Greetings from the edge,
It strikes me, dear reader, that I have been exceptionally lucky when it comes to books. I have never read a truly awful one.
I’m not just saying that as a mediocre writer trying to defend his brethren, although I am doing that as well.
I think every single thing ever committed to paper has something to teach us, even if all it teaches us is that a particular writer, genre, or style simply is not for us.
Films, on the other hand?
Good Lord, I have seen some stinkers.
Highlander II: The Quickening has literally nothing to offer, and I am toying with the idea of making it the centrepiece of an article about how a good franchise can go bad. The first Dungeons & Dragons film is an absolute trainwreck that smells worse than orc shit.
Books are different.
That is not to say there are not books I have struggled with. Blood Meridian was difficult because not only is it one of the most disturbing books I have read since sneaking my dad’s copy of The Incredible Melting Man, but Cormac McCarthy seems to have a hatred of punctuation that borders on the psychotic.
It is just a comma, Cormac. It cannot hurt you.
Valley of the Dolls will forever sit on my DNF pile. Not because it is bad, and not because I am a bad reader. I actually wish I could weave relationship threads the way Jacqueline Susann could.
It was just a little slow for me, and I had a nice Folio Society copy of The Illustrated Man sitting there looking at me seductively from the shelf. So, after getting about a third of the way through Valley of the Dolls, and still not finding a single doll, I put it aside.
Now, masters of the craft like Stephen King would probably disagree with me. In Danse Macabre, he points to the protagonist of Valley of the Dolls as an example of a two-dimensional “Mary Sue” character.
King argues that in a character-driven story, writers have a responsibility to create believable, fully formed people, and he felt Susann failed in that regard.
I humbly disagree.
Well… I disagree a bit.
He is right on almost every point. She is an insufferable Mary Sue who we are constantly told is wonderful despite doing very little to earn that adoration. King is right that she is a flimsy character, but even that teaches us something as writers.
And I am fully aware that I am arguing literature with Stephen bloody King.
But in my mind, a book can never truly be bad. Not to another writer.
As long as we can learn something from it, then it has value.
Anything that teaches us something cannot be entirely bad by its very nature.
So keep reading, my fellow bibliophiles. Let books pile up around you until you are swimming in them like Scrooge McDuck in his money bin.
You will find weak dialogue, flimsy characters, contrived plots, and endings that collapse like a wet cardboard box.
But every one of those flaws is a lesson.
Every clumsy line is proof that we can do better.
All that said…
Digital Fortress can still burn in the lowest pit of hell for all eternity.
See you in the margins,
Leave a Reply