I've always wondered why sometimes books that aren't very good become bestsellers. Why do they gather so many fans, and why do everybody seem to love them, when they aren't very good at all? It's a topic that has been discussed a lot here. Some say it is because writing is subjective, and those books really ARE good -- it is just that we writers can't put down our prejudices. Others say that it is because it has a concept that sells. Still others say that it is "the lowest denominator" at work, that most people are naturally attracted to crap.
I have my own theory, however. One thing that I experienced is that when I was younger, there were a lot of books that I absolutely LOVED, but now when I look back I am not that impressed. Some of them I just downright hate, and I wondered why on earth did I ever think it was good.
So lets do a thought experiment: The Poor Man's Gold
Suppose a poor man is walking down a path. Along the path, there are three treasures: a single gold bar, a bucket of gold, and a mountain of gold. They are a far distance apart.
As the poor man walks down the path, he stumbles across the single gold bar. It is a fortune that he has never, ever seen in his whole life. There is a bucket of gold and a mountain of gold ahead, but he can't see them. (Nor has he ever seen them.) What do you think he'll do: pick it up, and say, "hey, this is not enough, I'll go and find some more gold?" Or will he run all the way home for joy, thinking that what he got was totally awesome, and that there is nothing better than it in the whole world?
I think that is what many people are experiencing, when they are attracted to what we think are "crap". Think about Twilight. Its audience are teenagers, a lot of which rarely read books, if at all. (I'm not saying this is true for every teenager. I'm a teenager and I like to read.) In the sense of reading good stories, they are poor (wo)men. So when they first stumble across their "gold bar", having never seen a "mountain of gold" before, they naturally think that their gold bar is the best thing in the whole world. For those who read a lot, of course, they have seen the whole world, and seen mountains and mountains of gold, so naturally they look at the bar of gold in disdain. "So little?"
Who knows? Perhaps all those fans of those less-than-stellar-books, having gone on to become avid readers, would look back and think, "How did I like that?"
PS. An interesting fact: the Chinese word for "shallow" (浅近, a word reserved for describing thoughts or works of art)is a combination of two characters -- 浅, shallow, and 近, near. Shallow and near. A coincidence?
I have my own theory, however. One thing that I experienced is that when I was younger, there were a lot of books that I absolutely LOVED, but now when I look back I am not that impressed. Some of them I just downright hate, and I wondered why on earth did I ever think it was good.
So lets do a thought experiment: The Poor Man's Gold
Suppose a poor man is walking down a path. Along the path, there are three treasures: a single gold bar, a bucket of gold, and a mountain of gold. They are a far distance apart.
As the poor man walks down the path, he stumbles across the single gold bar. It is a fortune that he has never, ever seen in his whole life. There is a bucket of gold and a mountain of gold ahead, but he can't see them. (Nor has he ever seen them.) What do you think he'll do: pick it up, and say, "hey, this is not enough, I'll go and find some more gold?" Or will he run all the way home for joy, thinking that what he got was totally awesome, and that there is nothing better than it in the whole world?
I think that is what many people are experiencing, when they are attracted to what we think are "crap". Think about Twilight. Its audience are teenagers, a lot of which rarely read books, if at all. (I'm not saying this is true for every teenager. I'm a teenager and I like to read.) In the sense of reading good stories, they are poor (wo)men. So when they first stumble across their "gold bar", having never seen a "mountain of gold" before, they naturally think that their gold bar is the best thing in the whole world. For those who read a lot, of course, they have seen the whole world, and seen mountains and mountains of gold, so naturally they look at the bar of gold in disdain. "So little?"
Who knows? Perhaps all those fans of those less-than-stellar-books, having gone on to become avid readers, would look back and think, "How did I like that?"
PS. An interesting fact: the Chinese word for "shallow" (浅近, a word reserved for describing thoughts or works of art)is a combination of two characters -- 浅, shallow, and 近, near. Shallow and near. A coincidence?