The Human Torch said:
The "I could care less" part of my post was to let you know that I have no personal stake in Twilight. That I am subjective enough to recognize it's quality.
And I do care less.
And you are still wrong in my opinion. If I buy a bike, and it breaks in half simply because I sit on it, it's poor quality. If I buy another bike and it lasts me for 10 years without breaking down, then it's good quality. That's the kind of quality you can measure when it comes to an object.
The same would go for the quality of a book. Staying with the book example, if the pages would fall out, if the cover was made out of tissue paper and the glue had the same properties as silly putty, than you would have a low quality book.
Content-wise it's a different story, someone enjoys reading the story, than that's good quality to them.
I'm not really sure why you had to bother with the "could care less" thing then, it's basically irrelevant by your own admission.
Also, if you don't actually care about something (meaning apathetic, with no vested interest in it whatsoever), then you "couldn't care less". Saying you "could care less" literally means that you care about it, that you have some level of emotional investment in it. If you have no stake in something, you don't care about it, thus you could
not care less.
Anyway, as you describe here, a book that falls apart is a poorly made book. I was discussing the quality of the content. And yes, you very much
can measure this. Using the three categories I listed earlier:
-Plot - Events must follow logically. A sequence of random, unrelated events is a bad plot
-Characters - Similar to above, characters that consistently do things someone of their personality would never do are demonstrably low quality
-Prose - there are objective, fixed rules of language the prose must follow, or it is bad
These are objective, standard rules to measure the quality of a work of fiction. You literally cannot say these are in anyway subjective without outright lying.
As a point of example, I despise the book "To Kill A Mockingbird" with the burning passion of a billion fiery suns. If I had my way, every copy of that book ever made would be put to the torch, as it is an affront to good taste in just about all ways.
That does not mean it's a poorly-written or otherwise low quality book. Matter of fact, it's one of the highest quality works of fiction in the last century. My opinion of it does not change that fact.
The simple fact of the matter is that no matter how much you like or dislike something has absolutely no bearing on the quality of the piece. Could something you hate be high quality? Absolutely, just like something you love could be terrible. It won't change the fact that you dis-/like it though, and it shouldn't. If you like something, by all means love it to death. Your opinion does not change its quality though.
