I've found that Kipling is a lot less known here in the US than he was in Russia (where I grew up, and where he was only known in translation!). Sure, once one brings up Mowgli, people say "oh, the cartoon", but so many are surprised there is poetry involved, and OMG other books, surprisingly without cartoons to go with them.
< / end gripe >

[piratepurple.livejournal.com]

*sigh* Sometimes you get smacked in the face with the fact that when you have even an average intelligence, that means roughly half the people are stupider than you are. If you happen to be above the average mark, the number of seemingly brainless people goes up. There's no help for this. Intelligent people produce fewer offspring, in general, so the problem will only get worse.


/channeling Rodney McKay

[herself_nyc]

Sad sad sad.
No one really reads Kipling anymore, I don't think--at least, maybe they still do in England but I doubt it even there.

[ladycat777.livejournal.com]

What. Okay, I'll admit -- I've never read Captain Courageous and wouldn't have recognized it just as a title.

But to not know Kipling? Even if you haven't personally read him? Oh my god.

Then again, I once heard a conversation among the undergrads in my building that went along the lines of: Bram Stoker? Yeah, he's that movie Dracula guy, right?

I weep.

[brunettepet.livejournal.com]

Okay, minus points for not recognizing the title, but not knowing Kipling? Needing the words Captains Courageous spelled? What the hell? You work in a book store?

[tabaqui]

I love the idea of 'classics' of Indian or Vietnamese or Latin American literature becoming more 'the norm' or well known, but still! It just boggles my mind.

And yeah, makes me sad. If i see a movie i like that was based on a book, i go read the book, *knowing* it will be different, probably better, and have lots more details. The scariest thing about 'kids these days' is they seem to have no curiosity whatsoever. Never look beyond the surface.
*sigh*

[tabaqui]

People are just nuts, i guess. His books are so good! I'm...kind of scared to know what they're teaching.

[tabaqui]

To me, it's just odd. The Jungle Books is a very popular movie and you'd think people would just...want to know the source material! It's crazy. I've run into a lot of that, too, people having no clue the movie was based on a book.
*sigh*

[tabaqui]

It makes you tired, doesn't it?
*pets Rodney and you*

I support negative/no population growth as much as possible, so, yeah - the smart ones aren't breeding *at all*. We're heading toward a world of 'Real World' and Jerry Springer graduates.
*flails*

[tabaqui]

I can't imagine! I love Kipling.
*sigh*
Woe.

[tabaqui]

I know!! Insane. People are just....omgsostupid it *hurts*.
Gah.
*offers tissues*

[tabaqui]

Man, it makes me just shudder. No wonder they don't have the damn book on their shelves.
*sigh*

Sometimes, i hate people.

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

Icon!

[tabaqui]

Heeeee!
Beaker seemed to best express my confusion and sense of *flail*.
:)

[julia-here.livejournal.com]

What young people these days don't know makes my head hurt.

For instance, the Timberline Regional Library System just gave up and let people search for author names first name first.

Julia, the world is going to hell, I swear

[anelith.livejournal.com]

All I can hope is that the employee was a temporary hire who was literally pulled in off the streets. Still depressing, but not as much as if he/she were a full-time staff member of a bookstore.

When I was a kid I somehow found a copy of Captains Courageous and read it for fun. Not an assignment. It was really great.

[tabaqui]

She's one of the regulars there. The staff is small and i mostly know them. Just. Wow.

Captains Courageous is one of my very, very favorite Kipling's ever. I've read it over and over and over since i first 'found' it.

[tabaqui]

She's not young! She's my age or older!
*flails*

OMG, dude. That is the lamest of the lame. WTF?
*is so, so lost*

[sorrelchestnut.livejournal.com]

I have to admit, I've spent a lot of my life busily avoiding any of the "classics" or "serious" literature, simply because I had to read a lot of it that I didn't like in high school, but it's a phase I know I'll get over eventually, so I'm not too worried. But not to recognize the *name* Kipling, that's... man. That's really depressing.

[tabaqui]

It really, really is.

Some of the 'classics' suck. It's true. But Kipling!
Sheesh.

[deirdre-c.livejournal.com]

:0

I get the same face when my students don't know who Ross Perot or Ralph Nader are. But they're 18yo n00bs, bookstore employees have no excuse!

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

... so if you'd gone in there and said "Do you like Kipling?" they might in all seriousness have replied "I don't know, I've never kippled"!

[tabaqui]

I know!!
Sheesh.

I may not have a brain that retains stuff like it should, but man...some people are just...*important*.