I like Joy Fielding and she's on the list. She's entertaining and exciting - certainly not Pulitzer level material but a fun read. The trouble with a lot of readers is that's what they want, an entertaining read. Most consumers are on the level of easy/trendy culture - a horror or action movie, a sitcom, a thriller paperback, Nicki Manj on the radio, prints on their walls - why because it's now, it's whats happening and they feel part of something. And when or if they branch out they do it without a lot of assistance. They have to take a chance - it's their money and their time. Thrillers and certain genres will always get better publicity because they're created with catch phrases in mind making word of mouth super easy. Literary isn't so easy to sum up. It can be ( without a juicy subject ) a hard sell.
Regardless of whether you are the average reader or Mr. PhD who's published papers and books on literary criticism, people like what they like. I don't appreciate people writing reviews that tell me I "must read this book" or "don't waste your money on this book". By all means tell me why you liked or hated it but leave the choice to purchase, up to me. That being said, I would not refuse a place on the NYT bestseller list if ever I got the opportunity to be on it.
This reminds me of something I forgot to mention in my last post. When you ask the average reader why he/she liked a book, he/she is going to give some generic answer along the lines of "I really liked the characters and the plot." That doesn't help me, a potential reader of that book, in any way. I need more details. This is just one thing that separates a real critic from your average reader.
I took you up on and just lit up a Harry Potter novel. Not too bad, really. Lots of green and purple fizzy smoke.
I agree. Saying "I liked the characters and the plot" is about as useful as saying "got to buy/do not buy this book".
There are good things in them, and it would be impossible to say (or prove) that everything on a list like that is crap. I was not being conceited when I talked about the author I had read, I was pointing out that there were clear, technical errors in the writing that any grammarian would take issue with. There are stylistic differences, and then there are qualitative differences. People can argue about style, but they can't argue about typos. I don't intend to belittle readers but I do occasionally have issues with their judgment. This particular book I read was not only poorly written but it was classified YA on Goodreads with some really disturbing content for teenaged girls, in particular. This is neither here nor there in this particular discussion, but it does make you wonder where the public's head is at and goes beyond a matter of taste, IMO.
As to PhDs - there are a lot of economists with PhDs. You'd be hard-pressed to find harmony among their ranks, and any number of them calling the others idiots. So, sorry - a doctorate doesn't mean they can tell me what a good book is any better than someone who has read widely for decades. And a lot of your 'average readers' have done just that.
The truth is any system can be gamed. There used to be companies that guaranteed you a place on The Amazon best seller list. (Which was really easy to do since they chose a new bestseller every hour.) Amazon changed the rules and now it's not so easy, still, people think this is something they want. Personally, I would never buy a book from Konrath, because he gamed the system like crazy. (He bought reviews and so much more.) I'd rather sell a few hundred copies of my book consistently over the long term than to be on a best seller list for an hour or a week. Why is it an insult? A person may be better educated, but that doesn't' mean they know what's 'good' for everyone. It amazes me that people can't just read what they like without it being 'worthy'. If you enjoyed the book, it's worthy enough. If you didn't, then it wasn't worthy for you. But I would be willing to bet someone got worth out of it.
I have no problem with people reading what they want. Like I said, there's a difference between enjoyment and appreciation. Many people can read Nabokov, but how many of them can appreciate his use of language? How many of them can appreciate the wordplay and references he's put in? So go ahead and read what you want; I'm certainly not going to judge you for it. But keep in mind that there's a huge difference between your average reader and someone who does this stuff for a living.
But of what value is that difference? I know people who make furniture for a living and people who do it for a hobby. The difference in quality has absolutely nothing to do with which group they belong to - some are good, some aren't so good. This thing about education/profession is like assuming because one has an MFA they'll automatically be a better writer than someone who doesn't.
On average, someone with a PhD is going to know a lot more about a subject than a random person off the street. I don't think anyone's going to debate this. Also, there's a huge difference between a PhD and an MFA. Someone who does a PhD is contributing something new to the existing body of knowledge. He/she has to read hundreds of books and journal papers during his/her PhD career and publish papers as well. Compare this to the average person, who isn't as likely to think deeply about what's going on in a particular text. If you can, talk to someone with a PhD in English, and you'll see a huge difference between how he/she talks about a book and how your average person talks about a book. (If you want an example on this forum, take a look at some of the posts by WeAreCartographers, who's doing a PhD in English; his posts are usually very impressive.) Or even better, read reviews written by random people on Amazon and then read papers written by literary critics.
To put it another way, the average reader thinks Shakespeare's sonnets are great love poems. HAHAHAHAHA!
No, I don't think it works like that. The guy with the PhD in English might be able to tell you that the author's use of words and sentence structure was quite magnificent and that the whole story flowed with a seamless clarity which kept the reader interested but only a reader will tell you that the story gave her an affection for the characters that brought her to tears because she felt the love between them, made her laugh out loud at a child's actions and broke her heart when the MC's mother passed away.
Just because you have studied linguistics (one aspect of literary study) doesn't mean you lose your ability to feel feelings. If you were touched by Harry Potter when he complained about the death of his parents, great stuff, but this does not make Potter any more good or bad to everyone. Subjective experience of a book is different to a critical appraisal of a book - and some things about critical theory are, I honestly think, objective.
I know that but if I was to read reviews of a book before I purchased, (incidentally, I don't) then I would be more inclined to look for the reviews by average Joe than Mr. PhD
Really? I'd be more inclined to read Mr. PhD, because Mr Average Joe might not have a clue what he is really talking about beyond 'I liked it', and what use is that?
As I said earlier, the review would have to be more than "I liked it" but not to the technical point of Mr. PhD. Which is probably why I don't purchase books based on reviews. If the cover and title catch my eye, I will then read the blurb. If the blurb makes me think "I want to know more" then I will buy the book.
I can see where both sides of the argument are coming from, but I feel like playing devil's advocate. Right so there are aspects of good or bad writing which can only be identified by people with a high knowledge of critical theory. But are a lot of those aspects going to matter more to the educated reader than the average reader? Granted some aspects will matter to both, though Mr PhD will be able to put into words better what the pros and cons of a piece are. On the other hand the subtle wordplay and references that @thirdwind is talking about, won't make the book a better book for average Joe. At best they'll make no difference, going straight over his head. At worst the book will be more confusing for him. So one could argue they're subjective elements too. Even some things that matter to both, could matter more to someone with a good knowledge. A paragraph might seem a little bit heavier going to average Joe, but could scream bad bad writing to Mr Phd If an author has set out to create something that will entertain the mass market and achieves that, is it really bad?It's not getting much enthusiasm from the academics or the people giving out literary prizes, but that was never the author's aim. If it achieves it's intended function, then you could argue it's good. Plenty of people aim to write a book for the general reading public and fail to write something that would entertain many of that sort of reader. I don't buy that the Joe Blogs reader will enjoy anything. There are still criteria which need to be met.
Absolutely there is but it's not the same for every average reader. For example, I love to read and I will read almost anything. I love the way Dan Brown's earlier books take me on whirlwind journeys and make me think about how his plots come together. Emma Kennedy has me laughing and crying at camping stories from her youth, Sue Townsend has me in stitches with books about the Monarchy who suddenly find themselves in a very strange situation and HG Wells amazes me with his stories that seem so ahead of his time but I honestly could not tell you if any one of those authors have ever won a literary prize or had any kind of assessment written about their work by someone with a PhD because that doesn't matter to me. And that kind of thing doesn't matter to a lot of people who just want to read stories.
To be honest, I don't personally define 'bad' as the absence of 'good'ness. A book can have no major flaws and still not be 'good' to me. That's just the way I define it though. I think it's worth saying that there are different kinds of readers, and different kinds of books. I also think some books can be too high brow, and be more style than substance, like the famous example of The Wake, or Ezra Pound's Cantos. Some books can be a bit too much for everyone, I don't know of a single person who has read The Wake because they enjoyed it, and I know lecturers on this subject. Many people who want an uncomplicated view of a new Stephen King book, a newspaper article or some guy's blog might suffice - Stephen King as a writer has never been terribly complicated. He's tried to be more literary, on a rare occasion, but it has been rare. So a review or critique by a layperson is fine. Someone analyzing Stephen King from a number of critical approaches is also fine. The problem comes in the fact that some literature is different to others, and is trying to do something else. You can take some novel by the likes of Stephen King, fairly uncomplicated, or a novel by James Joyce. This is the problem, some literature requires more time, and more careful thought. I'm not terribly interested in what some Average Joe has to say about James Joyce if it's clear Average Joe did not even try to understand it. What I am interested in would be Mr PhD who has read that Joyce novel many times, tried his best, and based on his wide knowledge has this to say ... . I can't really say I look down on commercial fiction, because as I feel I have indicated earlier in this thread, I am a fan of Stephen King. I look down on fiction because I see bad qualities I cannot forgive. But, honestly, if that's bad to do then so is calling me a snob for suggesting some people don't work hard enough to appreciate different kinds of literature. They don't, but that's not a demonizing comment, more an observation. I might dismiss the book they like, but dismissing them for liking that book is pointless, and that is more than just snobbery, it's nastiness. And a sign of insecurity.
Yep I can agree that books are probably best reviewed by the sorts of people who are within the intended audience. A review from Average Joe saying James Joyce is boring and incomprehensible, isn't of any use, to readers of literary fiction. A review from someone with exclusively highbrow tastes, that says Stephen King is boring and simplistic, isn't of much use to the speculative fiction fans.
Isn't there something of 'No True Scotsman' about this? I'm not entirely sure someone with exclusively highbrow tastes would say this in all honesty. Many academic studies of Stephen King that I've seen (so far my university holds two critical companions to Stephen King's novels) are full of articles essentially praising the books, or giving breakdowns of philosophy and Americana presented in King's novels. I'm not going to lie and say all academics like him, many people obviously don't like him, but to think a 'highbrow' would reject King because he's commercial is silly.
Ah ok. I stand corrected. I may have been fooled by the thread titled something like,"Stephen King can't write" that was floating around recently. But I admit I didn't really look into that thread to see on what basis people might make such comments.
