"But it gets them reading."
- Thread starter Dramatic Flare
- Start date
In my opinion it is the moajority that is willing to buy these terrible books which marketers are thinking wow people love this crap and spurn it out anyway. Some people have no imagination outside their own little world so the books they read must reflect the boringness or the fantasy world of their favourite idiot celebrity who can't write their own name.
There will always be good and bad books as long as the masses are willing to spend their money on drivel!
There will always be good and bad books as long as the masses are willing to spend their money on drivel!
I disagree. The people who are forty and reading Twilight or Harry Potter are unlikely to be moving upward any time soon. the only ones whom I've known to be good readers and read those books were already well read by the time they got to those books.Azhrarn-101 said:They may start of reading "Twillight", sparkly vampires and all, but can very well end up reading "Interview with a Vampire" or "Dracula" because of their interest in the subject matter. And those last 2 don't really qualify as garbage now do they?
Think about it- we have books in chatspeak [http://laurenmyracle.com/ttyl.html]. this is not a sign of people moving on to harder ideas, but trying to have ideas dropped down to the easiest level.
Secondly. Interview with a Vampire is just sex candy. It is really, really well written sex candy, but Anne Rice's wordsmithing skill does not make up for the fairly horrible content. Admittedly, I would suggest Anne Rice to vampire aficionados, but not because it was good. It was par, which is something I'm beginning to notice is incredibly high indeed.
In the case of shitty light fiction there's a huge industry because, simply put, it's easier to read. It doesn't take the same effort as working through say, War and Piece, or the acquired snobbery of reading and enjoying Joyce. In some ways people need to be introduced to better light fiction which can toy with a mind yet be flicked through on first go. Pratchett's good for this. Every time you read his books you get another layer of revelation. Brian Jacques was a favourite childhood author of mine because his anthropomorphic novels had undercurrents which interested me while still being a joy to read.
None the less you can't force people to enjoy complex novels such as Brave New World (for all I think everyone should read it at least once). Enjoying reading is a gift as much as it is a pleasure, just as enjoying playing an instrument is, and enjoying the ability to critically analyse.
So I guess what I'm saying is you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it think.
None the less you can't force people to enjoy complex novels such as Brave New World (for all I think everyone should read it at least once). Enjoying reading is a gift as much as it is a pleasure, just as enjoying playing an instrument is, and enjoying the ability to critically analyse.
So I guess what I'm saying is you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it think.
Trash sells and frankly it should sell, most people read to escape, for recreation, you cant read some piece of literary criticism for fun. they are terribly boring. Chick lits, fantasy, fiction..they all sell because they are entertaining, you never here of Edward Said or Theodor Adorno on the 100 books you must read list and why? because theyre boring drivel by some jumped up intellectual trying to convince us not to like jane austen because her works encourage slavery and impearialism. I'm not saying you shouldn't expand your mind its just don't expect others to join you, free time is rare these days and people should be able to spend it however they want, even if it is reading popular trash.
Right, and I have nothing against simple novels. Simplicity, on its own, does not result in a bad book. But bad books are almost exclusively simple with a few exceptions [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dianetics:_The_Modern_Science_of_Mental_Health]. As I said in the original post, not every book needs be hard to read, or force the reader to reconsider their whole world outlook, but it should do something interesting. Like take fairies and set them up in Modern Manhattan.Labyrinth said:
Off topic, Brian Jacques was one of my favorite authors as a youngin' too, and I may be forced to steal that analogy in the future. You're not going to copyright it, are you?
Although if they never read they'll never get onto "harder" books later on. Also what makes a book "shit" is somewhat subjective. Although I'll agree something like Dante's inferno or of mice and men has more to say then "confessions of a shopaholic"MaxTheReaper said:
I think there's two type of readers, good readers and bad readers. Those who read literature and those who read trash. Good readers will always look down on bad readers. At least I will. I'm a reading elitist.
I dont believe in 'at least they're reading'. I think Twilight certainly has done more bad then good.
I dont believe in 'at least they're reading'. I think Twilight certainly has done more bad then good.
I'm sorry, but seriously, for lack of a better adjective? Stupid, nerdy, geeky, for losers, boring, useless, dumb, lame...damn and those are just off the top of my head. You see, people who read, even when they're reading bad books, develop a better vocabulary and don't have to insult a percentage of the population for lack of a better adjective.notsosavagemessiah said:
Would I rather a kid read Animal Farm or Cider House Rules than Twilight or Harry Potter? Sure. But I would also rather they read Twilight than simply not read at all.