I'm not ashamed to admit it: I can picture myself developing quite the online-crush on James Joyce's Finnegans Wake, being impressed by its quick and eccentric written banter, only to be weirded out by its complete lack of social skills in any face-to-face encounter. Suddenly, it'd be that guy who stares really intensely at the middle of your forehead and laughs like a machine-gun after comments you made that weren't intended to be funny.
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Herodotus' Persian Wars. I know I'm going back aways, but what can i say, I'm often attracted to older books. Something about their stately manner (argg...terrible puns). Herodotus seems quite debonair and intelligent for some time, and then you start to notice his proclivity for bringing up dismemberment and cannibalism. That and he is a super narcissist. It's always "I saw this with my own eyes" or "I'm not gonna lie to you like so-and-so." He can be a serious dick. I'm gonna go back to just IMing and pretend we never actually met.
I'd also like to nominate Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
This is an incredibly witty blog! I would have to agree with your assesment of _Finnegan's Wake_, and maybe throw in it's brother, _Ulysses_.
Now, I know this isn't exactly what you are talking about, and I know your absolute love of _Anna Karenina_; but I think of _Anna Karenina_ as being the date who seems so remarkably clever, intelligent and interesting on-line, but turns out to be very long winded and boring on a date, then gives you a toe-curling kiss at the end of the evening.
Actually, Pirsig and I have a long standing friendship. Zen, for me, is the book that shows up out of the blue ten years after you broke up and after one conversation and a cupla' drinks the whole relationship seems like it might have worked if only he wasn't still in mental institution.
I might have to go with Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. It's the one who you initially think is probably bad for you, and self-involved and ridiculous and a bit too big for his tiny tiny britches. But then you think, perhaps this is a clever turn - his inflated ego is really just a cover for the sensitive soul, the battered heart stretching for connection, yearning for a match for his witty hipness, his hip wittiness. And you - you could be that match. So you play, trusting in the reverse psychological analysis. The IMing is indeed both witty and hip. So you meet. And he proceeds to talk solely about himself for four hours, interrupting any story you begin with his far-more-interesting-and -hip-story, pausing only to stare blatantly at your breasts, and you, uncomfortably stuck in the corner of the booth, can do little but attempt to stare him down. Of course it doesn't work.
Yep - should have trusted your first instinct. Creepy.
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