The most you've ever disagreed with DH on a book/writer/etc.

[Teleram]

Pretty straightforward. Just for fun, what are some of the times you've most disagreed with Daniel Handler's sometimes contrairian opinion on a novel/novelist/poet/film/etc? I'm thinking specifically of the different literary references he puts in ASOUE and ATWQ (particularly the latter), like his dismissal of To Kill a Mockingbird in ?4 or his hatred of Edgar Guest in ASOUE. You could also talk about stuff he has said in interviews or adult novels.

The one that pop up in my head at the moment is his admiration of the Harriet the Spy books, a book series I've always thought were very blandly written and pointless. I don't get the appeal. He also seems to dislike the Harry Potter series (at least, that's what I could infer from his hilarious introduction to Noisy Outlaws) so there's that as well.

[bear]

he like john ashbery

[A comet crashing into Earth]

I like The Little Prince.

[Skelly Craig]

I don't understand his problem with Mockingbird. There are also a number of poets that he "salute[d]" on his Twitter, that I checked out and didn't like, but I don't remember their names.

[gliquey]

Oct 16, 2016 18:20:32 GMT -5 Teleram said:

like his dismissal of To Kill a Mockingbird in ?4

This was my immediate thought when I saw the title of the thread and I think it's the only time I've disagreed with him. For everything else he references, I either like it or am not culturally educated enough to understand (apart from the Harry Potter mockery I hadn't seen before).

Oct 17, 2016 7:07:52 GMT -5 Skelly Craig said:

I don't understand his problem with Mockingbird.

I'd be interested to hear in detail why Handler dislikes TKaM, assuming the opinion of Lemony is also an opinion of his, but ATWQ and to a lesser extent ASOUE is full of characters loving or hating literary works and figures, and there's no room for detailed critical analysis of everything he references. I think TKaM is brilliant but it's not to everyone's taste.

[bear]

Oct 20, 2015 16:05:12 GMT -5 bear said:

judging by Lemony's previous disregard of Steinbeck's The Red Pony, I would assume that it's as simple as a distaste for sappy, terrible books with innocent children being taught the ways of the world by all-knowing adults.

[Teleram]

I believe Snicket wrote an article for The Huffington Post a while back where he listed several "disturbing and shocking" passages from children's literature, one of which was the famous mocking bird speech from To Kill a Mockingbird. Let me see if I can find it... ah, here we go:

6. “Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” —Harper Lee, “To Kill A Mockingbird”

Here we have the noble but insufferable Atticus Finch, taking a break from defending a black man terrorized by the white community to inform us that one bird is perfectly OK to slaughter, but not another one. It’s the most breathtaking display of hypocrisy since they printed “I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree” on paper.

-13 Passages from Children’s Literature that are More Dreadful and Shocking Than They May First Appear, The Huffington Post

[Linda Rhaldeen]

Not a literary opinion but I know that the time I was most disappointed with DH was when he made a rather racist joke about watermelon. To his credit, he apologized and made a donation of $10,000 to a nonprofit We Need Diverse Books.
www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2014/11/21/daniel-handler-does-more-than-apologize-for-his-watermelon-joke/