What a snob!/ Good writing/bad writing redux

[dumbledore11214]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "P. Alexis Nguyen" <alexisnguyen at ...> wrote:
>
> md:
> > can someone post a link that works? This one won't for me.
> 
> Ali:
> Try this:  http://www.good.is/post/the-dan-brown-diversion/
> 
> I don't know if it'll work better, but it's worth the shot.
> 
> Frankly, I think the author has a valid point beneath that thick layer
> of snobbery.  Coverage of the Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer, JRK, etc.
> books of the world do overshadow the fact that there are tons of great
> books being put out (the author citing Pynchon and Doctorow, both more
> more accessible than the author's ivory tower/liberal arts veneer
> might indicate).  It's not that the Brown/Meyer/etc books aren't
> infinitely readable and accessible pop fiction (I own some of these
> very books; heck, I have an entire over-flowing bookshelf dedicated to
> romance novels) nor that the particular authors seems to have managed
> to capture a giant reading audience in a time when everyone seems to
> be bemoaning the fact that no one reads anymore, but it's hard to deny
> that the coverage of them is at the cost of coverage of other books,
> with names like Doctorow being relatively known without having the big
> fame of a Dan Brown (though Doctorow is certainly a better writer than
> Brown, that hack - and I read and liked Da Vinci Code).  Now, it's not
> necessarily anyone's fault, but it doesn't make Anne Trubek (the
> original article's author) any less valid, pretty much like we don't
> go dismissing all the medical knowledge that came out of the Nazi
> doctors' human experimentation just because said doctors were
> terrible, wretched, horrible human beings (too many adjectives?).
> 
> And just to really cover myself, I do not mean pop fiction in any
> denigrating way.  Both Shakespeare and Dumas, pere, were pop
> phenomenons in their days, and I very much enjoy both their bodies of
> work.  :)
> 
> ~Ali
>


Hey Ali,

Even though I already replied to your post couple months ago, I wanted to get back to this thread one more time simply because I finally got myself Homer and Langley by Doctorov and read it. And you know, frankly I think this book illustrates one of the possible reasons why people may prefer Harry Potter books to it. Or I should say why **I** would prefer Harry Potter books to it. Now in the interest of full disclosure I have never ever read anything by Doctorov, I know that he is a well known writer, but I resigned myself to the fact that no matter how hard I try I would never be able to read all famous american writers, catching up with cultural gaps will never be complete heh.

So, while I enjoyed the book tremendously and I will happily agree that as a writer Doctorov runs circles around JKR, I will never ever ever will be tempted to reread this book again. Do you know how I was feeling by the end of the book and again, this is just a subjective opinion of one reader? As if I am suffocating.  I mean, he writes so so so well, when I read the book, usually I tend to picture the world I am reading about not exactly simultaneously, my mind needs to process the words and only then give me picture, but here it was so so clear, it is like every sentence just made the pictures clearer and clearer. And I was sympathizing with the characters too, which was quite hard to do. I will totally give this book five stars on goodreads or anywhere else.

But to me it was just so depressing. I do not care that he took liberties with the RL characters, this is another cultural gap of mine, before I read the book and about it, I never heard of them, but I am just not sure why I would want to keep this book on my bookshelf.

As I mentioned several times my background is not in the most cheerful literature ever lol, so it is not like I require my books to be cheerful and joyful all the time, but this book, oy, just oy.

So, yeah, I wonder if this critic may want to sit down and think over the idea, that maybe just maybe media covers the books releases that people actually **LIKE** and want to read and reread, and for legit reasons too.

JMO,

Alla