Liar Liar, Pants on Fire!
Guest Post by Alien Onion
October 21
This post from the smart cake makers at Alien Onion is an oldie but a goodie. We came across it a while ago, but thought we'd share it again, seeing as there's nothing better than a good literary confession to break up the day.
Justine Larbalestier's brilliant new book is called Liar. The main character of Liar is, well ... she's a liar, and recently Justine's been blogging about lying and surveying her readers about their lying habits.
So, in the spirit of confession to lies of misdeeds past - we surveyed the Onions to find out when they may have been a little cavalier with the truth in literary matters. And we were well-rewarded:
In response to the librarian's question, I told my grade 5 class that Island of the Blue Dolphins was my favourite book, even though I had NEVER READ IT, because the four girls who answered before me all said it was their favourite. I was (still am?) consumed by guilt - as if I'd betrayed all those books that I really and truly did love. This guilt was only partly assuaged by the fact that I then immediately read Island of the Blue Dolphins - and discovered that I did, in fact, love it.
I have never read The Gruffalo.
I wrote my Year 11 essay on Pride & Prejudice having only read to p 27 (because it bored me). I tried reading it again in the summer after Year 12 - and couldn't put it down. I have since read it many times - I remain mystified about how I could possibly find it boring. PS. I got an A for the essay.
When younger than I am now, I pretentiously went on about how great Anna Karenina was, when I'd failed to ever read beyond the bit where Vronsky and Anna get together, and had only ever watched the BBC series in its entirety. In fact, to this day I keep putting AK aside for novels that don't hurt my arms to hold up in bed, even after seeking out the fancy new translation with the cover of flowers wilting on breasts.
I wrote my essay on The Old Man and the Sea after watching the movie - and I still haven't read the book.
I was in grade 5 and somehow lost the book I had borrowed from the mobile library (a bus that visited the school once a week or so like the bus the Queen discovered outside the Palace grounds in The Uncommon Reader). Rather than leave the classroom with the keen reading pupils, I stayed back with the unreading rest for fear of being struck down if I stepped into the book-lined bus. So each week I burned with shame and fear until at the end of the year a bill was sent to my parents!
On more than one occasion, I have given the impression that I have read Phillip Pullman. It's not true. I haven't.
The books I have lied about having read are too numerous to mention!
I liked Angie Sage's Magyk more than Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. (There - I've said it... and lightning hasn't struck. Hmmmmm....)
Between the ages of 18 - 23 I pretended to have read Ulysses by James Joyce... I would wax lyrical and nod sagely, when in fact all my knowledge about the book could only be attributed to a very long night of drinking with a friend who happened to be writing her honours thesis on Joyce. I picked her brains relentlessly and was spared the trauma of actually reading it myself for five years. At 23 I came clean, and have been trying to finish the damn thing ever since.
Pride and Prejudice (and in fact Jane Austen books generally) gets on my nerves, and always has. I suspect there might be something wrong with me.
In grade 3, I discovered a wonderful, wonderful book in my local library called No Flying in the House by Betty Brock, which I promptly stole. It still sits, in beloved, dog-eared glory, on my bookshelves today.
So, how 'bout you? Any literary indiscretions to own up to: lies? hoaxes? omissions?
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Comments
21 Oct 09 at 14:04
I've submitted poetry to nearly every Australian Literary journal in a variety of assumed names over the last three to six months. Does that count?
...21 Oct 09 at 17:36
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I aided and abetted the thief who stole a 1st edition of a Salinger book from a college library. When we divorced, he kept the book. I haven't turned him in yet.
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I was put on restriction FROM reading in 4th and in 5th grades (that's right, I wasn't allowed to read any fiction or anything else at all except the newspaper for weeks at a time).
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I frequently nod my head and say uh huh when I know nothing about the book under discussion except that I read the review or the book jacket or overheard others discuss a book or read an entirely different book by someone else that if pressed I could come up with a plausible connection.
21 Oct 09 at 20:32
I used to steal books from the school library by throwing them out the window and the collecting them at lunch. Firstly because I had a biff with the librarian, and secondly because I wanted to keep them longer than the allocated week (for re-reading of course).
...23 Oct 09 at 0:24
I wrote my postgrad thesis on the metaphysics of Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Surely that's a guilty admission of some sort?
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