Tuesday, February 1, 2011

BAD WRITING, GOOD MONEY

Today I'm debating with myself about good writing and bad writing, and about the state of book publishing, specifically mystery and crime novels.

I'm reading "A World The Color of Salt," a crime novel by a friend who is truly a great writer, Noreen Ayres. She has published three novels but as far as I can tell has not made a million dollars.

I love her writing. She is literate, sensitive to the language, and creative. There is a lot of poetry in her prose.

On the other hand, look at the big bestsellers. Take, for example, Tana French. I tried to read one of Tana French's books, “Faithful Place,” and I found it to be boring, trivial, diffuse, and unengaging. The first ten pages had exactly one interesting line.

Look at all the bestsellers: James Patterson, John Grisham, Lisa Gardner, and even the so-called literary writers, like Jonathan Franzen. Their writing is less than admirable, I would say, to be kind.

Why does weak writing make more money? Is it that the book-buying public is illiterate and poorly educated? Maybe.

Whatever reason, the fact that great writers languish while crappy writers make millions is an example of Unbearable Crap.  

One novel by a famous mystery writer was so illogical that it gave me a headache. Now that same writer has published more than a dozen novels to world-wide acclaim.

To me, everything about Noreen Ayres's book is better: the story, the setting, the characters, the underlying logic, and of course the writing.

I give you two quotes by the poet Ezra Pound:

"A man reading ought to be a man intensely alive. The book ought to be a ball of light in his hands."

"The public will buy a certain amount of poetry if you give them their striptease.”

And, from Ernest Hemingway, mocking Ezra Pound:

“In the end, the age was handed / the sort of shit that it demanded.”
(Pardon my French. But I assume you speak French.)

It breaks my heart.

And there is this, from the most famous mystery writer, Raymond Chandler:

“As I look back on my own stories it would be absurd if I did not wish they had been better. But if they had been much better they would not have been published.”

I don't know if that is true.
I hope it isn't, but I fear that it is.

And one last truth:

“There's many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.” -- Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964)

Amen to that.

Copyright 2011 by Roger R. Angle.

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