I really liked the blog from a few years ago (here, dug it up: http://www.socialjusticeleague.net/2011/09/how-to-be-a-fan-of-problematic-things/) about liking problematic things. Now, the problems it's discussing are a lot more profound than feeling that an author hasn't given enough thought to the economic system of a fictional world, but I think there are parallels that can be drawn. The big one, for me, is that people can like flawed things even though they're aware of the flaws. It doesn't mean you're clueless or have no critical reading skills, it just means you're able to ignore the problem. Now, because the blog post was about real problems with books, it goes on to remind us that just because we're able to overlook flaws it doesn't mean everyone else should be expected to, etc. But I don't think anyone's expecting Lemex to overlook the flaws he's found in Harry Potter, so I think we're okay there. (On a similar note, as I said above, I can't get past alpha males in novels. Like, I just can't enjoy books that celebrate those characters. But that's my problem - it doesn't mean that people who DO enjoy books are wrong, or unable to read critically). Books are for enjoyment. If we enjoy them, they're doing their job. If we don't enjoy something that someone else does? Diverse world. Lots of room for different tastes!
Very good post, excellently put. I'm giving you a virtual thumbs up for this one. I want to reiterate, because I just know some people will whine about me being a mean-old elitist who thinks anyone who thinks different to me is an idiot. When I say a book is bad, it's not me putting you down, it's a statement based either on opinion or it's a statement really of influence. When I talk about careful readers, I'm talking about people who care slightly more than just 'Oh what a lovely story'. If you are offended by comments of the like in the future, please don't go out of your way to engage with people who think differently to you. I like the engagement of different opinions, when you get personal you just look silly. And you are getting personal for no reason.
I'm an 80's kid. In my day - Sweet Valley High, Babysitter's Club, Choose Your Own Adventures, First Love From Silhouette and Sweet Dreams were popular. I didn't have a problem with these books. In fact I read them more than say the 'better' children's classics. In fact it got to the point when I would get my series fix the first week of every month when the books came out - buying a stack of them. They had familiar characters that I could look forward to seeing in familiar scenarios that I knew they'd ride out. Plus there were general series books like Bunnicula, and Ellen Conford and R.L. Stine all light fun reads. I don't have a problem with any of these books or the authors but sometimes they got talked about and pushed more than other authors. My librarian didn't push Norma Fox Mazer, Richard Peck, Barbara Brooks Wallace - neither did any of the children's magazines at the time - Sassy and Seventeen pushed Sweet Valley High, anthology romances like Crosswinds and The Girls of Canby Hall or Judy Blume but very little was said about some of the literary type children's authors. It was spooky how generic everyone could let their reading become. Even the stores pushed series fiction they got their own cardboard stands or their covers facing the front while a lot of general fiction had only their spines showing. And unfortunately to count on a kids word of mouth to hail Kit Pearson over something like the Toothpaste Genie was unheard of. It would be like a kid trying to open our taste buds to the delights of Zucchini cake while we're trying to enjoy our fruit roll ups. My issue is more about publicity. Some authors get/got more credit than they deserve ( because they were playing up on trends ) and others get ignored because they didn't, or maybe not in such a sensationalistic ( selling ) fashion. You can even see it at work when the publisher's brain is going clickity click and orders up art work similar to Fifty Shades of Grey to sell their novel or the endorsement from Stephen King at the top. Just once I'd like to see instead of the NY times best seller list is a give these books a glance list.
I know, I just needed to get that off my chest. I've said it before, but I seemed to need to say it again.
But what are you talking about? Earlier in the thread you were saying how much you enjoyed disagreements, and now you're advising a virtual stranger to just ignore it when someone says something she disagrees with? What? And I'm not getting the "getting personal" part, either... (And we should probably ignore the obvious irony of you accusing me of getting personal in the same sentence you say I look silly...?)
@Lemex - well, there're definitely people who refuse to read certain books or watch certain movies precisely because it's popular. My ex being one of them. It drove me frigging MAD. Such an arbitary reason to dismiss something before even giving it a chance. Something about that quality (in him, that is) really, really, reeeeally ticked me off. @lustrousonion - Btw, I love your username Oh gosh, The Giver. Yeah, that book unfortunately falls into the "painfully bland and wasted potential" category for me. No, a quality YA book for me transcends age limits, like Fault in Our Stars and Hunger Games (and yeah, I absolutely adore those books - they're simply written without being bland, easy to read whilst still being deep and poetic). The Giver left me feeling... like... imagine you just ate a McDonald's and you should be full, only you're not. That empty not-full feeling. Not because of the content of the book re the lack of emotions and the things missing in life when emotions are suppressed, but because it felt like scaffolding without the brick and mortar - the dream of a beautiful, brilliant house but the house was never built. That's how The Giver felt. The writing was painfully bland, just tragically so, because so many times it could have used so much more depth and more vivid imagery. As it is, it's just meh... It has a great premise with some great themes but the writing really, really failed it in my opinion. It had potential and it's just such a shame it wasn't realised, as far as I'm concerned. Well, I suppose it depends on how we define "escapism". Implied in the word is a sense of mindlessness and thoughtlessness, but just because a story successfully and brilliantly transports you to another world so much so that you feel you've left reality - does that make it a bad thing? (because isn't that escapism?) And does doing so necessarily mean it must be mindless? Escapism could be the full immersion into another world so deep it changes you completely - that's not mindless, but it has helped you escape. Fault in Our Stars gave me insight into cancer sufferers and informed my views on the topic - it echoed my thoughts about death and made me look deeper. It made me see things I never saw before. And it was very easy to read and at times definitely entertaining - its humour was the very reason the tragedy of the story was so well portrayed, due to the sharp contrast of the two. But it was easy to read and it was entertaining. It totally transported me into the story and made me see things the way I might never have. In that sense, I escaped reality. In that sense, it was easy escapism. But mindless, thoughtless, "just" entertainment? I think not. I think to some extent it's also what style writing you prefer to read. I'm not into loads of detail. I do prefer easy-to-read books where I can find them well-written. I'll read it as long as it engages me no matter the target audience, but well-written YA is a joy to read, and it's a completely different quality to well-written adult books, which are also a joy to read. But between a badly written adult book and badly written YA book, I'm more likely to get further with the YA because I get bored slower with bland language than I do with cluttered, convoluted prose.
No, no, I was referring to Shadowwalker. This is a tango we've danced before, and it never gets anywhere because our views on criticism are incompatible. I don't mind talking to people who at least try to think outside of their world view, that's actually what I enjoy, but when I get called an elitist as I know I was going to be called one I know to not go further. I felt I should write that as a disclaimer and not go on, because I don't think I'm better than anyone else, despite what would have been said. In the past I've used the phrase 'Sophisticated reader' rather than 'Careful reader' what I mean is, someone who picks up on themes, and symbols and meanings in a work and appraises it with a set of critical skills - it doesn't mean 'Oh, I don't read Harry Potter, I'm fffaaarrrr above that teenage tosh-posh!' As I have said earlier in the thread, I've read Harry Potter, I'm even rereading it via audiobook. I've read Twilight too, and I take literature as slightly more than boring light entertainment that's only here to kill a few hours between cradle and grave. My view of literature is more dynamic, I think it can (shock horror!) even HELP us as a species! Then by the sounds of it it's a good thing that didn't work out.
This is so true. My daughter is a ravenous reader and at a very high level for her age. She detests English class and describes it as a detainee would of his waterboarding experiences at Guantanamo.
Maybe 'Analytical reader' would work as term that wouldn't get misinterpreted as having snobbish undertones?
One of George Orwell's essays called 'Boy's Weeklies' talks about the British boarding school cliche in children's fiction going back to at least the mid 1800s. Seriously, look it up.
So I gather from that that your main gripe with Potter is that its world is, ultimately, unrealistic - kinda half-built, as it were. I'm thinking of the world in Coraline, the film, where everything in the Other world is the same as in Coraline's own but then the moment she ventures beyond the garden, everything turns white and disappears. It's not a real or full world. I'd agree it's a failing, but I'm not sure it's so detrimental to a fantasy book. You don't go read a fantasy book for realism, after all, and what Rowling did develop was very quirky and interesting. However I'd agree that Rowling is prone to using caricatures - I never noticed it till I read the first few pages of Cuckoo's Calling. The characterisation echoed Potter's, was my feeling. Like each character is one personality trait, one trope, and they don't really ever move/grow beyond that. I must say, as a teenager, I didn't mind, but as an adult I found it off-putting. I never thought of how the actors have become the characters of the novels. But it's true that if the characterisation was strong, readers should have had equally strong images of the characters and it seems either 1. due to the fact that the characters are mostly caricatures bearing highly stereotypical physical traits to indicate tem as such, and thus it was very easy to find actors that fit with the magic of make-up, or 2. the characters weren't that strong to begin with and were a little like Bella - a blank canvas for the reader, which is also why they were as popular as they were. I have nothing much for or against Potter. But those are interesting thoughts.
Coraline is quite good, however. The world doesn't need to be developed any more than it is for purposes of that story.
Coraline's other world, as Steerpike pointed out, doesn't need developing anymore than what was needed. The house and the garden. It's more a plot point than a setting. I've not read the book though, I don't generally like Neil Gaiman's writings, though I know he is a good writer. I think there is truth to what you've said though.
Ha ha, thanks! Yes, I think the style of writing you like is important here. I'm one of those people who generally cares about how more than what. To each their own.
No, no, a thousand times no! Sophistication From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Sophistication is the quality of refinement — displaying good taste, wisdom and subtlety rather than crudeness, stupidity and vulgarity. I emphasise good taste, wisdom and subtlety. Just because a word is perceived as "...link(ed) with concepts such as status, privilege and superiority" doesn't mean that it should be abandoned to pander to an anti-elitist book-burner. "Analytical reader" is so much colder and lacking in human warmth.
@Shadowfax your very definition associates the word with superiority by contrasting it with stupidity. So, it's not just a perception.
A sophisticated reader is, by definition, superior to an unsophisticated reader. An analytical reader is, by definition, superior to an unanalytical reader. Your argument smacks of sophistry.
I don't see how one is superior to the other, especially in the case of analytical versus unanalytical (which I don't even think is a word).
Yeah @Shadowfax I agree with @Fitzroy Zeph. Your argument is nonsense, particularly as compared to the latter example. There's no reason an analytical reader need be superior to a non-analytical one, particularly when reading a work that doesn't require an analytical approach. I suspect most of us are analytical readers in some instances and non-analytical readers in other instances. I further suspect you simply wish to cast your viewpoint on the matter as superior to those who take another view, and you're scrambling to find some objective justification with which to congratulate yourself.
FWIW, the world needs a lot more un-analytical, non-sophisticated, gobble-em up readers. Pay and read, pay and read, pay and read....
