To read or not to read
So last week I interviewed Man Booker prize-winning, super-clever & very lovely author Eleanor Catton for New Zealand Woman's Weekly magazine. One of the things she told me is that she never stops reading a book just because it's bad; only if it's boring. Her reason is that you can still learn stuff from badly written books. While I suspect she's right I have absolutely no tolerance for fiction I don't like. Often I can tell within a few paragraphs whether I'm going to continue. Sometimes it's the style of the prose - I can't be doing with Lionel Shriver's work for instance because she uses too many words (yes that sounds odd but I can't think of another way to describe it). There have been novels I've made it halfway through only to come across a plot twist so unlikely that I've thrown the book across the room in disgust.
The other thing is that I review books for a newspaper called the Herald On Sunday and only have a page a week so I see it as an opportunity to highlight stuff that's worth reading rather than be mean about books that aren't. In my opinion there's too much brilliant literature around to be wasting time and attention on anything that's not.
What do you reckon? Team Eleanor or Team Nicky?
The other thing is that I review books for a newspaper called the Herald On Sunday and only have a page a week so I see it as an opportunity to highlight stuff that's worth reading rather than be mean about books that aren't. In my opinion there's too much brilliant literature around to be wasting time and attention on anything that's not.
What do you reckon? Team Eleanor or Team Nicky?
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Sally
(new)
Feb 16, 2014 09:23PM
I'm Team Nicky. Life is too short to read a bad book when there are so many good ones. If I hit an unlikely plot twist I could almost treat that book as kindling. Make way for the greater novels I say. A writer can surely learn and be more inspired by great examples of the craft rather than bad ones, so I wouldn't waste my time on them.
reply
|
flag
Being an English teacher, I have to go with Team Eleanor. My job often involves persuading my students that the book they initially hate is actually very good and has ideas or characters that will stay with them forever. Given that I try to persuade my students that they have to give a book a decent go before rejecting it, I try to do the same myself when I read. As a result I have discovered some real gems once I got beyond chapter three or four. (Although every now and then I do wish I hadn't given up three hours of my life for a book that just didn't come together in the end). I do place close attention to recommendations by my favourite reviewers who act as a filter.
Team Nicky! I have so many books on my TBR that to waste my time with bad books is a no no. I will give a book a fair chance but books have been known to get thrown if they are lousy .
Team Nicky! I exercise my right to walk out of a film, play or gig if it's rubbish and I have no qualms about dumping a book for the same reason. And frankly, if a writer hasn't made the effort to hook you with the first couple of chapters then you owe them nothing!
Team Eleanor, whole-heartedly. In fact, this is an enormous bugbear of mine. Without sounding righteous or preachy, I'll resolutely stick with something once I've embarked on it. Perhaps it's just perfectionist completion-anxiety, but I just can't bear not hanging in there if I'm not instantly hooked.
Some of the most seminal and rewarding texts I've ever read have a slow-ish start: in fact, my two favourite tomes are Catton's The Luminaries and Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things. (Both are beautiful, slight texts; with the disproportionate payoff in the latter chapters). So MANY of my favourite books take a while to bed in, or gain traction, or establish themselves; with rewards that pay dividends later on (Atwood's The Blind Assassin, for instance). If it's plot-driven airport-fiction perhaps, but I think anything slightly more literary of character-focused deserves a more longitudinally-invested approach.
In The Luminaries, to pursue the analogy more relentlessly; the capital investment (in character and interchange, in business subterfuge and shipping transactions) pays off richly as the narrative gains momentum. It starts rhythmic, academic, metered; it ultimately becomes pacy and climactic. The time and the thought and the reason transforms itself into breast-clutching; unputdownable stuff: dividends if they ever were. And - precisely because of this initial investment - it's far richer and more multi-layered than a plot-driven doorstop of a novel. One finishes feeling replete and satisfied in the whollest of senses.
I also feel that one can't ever confidently pass a justified negative judgement on a text (filmic, literary, poetic) without having imbibed it wholly. Where does it go, where does it end? If it's flawed, why so? HOW does it ebb? If it doesn't grab us, why? Are our judgements founded if they are partially-informed? Is it characterisation, plot, theme? Does it lag in the middle, or are its characters thin, or are there plot loopholes? Is the ending a partial redemption, or the final straw? A cake, perhaps (homogenous throughout) can be judged on a single bite, but the linear trajectory and fluctuance of a novel is an entirely different entity.
Perhaps I'm being lofty and academic here - I don't know! I've always been the studious sort, the least hedonistic of my friends, inclined to dull tasks and a covert fan of white bread, early nights and envelope-stuffing. I just know I'm a bitter-end girl, a Team Catton devotee to the last.
Team Eleanor! I understand why people don't want to read poorly written books, but the point is more about what we can learn from poorly written books. In terms of writing, I think it is very hard to develop a sense of what is good in your own writing without recognising what is bad in the writing of others. I try to engage with what I am reading and question why I don't connect with it, and thus become both a better reader and writer, as Kate suggests above. Also if the book is bad and not boring, as Eleanor suggests, then there must be some redeeming feature. I love a book so poorly written that it gives me a giggle, or a wonderfully cheesy sex scene. Food for satire at any rate!
