3 ms·

I don't mean things-I-don't-like—there are lots of things I don't like that aren't bad—I mean books that are the literary equivalent of some of the worst films

by ashark 9y ago

I don't mean things-I-don't-like—there are lots of things I don't like that aren't bad—I mean books that are the literary equivalent of some of the worst films that make it on MST3K or Best of the Worst succeeding in a field of direct competitors, many of which are in every way superior, and not on the strength of any kind of cult following or reading-ironically or whatever, but for... some unknown and perhaps unknowable reason. It's like Cry Wilderness outperforming ET at the box office, and its fans not seeming to be in on any kind of joke, but sincerely preferring it. Just baffling. Or if Titanic, to deliberately pick a movie that's not gonna win the hearts of many film snobs anyway, had had every single shot nigh-comically misframed, weird scene transitions right in the middle of significant speech or actions, a CG Titanic that occasionally floated above and out of the water for no obvious reason, extras playing all the speaking roles, and so on, had still performed just as well and been popular among ordinary audiences, who betrayed, in interviews, no apparent awareness that the film was totally and obviously messed up in fundamental ways that ruined any kind of story or message it may have been trying to convey. But that actually happens sometimes with books. And then the critics go "wait... what? Did you... actually read it? It's very, very bad. I mean, you did notice that, right?" and the fans say "you just hate fun! Get your head out of the clouds! People like different things!" It's very confusing. Actually, now that I think about it, maybe this happens with books and not with movies because movies—especially those with any hope of popular success—pull you through the story rather by the nose, so it's more jarring when they entirely fail than when a book does. Maybe some people are so much better than me at getting lost in books that they're seamlessly replacing dialog, entire paragraphs of text, whole scenes, plot lines even, with things that don't suck, not even realizing they're doing it. I guess that'd explain it, if they're unconsciously live-fanfictioning the thing in their head to make it better.

tarboreus 9y ago
I meet a lot of people who share this perspective. They're the ones who remember one line from Harry Potter that repeats a word or who think the Da Vinci Code was the worst-written thing that year. I always think that these people must not read very widely, because these books aren't actually poorly written. Were you to read ten randomly published books in any year, you would understand that, actually, there are tiers and tiers of writing that are actually bad. Typically, the books people target for cultural derision have prose that is workmanlike at best but which have met with success due to tight plotting or pacing, which is difficult to construct, or because the subject of the book taps into something in the zeitgeist and expands some conversation society is having with itself (Gone Girl or Fifty Shades). The only NYT bestseller in recent years that comes close to your Titanic analogy is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a book that sold on its title alone and which I would not be surprised to learn not a single person has read, including the author. Most successful books of the stripe you're describing are more like a singlecamera situation comedy--they stick to a basic but largely innocuous set of prose conventions that won't win awards but allows the author to focus their efforts on elements their audience cares more about.
- ashark 9y ago
  Eh, I wouldn't put Harry Potter or a lot of other Juvi Fic in the "total disaster" category, certainly. Hell, I thought The Hunger Games was occasionally pretty good, and in a few cases almost managed to be very good (she kept managing to belabor the point on something that could've been left sublimely understated—cutting just a couple dozen sentences from the first book, at least, would've done absolute wonders) and I was pleasantly surprised that its particular themes and story arc, through the last book, were so popular with its target audience, though I remain confused by the "Katniss is a badass hero with a bow! Yay girl power!" form in which the work entered the popular imagination—did I accidentally read different books? See my previous post's theory that perhaps some readers heavily rewrite things they read, as they read them, without realizing it. However, having participated in read-alouds from Fifty Shades for the LULZ, I'd dispute its being good for any purpose other than comedy. No, not even that purpose. Those scenes are some of the worst of an already hilariously bad lot, reading as if they were written by someone with a weak vocabulary describing LEGO set instruction manuals. They'd be unacceptable as free Internet writing of the sort (ahem, one supposes). They're damn funny though. > The only NYT bestseller in recent years that comes close to your Titanic analogy is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a book that sold on its title alone and which I would not be surprised to learn not a single person has read, including the author. A friend of mine read and enjoyed it, in fact, though he likes (some) bad fiction in a haha-I-can't-believe-this-got-published sort of way. He's also the one who got us in to the reading-aloud-from-Fifty-Shades activity.
  - cholantesh 9y ago
    >They'd be unacceptable as free Internet writing of the sort (ahem, one supposes) Well, they started as Twilight fanfic...

by ashark 9y ago

tarboreus 9y ago

I meet a lot of people who share this perspective. They're the ones who remember one line from Harry Potter that repeats a word or who think the Da Vinci Code was the worst-written thing that year. I always think that these people must not read very widely, because these books aren't actually poorly written. Were you to read ten randomly published books in any year, you would understand that, actually, there are tiers and tiers of writing that are actually bad. Typically, the books people target for cultural derision have prose that is workmanlike at best but which have met with success due to tight plotting or pacing, which is difficult to construct, or because the subject of the book taps into something in the zeitgeist and expands some conversation society is having with itself (Gone Girl or Fifty Shades). The only NYT bestseller in recent years that comes close to your Titanic analogy is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a book that sold on its title alone and which I would not be surprised to learn not a single person has read, including the author. Most successful books of the stripe you're describing are more like a singlecamera situation comedy--they stick to a basic but largely innocuous set of prose conventions that won't win awards but allows the author to focus their efforts on elements their audience cares more about.

ashark 9y ago
Eh, I wouldn't put Harry Potter or a lot of other Juvi Fic in the "total disaster" category, certainly. Hell, I thought The Hunger Games was occasionally pretty good, and in a few cases almost managed to be very good (she kept managing to belabor the point on something that could've been left sublimely understated—cutting just a couple dozen sentences from the first book, at least, would've done absolute wonders) and I was pleasantly surprised that its particular themes and story arc, through the last book, were so popular with its target audience, though I remain confused by the "Katniss is a badass hero with a bow! Yay girl power!" form in which the work entered the popular imagination—did I accidentally read different books? See my previous post's theory that perhaps some readers heavily rewrite things they read, as they read them, without realizing it. However, having participated in read-alouds from Fifty Shades for the LULZ, I'd dispute its being good for any purpose other than comedy. No, not even that purpose. Those scenes are some of the worst of an already hilariously bad lot, reading as if they were written by someone with a weak vocabulary describing LEGO set instruction manuals. They'd be unacceptable as free Internet writing of the sort (ahem, one supposes). They're damn funny though. > The only NYT bestseller in recent years that comes close to your Titanic analogy is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, a book that sold on its title alone and which I would not be surprised to learn not a single person has read, including the author. A friend of mine read and enjoyed it, in fact, though he likes (some) bad fiction in a haha-I-can't-believe-this-got-published sort of way. He's also the one who got us in to the reading-aloud-from-Fifty-Shades activity.
- cholantesh 9y ago
  >They'd be unacceptable as free Internet writing of the sort (ahem, one supposes) Well, they started as Twilight fanfic...