How do you reconcile your readerly v. writerly opinions?

I've heard this talked about before on AW, but I don't think there's been a particular thread about it.

When we talk about published books or publishing in general, it's hard to prevent our experience as writers from influencing our opinions. For example, with books like The Da Vinci Code or Harry Potter, the reader in us may say "that was a fun read," while the writer in us may be screaming from the prose for one reason or another. Those titles are just ones that have come up often. Obviously, our opinions will differ among us all, but I'm sure we've all had that experience with some book--at least one time.

Similarly, we must have all had the experience that we've picked up a book, tried reading it, and threw it across the room for some reason, thinking "how did this EVER get published?" How much of that is coming from the reader in us? From the writer in us? Surely nonwriters must have had the same experience sometime, too, but is it any different for them?

I've often seen our criticisms of published books excused as "jealousy" or by saying "well someone must like it, because it's published, so it's not actually bad" or similar such things. While the former is a possibility and the second one is true to an extent because, well, it is published, does that invalidate our opinions that a book is "bad"? Is it the reader in us or the writer in us that believes it bad? Which is more valid? Can a book be bad if someone, somewhere likes it, and if so, who has the right to make that call?

Maybe I'm being confusing now.

So I guess I'm asking: do our opinions of published books and the publishing industry in general have any different weight (more, less, none?) than the general population? Do you enjoy books differently as a writer than you did as a reader? If a writer says a book is "bad" does it mean something different than if a reader says a book is "bad"?

Do you read different books to enjoy as a "reader" than you do as a "writer"? Or do you not differentiate? Do you think either is better than the other?

How do you think any of this impacts the way we seek publication?

The essence of this post is--how do you reconcile the writer in you with the reader in you?

Those are a lot of questions, but I'm just wondering what others think about their inner "reader" v. their inner "writer." I have some of my own ideas to the answers of these questions, but I'll post those later. I'd like to see what other people think about this. I'm just curious, because a few of the recent threads have brought up interesting criticisms and defenses of published books and the publishing industry, and it got me wondering how we look at such things differently as writers than readers.

It's difficult for me to know whether it's my learning to write better that has influenced my reading taste or if I would have developed the same taste anyway. Since I learned most of what I know about writing during my high school years (not from school...just during), I can't very well tell whether writing has impacted my taste more of simply my formative years.

When I was younger, I enjoyed books my authors like Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler, because I found the stories interesting. But back then, I don't think I had any concept of any kind of prose sounding any better than any other kind--but that's mostly because I was in middle school and hadn't yet encountered many good books yet. The only good book my class read through all of middle school was The Great Gatsby. I wasn't old enough to appreciate it yet, because how many twelve year olds have been in love? I remember not minding it though (now it's one of my favorites), but just about all the other books we read grated on my mind. I remember even hating To Kill a Mockingbird which was my teacher's favorite book. I never knew why. I just didn't like it. Learning to write, however, revealed me part of why it failed for me--Atticus Finch is pretty much portrayed as an ideal character...without flaw...which makes him pretty boring.

By the time I started high school, I was beginning to find the books I'd been reading pretty boring. I wasn't sure why--they just began to seem unimportant to me. They told decent stories with decent plots, but that's about all. I didn't feel satisfied by that anymore. I started researching for better things to read and came across writers like Umberto Eco, Jorge Luis Borges, Thomas Pynchon, and Franz Kafka. I devoured Eco. I read a lot of Kafka and Borges. I tried some Pynchon. I was also just finishing my first attempt at a novel around this time, and it was heavily Eco-Kafka-Borges influenced. At this time, I wasn't really sure of how to write--I just was. So I think at this time, I was just trying to write what I liked: Eco and Kafka and Borges.

So I guess already my taste was getting more literary. Before I knew what good writing was, I was getting more attracted to interesting, experimental prose, and there was no going back. It was about the same time I read The Da Vinci Code and liked the story. I was too young and too inexperienced to notice anything particularly wrong with the writing yet, but I knew that I thought Foucault's Pendulum was much, much better.

Nowadays, I can't really get past the prose of most mainstream books. I know that sounds rather pretentious, but it just doesn't appeal to me anymore. I don't like prose that's meant to be "invisible." I like prose that'll make me go "ohh that's a cool way to put that." I like prose that'll make me think. I like prose that reads like poetry. That's what I started moving toward in my early teens, and "uninteresting" prose just doesn't stimulate me enough anymore. It's certainly great for the writer in me, because reading great writing like that inspires me, but even when thinking solely as a reader, I'm only attracted to books that not only have an interesting story, but poetic, experimental prose.

That's the kind of writing I moved toward in my early teen years, and I don't think it necessarily had anything to do with my writing. It just has to do with my natural impulses as a reader. That probably has something to do with what comes next....

I've gotten some flak for this before, but I'm going to be honest. I'm one of those people who thinks too much of the public in general has a love affair with crap. Not just in books, but with movies, music, whatever. Britney Spears is crap. Cheerleading movies are crap. I don't find any artistic value in those kind of things. That's my opinion as a moviegoer, music listener, etc. As a reader, I think lots of books are crap. They're just bad without any redeeming qualities to me.

I'm not that interested in the books I used to like anymore, but I know, at least, that they are decently written. Even books that I never used to like and still don't like, I know some of them are decently written. These are books by authors like Stephen King, etc. that I don't like their writing but I recognize--from the writer in me--that they're decently written. Not great like Joyce, but good and not to my taste.

The fact that a book is liked by someone--even a lot of people--doesn't excuse it from being bad. Others may explain this by saying we all have different tastes. Well, I have lots of friends with lots of different tastes. I have friends who have tastes in all different kinds of genres, but most of them I understand--and most of them find what I see as good books in those genres, even if *I* can't appreciate them because they're not to my taste. So when I think something is just plain bad--I think whoever likes it just plain has bad taste.

But that's what's going through my mind as a reader.

I think the reason a lot of people have a problem with that kind of thinking is that we can get into trouble if we let that influence the writer in us too much.

If we let that kind of thinking seep over into our "writer" brains too much, we can get disillusioned with the publishing industry as a writer. Sure, I'm disillusioned with it as a reader, because not every book I pick up off the shelf is golden--but that doesn't mean I'm disillusioned with it as a *writer.* That kind of thinking can lead to what we've seen in a few recent threads of people giving up on the point of getting published by normal means and turning to self-publishing, arrogance, etc.

I think as long as we remember that the publishing industry DOES have a certain standard of quality, we're okay. While I may be frustrated with the shelves as a reader, I can be certain I'd be more frustrated if I had to weed through all the self-published dreck out there.

I remember that getting published through normal means DOES imply a certain quality not found in the vanity houses. And that means getting published by a respectable publishing house will carry a great amount of satisfaction for me that self-publishing wouldn't. I'm not about to be so arrogant as to give up on editing, revising, improving, and seeking publication through normal means, which seems to be the only real danger in thinking the way I described above.

Wow. I'm awfully long-winded. Sorry for any typos in that long post.

Emily Winslow said:

PS--I didn't see Nabokov on your short list--read Nabokov!!! I think he would fit your taste. (Try "The Real Life of Sebastain Knight", one of his lesser known books. It's marvelous. Or his short stories. Like "The Storm"--oh!)

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I've been meaning to get around to reading some Nabokov. I picked up a collection of his short stories at the bookstore, but since I already had two or three books in my hands, I decided I ought to wait to get it. I suffer from the problem of being an incredibly slow reader.

Unfortunately, my reading speed has had to impact my chosen reading material. Well, in some ways. There are so many longer works that I've been wanting to read, but I haven't gotten around to because it just takes me so LONG to get through things.

My wife and I have been sharing books, and she'll read a book first and give it to me to read. She'll have finished our next book when I'm only a few chapters into the one I'm reading...