Books Does “Cult” Mean “Insanely Popular” in British?
posted by on April 25 at 12:11 PM
The Telegraph has a list of the 50 best cult books. What are some books on the list?
Slaughterhouse Five, The Bell Jar, The Catcher in the Rye, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, The Fountainhead, Dianetics, Dune and etc. and etc. and on and on.
Now, I’m not an expert on the British book scene, but I suspect that many of these books are just as well-known over there as they are over here. There are some actual weird culty-type books, such as The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart, which I only just heard about for the first time about a month ago, and A Rebours, by JK Huysmans, is certainly beautiful and terrible and under-read. My favorite bit of this piece, though, is this sentence, leading off the piece on Rousseau’s Confessions:
In the age of titles such as “No, Please, Daddy, Not There!”, the soul-searching autobiography looks about as cutting edge as a Findus Crispy Pancake.
I don’t know what a Findus Crispy Pancake is, but this is my new favorite catchphrase.
"No, Please, Daddy, Not There" was a sentence my sisters and I uttered regularly on long car trips when my father would insist on stopping at the grimiest, grungiest gas stations so we could pee.
http://www.ciao.co.uk/Findus_Crispy_Pancakes_3_Cheese_Flavor__5292844
I've read 8 of these and haven't been able to join any cults.
Tellingly, the whole Harry Potter thing was not mentioned.
Oh man ... Findus Crispy Pancakes. I haven't thought about those babies in years. They're kind of like Hot Pockets, but oozier, and the "pocket" tastes better. Terrible. And wonderful.
Now I want a Findus Crispy Pancake and some Hobnobs and a cup of PG Tips.
Mmmm, Hobnobs . . .
"and etc" is redundant.
ugh findus crispy pancake is GROSS.
@4 ...and some fish fingers with potato waffles and salad cream. I know its weird to put salad cream on fried food, but if you mix it with tomato sauce its great.
Well, each of the books you listed started some sort of a weird philosophy/religion, so that makes sense that you'd call them 'cult' novels. Or does Scientology not count? Objectivism? People base their lives on these books in ways they don't for, say, The Roaches Have No King.
Oh man, The Celestine Prophecy should have been at the top of that list. Maybe that specific brand of crap never caught on in Brittan? And where's Kafka and Burrows?
Cult means good in Britain.
Not "cult" like in the video store, here.
Glad to be of help.
God. The motherfucking Catcher in the goddamned Rye.
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