blacbird said:
Define "most people." You don't think much of The Da Vinci Code as a novel, but it's a dead solid lock that more people have read it than have read, say, Mildred Pierce, which I dare say you (and I) would regard as a much better novel. Or, for that matter, any number of very fine genre-pigeonholed writers that I guarantee "most" people don't want to read.
"Most" people probably don't want to read your novels. Doesn't make them bad in my estimation, just not appealing to "most" people. For whatever reason, including genre, style, marketing, promotion.
Still puts you ahead of me, of course. Nobody seems to want to read my novels.
caw.
Yes, and it's a dead solid lock why more people have read it, and it sure didn't have anything to do with the quality of the writing. But I'm not that against Dan Brown. He did what every writer is supposed to do. He found a way to make people want to read his story. I think his
writing is, I also believe his ability to find a story people care about is equally good.
Dan Brown is, I think, an example of horrid writing, but also an example of what's good about even the worst book on the bestseller lists.
The same thing can be said of Robert James Waller. I don't know anyone who claims The Bridges of Madison County was well-written. The writing was horrid. Probably worse than anything Dan Brown has ever done.
But Like Da Vinci, the story captured millions of readers, the characters are still talked about, and that's what writing a novel is all about. I may blast Dan Brown's writing, and I certainly will blast Robert James Waller's writing, but I'm a grown man and I cried at the end of Bridges.
I'm not saying a novel is bad because almost no one wants to read it, but I am saying it's nonsense to say it's good because most most people don't want to read it, and it's equally nonsense to say the books on the bestseller list are bad because you or I don't like them.
I will say a book is lacking if it doesn't stand the test of time, and I will say most books very few people want to read are any good, bgut, sure, some of them are wonderful, and some of them will outlast us all.
But too many have the notion that such books are automatically better than anything on the bestseller list, and that anything on the bestseller list is horrible by default, and it's nonsense.
Anyone can call a book good or bad, but when almost no one wants to read a novel, well, it may still be a great novel, but there's no way on earth of saying it's a better novel than what's on the bestseller lists.
And when darned near everyone wants to read a novel, it may be lousy in some ways, but it is not crap, and there's no rational way of saying it's worse than a novel almost no one wants to read.
