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stuartr
Single Cell Organism
32 Posts |
 Posted - 19 October 2009 : 12:50:42 AM
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What book or books have really disappointed, maybe it was a book you had been waiting for, or one in a series of books you otherwise really enjoyed or one that received rave reviews?
For me Children of Hurin (finsihed by Christopher Tolkien based on his fathers papers) was dreadful, full of overuse of langauge, slow and ponderous. Maybe he remains true to his father's creation, but I really don't rate him as a story teller.
The other book to really disappoint was the third trilogy in the Thomas Covenant series by Stephen Donaldson. I loved the first two trilogies, so had high hopes for the third trilogy when it was finally released around 20 years after the final book in the second trilogy. It really wasn't worth the wait. Istruggled to get half through through The Runes of the Earth before giving up completely, picked it up again a year or so later determined to give it another try. Still no luck - slow, ponderous and dull 
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Simon Scarrow
Ape
Uruguay
1048 Posts |
Posted - 19 October 2009 : 1:30:57 PM
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Where to stop? That's the question. I know I'm not a literary writer by a long stretch, nor do I try to be. However, I spent a good few years teaching literary aesthetics to students and developed some sense of what constituted fine writing (which is not the same as good story-telling, nor are the two mutually exclusive, or mutually inclusive for that matter). What I have become aware of over time is that these days literary works are often defined in opposition to populist modes of narration, and conversely populist novels are increasingly badly written from an aesthetic point of view. There are very few Booker prize winners who I would consider to be great writers, and some who I would not even call good writers. I know I've bored you with how much I think Ian McYawn stinks, based on the four books of his I have endured now (Enduring Loathe would sum it up). McYawn can write a pretty sentence now and again, but his characters are nearly all hateful and unconvincing, his plots trite and packed with poor coincidences, and his pace leaden, with frequent forays in interminable descriptions of meaningless acts that hold the story up. On the other side of the coin, we have the likes of Dan Brown and Matthew Reilly, whose writing makes me squirm. Their characters are even less substantial that McYawn's and they stretch the concept of suspension of disbelief to the outer limits, and yet they can tell a very pacy story through the use of tried and tested strategies (keep the chapters short and end each one with a bang, in essence).
Those two strands are the limits of successful writing available to the author, and most of us fall somewhere in between. I know I do. I try to tell a good story, but equally I invest a lot of effort in trying to describe things well, and make my characters believable (if not actually likeable), and once in a while attempt to provoke a bit of thought in the reader. All of which means I am never going to rake in the big bucks. But that's my choice.
The downside of the polarisation I have described above is that I rarely ever finish a novel these days because they just fail to hold my attention, and frequently offend my notion of what constitutes writing good enough to merit reading to the end. I'm sure it does not help working in the business, since it is easy now to spot the tricks of the trade and know precisely where a book is headed. It is also wearisome to find publishers slavishly following trends (just how big an avalanche of Da Vinci clones are going to be descending on bookshops in the coming year? How many more Roman series are going to be popping up in the wake of the Eagles?). The problem is that if, in today's absence of a worthy literary tradition, a book that is remotely different comes along, the cliterati leap on it and proclaim it the best thing since sliced bread. Which is why fairly poor books like The White Tiger, The Accidental Fundamentalist and Vernon God Little do so well. Compare those with books like Wright's Native Son, Ellison's Invisible Man and Nabokov's Lolita and you will see what I mean at once.
As for the future, well I see things getting even worse. The marginalisation of the middle list will increasingly concentrate publishers' attention on the polarities and so we can only expect more and more ghost written celebrity works, cretinous Dan Brown-esque capers and 'difficult' (i.e. gimmicky but ultimately jejeune) Booker novels, which will be written for the immediate attention of prize judges rather than posterity.
In case you think I am over-egging this, just push aside the books you have bought in the last twenty years and try out a few books from the Halcyon days of real writing and publishing.
The Eagle of the Ninth. Sutcliffe knocks spots of anything written by Rowling. Or try The Owl Service, or any of Ransome's books.
Anything by Raymond Chandler, Dashiel Hammett, or other hard boiled detective novelists, who make Lee Child and James Patterson look like rank amateurs.
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Edited by - Simon Scarrow on 19 October 2009 1:41:55 PM |
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stuartr
Single Cell Organism
32 Posts |
 Posted - 19 October 2009 : 2:14:53 PM
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I know exactly what you mean by the trends with much modern literature, quite why people are so eager to buy the vaccuous ghost written thoughts of minor celebrities is beyond me. I take great delight in avoiding virtually all of the ramblings that will have made the autobiography best seller lists of recent times. Barack Obama's musings being the exception, but then I have a view that the influences of the man that leads the most powerful nation on earth have some significance, at least when compared to the inane ramblings of Russell Brand et al.
With regards to the "Halcyon days of real writing and publishing" I wonder whether we look back at these ages with the benefit of "natural selection" in that much of the dross will have failed to survive the intervening years. Take Conan Doyle for instance, having started out writing in the pulp magazines of his day, he has survived and become one of the best known authors, while I suspect 99% of the other writers have (rightly) disappeared into the cess-pit of time. In some ways I hope that is the case, as there is some hope that in 100 years time people won't look back on today and believe that celebrity musings (or indeed pretentious prize-winning preening self-serving yet unreadable shite) represents the literature of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Not read Rowling (but love Pulman), can't stand misery-lit, avoids anything whether the Author is better known as a celebrity, or any autobigraphy written be that hasn't yet reached later middle age. So much crap, but the joy of discovering a new (to me) author who I haven't yet come across keeps me going. The modern fiction authors who make it onto my list of waiting for the next book are (in no particular order) Arnaldur Indridiason, Christopher Brookmeyer, Bernard Cornwell (although not the Sharpe series) and Simon Scarrow (whoever he is  ) and Stella Rimington. |
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Parmenion
Homosapien
United Kingdom
14676 Posts |
Posted - 19 October 2009 : 8:39:22 PM
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2 that i really hated recently were King of Ithaca by Glyn ??? and Ship of Rome by John Stack. the forst was just patronising crap, the second was badly researched and childishly written and slow.. John stacks could have been great no one else has released a roman navy book especially in that era so it promised so much and delivered so little.
and while simon hates the matthew rileys and the steve berry quick bang books for me they make a nice interlude between more involved reads. good clean OTT fun.
Centurion Parmenion
LASCIATE OGNE SPERANZA, VOI CH'INTRATE
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Simon Scarrow
Ape
Uruguay
1048 Posts |
Posted - 23 October 2009 : 9:48:34 PM
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| Damn, I was looking forward to giving stack a try when I get a spare moment. |
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The Delayer
Dinosaur
United Kingdom
260 Posts |
Posted - 24 October 2009 : 4:22:33 PM
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To be fair to Stack in regards to research the first Punic war does not have MUCH real life material on it (as opposed to Hannibal and 2nd PW) OTOH though thats where an Authors storytelling skills show to fill the gap. Its where Cornwell hit the heights with his best work in the Arthur Trilogy of the Dark Ages.
In terms of bad books the Mulberry Empire ranks up there. The first Afghan war is a rather un-written about period (in terms of fiction)and it would be hard to make an uninteresting story about it but god knows Philip Hensher did. Ditching an attempt to tell an entertaining story he instead decided to go go sanctimonious with lots of 20th century leftwing liberal claptrap instead.
I'll stick to Flashman anyday I think. |
Edited by - The Delayer on 24 October 2009 4:27:50 PM |
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Carus Andiae
Small mammal
United Kingdom
722 Posts |
Posted - 11 November 2009 : 1:10:36 PM
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Umburto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum was a chore. It started off quite well, and had flashes of quality, but most of it was turgid pomposity, deviations, philosphical musings on nothing very much, and an almost complete failure to remember the book had a plot until the last quarter.
The Lost Throne by Chris Kuzneski is appalling. It's a sub-Da Vinci Code rip-off, a type of book I wouldn't usually touch with a barge-pole but which was recommended to me (fortunately they leant me their copy, so I didn't waste any money on it). A cliched and uninvolving plot. The heroes are too-perfect All American Heroes who who are thoroughly dislikeable. It suffers from an excess of description (Kuzneski spends half a page just describing one character's jaw). The writing style is amateurish. It is set mainly in Europe, but Europeans are treated in a patronising manner. The storyline, concerning modern-day Spartan warriors - still using ancient Hellenic arms and armour, of course - going around slaughtering people to prevent a book that proves their ancestors may not have been perfect from getting into the public domain. Seriously. Truly dreadful.
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Catapultam habeo. Nisi pecuniam omnem mihi dabis, ad caput tuum saxem immane mittam. |
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scarrow
Forum Admin
588 Posts |
Posted - 11 November 2009 : 4:16:35 PM
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| Oooh that does sound truly crap. Mind you....not that I was ever tempted. I see a Da Vinci type cover these days, I steer well clear of it. |
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Simon Scarrow
Ape
Uruguay
1048 Posts |
Posted - 12 November 2009 : 1:00:21 PM
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| Hard to do, given the way the genre has taken over the shops, just until the Christmas biographies kick in at least. |
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Ankhsy
Homosapien
United Kingdom
7861 Posts |
Posted - 12 November 2009 : 1:32:23 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Carus Andiae
Umburto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum was a chore. It started off quite well, and had flashes of quality, but most of it was turgid pomposity, deviations, philosphical musings on nothing very much, and an almost complete failure to remember the book had a plot until the last quarter.
Oh, I really enjoyed 'Focault's Pendulum'. Umberto Eco's style is heavy and it's a bit like Louis de Berniere's 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' where you have to persevere reading half the book, and then it really takes off.
Legum servi sumus ut liberi esse possimus. |
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Bad Reads
