The same handful of bad books are endlessly repeated (Twilight comes to mind), thread after thread. The same bad writers are endlessly trashed (Dan Brown comes to mind), thread after thread.

My challenge to the 'regulars' here is to go a month without mentioning the things you mention constantly. Endlessly criticizing the same half dozen writers/books does not make one a snob.

PULL OUT THE STOPS!
FILL YOUR SPINE WITH GUNPOWDER!
LIGHT A MATCH IN YOUR BRAIN!

I think the two authors/books you cite are cultural touchstones, stark evidence that we are moving into a post-literate society. So consider them (perhaps) more symbols of the mess that is contemporary publishing. Figureheads, but very potent ones.

It's far easier for me to list the authors I like than go down the lengthy, near limitless roster of those who fail to make the grade.

But...is it simplistic and beneath us as snobs to lash out in particular against certain books/authors that the vast reading public embrace and never mind the tortured syntax, borrowed plots? Or might we be voices in the wilderness insisting contemporary literature offers real treasures, unafraid to assay the merits of a popular title and loudly denounce it as "fool's gold" (if that is the case)?

Message edited by its author, May 21, 2009, 10:41am.

There are millions of bad books in the world. Even if we restricted our gaze to the last two decades, we are all capable of being more creative than the small pool of examples we give.

When you say the same thing over and over again it starts to sound like you're saying the same thing over and over again...

Message edited by its author, May 21, 2009, 10:50am.

How many threads here go like this:

blah blah blah Dan Brown sucks blah blah how can anyone read Ayn Rand!!! blah blah blah Stephanie Meyer is the devil blah blah blah I read Warhammer 40K blah blah blah let's mention Stephanie Meyer again blah blah blah Asimov and Heinlein are bad blah blah blah.

I like the blah blah blah but could do without the rest. Trashing bad popular fiction is fine - I hate that shit too - but the fact that the same writers/titles are used so often says to me that none of us really know much about the popular fiction that we hate. That is a good thing. Now that the hatred of Meyer et al has been proclaimed a few hundred times, surely we can move on?

I never bothered to read any Harry Potter book because I consider it "kiddie lit."

Nor any pop bestsellers either. Just seeing a picture of Malcolm Gladwell makes me want to hurl the book with egregious force.

How about pop trash mysticism, like Sylvia Browne and such? Surely that low-grade hucksterism falls under the aegis of fiction. At least Blatavsky, another mystic crank, wrote better.

Am I right, folks?

Also, Warhammer 40K is entirely lacking in sparkly Mormon vampires and their take on a Hobbesian/Ayn Randish philosophy of selfishness and capitalism is one of satiric tongue-in-cheek. Yeah, it's pop sci fi cheese, but one can't read Joyce and Henry James all the damn time.

I have nothing against Warhammer 40K. I actually know nothing about it besides seeing it mentioned here so often. This thread is not attacking what you or others read. My attention is only on what is written here.

Simply - I started this thread to urge everyone to diversify their objects of hatred.

OK, I am going to take this challenge and going cold turkey on Dan Brown, Stephenie Meyer, and Ayn Rand criticism. I think you have a good idea here.

I think the recent thread on "writers with no style" did branch out on its criticism past the usual suspects, though.

I'm not a regular, so I apologize if I'm not meant to reply!

How about Toni Morrison? Or has she been done already?

Her writing is forced. Despite being about black slaves of many years ago (this referring to Beloved from now on), there is no dialect like there is in, for example, Twain's works. And the whole premise is flawed. If Beloved could come back in the flesh after death simply because she was killed, then all the slaves could just kill each other and re-materialize elsewhere, living happily ever after. I can't say it makes me sympathize like I'd want to.

...Hm, rant over.

I'm all for the philosophy that people should be selfish b*stards, because it would balance out more that way; after all, if everyone focused and took care of themselves first, then there wouldn't be much of a need for sympathy, since those you would sympathize with would (most likely) have taken care of themselves already, eliminating the problem. Of course, there are exceptions to this, but on the whole, it would work out nicely. Still, I dislike Ayn Rand. Reading her stuff makes me want to disagree with myself.

By the way, who IS Dan Brown?

a snapper-up-of not-cosiderable trifles with a wife like Rumpole.

"I'm not a regular, so I apologize if I'm not meant to reply!"

Naw, don't be like that. Everyone should weigh without fear, especially when someone raises a subject, book, author near and dear to your heart.

No need to be shy with this bunch.

#8: It might just be me, but I was so glad that Morrison didn't use dialect in Beloved. I'd read Charles W. Chesnutt for that. I've never been able to make it through Twain's more popular works precisely because he's so heavy on the dialect. If it was a required literary device for every piece of dialogue from a given region or time period, I'd scream. I still don't know what the hell Wuthering Heights' Joseph was saying.

I'm still surprised I didn't realize who Dan Brown is (I looked him up in Wikipedia for more information); I've seen advertisements for the movie adaptations, but never took interest. They seemed like they could be summed up with the words 'religion' and 'conspiracy,' and it all seemed very generic.

>10 - Oh, okay then. Thanks, CliffBurns. Didn't want to offend (in THAT way, at least; other ways I'm ready and willing).

>11 - I'll be honest here: I also have difficulty with dialect. However, I find it impossible to believe that the slaves of that time period would speak words perfectly (although the overall structure of their sentences is poor; the combination is very irritating for me to read). On the bright side, the lack of dialect made it a faster book to read than it would have been otherwise, and I'm glad to have something like that over and done with.

Message edited by its author, May 21, 2009, 8:15pm.

Okay, now I know that I'm weird. I love dialect. I have a book called Rotten English that is just poems and stories written in various English dialects. I used the poems before I started teaching Huck Finn to get my students used to "translating" out loud. (Some of the Irish stuff was pretty rough, but, for the most part, once they got going, they actually enjoyed it.) I think the trick with reading any dialect is to read it out loud to yourself. Sometimes I even have to do this with my students' writing. ;)

>13 - If I could understand it more easily, I would like it quite well, so it is unfortunate that I struggle with it. I can understand the majority of what I've seen, but sometimes there are words that make no sense at all to me, even when I read it out loud to myself. They tend to be words that are crucial to the understanding of the sentence.

Writing dialect is like writing in second person, yeah, you can do it, but unless it serves the purpose of the story it becomes a distraction, the more arcane the dialect, the more of a distraction it becomes.

It's best to avoid dialect if it can be helped.

Stay away from Irvine Welsh or James Kelman, if that's the case. Whoo, takes 40 pages until your ear starts kicking in and you actually understand what people are saying. Requires a leap of faith to hang with it but, in the end, it's worth it.

And need I mention Russell Hoban's RIDDLEY WALKER? Yike!

What about literature written in the present tense? Sometimes it works, other times it is a distraction.

There is a "Bad books by good authors" thread but I will stop here to complain about one of my favorite "good" authors, the late John Updike. His essays, poetry, reviews, short stories are unbeatable. His "Rabbit" novels & his "Bech" novels are also classics.
But - so many of his novels end up unfinished & disappointing. The witches (& widows) of Eastwick Terrorist the Coup if they had been written by someone else, they would have landed in the rejection file where they belong. Updike does not always succeed in placing himself as the POV person of another sex or culture. There's nothing wrong with that - writers' advice to write what you know something about (unless it's fantasy) tells us that all the time. When I first discovered Updike, in the pages of the New Yorker 50 years ago, I was determined to read every word he ever wrote. Not a good idea. Even the best can slip up. That's why we have reviews & forums like this.

Message edited by its author, May 22, 2009, 11:24am.

Hard to carry off present tense for an entire novel. Much more suited to the short story format--otherwise (unless employed by a top-flight talent) can be tiresome.

Examples, good and bad?

Message edited by its author, May 22, 2009, 12:06pm.

19: It works for Damon Runyon. That's dialect as well... and not that hard to follow.

Unless I'm mistaken, Grendel is written present tense, first person and is a tour de force of writing. The monsters POV is central to the story, illustrating the strengths and weaknesses of the character. If Grendel had been capable of thinking in the future tense, of placing himself in an imaginary future world, in short of planning, his power would have made him unstoppable, but he couldn't and he wasn't. The conceit, to me, made the book more than just another scary monster story.

What is it - about 50 - 75 pages, a novella?

> 8 "By the way, who IS Dan Brown?"

A forgettable name. Maybe you heard of the Da Vinci Code aka The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail ?

Well, I never took this challenge anyway :-)

15:
It's best to avoid dialect if it can be helped.

Yikes!

English dialects, Spanish, French and Nandsat are okay by me. I dont mind the extra work needed to figure out what is going on. It's a big world and not everybody speaks like I do.

Gene, you are just one step away from complaining about authors that might make you use a dictionary.

Nah, not Gene: boy's got a big brain and a library to die for.

>22 - I have heard of it. It doesn't sound interesting in the least. Is it the plot or the writing that has earned it all the criticism, or both?

As for dialects, though I do struggle with them, I'm willing to try and understand them as long as the author hasn't made that absolutely impossible (which I have yet to come across, but probably will one day).

> 25
It's a poorly written page-turner that lifted its plot from the HB&HG. I think it was a novel idea to people who hadn't read the earlier book, and to give him credit, he did know how to keep the suspense going. But that's about it really. I've not read any of his others which may be literary classics for all I know.

>26 - Ah, I see. Suspense doesn't have much of an affect on me, except when I'm anxious to get an embarrassing scene over and done with. I'm not sure if that counts as suspense or not.

I wonder why poorly written books are so popular, yet it is the well-written ones (for the most part) that have longevity. It seems odd how one fits with the other...

>27 Poorly written books seem to be all plot. They may read like laundry lists, but they move quickly because everything that makes a book worth reading except the plot has been removed.....
I can add several awful, awful writers simply because of my advanced age and former contact with teenagers: Sydney Sheldon (I'll bet that's a name that has never shown up on a Snobs thread before), Grace Metellas,Nicholas Sparks, Nicholas Evans, Terry McMillan (One of my black students read her for a "your choice" book report and said,, "I shouldn't have wasted my time." Smart kid!), Omar Tyree..... So glad I could help, inaudible.

>26 I read The Da Vinci Code and kept turning the pages, yes, but the thing that annoyed me most about it was the flatness of the characters. I couldn't have said anything about the personalities of the characters after reading the book--because the author didn't say anything about them. They just ran around a lot solving puzzles. What amazed me most about the book was the number of people who took it seriously, as though Dan Brown had really revealed a big secret conspiracy. Yeah, right.

I happen to dislike (intensely) a certain kind of modern weepy novel, in which the characters are steeped in grief or angst throughout the novel but Deal with Some Issue and Learn Something by the end. Anything by Jodi Picoult or Anita Shreve or Sue Kidd comes to mind. These are, alas, favorites of my book club.

#29, I'd be ditching that book club very quickly. Faking death if necessary.

>30

Well, I like the women and we've managed to sneak in a few books I've liked. I've stuck with it mainly because I'm in a very small town with nothing to do here.

But my grand plan involves ditching the club by moving someplace far away with a better climate, more bookstores, and more book clubs from which to choose. In the meantime, I'm not reading The Shack (July's selection). Sounds ghastly.

>28 - That makes sense. Laundry lists are meant to be readable; some hundred pages would be a breeze... A likely unsatisfying breeze, though.

I have never read anything by any of them. Somehow, I now doubt I will. It's a good thing.

>29 - When I knew absolutely nothing about The Da Vinci Code, I had no idea whether it was fiction or actual conspiracy theory, or even both. I decided not to pay any mind to the book , because no matter which it was, it did not seem worth reading. (Good call, me, you would not have liked it...)

Does the 'modern weepy novel' you are referring to include stories where a character goes or is insane, thus 'learning something' that a sane person would not necessarily think of? (For example: 'I have learned that life is simpler than I thought. All you need to do is remember that water is your friend, and would never steal the marshmallows.') I'm curious. Heck, even assume the character is despairing up to the grand realization.

Message edited by its author, May 23, 2009, 6:47am.

I had friends who wanted to discuss The Da Vinci Code from a theological POV. I was completely able to take part in the discussion after reading only the first and last page of every chapter - the rest in the middle was mere padding.

I still hated it mind you.

And for junk, I usually read crime stores, but I can't abide detective stories where the detective has more psychological problems than the criminal, Elizabeth George springs to mind.

"I can't abide detective stories where the detective has more psychological problems than the criminal"

Oh I have to part company with you there AC ! I love flawed detectives, they are more human and more believable somehow. Did you ever see any of the "Cracker" series? (Robbie Coltrane, British TV).

The very least y'all could do is abide by the challenge within this thread!

35: Oh! Sweet irony!

>33, 34

I'm with Tid on this one; I enjoy the Elizabeth George books (and the dramatizations, although the plots are rendered nearly incomprehensible in them); I also loved the Cracker series. That was one seriously flawed, but brilliant, detective!

>35 Well, when it comes to Dan Brown, I'm going to plead a defense well known to anyone who ever had a sibling: s/he started it! I just responded to queries about it. But otherwise, I think it's been more than six months since I expressed my loathing for Picoult et al.

>35, 37 - Haha, oops. I think I was the one who started it, right? My bad.

Message edited by its author, May 23, 2009, 6:54pm.

Most books are bad. Sturgeon's Law demands it. Have a look at the "top" books of 1900-1909
http://arthursclassicnovels.com/arthurs/

I think I've read three out of the hundred. I was only aware of a fourth author (Winston Churchill) because he later turned his talents to government service.

>39 Oh, no, what have you done to me?! I've only read one of them, Janice Meredith, and there it is online, and I want to read it again! It's been decades but the one thing I remember about it is that Janice managed to be everywhere during the American Revolution that anything was happening. A fun read . . .

Well, I looked at the top ten.... I at least own Red Pottage and Richard Carvel - and btw, that Winston Churchill was an American who died in 1947.

Message edited by its author, May 24, 2009, 5:00pm.

Thank you Lizzie. The to-be Prime Minister was far too entrenched in party politics to write fiction. He might have done well as a writer.

Also, Rudyard Kipling was awarded a Nobel prize for literature in 1907.

Why?

With respect, I think Winston Churchill did do well as a writer--just not of fiction. But he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953; the Nobel site says:

"Churchill's literary career began with campaign reports: The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898) and The River War (1899), an account of the campaign in the Sudan and the Battle of Omdurman. In 1900, he published his only novel, Savrola, and, six years later, his first major work, the biography of his father, Lord Randolph Churchill. His other famous biography, the life of his great ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough, was published in four volumes between 1933 and 1938. Churchill's history of the First World War appeared in four volumes under the title of The World Crisis (1923-29); his memoirs of the Second World War ran to six volumes (1948-1953/54). After his retirement from office, Churchill wrote a History of the English-speaking Peoples (4 vols., 1956-58). His magnificent oratory survives in a dozen volumes of speeches, among them The Unrelenting Struggle (1942), The Dawn of Liberation (1945), and Victory (1946).

"Churchill, a gifted amateur painter, wrote Painting as a Pastime (1948). An autobiographical account of his youth, My Early Life, appeared in 1930."

Message edited by its author, May 23, 2009, 10:14pm.

George B. McCutcheon rocks!

People still read Edith Wharton and Frank Norris. Looks like Henry James wasnt selling much.

Can we add to the list of banned books any that describe a high-powered and/or heart-broken executive who goes to Paris/Rome/etc. to find a simpler life and love? Why doesn't anyone search for the meaning of life in Dubuque?

>45 - The bathroom is a nice place to ponder, though. I wonder how many people have thought of trying to find the meaning of life there? But, returning to the point, I rather agree with you.

A place must have a life before one can find its meaning.

If you want conspiracies, just read Conspiranoia Every popular -- and some oddball -- conspiracies are all mapped out and explained. Far more interesting than reading Dan Brown's sub-literate chicken scratchings.

I think we can ditch trashing Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer, etc. and focus on Lauren Conrad She wrote a "novel" and it sounds just plain awful. Glad to see reality show "stars" are becoming novelists. Makes all us aspiring writers really angry. I wish they follow Joaquin Phoenix's lead and become white rappers.

Joaquin Phoenix's rap project pure gold.

robt anton wilson's tedious conspiratorials - whether meant tongue in cheek as some advocates assert or not, as the crap writing makes his intent moot. Mostly because i like some of Robt Charles Wilson's books which i fear get bypassed.

Robots can write books? Wow, I never knew that.

You never read any Kevin J Anderson?

And if you haven't, lucky you...

The way i see it is different people like different things! I actually like Dan Browns books & i love the Harry Potter books...& im nearly 30!!! lol Theres probably hundreds of books ive read that the majority of people here wouldnt like but then theres no saying i'd like all the books you all read...just a thought.

"& im nearly 30!!! lol"

Sentences like this, if you can call that a sentence, should receive the same reception as a Staph infection.

I would say that single sentence fragment conveyed tons of meaning. Isn't that what writing is all about, communication?

Of course your sentence places you right in the heart of snobdom, so go for it!

55: "Different people like different things." Way to take a stand. One doesn't come across non-statement statements of such Zen-like emptiness everyday.

The Taliban like shooting women in the back of the head inside soccer stadiums and I like lollipops. But who am I to judge?

56 & 58: Get off her back.

I think equating a love of Dan Brown and Harry Potter to the Taliban's violence against women is a bit harsh. But I also think posting about that love in--er, nonstandard English--in a thread within the Literary Snobs may have been a bit naive, though innocently done.

MissAusten, one of the things I like about LT is that it welcomes all who love books and want to discuss them. But please realize that there are some readers who believe that some books are better than others and that, as difficult as it may be to decide on the criteria, many think that it's possible to make judgments based on some criteria other than "I like it." Although goodness knows there's plenty of discussion about whether popularity is connected to quality in any way other than inversely.

>60 - Methinks that kswolff's statement was an extreme example rather than a comparison. Never know, though.

Karl employs hyperbole like a bushmaster dispenses venom.

If it wasn't so distasteful, I would find the comparison between the Taliban shooting women and lollipops, unique, surreal and comic. I am torn between admiration and disgust.

>63 - I still say it's an extreme example of the differing preferences of people rather than a comparison... There's not a great deal to compare. Shooting people doesn't taste good (I think), eating lollipops does, etc.

But really, I can't see it as a comparison. I don't think he compared anything. But that's just me, and I'm tired, anyway...

Edit: On second thought, it could be considered a comparison, but only as a comparison between him and the Taliban, not between the things they like.

Message edited by its author, May 28, 2009, 9:58am.

What can I say? Different people like different things.

**Slide whistle**
**Spring**
**Toilet flushes**

I want to restate this challenge, as some people here continue to basically copy and paste the same post over and over and over again.

I tautologically agree with your above statement.