Book snobs
I'm a book snob. Really I am. I scoff at books and dismiss them as rubbish without having read past page fifty or seventy. How-and-ever I will attempt to read any damn book in existence. I'm a bookseller by trade as well as a student of literature. Literature comes out of my damn nose and chokes me when I've had too much coffee and am talking too fast about it. So I understand it when people say they don't like a book for such and such reasons. There's nothing better in fact to find someone who has read the same book as you have, hated it in just the same way, so you can spend the time (constructively) shooting down the usually not-so-badly off author.
Four examples:
Late Anais Nin is terrible. It's self-indulgent and trite. I'm setting myself up for grievous bodily harm by saying so by various friends, colleagues and enemies but there it is. If anyone ever reads this blog and cares to know why I'll elaborate. Otherwise I won't.
Martin Amis is boring. The most interesting book he wrote was the autobiography with the title of Experience. God knows I wish he'd gone out and had some. In the autobio his writing comes alive and it shows that he is scraping the thoughts together on his favourite topic- himself. Where the father was a firebrand and xenophobic to boot, a word which here I want to mean he just hated everyone with an equal intolerance, the son is a dullard. After The Rachel Papers and the autobio don't bother any more. Ever read Night Train? Case in point. If you haven't just go out and read a Jim Thompson novel instead. Less painful and on the whole a much more unsettling and satisfying event.
Salman Rushdie. I once thought the man's writing was brilliant shining. When I was twelve.
Jonathan Safran Foer is just plain crap. His first book had such a great title that I was disappointed to find that the 'delicate and intricately linked web of narrative' was nothing more than three mixed stories that had already been written by Isaac Bashevis Singer, the early Philip Roth and Bernard Malamud. I was willing to read the second book to see if some original authorial persona would raise itself, claim the right to exist as a man among men. Same narrative use of a limited narrator. Appropriated gimmicky artistic bits from the 70's & the 80's that, briefly novel, didn't last or stand to illumine any over-arching point. I mean if you thought you liked Foer's books read some Jerzy Kosinski. Whether or not Kosinksi stole and plagiarised is moot I s'pose but the actual work itself and the visceral impact of his books, both gentle and brutal, is undeniable.
So... Where was I? Marian Keyes. I was going to talk about Marian Keyes and her newest book This Charming Man. Why is it people turn up their nose at chick-lit? In this world where honesty is so difficult to come by and where we've got to grab at anything out there that'll comfort us in the sad knowledge that as humans we all ultimately go down for a damn long nap; that it ain't ever going to be possible to know how you look like, feel like, sound like to another except by reflection, Why, dear God, is it so difficult to accept that a book can be, squeezed by definition, chick-lit and yet have a hard-cored theme of domestic violence, corrupt politicians, alcoholism and be just as worth while reading as Palahniuk, Angela Carter or Dave Eggers? It's hugely funny too. Not even close to being as pretentiously sappy, mawkish and over-sentimental as Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Keyes' writing is tightly controlled and boundary breaking. The cast of characters is diverse and they reflect a changing Ireland, and by extension for all those whose Nationality ain't Irish, a changing world which sometimes we can be uncomfortable with and sometimes deal with in unimagined ways. I would quote a great lengthy bash of the book here to illustrate but would probably be sued. Not by Ms. Keyes herself since she's obviously a decent hard-working and intelligent soul, but by her publishing company's lawyers who I would imagine to be slightly less understanding of the human condition.
I'm one of the worst snobs there is. I know what's good and what's bad and I expect the world to be made a more interesting place after I've put down the book I'm reading. I know the history behind the books that has influenced whatever I'm reading like a great deal of other people. I'm not afraid of any genre and would be ashamed of myself if I didn't stand by what I thought was possibly great literature. It's precisely because of this and not in spite of these mishaps of character that I defy you to read This Charming Man. Don't be a pretentious twat about what you read, be a snob instead. But whatever you do, don't be a wimp and accept any trash marketed for your demographic. It's about damn time that some demand was made on our horribly all-too-public authors to produce some decent literature that doesn't only deal with softly pleasing generally irrelevant categories that make publishing houses so much money.
Maybe Marian Keyes could give masterclasses on how to be an honest writer. Whaddaya say Marian?
Four examples:
Late Anais Nin is terrible. It's self-indulgent and trite. I'm setting myself up for grievous bodily harm by saying so by various friends, colleagues and enemies but there it is. If anyone ever reads this blog and cares to know why I'll elaborate. Otherwise I won't.
Martin Amis is boring. The most interesting book he wrote was the autobiography with the title of Experience. God knows I wish he'd gone out and had some. In the autobio his writing comes alive and it shows that he is scraping the thoughts together on his favourite topic- himself. Where the father was a firebrand and xenophobic to boot, a word which here I want to mean he just hated everyone with an equal intolerance, the son is a dullard. After The Rachel Papers and the autobio don't bother any more. Ever read Night Train? Case in point. If you haven't just go out and read a Jim Thompson novel instead. Less painful and on the whole a much more unsettling and satisfying event.
Salman Rushdie. I once thought the man's writing was brilliant shining. When I was twelve.
Jonathan Safran Foer is just plain crap. His first book had such a great title that I was disappointed to find that the 'delicate and intricately linked web of narrative' was nothing more than three mixed stories that had already been written by Isaac Bashevis Singer, the early Philip Roth and Bernard Malamud. I was willing to read the second book to see if some original authorial persona would raise itself, claim the right to exist as a man among men. Same narrative use of a limited narrator. Appropriated gimmicky artistic bits from the 70's & the 80's that, briefly novel, didn't last or stand to illumine any over-arching point. I mean if you thought you liked Foer's books read some Jerzy Kosinski. Whether or not Kosinksi stole and plagiarised is moot I s'pose but the actual work itself and the visceral impact of his books, both gentle and brutal, is undeniable.
So... Where was I? Marian Keyes. I was going to talk about Marian Keyes and her newest book This Charming Man. Why is it people turn up their nose at chick-lit? In this world where honesty is so difficult to come by and where we've got to grab at anything out there that'll comfort us in the sad knowledge that as humans we all ultimately go down for a damn long nap; that it ain't ever going to be possible to know how you look like, feel like, sound like to another except by reflection, Why, dear God, is it so difficult to accept that a book can be, squeezed by definition, chick-lit and yet have a hard-cored theme of domestic violence, corrupt politicians, alcoholism and be just as worth while reading as Palahniuk, Angela Carter or Dave Eggers? It's hugely funny too. Not even close to being as pretentiously sappy, mawkish and over-sentimental as Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Keyes' writing is tightly controlled and boundary breaking. The cast of characters is diverse and they reflect a changing Ireland, and by extension for all those whose Nationality ain't Irish, a changing world which sometimes we can be uncomfortable with and sometimes deal with in unimagined ways. I would quote a great lengthy bash of the book here to illustrate but would probably be sued. Not by Ms. Keyes herself since she's obviously a decent hard-working and intelligent soul, but by her publishing company's lawyers who I would imagine to be slightly less understanding of the human condition.
I'm one of the worst snobs there is. I know what's good and what's bad and I expect the world to be made a more interesting place after I've put down the book I'm reading. I know the history behind the books that has influenced whatever I'm reading like a great deal of other people. I'm not afraid of any genre and would be ashamed of myself if I didn't stand by what I thought was possibly great literature. It's precisely because of this and not in spite of these mishaps of character that I defy you to read This Charming Man. Don't be a pretentious twat about what you read, be a snob instead. But whatever you do, don't be a wimp and accept any trash marketed for your demographic. It's about damn time that some demand was made on our horribly all-too-public authors to produce some decent literature that doesn't only deal with softly pleasing generally irrelevant categories that make publishing houses so much money.
Maybe Marian Keyes could give masterclasses on how to be an honest writer. Whaddaya say Marian?
