Name a "Mainstream BlockBuster" you actually like!

[Martin]

Whoops - I meant to add that some people hold that opinion - I do not.

Cheers

 

[Motokid]

So, I am to assume that a few of you think the massive, global popularity of just about any book will, in the long run, be harmful to reading and writing?

Any book the resides on the top of the National Bestseller list for months and/or years will dominate bookstore space, and keep other works from getting any part of the spotlight, and this is somehow hurting the cultured, elite reader?

That you also believe there is no trickle down effect in a publishing house that reaps huge rewards from bestsellers?

I'm not sure I see it that way, but that's just me.

 

[direstraits]

First thing, I think Stephen King is a very good writer. Not the best, granted, but more able than a lot of authors out there, and rightfully so. Not all his stories may be brilliant (I *really* enjoyed only a minority of his stories, but something consistent in all his work is his writing, which is very good. His On Writing did suck badly, though). It's easy to dismiss someone with his success as commercial crap, but he's the guy who wrote stuff like The Shawshank Redemption and Rita Hayworth, and The Body, which turned into the movies Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me. These are movies that even the highest minded of us wouldn't deny enjoying.

Second thing, I don't subscribe to the notion that having the Browns and the Kings and the Steeles diminish the marketplace in any way. I simply, humbly, disagree. Everyone's bookstore carries books with a so-called higher literary value, and while the big publishers may push the visibility of these books down, they are hardly invisible. Others have made the point that it's better to gain readers on whatever that's out there rather than not having any readers at all. Not every can start at the 'top' of the book chain, after all.

And that's where the value of something like TBF brings, where people previously dieting on Browns and Kings come here for more recommendations, and gets introduced to something new.

ds

 

[Motokid]

Does the Hershey’s Kiss somehow do a disservice to the Swiss Chocolate industry?

Does the Honda Civic or Accord, detract from the craftsmanship and allure of the BMW’s, Mercedes, Bentley’s and Ferrari’s?

Does Kraft Macaroni & Cheese somehow hurt the pasta and cheese industries of the world?

Does Budweiser Beer (or Coor’s) somehow drag the quality of German beer down a notch?

 

[Martin]

Heineken, man, Heineken!

Cheers

 

[Shade]

By saying that you're making the mistake - as publishers and booksellers increasingly do - of thinking that a book is just another commodity whose only value can be determined by its price on the open marketplace, like a, well, like a bar of chocolate. A book is - or should be - a work of art, created by an individual, not focus-grouped or designed by committee or hammered out overseas at low cost on a production line.

People reading Dan Brown or other shitlit - to coin a phrase - isn't a problem in itself. It's only a problem if that's all they read.

 

[Motokid]

To a marathon runner, are the hords of people running the 5k's all over the world somhow detracting from the legitimacy of the sport of running?

If you want the best, top notch literary works in history to be available to everybody all over the world, you also have to accept that there will also be thousands and thousands more volumes of what you might call trash available too. Don't you?

In reality doesn't the money from the "trash" that the masses read help fund the lessor known works of art that some of you admire and love?

 

[direstraits]

People reading Dan Brown or other shitlit - to coin a phrase - isn't a problem in itself. It's only a problem if that's all they read.

But isn't it impossible? There are only so many media-publicized books at any given time, surely they'd run out of shitlit to start to turn to other stuff?

Plus if they turn out to be voracious readers, they would find their own favoured book flavours. Thanks to the interest brought along by shitlit. I don't see a lose-lose situation here.

Finally, by which or whose standards are works to be judged as shitlit? Is there a measurement by which the self respecting reader can follow to avoid reading such material?

ds

 

[Motokid]

"It's only a problem if that's all they read."

Why exactly is that a problem? How does it effect you?

 

[Shade]

To a marathon runner, are the hords of people running the 5k's all over the world somhow detracting from the legitimacy of the sport of running?

As with the other items you listed above, this isn't really a valid comparison. Let's stick to comparing books with books.

If you want the best, top notch literary works in history to be available to everybody all over the world, you also have to accept that there will also be thousands and thousands more volumes of what you might call trash available too. Don't you?

Of course I accept it. But I don't have to like it!

In reality doesn't the money from the "trash" that the masses read help fund the lessor known works of art that some of you admire and love?

This is partly true, yes, but probably less true now than at any time in the past. Publishers used to be people who loved books, and in those days they would use populist stuff to fund the stuff they really wanted to get out there that maybe wouldn't have paid for itself. There are still a few independent publishers in the UK who do this - Faber, Bloomsbury, Canongate. But by and large (just for Martin, that!) publishers now, as novella said, are conglomerates, owned by shareholders and where profit is king. Everything has to pay its way. Of course in my ideal world, everyone would be reading good books and they would pay for themselves anyway!

 

[Wabbit]

Finally, by which or whose standards are works to be judged as shitlit? Is there a measurement by which the self respecting reader can follow to avoid reading such material?

ds

I think that's a really important consideration.

Who decides what is crap? After all, we all have different tastes. One person may like Lord of the Rings and anther may believe it's one of the worst books every to be written. Who is right? Neither of them are right, it's just a simple matter of taste.

Another aspect of the argument is: Why do people read? Some people read because they find the language beautiful. They want "art". Some people read because they want to learn new things and be challenged. Some people read just to be entertained. They want to be taken away from their bleak daily life with all it's pressures and stress to something simple where they can relax. To a world of black and white, and a world of heroes.

Surely there is room for both? Surely it's wrong to look down on those that read books as "lesser" mortals because they want to be entertained?

 

[Martin]

... to look down on ...

Key words.

Cheers

 

[Stewart]

Some people read just to be entertained. They want to be taken away from their bleak daily life with all it's pressures and stress to something simple where they can relax.

How bleak is your life?

 

[Shade]

By what standards do we define shitlit? A bit like the old saying about an elephant: you know it when you see it. If you don't, then reading the first few pages will let you know. Look out for clichés, cardboard characters, narratives obviously designed for film adaptation, and complete ignorance of elegance or intelligence in language.

As to why it's a problem, this can be answered in the same breath as looking down on those who read to be entertained. Well I read to be entertained too, but the authors who entertain me aren't populist blockbusterers. If we're talking reading-for-entertainment in the sense of visual wallpaper - or the blockbusters which this thread started off about - then it's a problem because if that's all you read, then you're missing out on most of what the world of books has to offer. I personally find Dan Brown, Thomas Harris, Michael Crichton painful to read because their books are so badly written on a sentence-by-sentence level. Maybe that's blindness on my part but I just can't get past that. That doesn't mean that everything in genre fiction is rubbish: James Ellroy, William Gibson, etc are evidence of that.

And let's not fall into the attractive idea of saying that everything is relative and tastes differ and so it's all the same really (which is the direction I sensed Wabbit's post was heading in). As Rick Gekoski said:

If you like Enid Blyton better than Tolkien, that's fine with me; if you think she is a better writer than Tolkien, you're either a very unsophisticated child, or an idiot.

By the same token, would anyone really claim that Jeffrey Archer is a better writer than Anton Chekhov? Some books are better than others.

 

[novella]

So, I am to assume that a few of you think the massive, global popularity of just about any book will, in the long run, be harmful to reading and writing?

Absolultely disagree with this. It's a big generalization that does not reflect the complexity of the discussion here.

That you also believe there is no trickle down effect in a publishing house that reaps huge rewards from bestsellers?

I'm not sure I see it that way, but that's just me.

This is how the 'trickle down' effect works with blockbuster publishing. The editor and imprint that put out the huge success gets more budget to buy more manuscripts that replicate that success. Every other publisher chases the same success, so that you wind up with all the Da Vinci Code spinoff books and The Rule of Four and other poorly written rushed-to-press crap to ride on the coattails of the success. This happens with poor-quality successes and better books. The Lovely Bones is an example of a well-written book that a lot of publishers sought to emulate.

Books like The Da Vinci Code and The Lovely Bones and Gilead behave differently in the market than big brands like King, Steele, Clancy, and Grisham, who have a teflon quality that has little to do with consistency in the quality of the writing.

Publishing is a complex marketplace, but make no mistake: the money made from a book by, say, Dean Koonz goes straight back into publishing similar books; it does not get distributed throughout a publishing company to support diverse writing. Every publisher is divided into profit centers, and the successful ones feed their own futures by doing more of the same.

 

[Motokid]

But who's to say that in the "process of finding the next Dan Brown" the next Mr. or Mrs. ABCD won't get discovered too? And since the company that published Dan Brown now has a ga-zillion dollars they are now able to fund a few other books that otherwise might not get published. The guy who signed Dan Brown's contract now has huge amounts of clout. He might very well push another unkown writter into the mainstream, but he might also have a closet favorite who he can hedge off into publication at the same time and nobodies going to question him because of the past success he's had.

In a world that's moving more towards graphic entertainment (tv, movies, video games, computers...) I don't see the mushroom cloud success of any book as being bad for the world of books and reading. I can only see it as a good thing.

Should I somehow be angry with Madonna for publishing a children's picture book? Or does her worldwide success and exposure (in the picture book market) actually help me?

 

[Wabbit]

How bleak is your life?

I don't remember saying *I* just want to be entertained.

In fact, I want a little of both. Sometimes I like to be simply entertained and sometimes I want to read something that will make my heart and soul soar with it's beauty, challenge and teach me with it's complexity. I'm in love with language, in both it's power to transport and teach, and it's astounding beauty. Most of my favourite authors are the ones that I find beautiful, challenging and interesting ( such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez ) but then... I don't have to justify myself to you or anybody else.

How bleak is my life? Not sure that's actually part of this topic is it? My life is very full and rich thank you. It's filled with many things that I find interesting such as literature, art, languages, computers, net, history, music, movies, science, culture, photography, poetry, cooking, and my friends who share my interests and make me smile.

 

[direstraits]

By what standards do we define shitlit? A bit like the old saying about an elephant: you know it when you see it. If you don't, then reading the first few pages will let you know. Look out for clichés, cardboard characters, narratives obviously designed for film adaptation, and complete ignorance of elegance or intelligence in language.

What passes as a cliche for you may not be for another. What exactly are narratives obviously designed for film adaptation? What are 'cardboard characters'? I'm not being anal (anal, shitlit, geddit? hawhaw!) here, but surely there must be a more specific guide that details this in a manner that doesn't allow for ambiguity. Otherwise, can we agree that shitlit differs from person to person?

Some books are better than others.

No one will dispute with you on that. But who fills in the names under Better and Lesser columns? You might be surprised how many people would consider William Gibson for the Lesser column, and they arent unsophisticated, and they sure as heck aren't idiots.

And that's my point - it's all subjective, and as far as I can see nobody's got a wranglehold on what's brilliant and what's not.

Personally, I've picked up lots of books that have achieved critical acclaim, but may not have done well commercially. I simply want to see what the acclaim was about. More often than not I'm left confused and dazed, and utterly disappointed. Sometimes I wonder if I need a degree in lit to really understand all of it.

ds

 

[Wabbit]

I know some VERY intelligent people that like Dan Brown...

I have to say I think the problem is that some people just can't seem to separate between "I don't like this book - it's crap" and "I don't like this book - I don't like this book."

Just because you don't like something it doesn't mean it's crap but simply that you don't like it.

I don't like many things. All it means is that those things are not to my taste. I don't think any less of those that do like them or that I am a better person for now liking it. I also think that elitism or in laymen terms "I am better than you are" is a big part of it.

 

[Motokid]

Is there any other reason to read than for personal enjoyment? I certainly don't read to make you happy. I read for me myself and I. And if you enjoy reading what 90% of the "cultured, literary crowd" says is crap who's to say that is wrong, and why is it neccessary to say it?

Read what you like, and don't judge others for what they like and read.

I would never claim that Harlequin Romance novels are just pure crap and the people that like them must be idiots. I don't have an interest in reading them, but that doesn't mean they're crap. And I would hope that people would not say that anybody who reads the Rich Dad/Poor Dad series of books is simply wasting thier time because that guy can't write his way out of a wet paper bag. That just doesn't make sence.

I just don't understand the need, or the desire to crucify an author who simply wrote a story.