Courtney's picture
Courtney from the Midwest is reading Monkey: A Journey to the West and a thousand college textbooks August 3, 2012 - 12:29pm

Think of the worst book you read. Don't go for something easy like Twilight, but a classic that you hated, or a book all of your friends encouraged you to read, or a book you were so eager to read that it felt like a punch to the face when you realized how terrible it was.

What made it so bad? Limp plot? Lifeless characters? Was the story and setting entrancing, but the style boring? Could you read a book that featured a character with absolutely no personality if the writing was beautiful? Do you think that it's possible to have such a dichotomy -- horrible characters but great plot, gorgeous writing but terrible, stuttering dialogue -- or do the qualities of "good" writing go hand in hand?

I think this is one of the most important questions a writer has to answer because it's one of those times where your answer defines you.

For example, I bought Of Human Bondage and expected to love it, like my mother and grandfather, but I couldn't get past thirty pages. The story read like a 500+ page summary. "He said this, so she did this, and then this happened."

The inference can be made that because I disliked Of Human Bondage so much, I probably try to make sure the characters engage in action rather than describe doing it.

Sorry for rambling, I've been stewing a lot lately on questions like this.

Fylh's picture
Fylh from from from is reading is from is reading is reading is reading reading is reading August 3, 2012 - 12:45pm

I find one that of the defining features of bad writing is also one of those things you can't really teach: a deafness to words. I think of Theodore Dreiser's work and I cringe because the very first thing that comes to mind when I hear his name is his hopelessly convoluted, inartistic prose. He simply hadn't a fucking clue. He tried; he was even a bit haughty about it. But he failed.

He's a great American voice in literature, but not because of his writing. He had principles, and a sense of story, and more importantly he had an urgent faith in transforming his society. As a writer, he was awful.

To quote the man himself in his horrible, horrible style:

The "death house" in this particular prison was one of those crass erections and maintenances of human insensitiveness and stupidity principally for which no one primarily was really responsible. Indeed, its total plan and procedure were the results of a series of primary legislative enactments, followed by decisions and compulsions as devised by the temperaments and seeming necessities of various wardens, until at last--by degrees and without anything worthy of the name of thinking on anyone's part--there had been gathered and was now being enforced all that could possibly be imagined in the way of unnecessary and really unauthorized cruelty or stupid and destructive torture. And to the end that a man, once condemned by a jury, would be compelled to suffer not alone the death for which his sentence called, but a thousand others before that. For the very room by its arrangement, as well as the rules governing the lives and actions of the inmates, was sufficient to bring about this torture, willy-nilly.

 

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like August 3, 2012 - 1:12pm

^I like that the last word of that was "willy-nilly."

A classic I can't get with? I've tried multiple times to read different books by Joseph Conrad. I can't do it and I don't know why and I find it very troubling. I want to like him. I was a big Apocalypse Now fan when I was younger. I like the idea of the stories but I find him impossible to read. It's like reading a description of a photograph in a way which makes me think "Boy, it'd be a lot easier to just look at a picture;" like his style is devoid of those things which words alone can do. But I haven't really gotten far enough to say it doesn't get any better. Maybe it just starts off slow? Maybe I'll find out one day.

Fylh's picture
Fylh from from from is reading is from is reading is reading is reading reading is reading August 3, 2012 - 1:19pm

Man, I fucking love Conrad.

Heart of Darkness, Under Western Eyes, Lord Jim, Victory, The Secret Agent...

Dude, Conrad was one of the great prose writers in the English language — but you can't really "get into it" until you start paying attention to his little tricks. The way his sentences almost become predictable, and stay glorious anyway. The way he'll create these massive winding sentences that have surprisingly simple structures a lot of the time, but they take their time to reveal those structures. It's a lesson in writing for life.

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like August 3, 2012 - 1:23pm

Lots of respectable people say similar things. He's still on the "try again" list, next to Moby-Dick.

Michael J. Riser's picture
Michael J. Riser from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino Iglesias August 3, 2012 - 1:29pm

I can't think offhand of any classics I didn't like (I read a lot more classic lit when I was a very young man, thus didn't have strong opinions on how any of it was written).

The last book to lose me was Of Bees and Mist by somebody or other. It had a few interesting ideas, but the writing was... not great. What finally killed it for me was the voice of some lady who was supposed to be this strong and elegant matron but spoke a line so inauthentic to her character that I put the book down and said fuck it, I'm done, this blows. Which I rarely do. I can be hypercritical at times, but generally a book that I've selected to read personally doesn't suck so bad that I have to just stop. And I've finished worse books than that one, it just broke in all the right ways at all the right times to self-destruct for me.

And for what it's worth, J. Y., Moby-Dick was my favorite book for most of my life, and still remains a favorite. It's got some low spots, some doldrums, but for my money is one of the most quotable books ever written. My favorite opening to any book ever, too.

Sound's picture
Sound from Azusa, CA is reading Greener Pastures by Michael Wehunt August 3, 2012 - 1:30pm

Pride. And. Prejudice.

Even the title annoys me..

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like August 3, 2012 - 1:30pm

"Ye be, be ye?"

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like August 3, 2012 - 1:59pm

I feel I should point out that my so-called "try again" list is not likely to ever get any shorter, and would probably be better-called my "Hey, I tried" list.

Liana's picture
Liana from Romania and Texas is reading Naked Lunch August 3, 2012 - 3:51pm

Annoying literature isn't necessarily bad literature though, right? It may annoy people for subjective reasons. I know people annoyed at Salinger, Fitzgerald, Toni Morrison, even Faulkner. 

It would be really bad if "it doesn't pass the test of time" so it's just like popcorn, it may have some followers at the time it comes out, but it's quickly forgotten. What makes Twilight "bad" if so many people read it? What makes cheap romance bad if so many people read it?

Well, one thing is to create the cheapest thrills for the audience to eat the book up and then in a few years it's gone, like Britney Spears. Is that fair of me to say? Dunno. 

What else is bad: bad imitation, complete lack of originality, too much pandering, no food for thought so you wonder why you bothered reading it, as if it wasted your time completely. 

But I don't think there's one defining quality that makes a book bad. Or else you can sum it up by saying "I don't like it" and then you don't have to explain yourself at all.

bryanhowie's picture
bryanhowie from FW, ID is reading East of Eden. Steinbeck is FUCKING AMAZING. August 3, 2012 - 9:51pm

This Theodore Dreiser fellow kind of entertains me.  It's amazing how many words he uses.  I know a person who would probably love his style.

Oh, and Bad Writing, the movie.  That might help.

JonnyGibbings's picture
JonnyGibbings August 4, 2012 - 1:59am

There are a couple of books that stand out for me. It isn't the craft of the writing that bothers me, it is the characters and the delivery of them.

First, and this is the second time I've mentioned it on this site, Catch-22. I have tried to read it so many times. I love the ironic, acidic sarcasm of Yosarrian. But everyone in the book talks like him. If it was just him, and the supporting characters were straight, or different, it would be good. Also, characters turn up, talk like it, then leave and never return. Then another, then another, like a revolving door of people.

The other is A confederacy of Dunces. Ignatius  - I can't stand him. I know that is the point, but he is a self superior fat prick who is treating his mother like a slave. He hates sex, sexy women - has all the vices I hate and none that I like. What I also hated was there was a character I did want to read about and he was just a supporting character, Jones, the black dude. I struggled to find anything 'funny'

Both sighted as the funniest books of all time. I don't get either. Mildly amusing at best. But that is just my opinion.

Michael Thomas's picture
Michael Thomas from South Jersey is reading books August 4, 2012 - 6:36am

I couldn't finish Kafka On The Shore by Haruki Murakami. I know it's a translation but some of the writing was poor to me and the constant descriptions of what the characters were eating in detail and pop culture references of what they were wearing or listening to got old and irritating. Just seemed random and kind of pretentious and had no point to the story. Maybe I needed to finish (I read a good three quarters of the book) to see the point of all the nonsense but I just couldn't. I hate to say something that someone took time to create was terrible, but this was one of the worst books I ever read. Hollow characters and somewhat amateurish writing made it a chore to read.

Strange Photon's picture
Strange Photon from Fort Wayne, IN is reading Laurie Anderson lyrics August 4, 2012 - 8:26am

Heart of Darkness was gravity. It pulled me in more and more, accelerating my interest the closer i got to its core. Te beginning is a little tough, Hop, but once you see the device Conrad is using in framing a story within a story, you kinda have to give him props for it, especially considering how long ago it was written.

I think the only book I can recall putting down for good was Suttree, by one of my all-time favorite authors, Cormac McCarthy. I absolutely worship his style and voice, but something about that book never touched the right erogenous zones for me. I like character exploration, and human interest tales that don't necessarily have driving and intense plots - but this one REALLY didn't feel like there was any sort of progression or change or growth. I might have to read it again and not give up on it in order to find the 'a to b' of it, but it just felt so incredibly meandering and pointless that McCarthy's god-like prose just wasn't enough to keep me reading.

As far as the sentiment that 'how can something be bad if so many people are reading it'... I have ot take issue with that because so many people were ok with slavery, and it was still bad despite their beliefs. I know that's a spurious compariosn, but my point is that in terms of intellect and literary appreciativeness, the masses nowadays are what I like to call butt-ass stupid. If you were to summarily kill everyone who couldn't tell you the difference between they're, their, and there, then there would only be a few thousand people left alive in this country. THAT is why I think so many people read and love books like Twilight.

Just my humble opinion.

@ Johnny - I kind of felt the same as you with Catch-22, but the lead character is Armenian, so I have to at least give Heller credit for that.  ;)

@ Fylh - I've never read any Dreiser, but that little snippet you quoted has convinced me to never change that fact... dreadful!

Michael J. Riser's picture
Michael J. Riser from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino Iglesias August 4, 2012 - 9:22am

@Mike Thomas - Kafka On the Shore was weird. I didn't get it at all, and when it was over, I just said to myself, "Why did I read this?" I couldn't really come up with an answer. Murakami isn't for everyone, and all his books aren't for all his readers. I loved The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and enjoyed After Dark, but Kafka and Dance, Dance, Dance, A Wild Sheep Chase... I don't know, guy is just in his own little universe. Which is fun when you're into it, and completely off-putting when you're not.

Jack Campbell Jr.'s picture
Jack Campbell Jr. from Lawrence, KS is reading American Rust by Phillipp Meyer August 4, 2012 - 9:55am

The only book I have never been able to finish is Son of Rosemary by Ira Levin. I love Levin. I loved Rosemary's Baby, but Son of Rosemary is a steaming pile of crap. Maybe I will finish it someday, but looking at Goodreads to see if it as bad as I remembered, I found that out of over 500 books I own, it is the lowest rated out of all of them. 

Courtney's picture
Courtney from the Midwest is reading Monkey: A Journey to the West and a thousand college textbooks August 4, 2012 - 10:53am

@Sound Is it just me or does she name all of her books like that? The only one that can come to my pre-caffeine, just barely awake brain is Sense and Sensibility. But I agree wholeheartedly.

@Strange Oddly enough, I've never been able to get into any Cormac McCarthy. It's irritating because everyone I know loves him, it seems, but his prose is irritating to me for no good reason. It's one of my quirks that I don't usually discuss because I don't really have a solid reason.

I usually force myself to finish a book and then read it again, no matter whether I liked it or not, just to make sure I got it. Catcher in the Rye was one of those books that I was able to barely make it through once and never finish a second time. I despised it. The prose was blocky, the whining insufferable, the conflict pathetic. I read it when I was fifteen and, despite the intense teenage angst emenating from me, I thought Holden was just a dumbass.

It turned me off from Salinger for years. I read Franny and Zooey this year and fucking loved it; it felt like I had done myself a disservice because I'd waited so long due to my intense hatred for Catcher.

Fylh's picture
Fylh from from from is reading is from is reading is reading is reading reading is reading August 4, 2012 - 11:29am

You guys, may I encourage you to post examples of what you think bad prose looks like? It's more entertaining, and educational.

I was traveling today and didn't have much patience for fiction, so I read a book for my academic work called "Alienation After Derrida"  by Simon Skempton. I wanted to share this particular sentence:

A true event, a radical intervention, an occurrence that is not merely an effect of the calculable and predictable functioning of the systematic machine of the restricted economy of discourse, involves the absolute surprise of an irruption of irreducible incalculable singularity through a dislocation of systemic operativity.

Okay. At this point in my life, I have very few obligations that I consider unpleasant. I pay council taxes even though I hate the guy who sent the bailiff to my apartment once for non-payment when I was still a "student" and wasn't legally required to pay. I call my family and keep them updated on my life. I try to keep the people I publish updated on how their books are coming along. I pay my cleaning lady generously even though I know she pinches my loose change when she can get away with it. I support the legalization of gay marriage. I'm not exceptionally good, but my misdeeds are not totally damnable.

But I shouldn't have to put up with this kind of shitty writing. Our sainted Mother Teresa wouldn't have put up with this shit. Satan, Lord of Evil wouldn't bother coming up with sentences like that, because not enough people would be persuaded to commit suicide by bad writing of this kind: they wouldn't have made it this far in the first place. The audience for bad writing of this academic type is too small.

So why does this exist? I'm going to copy-paste the sentence again:

A true event, a radical intervention, an occurrence that is not merely an effect of the calculable and predictable functioning of the systematic machine of the restricted economy of discourse, involves the absolute surprise of an irruption of irreducible incalculable singularity through a dislocation of systemic operativity.

My only real commitment to an institution at the moment involves reading stuff like this. Usually it's fine. Today it bothers me enormously. There is a lot of GOOD academic writing out there. Far more than the average indignant anti-elitist likes to admit. But when it's this bad, it's just infuriating, because, dude, you are intelligent enough to write about the changes that the concept of "alienation" underwent at the height of the post-structuralist phase. You're going from Hegel to Derrida and beyond. You are clearly smart enough to see what you're writing and understand that you're doing everyone a disservice. That sentence could have been chopped up a good deal. You could have spread the information out a bit. Elegance is not the enemy of Serious Thought. I say this as someone who actively admires those notoriously "unreadable" enemies of Anglo-American succinctness: Lacan, Derrida, these are not accessible writers but they don't write sentences like the one above. They can be opaque, impenetrable, but they strive for a kind of elegance that can yield rewards: you scratch your head for a while, you figure it out, and then you think: Oh, actually, that's quite well put.

But the sentence that I've quoted twice now doesn't offer any special reward. It's meant to impart information — the book it appears in doesn't seem conceived to make any points about language and its limitations that its subject (Derrida) didn't make himself. It's just a bad sentence. It is an ill-conceived monstrosity of academic banality. Fuck that sentence in the head.

Pushpaw's picture
Pushpaw from Canada is reading Building Stories by Chris Ware August 4, 2012 - 12:15pm

It seems, from everyone's posts, that the defining quality of bad literature is that it's bad literature.

bryanhowie -- watched that Bad Writing trailier and it looks awesome.

Liana's picture
Liana from Romania and Texas is reading Naked Lunch August 4, 2012 - 12:24pm

I can't quite accept the idea that a book somebody couldn't finish is bad, especially since others did finish it and did like it. I loved Suttree, for example (and Heart of Darkness). I loved Suttree even if it's disjointed and seems to flow aimlessly, but knowing it's his most autobiographic of his novels, I like the glimpse at his own mind, which is less structured than his books. But anyway, I think anyone is entitled to having a rationale not to like a book, and I respect that, but I thought the question was what most of us would agree defines bad writing.

Fylth, you gave a better example of bad writing, especially because you actually give a quote, and you do distinguish between imitators, academics who write crap just so they can publish and get tenure, and the actual poststructuralists who did have something important to communicate and chose to do so in a kind of puzzle, making more work for readers, but whose writings many (including myself) find rewarding and get something out of. Ok, now this sentence I just wrote is pretty crappy.

Fylh's picture
Fylh from from from is reading is from is reading is reading is reading reading is reading August 4, 2012 - 12:49pm

@Pushpaw

The internet needs no evidence!

However: it's pretty telling, in general, that self-appointed internet literary critics (read that as shorthand for: anyone who talks about books in terms of their quality) are not very keen to point to passages of good or bad writing. They declare and denounce, but fuck it if they're going to type out (or copy-paste) actual writing.

Most of us are guilty of it over time, but you learn to be suspicious of repeat offenders.

Courtney's picture
Courtney from the Midwest is reading Monkey: A Journey to the West and a thousand college textbooks August 4, 2012 - 2:51pm

Phil, not all examples have been prose-based. Like I said, I dislike McCarthy for literally no reason. I just can't do it for some reason and it bothers me. I think it's his style, but I'm not sure, because I didn't find a redeeming quality in his characters, or his settings, or his plots. How am I supposed to represent my distaste for him with a passage? And I don't like Jane Austen because her characters are boring and cliche. I can't copy and paste her character arc.

I'm not really sure why, but you always seem to have your guard up when people discuss books on the internet, like our opinions aren't valid because they're in text instead of verbalized and anyone who hasn't been published doesn't have a right to bash a book that has been published.

Anyway, so I'm not one of the "repeat offenders" of which you should be wary, here's an example of what I don't like about Of Human Bondage:

 

Then Mrs. Carey remembered that she had to go to the grocer, and they continued their way. When the shopping was done they often went down a side street of little houses, mostly of wood, in which fishermen dwelt (and here and there a fisherman sat on his doorstep mending his nets, and nets hung to dry upon the doors), till they came to a small beach, shut in on each side by warehouses, but with a view of the sea.

It's a summary. It's the horrible cliche of showing and not telling. I get so sick of hearing that said, but in this case, it's a crime that Maugham should be fucking prosecuted for.

Fylh's picture
Fylh from from from is reading is from is reading is reading is reading reading is reading August 4, 2012 - 6:31pm

I'm not really sure why, but you always seem to have your guard up when people discuss books on the internet, like our opinions aren't valid because they're in text instead of verbalized and anyone who hasn't been published doesn't have a right to bash a book that has been published.

No, I have principles and I try to uphold them. Anyone can say anything they please. And bashing books is perfectly legitimate, and I encourage some bashing. But bashing convincingly is not the same as bashing earnestly.

I think I've been been pretty consistent from the start, and overall I refrain from personal attacks. My point up there wasn't phrased unambiguously enough, so here's a clarification: My beef is with this widespread obsession with quality at the expense of all other categories. Not this thread in particular, but a huge chunk of the book-focused internet is a series of unsubstantiated quality-o-meter readings. This book is good or bad. This one is a masterpiece or a piece of shit. It's a Michiko Kakutani world and it's aggravating.

Stacy Kear's picture
Stacy Kear from Bucyrus, Ohio lives in New Jersey is reading The Art of War August 4, 2012 - 6:25pm

My friend thinks Dr. Seuss stories are bad writing. He is vehement on the subject, thinks it breaks down the structure and substance of good writing.

Who doesn't like Dr. Seuss?

Just thought I'd add that to this serious literary debate.

Huruki Murakami, I think he is hit or miss. Ryu Murakami, I have loved everything he has ever written.

The only book I have read that I actually found difficult to read was Will Self's "My Idea of Fun" but it was worth it in the end. Oh and 266 was tedious in my opinion and a bit overrated.

As far as bad writing goes I don't critique when I read and I put it down and quickly forget it exists if I don't like it or can't get into the story.

Liana's picture
Liana from Romania and Texas is reading Naked Lunch August 4, 2012 - 6:37pm

I just don't like using the qualifier "bad" to encourage people to list books they dislike. I mean, at least define "bad." I just have to repeat what I said: you not liking it does not make it unredeemably "bad." It's fine to bash classics, if that makes you cool among your friends, especially if you get the bashing published and then you're a big rebel and you get points in the publishing world, but that does not mean the book should cease existing.

Just a very quick example I think I've given before, in another context: the end of Absalom, Absalom is Quentin repeating feverishly "I don't hate the South I don't I don't" (I think without apostrophes, maybe). I absolutely love that ending because it speaks of his denials and his obsessions at the same time. Well a friend of mine thinks the ending isn't at the level with the rest of the book because it's just a big cliche. If we had an arbiter deciding which of the two of us is right, and let's say the arbiter says it's my friend who's "right," then should the ending of the book be declared "bad"?

Fylh's picture
Fylh from from from is reading is from is reading is reading is reading reading is reading August 4, 2012 - 7:16pm

I love that ending too. 

R.Moon's picture
R.Moon from The City of Champions is reading The Last Thing He Wanted by Joan Didion; Story Structure Architect by Victoria Lynn Schimdt PH.D; Creating Characters by the editors of Writer's Digest August 4, 2012 - 8:41pm

 

 Ryu Murakami, I have loved everything he has ever written.

-  I love you. LOL!

As far as bad writing goes I don't critique when I read and I put it down and quickly forget it exists if I don't like it or can't get into the story.

- Amen

 I just have to repeat what I said: you not liking it does not make it unredeemably "bad."

Amen, Part II.

Courtney's picture
Courtney from the Midwest is reading Monkey: A Journey to the West and a thousand college textbooks August 4, 2012 - 9:55pm

I wholeheartedly agree that disliking it doesn't make it bad. I was curious what people's opinions were regarding bad literature. Obviously, we're all striving to write "good" literature, so we have opinions on what's bad. No one presented their opinions as facts.

Also, I fucking love that ending. It's actually one of my favorite Faulkner moments.

Scott MacDonald's picture
Scott MacDonald from UK is reading Perfidia August 4, 2012 - 11:10pm

I think that the perception of good/bad writing (with a few exceptions that I'll mention in a minute) can be as much about the reader as the writer.  It's all about whatever gells with your own internal rhythms, very much like most other forms of art.  McCarthy (as he's been mentioned a couple of times on here), I absolutely love, and I find his sparse prose, for want of a better word, sings to me.  I love what he's crafted with those short poetic sentences, but if it's out of synch with the reader then it won't do it for them (not a criticism of either reader or writer, but simply a case of the two of them shaking hands and going their own separate ways).  Same with William Burroughs - I know a ton of people who just don't get on with his writing, especially Naked Lunch, but that book seemed attuned to the way I listen to literature.

There are grades of reader (and I'm not talking about basic reading ability here) who read beyond the story, and grasp the rhythym, the voice, the beat and the flow, and then it's about how that work speaks to you on a personal level.  And this is about appreciation for the art, in much the same way as there can be a deeper appreciation for music; do you hear only the melody, the vocals and a catchy chorus, or are you listening to how each instrument meshes with the others and how the creativity of the musicians combine to form the whole - or like visual art, when looking at an oil painting for example, is it just the subjuect you look at, or are you looking at the individual strokes and how each individual component works with the others to generate the overall impact on the viewer. After that it's about how you react to the work.

I think this is why some of the popular writing (these are the exceptions I mentioned earlier) come across as ultimately bad writing - Stephanie Meyers, E.L James, James Patterson et al - because a majority of audience look only at the surface story and don't hear the rhythms or the beats that, for me, lift writing off the page and jams into my frontal lobe.  In this way, I absolutely concur with the Britney Spears analogy above, and feel that a lot of current popular literature is popcorn level enjoyment for the audience.

Henry Miller, in Tropic of Cancer, writing as an introduction to the book wrote, "To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing."

And at that point, it becomes about whether the tunes sings to you.  And the correlations between music and literature seem very clear in my own personal tastes.  Genre-wise, I like horror, subvervise literature and especially noir.  And this correlates well with my musical tastes - I like punk and alternative music, a bit jazz, but I've always dug the blues.

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like August 5, 2012 - 8:36am

It amazes me when people say it's a rarity for them to not finish a book. I don't have any sense of obligation when I start a book. If I get past halfway I will finish, but before that point there are no guarantees.

Michael J. Riser's picture
Michael J. Riser from CA, TX, Japan, back to CA is reading The Tyrant - Michael Cisco, The Devil Takes You Home - Gabino Iglesias August 5, 2012 - 8:52am

I don't feel any obligation, I just rarely seem to pick up a book that doesn't do it for me. I feel like I'm a fairly good judge of what I'll like and what I won't, and I'm reasonably open-minded about most things. I focus on what's of value rather than what's not, the only exception being anything that seems to be written really poorly. Sometimes I can even forgive less-than-stellar writing if the content is otherwise compelling, and I defnitely forgive some books for not being as compelling as they might if the writing is expertly crafted.

jyh's picture
jyh from VA is reading whatever he feels like August 5, 2012 - 11:11am

Conrad's The Secret Sharer --- Part I ---

On my right hand there were lines of fishing stakes resembling a mysterious system of half-submerged bamboo fences, incomprehensible in its division of the domain of tropical fishes, and crazy of aspect as if abandoned forever by some nomad tribe of fishermen now gone to the other end of the ocean; for there was no sign of human habitation as far as the eye could reach. To the left a group of barren islets, suggesting ruins of stone walls, towers, and blockhouses, had its foundations set in a blue sea that itself looked solid, so still and stable did it lie below my feet; even the track of light from the westering sun shone smoothly, without that animated glitter which tells of an imperceptible ripple. And when I turned my head to take a parting glance at the tug which had just left us anchored outside the bar, I saw the straight line of the flat shore joined to the stable sea, edge to edge, with a perfect and unmarked closeness, in one leveled floor half brown, half blue under the enormous dome of the sky.

It's the opposite of stirring: it's settling, it's congealing. It's serviceable. It's perhaps a bad [non-representative] excerpt.

 

Charles's picture
Charles from Portland is reading Mongrels by Stephen Graham Jones August 5, 2012 - 2:04pm

For me it's people who I can tell are more talented than their OED writing style lets them look. Case-in-point, The Marriage Plot. Sure the characters are weak, stale, and flat as three day old coke you left in the cupholder of your car, but they're also college students, so I'll allow that. Where the book gets truly terrible for me is the author's need to prove how educated he is by the words and (godawful) amount of description he chooses to use for literally everything. And it isn't even done well - I rag on Wallace, but he does this kind of thing right - In this book it's just there to fill pages. And there are points where the editor should have slapped the award winning author, particularly, there is a line that goes something like: "There were better places to put Thurston, but he wasn't going in them."

This is where I stopped reading, where I stopped giving chances to the prize winning author, who I really wanted to enjoy.

Renfield's picture
Renfield from Hell is reading 20th Century Ghosts August 5, 2012 - 5:45pm

Is unredeemably a word?

Regarding not finishing books, maybe 70% of books I start reading I do not finish until maybe 2 years later, if ever. I think that's more to do with the conflict between my snail-slow reading pace and my insatiable lust for good stories, some books I don't like and put down (though usually try again a couple years later because I'll change aesthetic views like pairs of socks,) contrarily I read many great books over the course of years and never quite stop amusing myself with their ideas all the while.

McCarthy I absolutely love, and I find his sparse prose, for want of a better word, sings to me.  I love what he's crafted with those short poetic sentences

Have you read Suttree?

I haven't read Twilight or the other joke-butts of that ilk (save for Angels & Demons which I enjoyed what I read of, didn't finish,) but those kinds of books I wouldn't call bad lit. Poorly written perhaps, but they must include some decent conflict and engaging plot to keep the pages being turned, otherwise the plebs wouldn't go so nuts over em.

For me bad lit is something that doesn't have anything interesting to say, and says it unclearly. My most disliked book that I can remember is Dave Egger's A Heartbreaking Work of Stuttering Genius, though it actually is written competently and has some good subject matter. But that's as close to what I don't like in fiction that I can think of. I don't touch memoirs a lot because the subject matter is commonly tackled more sentimentally than analytically which creates a work of ill-begotten importance. It's like when people get those portrait tattoos of their dead relative and the nose and teeth never really look right, and when you look at it you kind of wonder if they actually every really loved their brother all that much. The last memoir I was taken with was one of Stephen Fry's, that was a good while ago. So yeah, this having something interesting to say about interesting things and saying it efficiently, I think it could be seen a bit in debut novels at times, especially in the non-genre (because how piss-easy is it to make genre interesting?) Probably half the shit at places like PANK or Caketrain is bad lit because their full of people that have some chops but don't yet have much to say.

Strange Photon's picture
Strange Photon from Fort Wayne, IN is reading Laurie Anderson lyrics August 6, 2012 - 6:05am

Renfield, you said what I was too afraid to come off as an ass to say, I'm pretty sure the word is irredeemable, but I could be wrong. It happens once or twice a year.

And you mentioned Suttree, was it because you too had a hard time with it?

I was never trying to say it was bad, per se, or that I even have the place to label anything McCarthy does as anything but genius. I was merely saying that it was not a compelling enough plot to keep me going. I LOVE his voice, and he could write the ingredients labels for foods better than I will ever write novels, but as far as providing examples of books I couldn't finish, that was the only one I could think of.

Fyhl, I'd be more than willing to post concrete examples of bad writing from Suttree, but there weren't any. My beef was only with the plot structure, so I think as valid as your request is for us to stand by our assertions, I alas cannot.

Stacy, this friend of yours that doesn't like Seuss... should be shot. No funeral, no burial, let his Seuss-hating corpse rot!!!

Renfield's picture
Renfield from Hell is reading 20th Century Ghosts August 6, 2012 - 6:35am

Yeah, I don't mind looking like an ass so others don't have to.

I mentioned Suttree because it was the McCarthy book in question, and there is little about that particular text that is sparse or its sentences short. So if you're a fan of McCarthy's recent work that book could be a shock. I'd describe reading it as arduous, it is one of those that will probably take me years to actually finish, though I do enjoy it. The watermelon fucker is probably one of the funniest scenes I've read in a book.

I'm okay with plotlessness. It's a different beast but a legitimate form.

Strange Photon's picture
Strange Photon from Fort Wayne, IN is reading Laurie Anderson lyrics August 6, 2012 - 6:57am

Oh god, yeah, that Midnight Melon Mounter was hilarious, and I LOVE McCarthy's older stuff, like Child of God and the Orchardkeeper. I even like meadnering storylines, for the most part, but I still can't put my finger on what rubs me the wrong way with Suttree.

I don't mind being an asshole either, but I get the feeling that many here think assholery is all there is to me, so I had to try to shatter that perception.

Richard's picture
Richard from St. Louis is reading various anthologies August 6, 2012 - 7:39am

I can't pull quotes as I'm at work, but I'll list a few examples of why I might quit a book, which I rarely do.

Recently read Pynchon's INHERENT VICE, and I completed it, because it was for my MFA, but I really hated it. The humor didn't work for me, the whole tone and language was just a turn off.

Koontz. I used to love Dean Koontz, and many of his earlier works (WHISPERS, PHANTOMS, etc.) were really good, but something happened along the way. I gave up on him. All of his books started to sound the same, and I was bored to death.

SO, what defines a bad book for me:

1. Poor writing. The language is either over-written, too dense, or too simple with a lot of summary and tells. Clunky language, bad grammar, no style—yuck.

2. Unoriginal. While some of Murakami goes too far, maybe, to just regurgitate the same plot lines, the same characters doing the same thing over and over, it bores me to death. Stay away from stereotypes, too. Not every woman is beautiful, not every man a hero.

3. Predictable. There should be some discovery, some surprises along the way, right?

4. Nothing happens. Seems obvious, but if nothing really happens, there is no plot, the characters just ruminate about life, and never change or advance or fail, then I check out.

5. Can't relate. If the plot, story, setting, characters, etc. are unbelievable, I'll give up. If there is an element of truth, something we can latch onto, then I'll follow characters into hell and back, root for them to win, or for the bad guys to lose. I just need to relate so something.

/mytwocents

Chris Johnson's picture
Chris Johnson from Burlington NC is reading The Proud Highway August 6, 2012 - 7:43am

All this prose speaks to people differently. I generally know a crap book after about twenty pages, if not much earlier. I keep wanting to give it a chance to work. Some stuff I want to like because of the concepts behind the work. Tom Robbins' newer stuff, for example, cannot touch his earlier work. Still Life with Woodpecker is a long time favorite.

Then there's a particular author who I used to adore but I can't read his books more than once, twice at most, or I start to see the narrative voice behind his work. I actually feel like I'm starting to think like the dude. It's almost Carlin's vuja de at that point. This never happens with his older work and it begins with his mid-80's stuff, and the stuff he's done since 2000...man. Talk about taking excellent beginnings to mediocre ends. I'm thinking mostly of Duma Key. The abrupt climax felt rushed, and the book just pissed me off. He had made such high promises in the first half and he couldn't live up to them.

I can't really handle King's stuff anymore. His early work, specifically The Shining, it made me laugh and actually scared me and all, but I suppose that's behind my own self-destructive streak. The best for me is when he's laying in bed beside Wendy and telling himself how absurd the idea of leaving is and he says something like A man with your sterling history of alcoholism, student beating, and ghost chasing should have no problem. You could write your own ticket. It's funny because it's so self-deprecating and horrible, and because I'm a dad and I have thoughts like this too. Also a dark past accompanying a bleak outlook on  the future.

Exception: Hearts in Atlantis and The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. The former, the second story in the book, the title story. How he makes you laugh and then makes you realize what a creep you were for laughing. Well done. And a line from the third story: "He stands eyeless outside the cathedral and he begs for them." It's not the line itself, it's the stuff that goes around it that makes it work so well. And I guess I like The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon so much because it's not as long, and because I was alone when I read it. I mean, I know you're alone when you read anything, but I was really alone. Segregation in prison, and someone banging on the wall mad that I wouldn't talk to them about what a bullshit waterhead-ass camp we were on that would bust a man back to medium custody over cigarettes. I shared some of the main character's oddity in that I'd bet little parts of my life to the roll of the dice on a radio station. If _______ comes on the radio, __________ will happen.

Don't worry, I go for another psych evaluation on Thursday. It was scheduled for today but rescheduled because I have no car. I have to go for an evaluation because of how much I lied to my psychiatrist when I was younger. 14 and I'm pulling a Tender Branson ten years before I read Survivor. That's how I connected to that character, only I didn't do it out of pure amusement as he did. I wanted to see how all the various medications got me a buzz.

As to what I do like, it's either tight disciplined prose as everyday funny as Carver or as insane funny as Palahniuk, or the outright language dancers like Henry Miller or William Burroughs.

Back to the original subject, some stuff just pisses me off. I can't keep going after the initial paragraph. I've tried, honestly tried, to read some of the Scare Us submissions and some of them make me so angry I just can't do it. I know mine isn't as good as it's been rated, know it in the pit of my stomach, but then I read some of the other stuff...I don't want to discourage anyone though. I can't cite specific examples because I'm not that big of a prick, but some of the stuff...Jesus Christ. If it just didn't give a shit, I wouldn't mind. I like stuff that doesn't connect. Give me something exciting with no plot structure whatsoever and I can get happily lost. No, it's the stuff that tries to care and ends up lukewarm. It's the stuff that lays like a bagel. I can't do it. I tried. I can't.

Then again, some of the best stuff I've read in a long time is there. It sings off the screen and I can't bring myself to review it past the initial thumbs up because I don't want to appear too servile to something I honestly like. I also get jealous, and I try to bullshit myself and say I don't feel that, but it's there.

To defend the story that limps at first and then slowly builds up a head of steam into something honestly great, I'd call on 1984. I hated it but I forced myself, because I liked Animal Farm so much and because I knew the man had something good to say. And in the end I was rewarded. I feel like I cheated a bit though. I'd seen Brazil years earlier and loved it, I still do, it's still one of my favorite films in the history of pictures. 1984 lacked that sense of humor that I need to see to enjoy work. But I like the book the same.

I want to keep this from getting way too long but I need to say that it's a matter of the reader. It's what you like, that's what it comes down to, right? You can tell what you're going to read and what you just won't put up with after a few hundred words, can't you? A friend of mine, she absolutely hates Pygmy. I can't help but feel pity for her. It's such a great story, and ambituous in its experiment. And so damn funny. I'm sorry she couldn't get into the groove of the weird voice. It's great. I'm done.

Strange Photon's picture
Strange Photon from Fort Wayne, IN is reading Laurie Anderson lyrics August 6, 2012 - 7:53am

Jesus fucking Christ, Chris... Are you me?

The little bits of your life you slipped into that post - I swear to god you must be some sort of completely separate permutation of me, because we've done the EXACT same things, much more specifically than the average two people who are like, "Oh, yeah dude, been there..."

Creeping me out here.

avery of the dead's picture
avery of the dead from Kentucky is reading Cipher Sisters August 6, 2012 - 7:53am

I hate this sentence:

Three grown men, arms locked in some special grace of solidarity, walking together, each one toward his own worst nightmare.

 

Strange Photon's picture
Strange Photon from Fort Wayne, IN is reading Laurie Anderson lyrics August 6, 2012 - 7:55am

I can see why, Av. I had to read it three times and still didn't feel like it deserved a period. I like fragments, but they have to be fragmented necessarily, that one just feels... blech.

avery of the dead's picture
avery of the dead from Kentucky is reading Cipher Sisters August 6, 2012 - 8:06am

It's from The Shack, which is the only book I've ever tried to read just because it was popular.  Which has made me very snobbish I suppose, because I hated that book.

"special grace of solidarity" just sounds terrible to me. 

If I had more time I'd quote more from that one, but I don't right now.  I'm trying to remember other books I didn't like. 

Chris Johnson's picture
Chris Johnson from Burlington NC is reading The Proud Highway August 6, 2012 - 8:06am

What I don't like is the disconnect I feel between reading and writing. When I'm creating a character I see it, the creation and evolution and all. The reading is what I love. A good book and I feel like I've spent time with the character(s). If it's a complete enough circle, I'll start to talk like the characters. Selby did this to me, but never did it happen as bad as after reading Clockers by Richard Price. I can get away with it because of the neighborhood I grew up in, I don't like it sometimes but it does make for excellent conversation. The thing is, I don't make a conscious effort to do it. Then it would be acting. I want to do this to people, but I dunno if there's many flakes as me out there. Photon, I'm encouraged that you're seeing similarities instead of differences, so I don't have to go too much into myself. Trust me, I've done that with women and man does it look too needy hahahaha. The page is the only place where I have the excuse to do that.

Strange Photon's picture
Strange Photon from Fort Wayne, IN is reading Laurie Anderson lyrics August 6, 2012 - 8:11am

Holy shit, man, I do the same thing with really compelling characters I read. My woman likes making fun of me by saying I have no soul, so when I find one I like, I subconsciously mimic it. Since I hate so many real people, I guess I only mimic the fictional ones.

Renfield's picture
Renfield from Hell is reading 20th Century Ghosts August 6, 2012 - 8:49am

It's pretty easy to find shit writing in a bunch of unpublished drafts by people who don't really know what they're doing yet (if ever,) sure. That thing from Wonder Boys, you tell the ones that got it to keep at it and you tell the one's that don't got it to keep at it? Though I'd rather tell everybody that they suck and should kill themselves, but then I'd have to tell myself that and if I hear it one more time I'm going to lose my shit.

Liana's picture
Liana from Romania and Texas is reading Naked Lunch August 6, 2012 - 2:05pm

Guys, unredeemable is, in fact, a word. You're not assholes to call me on it, but it is an accepted variant. 

Also, we're allowed to have favorite books and favorite authors, and there's no shame in saying that we don't love all the books by that author. But I stand by my defense of Suttree (which I explained above, somewhere). And if you like his recent books for the economy of their sentences, chances are you'll hate Blood Meridian, which I think is his bestest book.

I'll look for something by Joyce Carol Oates for examples of bad writing. She's famous for publishing massively, without revising much.

cosmo's picture
cosmo August 6, 2012 - 2:27pm

What's the defining quality of bad literature?

Adverbiage.

avery of the dead's picture
avery of the dead from Kentucky is reading Cipher Sisters August 6, 2012 - 2:28pm

"Adverbs."

I disagree.  I like a good adverb sometimes.  I would say...over-use of adverbs.  Maybe that.

Nick Wilczynski's picture
Nick Wilczynski from Greensboro, NC is reading A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin August 6, 2012 - 2:36pm

The defining quality is usually, for me, that Avery wrote it.

Richard's picture
Richard from St. Louis is reading various anthologies August 6, 2012 - 2:50pm

love Blood Meridian.