This is going to be a bit of a rant.
I’ve recently experienced a series of interactions with friends and acquaintances in response to my raving about some book I was reading. The conversation usually goes one of two ways:
Conversation #1
Me: I love this book! It makes me want to become a brittle-yet-vulnerable forensic psychologist (for example) who solves murders in the nick of time.
My friend: Mmm. I don’t know, I thought the book was a bit obvious, didn’t you? And it was so unlikely, you know, all those convenient coincidences. And the love-interest subplot? Predictable.
Me: Ohhh. I thought that was nice. You know, how she saved his life, and then he saved her life, and then they both saved the killer’s life together so that justice could be served in a court of law?
My friend: It’s probably just me. I just think it didn’t compare to [trendy writer]’s book, which was so gritty and urban. So real. And yet at the same time, a metaphor for today’s world, don’t you think?
Conversation #2
Me: I’m reading [average novel example] and can’t put it down.
My friend: You read that sh*t?
Me: …
Here’s my thing: I don’t think reading novels should be hard work, not if the work isn’t dwarfed by the enjoyment you get from it. I don’t think books should be notches on an intellectual bedpost. I don’t think they should be used as the currency of culture – or cool – either.
I heard about an architect – maybe Jørn Utzon – who said that his aim in creating new spaces was to allow people to think new thoughts. That’s what a good novel does for me. It puts new pictures into my head and introduces me to new people and make me feel stuff.
There are plenty of crap novels out there. Really bad ones, the literary lovechildren of Dan Brown and Matthew Reilly (I should know, I’ve read most of them). But for me, the litmus test there is whether or not I’m convinced by the story. That’s it. If it’s reeeeally badly written, or if the characters are preposterous, or the plot is overly contrived, then it’s not fun. On the other hand, surely the unwritten contract between the author and us as readers involves us suspending our disbelief to some degree.
The way I see it, you should only be allowed to rubbish a novel if you started it with the intention of enjoying it. Cynicism is a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I think people become addicted to criticising things. Maybe it’s the way we’re educated: you get into a rhythm or a pattern of looking for the defects, the ‘Aha!’, something to write in the essay. I’ve always been the opposite. In any given situation I tend to dole out more than enough benefit of the doubt to go around.
That said, I understand the importance of criticism and think that where it’s thoughtful, it’s priceless. I’m not advocating being nice about everything.
What is increasingly pissing me off, though, is what I see as being people bigging themselves up via putting down other people’s work. It becomes a bit like racism or other forms of prejudice that work psychologically to affirm one’s own rightness (or right-onness!). And it seems to me that a quasi-intellectual objection to a ‘low-brow’ novel is often meant to belittle those who enjoy it (ok, me) as much as its author.
So I’ve reached my tipping point. From here on in I’m going to be more forthright than ever about fun books without intellectual pretensions. If I inhale a Nick Hornby or a Val McDermid or a Nicholas Evans, I’m going to go there, girlfriend. Oh yes I di-id.
Rant over. Thoughts?
(Photo credits: Striatic, Secret Pilgrim, 416style, macfanmd)
