Well. I thought yesterday’s post was extremely informative, not least of which because hopefully people were reminded that J.D. Salinger is still alive.
It really was alternately fascinating and gut-wrenching for me to see all of the beloved books that people loathed. I’m sure everyone who read the comments had one of their favorite books stepped on in a big way.
I know in particular the skin on my neck prickled whenever I saw Faulkner thrown under the bus. I mean, sure, I can understand not liking MOBY DICK. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of whale lard. But Faulkner?? Really?? Say it ain’t so!
I know books are subjective, but it’s amazing to see HOW subjective. And what’s fascinating/horrifying to me about personal taste is the way personal preferences morph into a die-hard nasty Amazon review style slam. People don’t tend to say, “Oh, you know, I really couldn’t get into X, but I can see why others enjoyed it.” Run a personal preference through the Internet and somehow it becomes: “That book was AWFUL and I HATED IT and in fact I weep for the oxygen that was consumed by the author during their pitiful lifetime.”
I mean, just imagine if I rejected someone’s query with “This is a piece of trash and I wanted to gouge out my eyes while reading it.” And yet this is how people very regularly talk about books online? This is an ok thing to do?
Why is taste so personal? And not just personal as in subjective and individual, personal as in people take it personally when someone likes what they don’t like, or vice versa.
I mean, I’m guilty of this too — I get that pit in my stomach when I see my favorite authors trashed. I get actually physically angry! What is so threatening about a dissenting opinion? How does a personal preference turn into an ironclad judgment?
Emotions are involved. Plain and simple.
PS — Nathan
I can’t believe you haven’t mentioned the return of Justin Bobby on the Hills. What’s going on? Did you let The Hills bashers get to you??
Betty said:
“I feel that many of the trashing comments stem from teenage angst. The person was forced to read a novel (or story) they couldn’t understand and their feelings of frustration are still fermenting in their brains.
Maybe they should take another look at these novels that bring on the rage. From an older, more experienced point of view, they may just get it, finally.”
Really? Really? Teenagers are completely incapable of coming to any sort of conclusion about literature? Any dislike we express is solely because we are busy being le angsty bunnies? Because we can’t understand anything more subtle than MTV?
I guess that’s why my AP English class is filled with 32 intelligent, talented and above all diverse teenagers, many of whom disagreed with me about The Scarlet Letter, or A Tale of Two Cities (most hated it), or Ethan Frome, or The Great Gatsby or any other novel we read that year.
Mr. Bransford, you just made my day. I can’t stop laughing at this line. “I mean, just imagine if I rejected someone’s query with “This is a piece of trash and I wanted to gouge out my eyes while reading it.”
That’s just too funny!
anon re: Justin Bobby-
Sore subject. My untrustworthy DVR and I are officially enemies.
Humans have always needed to belong to a group — some tribe that will offer protection as well as feed the primal need to be accepted.
That’s why tribes were formed by early man, why kids join gangs or fraternities, and why normally sane people paint themselves with their team colors and scream like morons at sporting events.
This tribal mentality makes those who are on the other side enemies and idiots.
The Internet has allowed this mentality to splinter in so many directions that we now have a vast culture of micro-niche tribalism. Books are just another example.
Some authors have bands of groupies who trash other authors, normally against the desires of the favorite author.
These people seem to have lost the ability to separate themselves from the author because they tie so much of themselves into the author’s works.
There’s also the problem of intellectual dialogue versus emotional monologue. People are no longer taught how to think, as opposed to what to think, they don’t know how to use reason to express ideas, and they seem incapable of doing so. Instead, it’s all about emotion and being led by that emotion.
We see that in what is laughing called political discourse as well as every other form of discourse.
That book discussions have reached this name-calling low shows how intellectually bankrupt even readers have become.
Marilynn Byerly
https://marilynnbyerly.com
As a blogger myself, I admit I’m not always the nicest guy in the world. I try to be tolerant of that which at least tries to show some honest effort, even when it falls far short (“An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes in New England” which I’ll likely comment on, soon). Still, when confronted with genuine sloth–the writing of Dean Koontz; say, or people who not only reject the challenge represented by writers like Joyce or Nabokov, but get preening and righteous about it(“It hurt my widdle head! I broke my foot with my dictionary because of you!”) Well, I get a little . . . peeved (I don’t like “The Satanic Verses” . . but I didn’t take it personally).
Oh, more about novel-writing this week at https://tbdeluxe.blogspot.com/
Hey, as a teenager I was reading way past college level. I should have clarified that I wasn’t talking about teenagers, just some adults who, as teens, were forced to read novels they couldn’t understand at the time and were frustrated.
My apologies to all teens who actually love to read. You are the future!
There are a lot of the books that were mentioned..that I too, do not particularly care for…but, I truly respect the authors.And, a lot of time, the writing is good..but to me the story is boring or goes on and on…however I truly do respect the author..their time, effort, what they bring to the table. People just have different taste, Nathan, but that doesn’t mean we can’t appreciate that a particular book we don’t like may truly be great literature. Also, people that “trash” books…really aren’t respectful people, and that tells us a lot about them, doesn’t it?
I have been online since 1985, when Windows had not arrived and if I wanted to talk to people on the Internet, I had to get a phone number to call their modem and post on a bulletin board.
Writing online has to be carefully considered, else, with no body language to decipher, words can be misconstrued and a fight can start.
Did you know that everything you write online can be read by the world. Words can come back to bite you.
And, to keep on topic, words can be taken too personally.
Nathan,
I hope you’re not taking yesterday’s blog comments personally. The subject got a little (okay, a lot) off-topic. There’s big difference between disliking a book and still understanding the author’s intent, not understanding the reason other people view the work as a “classic,” and having a Homer Simpson moment trying to interpret the book. I took the meaning of your original question as Homer Simpson moments.
Another part of yesterday’s discussion is the lack of other styles of human communication, i.e. body language, tone of voice, etc. If the commentors were sitting in a bar or coffee shop, speaking face-to-face, some of the comments would be interpreted in the spirit they were meant. I read a lot of teen angst in the posts, even though that may not have been the intent of the poster, because I have no other reference than the words posted. It was an interesting lesson in word choice.
I have to second Shelley’s suggestion concerning which modern books aren’t given their due. A much more positive topic. Or even which works influenced us most. No slamming, please. No matter what you think of another person’s particular choice.
Great post Suzan.
Thanks Betty.
And thanks also to Nathan and everyone who posted the last two days. Y’all made me sit down and think about why I love certain “classics.” The common theme in my personal choices? A majority of the works were considered commercial crap by their contemporary critics.
It makes me feel better about my own work. ;-D
Tis easier to dis books, authors, and people in general than it is to offer a kind word. Probably the reason why you had so many comments on yesterday’s post, and they’re still pouring in. The same reason a person guiltily finds enjoyment whenever a famous celebrity hits the bricks and goes into rehab.
It makes a person feel special whenever they vent and gives them an ego boost whenever they find other people who share the same dislike. It justifies their reasoning and makes them say harsh words because they’re following the crowd.
I am so glad I didn’t go into detail when I mentioned Lord of the Flies. It is just a story I couldn’t place on an altar in the backroom, so I didn’t have much to add. I don’t ever use the word “hate” and could never coin the term toward something I might not personally care for but others love.
What surprises me more is that there wasn’t a sparing match of comments between people. I was waiting for someone to take major offense about their beloved book being lambasted and to read, “This comment has been deleted by the blog administrator” when the fighting reached new levels of harshness. But this never happened except when you deleted posts because the author is still alive.
I’m a part of a specific internet fandom, and believe me, I see a lot of “eye-gouging” and similar stuff that was expressed in the comments of the last post -and much worse stuff, too. I’ve always thought anonymity plays a big part in it (you can express yourself much more strongly than face-to-face). Also, I’ve noticed constructive criticism tends to be much rarer online because many people don’t like writing long blatherings (I do, though;-); communication has “crystallised” online: people quickly hit the main points and make them strong to make their opinion clear. Writing constructive criticism is much harder and more time-consuming. And we live in a speeding world.
Well, since I said I hated Ethan Frome, I thought I’d chime in here.
First of all, I really don’t get why some people in this thread are saying that anyone who expressed strong dislike for a book was just doing so because they wanted “an ego boost.” Um, why am I not allowed to very much dislike Ethan Frome? Why does this mean that I’m an egotistical jerk? Even those people who said, “This book totally sucked” never said, “Anyone who likes this is an idiot.”
Taste is subjective. Yes, I hated Ethan Frome. I didn’t get it. Yes, I do see why some people would like it. The prose was good, the characters well characterized. But really, did every single person who posted a comment yesterday need to write the exact words, “I disliked such and such book, but I can see why other people liked it”? Sorry, but I kind of thought that went without saying.
Superwench, you are more than allowed to voice your opinion. And I don’t think people have to follow the crowd and respond with the same words that others speak. I was merely giving my own opinion on what happened yesterday.
I don’t think anyone mentioned egotistical jerk, but I might be wrong. As for ego boost, which I did use, I was being objective. Such a word can be used for good connotations as well as bad. Such as when everyone in a book club likes a certain read, it gives a person a sense of belonging that there are like minds in the world -an ego boost that others share the same feelings. It’s not always an instant insult. It is just the fact that the post yesterday was of a negative format that I used it in a negative light.
Nathan,
Thank you for starting such an interesting discussion. It is heartening to know that so many others feel the same – Annoyed and offended when their favourite authors are trashed. Reading is an intensely personal activity and tastes varies considerably from one person to another.
I have seen people who said that they found paperback thrillers ‘inspiring’ and romances ‘spiritual’ – Though I do not read those genres, I thought that perhaps they saw something in it, that I could not get. (I did read a few thrillers and found them insipid page-turners, and I could not stand more than two pages of a romance book – The writing was too prosaic).
A few years ago I was very annoyed when a pathetic ex-colleague looked at a Virginia Woolf book in my hand, and patronisingly advised me to read ‘better’ books. When asked what better meant, he rattled off a long list of authors – Of those very thrillers and romances!
Since then, I have stopped listening or taking to heart to any other person’s opinion or criticism of a book that I liked. As a reader, what matters to me is simply how much I enjoy a book and how much I am able to relate to it.
Anyone checking out the reviews of in Amazon.com will find all sorts of opinions – Personally I may think that ‘Franny and Zooey’ is one of the greatest books I have ever read, and there may be others who trash it because they just don’t get it. Does it really matter what they think? I loved the book, and will continue to read and return to it, that is all that matters to me.
Sorry about the long comment.
Hey, I got a rejection just the other day that read, “This is a piece of trash and I wanted to gouge out my eyes while reading it”.
At least the reader was moved–even if it was to suicidal behavior.
Great post & comments. Made interesting reading. Thanks.
Hmmm. The school teacher is back, and I’m wondering how many people said they didn’t “get” something but are willing to try it again?!!?
I’ve been reading since I was four years-old, and many things I tried earlier in life are very different now. I encourage anyone who posted about a novel they didn’t “get” (or one that made them want to gouge their eyes out) to try it again. It’s amazing how perspective, maturity, and life experiences change your views on a piece. Perhaps we should all commit to tackle the beast we just couldn’t get through before instead of bashing it.
For me, Faulkner is definitely not a favorite, but I’m pretty certain that it isn’t the text or the writing itself that is the problem; it could actually be me, and maybe if I spent more time understanding or even studying it as I read…it just might make more sense, and I might appreciate it more. It’s like the person who commented on Gatsby and wondered what there is to “get” with it. Oh my. Read it to enjoy it. Read it and dissect it. Read it again. Look at the symbolism and language. It’s all right there, but you just have to be willing to find it and see it. Again, it may not float your boat in the end, but can you appreciate it? Sure. Can you learn from it? Sure.
After all, isn’t that why all successful writers advise reading anything and everything ALL the time. It’s part of our education as writers, and I think we can only better ourselves by reading through the tough stuff as well as the eye candy. I think it is good for all of us (myself included…must tackle that Faulkner again someday) to branch out and read different styles and genres to broaden our perspective and learn more of this craft.
I know I’m not the only one who hangs here because I’m hoping to learn the professional writing gig. The most negative reactions, yesterday, were almost as instructional for me as the help in Nathan’s posts.
I have a number of different folks I go to for critique, and a number of them are writers. I was shocked by a response from a particularly important and once-encouraging mentor — I received from him an incredibly strongly worded smack-down that rejected the basic structure and reason for my novel. My characters and plot had pissed him off to the extent that he was deeply angry with me.
Since he’s a professional and this is my first attempt into professional fiction, his reaction left me gasping. It looked like a knockout blow in the first week; the delete key became a pretty attractive option. That I didn’t hit that key was important to my development – I have taken critique pretty seriously, in this pursuit of real artistic connection, and this reaction was the first time I had to reject a mentor’s advice and move on. I’d arrived at a new level of writing, where suddenly I was polarizing my critical audience rather than just reworking and learning the craft.
All of which to say that seeing the hatred of other books is good for me. Maybe hatred – real hatred – is almost as good a sign as love. Once we become craft proficient, our artistic ideas become what people respond to. Nobody’s philosophy is universal, so why would their art be?
This is a group of writers and bibliophiles, in the main, and we don’t seem to have that much more empathy for books and writers we dislike than other folks. Maybe to be hated with the same passion as someone hates Lord Of The Flies is actually pretty fabulous.
I’ll be honest; there is an amount of bitterness at times when I write about other books that I don’t like. I hated Moby Dick–how can a book about a WHALE be so popular as to be considered a classic, but I’m not published. At least something happens in my book! And how could Faulkner, who is so boring he holds the title of being the author of the only book that I actually ruined pages of with drool when I fell asleep on it, be considered a genius with a plot that is alternatively so obscure as to be indecipherable and so blatantly obvious as to be an insult? At least my book makes sense!
…so I can say that, for me at least, my strong emotion is tied with my bitterness, and a true feeling of wonder that people can like Author X over me.
When I looked back on some of the comments in yesterday’s post, I can honestly say that I’ve never had a teacher force a book on me in highchool. Scary.
My 12th-grade teacher passed out scripts of books to keep her students interested in literature.
My 11th-grade teacher made us watch movies based on books and tested her students this way.
My 10th-grade teacher yelled at all his students whenever someone forgot to pass in an assignment. He ranted over how we would never amount to anything and how we would be the downfall of western civilization when we turned into adults. Halfway through the school year he left for sabbatical and never returned to teaching.
Someone hated THE GREAT GATSBY?? Oh,nooooooo.
I think the strong reactions might have something to do with art and interpretation. Art is meant to evoke emotion, so maybe the fact that a given piece can cause a virtual shouting match isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Then there’s the “don’t get it” factor. Take visual art. Unless it’s ridiculously easy to interpret, I usually just don’t get it. That fires me up, and I’ll think “this piece is stupid.” But just because I don’t get it doesn’t mean it stinks.
And I’m thinking F. Scott Fitzgerald probably doesn’t stink. No judgement, though. I may get Fitzgerald, but my eyes cross when I read Hemingway.
My two bits.
I think it all boils down to readers (and writers) identifying with a work. If someone insults the work, or fails to agree with your high opinion of it, it’s as though they insulted you.
Everyone says writers have to have thick skins. I just figure you’ve got to be able to separate yourself from what you write.
On the other hand, the rise of (and popularity of) the “Simon Cowell” school of criticism in western media tends to lead people to believe that valid criticism can only be presented by being rude.
I see this kind of thing in conservative commentators, in movie and book reviews (not as much) and certainly in conversation. On the web, it’s become (has always been?) the modus operandus because the mask of anonymity prevents many from taking responsibility for their comments. The line between logical, valid criticism and emotional venting is growing so thin that the latter is often mistaken for the former.
Of course, coming from an entity that posts anonymously, these comments may seem, well, hypocritical.
“I see this kind of thing in conservative commentators”
Oh, really? Try posting a dissenting opinion on a liberal blog and see how far you get. Your comment will most likely be erased in no time, and the moderator will bar the door to make sure the debate is stopped in its tracks.
Right, JD?
I was buying a pasta maker a month ago on Amazon. It had to be red, and there was only one style. There were eight good reviews, and one awful, bitter one. It wasn’t hard to read between the lines to see that the person who wrote the bad review was an amateur in the kitchen. I bought the pasta maker and it’s fine.
I think this example could be applied to the people who write these bad reviews about books, on Amazon or anywhere else. In order to write a fair book review (good or bad), you have to know what you’re doing first.
“This is a group of writers and bibliophiles, in the main, and we don’t seem to have that much more empathy for books and writers we dislike than other folks.”
That’s because we’re writers and bibliophiles.
We don’t read like other people. Books are more than mere entertainment to most of us. I mean, we do read for entertainment, but we read differently, and we tend to react more intensely to books, whether we like them or we don’t.
Reading preferences are very much like food preferences, not everyone likes sushi, not everyone will eat steamed squash, not everyone drinks milk or alcohol. We all have things we like and things we refuse to touch on the dinner table. It carries over to reading preferenes. I don’t want to read a sob story, I don’t want a predictable heroine, and I think it has to do with why I read.
My running theory is that a persons reading taste is a reflection of their motivation for reading. Someone who’s looking to pass an exam on 13th century literature is not going to be reading Confessions of a Shopaholic, they’ll read 13th century manuscripts. Someone looking for a good cry might pick up some weepy book (I don’t read those so I don’t know a title). I read as a form of escapisim so I pick up action and adventure books that don’t resemble my day-to-day life. Another person who wants solidarity might want to read about people just like them (war stories come to mind) so they know they aren’t alone.
With that in mind I don’t get angry when a person says they don’t like reading Terry Pratchett. I look at what a person prefers to read as an indicator of their personality, Pratchett isn’t their thing but they love C.S. Lewis, that would say a lot about religious views wouldn’t it? But weo betide the person who says they hate reading, it dries up all my usual conversational gambits and I’m left to stare at them in disbelief, and then offer them a chance to redeem themselves by touring my bookshelf. : )
@wanda – Well now. I’ll never say another person isn’t entitled to their own opinion. Um, I’ll keep mum on that take of SCARLETT!
I can’t get over people actually feeling hate for a book. There are worse things in the world then hate. Just take a look at the news (what’s focused on, what isn’t focused on), the state in which people live, the way people are treated….
Honestly. It’s silly when you think about it.
Well, in the spirit of trying to not take it so personally, I will recant and say that, upon further review of my own thoughts, I don’t actually believe LORD OF THE FLIES is awful. I didn’t like it, but I can see its value to others. Aside from that, part of my personal dislike comes from an English teacher who gave me a bad grade on an exam for talking about the symbolism in LORD OF THE FLIES that she didn’t think existed. Oy.
Though I can’t explain why opinions of books is taken so personally. I admit I’m even hurt when I see someone say COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO, my all time favorite book, is terrible. Can I explain why this is when someone bashing GLADIATOR, an equally amazing movie, is okay with me? No. Maybe it has to do with how much more time someone spends reading a book, but I don’t know.
It’s cool that your brought it up, Nathan. It’s definitely worth thinking about.
I read all these comments. I found nothing to grow a wart over. Strong opinions are like a box of crackerjacks with a hidden prize in it. Sometimes I like the prize, other times I don’t. But then, I just toss it. I don’t stomp on it, or otherwise mutilate it.
It’s a truism that one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. (or vice versa in this case) It’s also a given that we’re not all going to get along. But that can be a good thing. How else do we learn from each other? I mean, if we were all perfect, then we’d be like Stepford writers. I don’t know about you, but that image sends shivers up my ass.
So, I try to remember these things when someone goes all Sarah Bernhardt on me and tells me they absolutely hate this or that … or they hate me o myo.
And I’m pretty darn tootin’ sure there’ll always be someone standing by ready to run a train over my feelings. And most likely I’m gonna react badly and end up switching their tracks. Then, I’ll wind up apologizing and try to learn from it.
(Or course, THEN I run out and buy me a Baltimore Orioles baseball bat. For the next time I have to apologize.
Some people never learn)
Not only is J.D. still alive, he lives just up the road (well, fifty-ish miles up the road) from me in Cornish, NH. Never been to see him, though. I imagine he wouldn’t like it.
I think people react so strongly to personal opinion because most people think there is a very strong (nigh perfect) correlation between what is very good and what people like–much like many people believe there is a strong correlation between what is “good” in a literary sense and what will sell on the market. When that idea is called into question, people react with incredulity that often borders on Hulk-type rage.
It is an investment, sometimes of money but mostly an investment of ones time so it’s gonna get personal.
Were some over the top?
Yeah.
Mine got deleted because yes, I was not aware that Salinger was still alive or not which I stated in my post and as I think back to what I wrote, would someone have thought it over the top? I would hope not but if you loved the book I was referring to – you might have. But I didn’t do an “poo slinging”
I do disagree with some earlier posts that said if we were in a reading group face to face folks might go easier – less rage filled – I’m not so sure.
Reading is an investment that folks don’t take lightly and some folks are just over the top with everything they do.
I have friends who told me they took their college degrees in Literature because they loved books so much.
But at the end of college, they hated Literature, professed that dissecting it endlessly ruined them for life.
Wow.
I think it is possible that many who teach English do not know how to discuss or understand so many works. Finding a great teacher is
an unforgettable good fortune.
Our daughter was taught to give a rating on books: I liked it because it had a zippy plot and give it 4 stars…
Dear, oh dear…
Books get into your head. Their words become a part of your thoughts.
We live in a world that lionizes individuality, so things that are in our head are more than just social buzz but are somehow who we are. Diss them, and you diss the person.
Naturally, we need to be careful what we allow into our head when we have this kind of social construct.
The alternative is a more urbane approach where none of us celebrate our own supposed “uniqueness” and understand that we are a synthesis of what we’ve managed to absorb over the years we’ve been around. That would make those things less “who we are” and more “what made us”.
It’s the statement of “being” that always makes things personal.
I like to leave that alone. As much as I love Hesse, Vonnegut, Marquez, and so on, they aren’t exactly *me*. I have my own stories, and when they’ve been stolen I have reason to take offense. I don’t get upset when someone disses Vonnegut, however. He was a great guy, but now that he’s an immortal he can stand on his own and take it all.
Quite off topic but I’ll ask anyways:
Nathan do you agree with the theory that books which become huge bestsellers are the books people buy just to have on the shelf? By that I mean the books which grace the shell for full viewing to up the ‘look at how much of a mature reader I am.’ I read this theory at PW or some other similar site. Wanted your opinion.
I’m the PhD who hated Tess.
My theory: if you reject their favorite book, you’re rejecting them.
A friend was somewhat amazed when I admitted to her that I’d tried to read a couple of Shirley Jackson novels that she loved passionately, but couldn’t get into them – she wasn’t amazed that I didn’t like them but that I actually told her. I guess other people were too scared to do so. (NB my friend is not that scary.)
I’m sure the person who proudly informed us all that Shakespeare’s tragedies were “just ok” is feeling very smug about that. There’s a certain kind of childish iconoclasm that many people can’t move past (I’m sure I do it myself at my advanced age sometimes!)
There are books lots of people like, enjoy, and praise that I find sloppily written and/or poorly researched and/or dishonest. I try to be clear about what I don’t like rather than just carry on.
But sometimes it can be fun to carry on in the ‘I WANTED TO PEEL MY SKIN SLOWLY FROM MY BONES AND USE IT TO STRANGLE MYSELF’ vein. To me, as long as people don’t confuse that with actual discussion, it can be amusing.
I think that the world’s remaining readers are so beleaguered, and beset by other things competing for our time that a book we perceive as not worth the time is more of an insult than it used to be. We have better things to do than read a bad book, damnit. People used to be more appreciative of books, didn’t we? Also, if I read a new book than has been over-hyped and I don’t like it, that *really* pisses me off. Being lied to adds insult to injury — bad enough to waste the time on my own initiative, but if I waste time because some critic who is a friend of the author’s tells me to, I really see red.
But that’s just me. Or maybe not.
After I entered “Catcher in the Rye” I thought: I wonder if Salinger’s still alive.
And I see from today’s post that he is.
Although I have to ask: how can you tell?
@mark terry- When in doubt, google. (Stole our hosts words and replaced ‘query’ with ‘google’ obviously).
I don’t think it is just the internet.
People in general are surprisingly tactless. I understand that some things (books, movies, celebrities even O.o) generate strong emotions but IMO additionally it seems to become a manner of identifying yourself within a certain community.
And then, there is the myth of the so called ‘publishable quality’. It implies that there are in fact some books that are badly written (I actually agree that there are, but a surprising amount of them is published ;)) and that there is some sort of justified standards to qualify a book one way or the other. Personal taste has become subject to judgement that way.
If you love a book, if you were deeply touched, then, somebody saying that it not only didn’t do it for them, but that is was horrible and then, going on to identify all the plotholes and continuity problems, actually does suggest the underlying statement: Only a moron could like this book.
But the fact of the matter is: we don’t read books in a vacuum and some surprisingly weakly written books are bestsellers. Because they touch something in you. And yes, it may require something different to touch a jaded 40 years old writer than to touch a teenager in love with love. Actually, it would be extreemly surprising if it wasn’t that way. So, I frankly admit that I loved some books that I cannot bear to read now that I have learned so much about writing, because some of them are very poor in quality. However, I still cherish the thoughts they raised in my mind.
I have always read in a great variety of genres. Regardless of their skills regarding story telling and prose, I was as impressed with Sharon Shin or Nora Roberts as I was with Emile Zolá.
My way to defining what I want to be as a person was shaped by Simone de Beauvoir and Marion Zimmer Bradley.
So, I am not that easily offended, and I know even though you could prove to the person saying the offensive stuff that objectively she has just insulted you personally, it usually isn’t meant that way.
We are in the business of story telling and we have invited the idea that conflict is a virtue. Not everbody can accept that fiction and fact need a different sort of telling.
Maybe, we should go back to being in love with love rather than being in love with a good conflict. At least off the pages.
(Having said so I will n ow return to torturing my MC’s with a final ugly conflict before they get their loving ;))
Yours truly
P.S. Nice Blog, btw
Somebody just told me this quote by Kurt Vonnegut. I think it applies to this blog post:
Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.
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