Okay, I admit it. I'm a book snob. Someone once accused me of it and I was offended. And now I'd like to say I'm sorry I was offended. You were right.
Book recommendations are a tricky thing. My taste sometimes falls into mainstream and sometimes falls into quirky. Most of the time when people ask me for book recommendations I hem and haw until they get tired of waiting for me and end up changing the subject. In fact, I think I sort of bank on the fact that they won't wait for my response. Why? Because most of the time the books I love other people hate and it hurts my book self-esteem when someone bothers to come back and tell me they just couldn't get into one of my favorite books. I mean, it's fair enough. I find sort of random things funny. I identify with characters on strange levels and for strange reasons (they aren't strange to me...people just look at me real funny sometimes when I say what I really think about certain books. In grad school I could do this and be thought of as a valuable contributor to class. Now I'm just the local book snob.).
Well, here comes the snobbery for all to see because I have a rant. It's a rant against mediocre fiction. The last two books I have read have been terrible. Not just sort of bad, but really awful. Now, I do have to take some responsibility for my actions at this point. I have this annoying trait of finishing something I've started. I could have, at any point, put these books down. I was disgusted enough with them both that I should have. But I didn't. Why? Because I had to know if there was going to be any redeeming moment in them at all. I have this unfailing hope and faith that somewhere in the 400 pages of awfulness, evidence that an editor actually read the manuscript would come forth and the book would stop careening down the path of cliche and unoriginality!! I know this sounds harsh, but honestly, I want my time and money back. I'm not even going to admit which book was the first one I read. It's not even worth mentioning. All I can say is that I read it out of a "needed to know" obligation. The End.
The second book was a book by Shannon Hale, an author I really feel is very creative. I like her children's literature and have found it to be some of the most original and delightful fantasy I've come across (The Goose Girl and Enna Burning - the second one is particularly good). I recently came across a new-ish book she wrote in the non-kiddie section (I typed "adult section" but that sounded kind of wrong). I thought, hmmmm, and opened up the front cover. The prologue had me intrigued. It appeared to be about a girl who was obsessed over the Colin Firth version of Pride & Prejudice and was determined to rid herself of her fantasy obsession. The prologue was biting and I thought, ooooh, a good satire. I love a good satire. And since Hale had a good record with me, I bought it to take with me to the beach. What a disappointment.
The idea had such potential, but my biting satire instead turned out to be wish-fulfillment, and not even well done at that. I kept reading until the end, hoping for some ending other than the one I knew was coming. Even during the airport scene (which could have been so much funnier than it actually was) I kept thinking, there's no way this guy is getting on the plane. She wouldn't do that. But she does. I chucked the book across the room.
Now, please don't think I'm a cynic. I'm not. (I prefer to describe myself as an optimistic realist.) That being said, it's not that I didn't want the dude to get on the plane. There just wasn't nearly enough precedent for him to get on the plane. It was weird. It felt forced. I found myself examining my own writing, questioning what my own first story would be, if I were to finish writing it. Would it get caught in this weird place between satire and wish fulfillment? Maybe. Hopefully I'll have the good sense to never try and publish it. I'll lock it away in a drawer and pirate it for material 10 years down the road, not subject already vulnerable women to unlikely (and ultimately unentertaining) scenarios.
[sigh] Okay. Rant over. I'm returning to non-fiction for a while. I've had a lot of good luck with that genre this year, thanks to some excellent recommendations. (My friend, you know who you are, you have not failed me once. Thank you. You're at the top of my list. Don't blow it.)
N.B. I realize this may deter many of you from ever recommending a book to me again. That is not my intention. I love book recommendations. In all fairness I should point out that these books were not recommended to me. I chose them all by my lonesome. I wonder what that says about my own judgment... It reminds me of the time I rented P.S. I Love You and was mad the whole time and am still talking about how much I hated the movie.
Assignment: Please leave a comment about any of the following: Rants about books you hate/were disappointed in (and why - I'm curious). Praise for books you love (and why - I'm curious). What wish fulfillment literature does for you (love it? hate it? indifferent? it serves its purpose?). Or anything else you want to say (but try to be nice...or if you can't be nice, be articulate.)
11 comments:
Well, this may be anything but pleasant, articulate, and intellectual...but you asked for it. :) I too love books. I've had tremendous luck with recommended books, except from an actual author herself. I was so intrigued by a suggested title and author that one vampiristic writer raved about, yet found that I too wished I had my time back. Thankfully I chose the library route, so the money was not lost. I really don't know what this author thought was so beautiful and intriguing about an adulturous woman in a village town, but okay. I chose not to read the book once I found out its contents, but I chose another title by the same author (since she was supposed to be so brilliant). Thankfully this book was a little more moralistic, and had a happy ending--but not until after I had thrown it across the room and then decided to pick it back up. The Morning Gift. Beautiful story, but not something I would read a second time.
For many years reading was confined to the scriptures and any and all related material pertinent to effectively teaching Seminary. It was hard to do much more while raising you eleven children. But since then, I have had the time to enlarge my reading repertoire. Concerning fiction versus nonfiction, I prefer the later. I do have to admit I did enjoy my English literature courses, though. There were very few writings I did not appreciate but I have to say that those based on some historical event were most appealing to me. So I would have to admit that as far as genre, I am definitely a lover of historical/cultural books. Your brother Steve laughs because whenever we come to visit him in Texas, out of the thousands of books which he possesses (and has read) I always migrate to one on the bottom shelf of his front room library. It is a book about the early colonies in America- the people, the cultures they brought with them. I would tell you the name of the book but I honestly can’t remember it. Each time I visit I simply go straight to the book and open it up to the page I have earmarked and continue to read.
I did listen to a book review about Tony Horwitz’s book about Columbus and the settling of America called “A Voyage Long and Strange.” I decided I would like to buy that book. So I went to the bookstore and asked the clerk for help finding it. It took him and another worker about 15 minutes before they finally found several copies in the back room and restocked the shelf. I decided before I bought it I would peruse the pages. It didn’t take me long to figure out that not everything he wrote was totally accurate and I quickly put it back on the shelf. THEN I had to figure out how to sneak out of the store without buying the book- I didn’t want to seem ungrateful for all the work they had gone to to find it. :) Currently I am reading a book (when I can get it away from Dad) called “Joseph Smith Rough Stone Rolling,” which you suggested. It is a great historical/cultural book by Richard Bushman which satisfies my criteria for a good book. Thanks Julie for the suggestion!
Mom
Optimist realist. Nice way of dancing around the reality of it :)
I guess I can't really talk. The last time I read a non-textbook was...sometime around the dot com bust. Oh well...
You aren't related to Bart and Janssen Bradshaw, are you? Cuz Janssen just posted today about her enduring love of Shannon Hale. Maybe y'all can duke it out.
Ah...I'm proud to say I introduced you to Shannon Hale with the good stuff :D I hope I can keep in the positive on your scale. That being said, I just read the most delightful book EVER (well, maybe not ever, but certainly in a long time) that doesn't fall into the fiction category. What is it? A mystery to you - for now. You'll have to count down the days to Christmas (or until I get too impatient and put it in the mail). I'm glad we feel the same about oh-so-many books.
I hope The Voice of Reason's Christmas book is by Truman Capote. Mine is.
okay, so the one that came to my head was 100 years of Solitude. I'd studied Marquez a lot in my Spanish classes, read his short stories etc. and I found him... intriguing?! Well, everyone raves about him and especially 100 Years of Solitude. So, as a graduation pressie I used the gift card and bought it for my round the world trip. I started reading... didn't like. Twisted sexual mind, i was grasping at symbolical straws. But, what's wrong with me? EVERYONE loves this book... so keep going! All the sudden it ended and i was still disgusted and confused. I left it on an airplane in Austria.
Too many good nonfiction books to read to have time for fiction :)
Genre snob. I know you've slummed it in fiction. Admit it.
I completely agree with this post (especially about the optomistic realists, I'm one too). I also continue reading a garbage book, hoping it will redeem itself (they almost never do), and wonder why so many people loved it.
Case in point: The Golden Compass. I bought it a few months before the movie came out, thinking it would be a fun, quick read for a change...one of the worst books I've ever read! And let's not even talk about the anti-religion aspects, even that didn't bother me as much as the fact that it was so poorly written! This guy was being compared to Rowling? The storyline wasn't realistic and often flowed awkwardly, there was no real depth in any of the characters, and the protagonist came to such brilliant conclusions as, "If our parents think it's bad, it must be good." Oh yes, that's a logical argument.
Give me something really interesting, or at least well written - Les Miserables, Freakonomics, anything Jane Austin, The Tipping point, Lexus and the Olive Tree, The Glass Castle, The Count of Monte Christo, and, yes, Harry Potter.
Cherie (aka voice of reason) - you were right about your book being the most delightful book ever, since it is my VERY favorite collection of essays ever. Anne Fadiman's Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader. Anyone who reads should read this book. It's delightful and validates my existence as a ... well, a reader...and a writer. She's a great author (used to be editor of the American Scholar and has a couple of other excellent books out there). Check her out if you haven't already.
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