xie_xie_xie
04 September 2007 @ 10:38 am
OMG I am trash!  
In a discussion at [personal profile] rebeccama's LJ of my favorite book ever, The Mists of Avalon, it was revealed to me that some people think it's not great literature. They see it as escapist romantic beach reading at best, mental junk food at worst.

I would cry and sob and kick my heels on the ground about that if I didn't agree.

Well, I don't agree it's mental junk food, and to be fair no one said it was. It does make you visualize places and people very vividly. It gives your imagination a workout, even if it doesn't make you a better person or smarter, or fill you with the wisdom of the ages. But escapist pleasure!fic? Oh yeah.

Because I confess to you now: When it comes to fiction, that's what I like.  And yes, I'm aware that I recently ranted that readers need be more critical thinkers just, er... I don't know, two days ago.

But I do think critically about my taste in fiction, and I have no problem with liking what I like: Fiction that tells me a story, that's not mean-spirited or ugly in any way, that takes me to a place or a world that feels vivid and real to me, and that, in short, fills me with the sense of being immersed in the author's world, and glad to be there.

I like well-written dog and cozy mysteries. I like historical fiction (but not historical romances). I like a very limited number of fantasy authors: the Pern books by Anne McCaffery, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series, Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books. I don't even like those same authors' other series, just those. I like gay or lesbian detective novels as long as they're not dark or noir -- Katherine Forrest, Michael Nava, Claire McNab.

What I don't enjoy are "serious" works of literary fiction. Oprah book club kind of books make me want to gouge out my eyes.

I feel the same way about TV shows and films. It's probably why I see so few of either. Of shows currently on television, there is exactly one that I enjoy: Battlestar Galactica. I used to enjoy ER, although I got bored with it in the last couple of years. Other than a few sitcoms, the only shows I've ever really loved or even liked are Xena, Star Trek TOS, TNG, and Voyager, Queer as Folk, West Wing, Cagney and Lacey, Law and Order and Law and Order SVU (although I no longer watch them), NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, Upstairs, Downstairs, Rosemary and Thyme, Six Wives of Henry VIII, Elizabeth R, and Lillie, and that's about it. In an entire lifetime of television watching, those are the only shows I can remember liking, although probably I've forgotten a few.

In films, I rarely see a drama or comedy that I like. Mostly they irritate me or bore me, or upset me. Similarly to how I want to meep and wail about people who hate Mists, I know I've upset or bewildered many of my friends with how I feel about Brokeback Mountain. While I can tell it's a "good movie," I didn't enjoy it at all, because it was just so grim. It didn't make me happy or feel moved, it angsted the crap out of me in a bad way, and filled me with unpleasant anxiety. That's not why I go to the movies, watch TV, or read books.

Fiction, at least. When I want to think or challenge my mind, which is pretty much every day, I read non-fiction. I also have a very high tolerance for artsy-fartsiness, pretentiousness, seriousness, and even grim topics in documentaries and non-fiction books, although I tend to steer clear of biographies and memoirs, and what I guess you'd call "spirituality" and "self-help" books, with few exceptions.

Which isn't to say I haven't read actual literature; I have. Kind of ironically, the only subject I almost had enough credits in to have been my major (other than my actual major) was Comparative Literature. But sit me down with two books by Virginia Woolf, one her fiction and the other her essays, and I'll take the essays every time. I've read Three Guineas and A Room of One's Own a hundred times each; you couldn't pay me to ever read Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse again.

Serious fiction makes me feel manipulated. However genuine the emotional experience the author is seeking to evoke, no matter how good her intentions, my instinctive reaction is resitance and even resentment.  I have trust issues. I don't want my emotions handled, guided or directed. I don't want to open myself up to their stories because I don't freaking know them or what they want or where they'll take me. I don't want to be scared or moved or angsted, and I don't want to feel transcendent joy, just because an author wrote me there deliberately. I want it to happen because life made it happen, or not at all.

Do I miss a lot of great stories that way? Probably. Just as I'm sure there some very "good" fan fics out there amongs the death!fics and breakup!fics and reunion!fics and the endless list of fics I won't read in this fandom. But since I've never actually run out of good books to read, and don't think it's actually possible to read everything wonderful, interesting, enlightening, pleasurable, and compelling that's ever been or will be written, I don't feel any motivation to remedy that.

And to all this I'll attach my universal disclaimer: This is about me. It's description, not prescription, and meant only to give context for what it's likely to mean when I recommend or admire a novel or any work of fiction.
 
 
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[identity profile] zortrana.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 07:45 pm (UTC)
I love the Pern books, Hill Street Blues, the first ST and ST-TNG and several other things you named. So I think you have exceptionally good taste and to heck what anyone else thinks. Hah!
I don't read romance novels, but other people in my family devour them. It's whatever works for each person. I watch disaster movies (OH NO, an asteroid is coming!!) and what is the value of them? They entertain me.
The one book I recommend to anybody who is willing to even consider reading sci-fi is Dune by Frank Herbert. It's the greatest sci-fi book ever written or it's the story of Muhammad coming out of the desert, or...
But I'm sure there are a lot of people who hated it, or couldn't get past the first few pages.
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[identity profile] justinlovesart.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 08:00 pm (UTC)
What I don't enjoy are "serious" works of literary fiction.

I'm not sure what you mean by this exactly (i.e. I think a lot Oprah's book club choices can hardly be considered "high" literature), but in very broad and general terms I must say I do. Not only because that' my day job: I remember enjoying reading complex and "deep" novels ever since I was teenager. The same with arthouse movies, experimental music, avant-garde art. It's not affectation or pretentiousness: it's sincere appreciation for complexity and innovation, and for language/music/images that force me to rethink and reassess my ideas. That push me out of my comfort zone.

Having said that, I also enjoy all kinds of popular culture, including truly trashy products, such as some television shows. Only, I enjoy them differently.

But of course there is a lot I don't like, whether it's "high" or popular. I apply a critical perspective to everything, that is truly something I cannot help. Sitting down and letting the story "take me"? Whether it's a modernist interior monologue or fanfiction fluff, that's not me :)

One more thing, then I'll shut up: I believe all fiction operates some degree of manipulation, whether it's a story that tries to pull your strong emotional/intellectual chains, or one that tries to re-create the calm flow of the real world as the author perceives it. Avoiding cliff-hangers, death scenes or big angsty moments is meant to elicit an emotional response from readers as much as putting those moments there. Only, they are emotions of a different kind. What really matters to my reading experience is whether the writers' attempts to make me believe in their world and its emotions works or not, but that's a different issue altogether.


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[identity profile] xie-xie-xie.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 09:13 pm (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean by this exactly (i.e. I think a lot Oprah's book club choices can hardly be considered "high" literature

We don't use the term "high" for literature in English, at least not in American English, but I understand the distinction you're making.

I consider "literary fiction" to be fiction written to be more than "just" a story, written with serious artistic pretense or intent, but definitely not literature. I reserve it for Oprah book club type books. I basically agree with what Wikipedia has to say on it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_fiction

I'll be frank (no idea why, it usually bites me in the ass when I do that publicly, LOL), I'm aware that my aversion to certain types of emotionally evocative fiction is a pathology.

The truth is, I believe that writing that is meant to be read by anyone other than the author is manipulative, and that seeking to manipulate emotions or thoughts with words is what writers do. I'm doing it now.

It's more that a certain type of experience triggers my personal alarms, and when those alarms go off during what is essentially a voluntary leisure activity, entertainment if you will, it's simply not worth it to me.
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[identity profile] pclu2004.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 08:43 pm (UTC)
HMMMM-lets see, I have read almost all of Marion Zimmer Bradley, Mercedes Lackey and and Anne Mccaffrey, of course LOTR, Star Trek, all series, Star Wars, except for the last one, anything QAF. British mysteries, especially the Inspector Lynley books (the TV show was a disappointment). Dick Francis' books. The Carole Nelson Douglas series. As for tv, not a lot since QAf left--CSI Miami sometimes. I'm not a great tv watcher, mainly watch Discover, History, things like that.
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[identity profile] xie-xie-xie.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 11:02 pm (UTC)
Many people find my disinterest in LOTR puzzling, but while I read the series in grade school I found it boring, and subsequent attempts to re-read it in adulthood have left me unable to get past the first three pages.

I can't read the HP books either, can't get past the first few pages.
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[identity profile] minuet9.livejournal.com on September 5th, 2007 01:24 am (UTC)
OMG there is someone else in the world who doesn't like LOTR. I'm not alone any more! I've never even been tempted to watch the movies (which ppl alternatively tell me I'm missing out on because they are so like the books, and then when i say I didn't like the book, they tell me they are completely different to the books, so much better...LOL) I endure family shame by never having viewed them as my nephew worked on the graphics in them....

I do like HP, however I believe the first book you have to read as an 11 year old. After that the intended audience gets older and the books get better.

I agree with your comments above about literature. I spent a lot of time at uni wondering why being incomprehensible made a book a supposed great read, or why exactly we had to work so hard to read 'good' literature, when there was so much stuff out there that filled me with joy to read, and I didn't need to ponder the positioning of every word.

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[identity profile] xie-xie-xie.livejournal.com on September 5th, 2007 02:02 am (UTC)
I missed the age boat on HP by quite a bit, then. ;)

Xie
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[identity profile] singlewoman.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 08:59 pm (UTC)
I also love "Mists of Avalon" and read it so many times the cover finally fell off so I got a new one. I am an avid reader and am always looking for something, but NOT romance novels. Just no. And ITA about Oprah, a lot of what she pimps is drivel, or at least exceedingly poor beach reading.

Historical fiction is a fave of mine. I thoroughly enjoyed "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova. It concerns several generations of a family hunting and being hunted by Dracula. But it is NOT really a vampire story, my description tends to put off people. Another good one is "The Autobiography of King Henry VIII, as told by his fool" by Margaret George.

But I will say that my all time fave book has got to be "To Kill a Mockingbird". Have read it dozens of times and love it each time.

As for TV: QAF, Buffy, Angel, House, Bones, Star Trek, ER (for awhile), Hill Street Blues (for awhile), Law and Order, and a few more that escape me. Not a really big sitcom fan, I can usually feel my brain turning to pablum as I watch those.

Hate self-help books. The only people they help are the author and publisher.

I guess what I am rambling is that I pretty much agree with you. You are just more eloquent.
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[identity profile] xie-xie-xie.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 11:02 pm (UTC)
LOL, thank you!
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[identity profile] azureopal.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 09:06 pm (UTC)
What I don't enjoy are "serious" works of literary fiction. Oprah book club kind of books make me want to gouge out my eyes.

I totally agree with this! I always say that I was an "English major who hates literature." A lot of it is so boring and wordy! By the time you get through the descriptions of the rolling hills covered in tall grass and heather, you've forgotten what the story's supposed to be about. I realize that's the style of much of what is considered literature, but guh, it's dreadful! I'm more fascinated by contemporary novels that will one day be considered literature . . . though people seem resistant to believing anything being written now is good enough to be considered literature.

Remember when Oprah discovered both 100 Years of Solitude and The Grapes of Wrath? I'm so glad she discovered these little-known books and brought them to the housewife masses. Seriously.

*whispers* Oprah annoys the hell out of me.
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[identity profile] xie-xie-xie.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 11:03 pm (UTC)
I didn't realize she had recc'd classics! I didn't enjoy 100 Years of Solitude, but I loved Grapes of Wrath!
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[identity profile] azureopal.livejournal.com on September 5th, 2007 12:10 am (UTC)
She does it all the time, but she does it as though she's the first person to ever read them . . . she had, I think, Steinbeck's grandson on during one of her book club dinner party episodes and she was just grilling the poor guy on what Steinbeck's intentions were while writing the book . . . I think I was either in high school or just starting college when that was on . . . and I was like, "how's he supposed to know?"

I started reading 100 Years of Solitude when I was 13 or so and coudn't stand it. I had to read Grapes of Wrath in 9th grade, though. It was okay. But I was in my weird Jack Kerouac stage then . . . in retrospect, I should have noticed a bit of the influence Steinbeck had on his writing . . .
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[identity profile] vlredreign.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 09:41 pm (UTC)
Iteresting that you brought up the fiction/literature distinctions, well you and Claudia, actually. I don't even think of them in the same instance, and I don't believe they are meant to be.

When I think of literature, I'm thinking of the required reading lists from school, ie Grapes of Wrath, The Scarlet Letter (zzzzzz), To Kill A Mockingbird, etc. Fiction? Pretty much everything else. I read very little literature, and what I have read was actually post-high school/college. Fiction, on the other hand, I gobble that stuff right down. Sci-fi has never been something that I was into, likewise fantasy. So Pern, Dune, stuff like that, gave me a headache. Which is why it's funny to me that I love The Lord of The Rings so much. It doesn't get more fantastical than that.

On the other hand, I never read any of the Narnia books. Hell, I'd never even heard of them until I was an adult. I just bought Mists of Avalon for the second time cause you and Fire made me, because the first time I got through two chapters and had a brain-ache trying to keep it all straight. I've since figured out that my brain kept trying to reconcile Mists with Le Morte D'Arthur/Excalibur. This time, when I start, I have to remind myself that this is a different story altogether.

Oprah's Book Club. Heh. I've read probably 2 or 3 of those, but not because she rec'd them. I just stumbled across them.
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[identity profile] xie-xie-xie.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 11:05 pm (UTC)
OMG, I LOVE LOVE LOVE Scarlet Letter! Seriously love that book. Talk about angst, LOL! I just want to get in there and shake the crap out of all of them!

To Kill a Mockingbird is IMO a beautiful and brilliant book and a great story. I love it.

Dune and LOTR bore the crap out of me, although I've read them. They just never pulled me in. It was like reading for school.

I worship the Narnia books although now and then there are bits of underlying philosophy that worry me.
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[identity profile] vlredreign.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 11:40 pm (UTC)
I was told that the Narnia books had more of a Christian tilt to them, not that I'd not read tham for that reason. I suspect I'll read it, just cause.

Dune...oh God, head asplody! The spice and the...okay, and the movie was just weird,seriously. Well, but Kyle McLachlan...yeah. Mmmmm.

The thing with LOTR...it took me twelve years to read them. Honest. I bought The Hobbit at a school book fair in my junior year, but never read it. I lost that one, then bought it with the others in Japan, and STILL didn't read them for another two years. Since then, I've read it about 5 times.

And I HATED The Scarlet Letter, but yeah, serious angst, and wanting to smack everyone, oh yeah. Especially what's-his-nuts, the priest...what a pussy! Mockingbird, yes, beautiful.
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[identity profile] rebeccama.livejournal.com on September 5th, 2007 01:43 am (UTC)
Dune...oh God, head asplody! The spice and the...okay, and the movie was just weird,seriously. Well, but Kyle McLachlan...yeah. Mmmmm.

I tend to use the David Lynch's Dune film as an example of how a film can go horribly wrong (or outright call it the anti-LOTR). I love the Dune novel, but the only way I could get through the film was by mentally making constant sarcastic comments. There is a more recent mini-series that I like (well, Dune more than Children of Dune).
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[identity profile] silent-seas.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 09:43 pm (UTC)
I think I can add 'fiction preferences' to my list of reasons why you and I are very different people, because my taste is basically the opposite of yours. ;)

I've read only a handful of fiction that didn't come from the 'modern/classic literature' section of the library.

Ever since middle school, I've been focused on that...plus mostly pre-20th century poetry. It's great that people read other things like you mentioned, but that's just not my happy place. The first time I read (Ellison's) Invisible Man, 1984, and The Sun also Rises, to name a few, I was hooked.

In the past couple of years, I have gotten into a fair amount of non-fiction, and I've enjoyed it. I don't mind biographies or memoirs, generally, but I've only read a couple of those.

Oprah's book club is definitely not my thing, regardless of the types of books that get covered.

ITA on this: that takes me to a place or a world that feels vivid and real to me, and that, in short, fills me with the sense of being immersed in the author's world

Re: Television -- I love Battlestar Galactica for quite a few reasons. Yay.

Serious fiction makes me feel manipulated

I've never thought abut fiction in this way, because I tend to look at writing in terms of the ways an author uses words, how they create images and meaning in each sentence, and how those come together over the whole work. I guess you could compare that to a mechanic dismantling a car to learn/appreciate how it works. It's the same with films; I love camera angles, lighting, sound design--the structure underneath the story.

Anyhoo--This was a very interesting post. And if you have any non-fiction favorites/recommendations, I'd love to hear about them.
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[identity profile] xie-xie-xie.livejournal.com on September 4th, 2007 09:49 pm (UTC)
I've never thought abut fiction in this way, because I tend to look at writing in terms of the ways an author uses words, how they create images and meaning in each sentence, and how those come together over the whole work. I guess you could compare that to a mechanic dismantling a car to learn/appreciate how it works. It's the same with films; I love camera angles, lighting, sound design--the structure underneath the story.

Yeah, and see, I HATE thinking about that stuff. Hate it. I send articles back all the time telling writers to forget the creative writing and TELL. ME. WHAT. HAPPENED.

Of course that's not fiction and thus, entirely appropriate. But I have a deep and abiding prejudice against reading fiction and having the author's craft make itself known to me. I want to be so absorbed in the story and the characters that I forget there is an author.

Also, er, Sun Also Rises? 1984? Invisible Man? Not at all what I mean by "literary fiction." I consider all those literature, and not even remotely what I'm saying I don't like, although I don't like The Sun Also Rises. The other two I enjoyed enormously.
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[identity profile] justinlovesart.livejournal.com on September 5th, 2007 12:36 am (UTC)
I've never thought abut fiction in this way, because I tend to look at writing in terms of the ways an author uses words, how they create images and meaning in each sentence, and how those come together over the whole work.

Me too, with the emphasis on the last sentence. What I mean is that while language, imagery, creative narrative structures are what makes me want to read in the first place, the story is the overall reason why a keep reading. But also the other way around, if it makes any sense.

In other words, I don't see language and story as separate, and the sign of good writing for me is the perfect language for the story it's trying to tell. This is especially true of fiction, I believe, which literally does not exist outside the language that tells it. So I don't see the two terms in contradiction, ever, unless it's bad writing.
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[identity profile] xie-xie-xie.livejournal.com on September 5th, 2007 01:21 am (UTC)
LOL, oh great, now it seems like I'll put up with any old garbagey writing as long as I like the story!

I care about writing. I just want the craft to be invisible. So much "literary fiction" is extremely self-conscious, and it ruins it for me.
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[identity profile] justinlovesart.livejournal.com on September 5th, 2007 01:36 am (UTC)
now it seems like I'll put up with any old garbagey writing as long as I like the story

Not at all. That's not what you said and that's not what I understood. Beautiful writing for beauty's sake might give a momentary thrill, but like you I don't care about it that much unless it's the style that is right for the story.

The only point I might disagree with you on, is that I don't think that all stories require invisible craft: for some it's essential that the language is complex, elaborate, at times even frustrating.

In other cases apparent simplicity and straightforwardness (which, as you well know, is often as hard to achieve as any other type of writing) is just what is needed.
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[identity profile] rebeccama.livejournal.com on September 5th, 2007 01:55 am (UTC)
One of my assumptions with both art where part or all of the intent is to share with strangers, is that most people aren't interested in the creator as much as the work. I don't watch a film because I am concerned about the egos of those involved in making the film nor do I read books because I want to see the writer show off their tricks.

This being said talent and competence matter to me. There are times when I read or watch "junk" or at "barely quality", but that tends to be when I am lacking in physical or emotional energy. Knowing how to construct a sentence or pace a film does matter. I do genuinely like Shakespeare and I have a weakness for writers who are good at using language for humor. I grew up with family members making bad puns. In short, ideally I usually like stories that have "quality", but not "show-off quality". A lot of my favorite stories are "moderate quality".

This post just gave me a posting bunny. *glares* ;)
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[identity profile] kitasangel.livejournal.com on September 5th, 2007 02:14 am (UTC)
I loath self-help books. I sold books for over 10 years and the people who bought self-help were always slightly sad to me. They truly believed that reading a book was going to change their screwed up lives. I dislike Dr. Phil but he's right people if your boyfriend/husband is beating you and sleeping with your best friend/sister/mother than leave the sucker don't read a book.
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[identity profile] flashfly.livejournal.com on September 5th, 2007 02:16 am (UTC)
In films, I rarely see a drama or comedy that I like.

I agree 100% with half this statement. I rarely see a comedy I like.

As for dramas, it's 50/50.

Books - I'm all over the board - classics, contemporary fiction, biographies, non-fiction and Stephen King.
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[identity profile] tamalinn.livejournal.com on September 5th, 2007 02:34 am (UTC)
huh. i love the mists of avalon. it's my favorite book ever. but one of my coworkers said she couldn't stand it either, and that it was because her definition of feminism isn't just enduring hardship, but doing something to change it. i saw her point, but i still love the book.
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