Have you ever . . .

Recently it seems that there have been more questionnaires on Facebook than usual. They appear on these "literary" sites, designed to engage people interested in English Literature, American Literature, and Classical Literature. Also Modern Literature, and British (as opposed to English) Literature, Bookish Litarature, Literature Quotes, Literary Literature . . . You get the idea. Sometimes these sites contain interesting factoids about noteworthy authors or their works. And occasionally, the surveys are interesting just because of the answers supposedly literate people give.

One such post asked, "Are there any books that are really pupular but you dislike?". I had my short list, and was interested to see how it compared to the responses in the comments. There were over six hundred of them, by the way; I guess there's a lit of unhappy readers out there. The first one I remember wasn't a book, but an author: Dan Brown of The DaVinci Code, and others. I could see that. I was annoyed when I realized that what he claims to be fact is not. The DaVinci Code, for those who haven't read it, is about an incredibly complicated conspiracy by a nefarious super-secret cabal of Catholic clerics called "Opus Dei," who for centuries have been plotting to - I forget - take over the world, or Christianity, or something. Grisly murders, secret documents, midnight breakins, clandestine meetings, the whole bit. A little bit of research reveals that there is an organization called "Opus Dei" which has an office in New York, and is not any more "secret" than the Masons. In fact, probably less so. Shortly after Brown's book came out, their Director (or somebody) came out and said, "Hey, there's really nothing secret here. Come and see." He seemed really puzzled why Brown would make up such a ridiculous story about a relatively modern, serious religious order dedicated to good works, prayer, and acts of charity.

In other words, Brown is a liar. And a slanderer. He's maligned a completely respectable organization. And to top it off, he includes a short claim as an epigram, to the effect that there really is such an organization as Opus Dei, and that its membership, meetings, and agenda are all secret.

But wait. All fiction is a "lie," in a sense. It's made up. It isn't "true," in the conventional sense. That's what "fiction" means, for God's sake! Brown's story is made up. Including the epigram at the beginning. And face it, Brown tells one hell of a yarn. I thought The DaVinci Code was kind of trashy, but it was really good trash! Cheap thrills, true, but I couldn't put the damned book down.

(And, for that matter, if you really want to delve into the power of fiction, read Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay. It's written so convincingly that for the last fifty years, people have been trying to solve the mystery! Lindsay completely fools her readers by suggesting, obliquely (and much more effectively than Dan Brown) that the story is based on actual historical documents, records, police investigations, and so on. And in the foreword, she inviters her readers to decide for themselves whether or not the events recounted in the novel actually took place. A masterstroke!)

Dan Brown is on my list of authors I dislike, though I can't say I hate his work; it's kind of tawdry, but so what? It's fun.

On the other hand (and this is what I really wanted to write about), I was astonished by some of the works that turned up in the comments. Readers claimed to have hated such works as The Great Gatsby,To Kill a Mockingbird, The Bible (!), Lord of the Flies, Little Women, Oliver Twist, The Old Man and the Sea, andThe Color Purple. 1984. The Grapes of Wrath. Ulysses. Rarely was there any explanation. And it seemed that the great majority of the "most hated books" were ones most likely to appear in a high school curriculum.

Yes, friends, that touched a nerve.

When I'd ask my students why they hated Catcher in the Rye, I never get a real explanation. They'd say they hated Holden. Holden was a whiner and a complainer. He kept calling everything phony. They didn't get the bit about ducks in Central Park. The story jumped around too much.

I wonder how much of this dislike had to do with the fact that they were required to read it for their English class. In their sophomore year of high school.

I can understand disliking literature. I can't get into Salman Rushdie. And I really did read The Satanic Verses, cover to cover. I found it an awful slog. Now, to true to the Facebook question, does that qualify as a really popular book? I mean, popular like Moby Dick? Or The Brothers Karamazov? I just came to the conclusion that magical realism just wasn't my cup of tea. Neither is apocolyptic fantasy. Or refrigerator poetry. But The Satanic Verses is undeniably a significant - even great - piece of literature.

It seems to me that a lot of these readers seem awfully quick to dismiss really important, significant pieces of literature. That is, to assume that because they don't like something, it's bad. Or overrated, at the very least. I mean, some stuff is, undeniably, bad, and yet very popular. Or at least widely read. Fifty Sahdes of Grey turned up pretty frequently on the list of disliked books, and I've yet to hear anyone claim that it was actually a good book. Popular, maybe; it certainly qualifies as a best-seller. But good?

Well, full disclosure here: I haven't read it. What's more, I don't intend to. I am, after all, a pretty old man, and I have yet to finish War and Peace. Maybe after I finish Tolstoy, I'll get around to Fifty Shades.

Perhaps the best analogy I can come up with is my responst to Gustav Mahler. I attended a concert of one of the late symphonies one night. I was a college student, and went with my girlfriend to the performance at Usher Hall in Edinburgh, Scotlant. I was expecting a transformational experience. And what happened? I was bored. Really, really bored. I found myself nodding off. And my girlfriend felt exactly the same way. We commented to each other that Mahler's magnificent, complex harmonies and modulations sounded like the soundtrack of a mediocre movie. We left early.

And years later, I had the opportunity to sing with a choral group that was performing some Mahler, and lo and behold it was wonderful! How could I have been so insensitife, so tone-deaf, so shallow at the age of nineteen? Didn't I know everything worth knowing at that age? What could I possibly have learned in the intervening thirty years to so change my opinion?

I firmly believe that popularity is not a measure of quality. But neither is it an assurance of inferiority. Perhaps those who disliked "popular" books may reconsider.