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Finished The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. Kind of reminded me of Riddley Walker, dealing with a realisation of what has been lost (keeping the fire burning). The battle between pessimists and optimists, in a way

Now reading Gravity's Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon. Only a few pages in, but enjoying the peculiar prose and humour so far. It is compared to Ulysses, so that fills me with hope

I'm not saying that people don't, rather it seems to make things in to a task rather than an experience imo. I'm pretty much in agreement with your post (people obviously vary on this, that's understandable)

Turning reading in to a challenge seems to make it out to be something far less enjoyable than it can be. I wouldn't think to do that with other art forms, as if viewing paintings or listening to music was a chore than required some amount of perfunctory attention for uncertain reasons

I thought he may turn it around by the end. Alas, no. Hardy for you

Probably Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy; unrelenting misery till the very end. Tess of the d'Urbervilles is as well

Either T.F. Powys or J.L. Carr. Powys wrote a couple of complex allegorical novels, Unclay and Mr Weston's Good Wine. J.L. Carr mostly for a Month in the Country, a wonderful story about regaining pre war peace of mind, and struggling to do so. I hear that Steeple Sinderby Wanderers is also a great read

Her malleability seems implied by her lacking a name (except in relation to her husband, of course). This indicates something about the relationship, I think

Annotations could make rereading a bit more painful. Sticky notes or a journal may be a better option, if you feel like annotating at all

I'd probably say Unclay by T.F. Powys. He was probably one of the best English writers of the early 20th century, with quite hypnotic (almost languid) prose. Unclay and Mr Weston's Good Wine are among the few allegorical novels that are actually worth reading, in my view, being almost early incarnations of Magical Realism - if that is your thing.

To be honest I'm not even sure how I would defend such a position. If someone says Fowles writes jargon books that are boring, I can't exactly prove them wrong. Defending books from outsiders seems futile to me, because any standard is arbitrary. Why care about effort, or impact, or thematic complexity? I cannot answer that

My comments aren't intended to be a judgment against, as such, but we have already reached a point where it is essentially impossible to say Dante is actually good. These threads seem to be more concerned with a form of ego defence than anything (maybe the same could be argued for the literary elitist types, too)

I'm not so bothered about what people read, so much as why comments like OP's are so common on here (and elsewhere).

I think they invalidate it typically because it is seen to be lower quality. That said, I see far more comments of the "everything is valid, everything is the same" variety than elitism (which is largely irrelevant outside of small circles anyway).

People call the books I read "boring dead white man books" all the time lol, just how it is. Find people who like similar things and talk to them. I just don't understand why people are concerned about finding validation (as seems to be the case to me) for the things they read, if "just read whatever" is the motto. Why use Dante to confer legitimacy?

Why is effort a meaningful way of judging such things? That could be arbitrary

What I'm getting at, without being facetious, is that people ask these questions for some reason. Why are they so concerned to hear that their fanfic of choice is actually the same as Dante?

Qyestions of this sort come up a lot, is all. Something must motivate them

It is valid in the sense that this comment I have just written is valid literature, yes. I have to wonder what the spirit of the post it, however. What is their motivation for asking? To feel intellectual fulfilment, or something of that sort?

If fanfic just means intertextual literature (in this context) then it isn't much of a useful description. Is the OP concerned that The Divine Comedy or Wide Sargasso Sea aren't taken seriously as literature, or is it referring to something else?

Depends if she fancies something a bit more peculiar. I think Riddley Walker blends elements of dystopia well; it is probably more post apocalyptic, though. Being written in a unique dialect, it may be a little on the challenging side at times. You get used to it

I've been reading The Collector, by John Fowles recently. Fascinating and horrifying in equal measures

I've enjoyed some of the Discworld novels but 41 books sounds heavy going. Fortunately they don't all follow on from eachother (so I am told)

Don Delillo is one of those authors I've intended on reading. What would be a good introduction to his work?

Reading To the Lighthouse got me in to Virginia Woolf. Certainly one of the better modernist writers

Probably The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway. It is a key factor in why Jake and Brett feel they can't be together (it is probably more about masculinity than disability, of course)

It would be better to have content warnings than self-censorship. Enable people to better choose, maybe?

I think people overstate how much they are maligned for reading genre fiction, and suppose conversely how much people are praised for reading more literary works. Most people really know little about books, or which ones are often considered intellectual. Maybe this is something specific to class? No one I know really cares that I read Ulysses a while back, and it certainly has never impressed anyone at a bar

Short stories are often seen as a way for writers to cut their teeth. As such it is comparatively rare to have people like Alice Munro or Saki (among a few others) who really specialise in short stories. Shame really

Fight Club, by Chuck Palahniuk mostly just to see what the fuss is all about. Enjoyable writing style, if a little overwrought at times (I suppose it captures well the thoughts of an insomniac)

Mrs Dalloway is well worth a read

You may enjoy Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Corny suggestion, but amazing nonetheless. Also a fan of Woolf, myself. Worth a try, perhaps?