BBC bashing

There’s a BBC list of books doing the rounds. The condescending bastards have said that most people would have only read 6 of the 100 books that made the list.

Which of course is the reason why people have been furiously circulating the list, and declaring that they’ve read most of them. 70 percent toh first division and all that.

I went through the list and here are my questions to those know it all folks at BBC.

 

Question 1. Ulysses by James Joyce? Are you kidding me? You mean someone has actually read this book? Like completed it, cover to cover? Not skipped pages, not gone straight from page 5 to page 780? Not fallen down, with glazed eye and numb brain syndrome.

Well, if there is such a person, I’d like to suggest optional jobs for them. A) Proof checker of medieval Indian history textbooks from class 5^th to class 10^th.  B) Curator of national gallery of government gazettes published circa 1875. C) Pratibha Patil’s best friend.

Question 2: Inferno by Dante? The burning question is where would you read this book? If you read it on the pot, it could lead to you falling asleep and the bathroom door having to be broken open, leading to a hellish experience where you are caught with your pants down by the carpenter and your pervert neighbour.  If you read it on holiday, well, all I say is you probably holiday in Meerut Station. Hell, this is the only prescribed cure for insomnia. Why would someone put it on a list and have thousands of unsuspecting people who look up to the BBC falling asleep like dead flies.

Question 3: The bible. The bible? The bible?? Why? Since when did the BBC join the convert the heathens programme?  Good Lord.

However I am willing to forgive those arrogant folks at BBC only because they have added my all time favourite book to the list. It’s called A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

By the way, the purpose of these lists is to make the person reading it feel smug if they’ve covered most books in the list. So if you haven’t read A Confederacy of Dunces, in my smuggest possible tone, let me suggest that you do.  

Till then let me raid a bookshop for Wuthering Heights. I had it as part of my syllabus in class twelfth. And the only good thing about it was the yummy looking man on the cover.  

The Bronte babes are pretty over hyped if you ask me. Old fashioned dithering ladies. Anyway let me give it a shot again. If you find a car, with the driver asleep at the wheel, you’ll know where to find me then.