Richard Ford once said that it takes as much effort to produce a bad book as a good book.
And as disheartening as that sounds, what Ford’s assertion might raise, and what most everyone who has attempted the task of a book-length work already knows, is the notion that effort alone does not ensure a book’s success, and that there are probably more ways for a good book to be overlooked than a bad book to never make it into print.
That said, what constitutes a bad book? Is it an overrated “good” book? Can an otherwise good author produce a “bad” book? Is the badness in style, in execution? Or is it in theme or outlook? Or is the notion of a “bad” book even comprehensible in the age of postmodernism, poststructuralism, and cultural studies?
Calling the question of “bad books” to the fore elicited—as might be expected—an overwhelming response. The forty responses below were selected to demonstrate the sheer variety of responses to what at face value seems a simple question. But as with most literary matters, nothing is as simple as it appears—not even the question of what constitutes a bad book.
From Eyal Amiran’s comments on the badness of Bond to Zahi Zalloua’s asking whether the state of bad books is hopeless, you’ll find that there’s a lot to think about when it comes to the question of bad books. Some of the comments you’ll find agreeable; others disagreeable. Regardless, after reading them we think that you’ll at least agree that there is just as much to say about bad books as there is to say about good ones.
Disappointed that no one named Eco's "Foucault's Pendulum," which (I discovered when I recently re-read it) exemplifies one of the most crushing forms of literary badness: The Book That Can Only Be Read Once.
posted by rusty at 11:58 AM on March 16 [2 favorites +] [!]
But if I call a book “bad” when something is at stake—when, by some criteria, it ought to qualify as good; when it’s a bestseller (The Da Vinci Code [2003]), or a text by a canonical author (Theodore Dreiser), or one that turns up on course syllabi for reasons that somebody might find dubious (piety, political correctness; Their Eyes Were Watching God [1937])—then what I’m really saying isn’t that the book is bad but that its readers are bad; or, more to the point, that they’re not as good as I am. Their taste is bad, where mine (of course) is refined; their education is inadequate, compared to mine; they’re susceptible to being distracted by commerce or ide- ology or piety or the prestige of big names, whereas I’m immune to all that, etc., etc. This seems, well, invidious; anyway, I don’t think I really want to go there. Let a thousand flowers bloom. Let readers read as they please, and what they please.Quoted for greatness. He's a teacher in my department, so I think I'm just going to be demure and say 'my professor could kick your professor's ass.'
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posted by DU at 9:55 AM on March 16, 2010 [3 favorites]