Most Overrated Books (in My World)

When there is too much of a buzz around a book, I tend to wait for a few years before reading it (I will probably read 50 Shades of Grey when I am a grandmother, at this rate).  I did that with Harry Potter, ‘Life of Pi’ and I am still waiting to read Hilary Mantel’s latest two.  Because, with all due respect to reviewers, online chat forums and book clubs, no one can read a book for you.  Tastes are so different, that only you can make up your own mind! (Thank goodness.)

I finally read Alice Sebold’s ‘The Lovely Bones’ yesterday and was intrigued for the first 50 pages or so, then a bit bored, then finally frustrated.  It’s an interesting premise (the omniscient narrator from heaven) and the adolescent voice is charming, but after a while the archness and sentimentality begin to jar.  It just goes on for too long: a novella-length of about 20,000 would have been more than enough.

So that got me musing about other books that I have found highly overrated.  Please bear in mind this is always a very personal exercise, so don’t be offended if I have included any of your favourites!  However, I would love to hear you defend any of my choices (because I am not Miss Know-It-All), or let me know if there are any others I ought to include.

1) Dan Brown: The Da Vinci Code

And pretty much everything else he has written.  When I first read this, I thought it was a parody of a certain type of thriller.  But alas, no, it’s deadly earnest!

2) Elizabeth Gilbert: Eat Pray Love

Don’t get me wrong: I think she is very brave to share with readers her early-midlife-crisis and search for fulfilment.  I just find the journey a selfish and not that well-written pursuit of personal happiness, with very little attempt to understand or interact deeply with the cultures she encounters.  Some funny observations, but overall too much bellybuttonism for my taste.

3) Stieg Larsson

Yes, I ‘m sorry, the whole Girl with Dragon Tattos and other tormented characteristics left me cold!  It’s not the violence or misogyny that I complain about (the first is widespread in crime fiction, the second is debatable anyway).  No, it’s the fact that it bores me.  Everyone talks about its relentless pace and it being a page-turner, but I have to admit I skipped entire repetitive passages. It feels completely unedited, a real jumble: just spewing out of odd bits of information, plotlines and shifts in narrative voice.

4) Hemingway’s novels

His short stories are brilliant.  I just find his terseness and übermasculinity grates over the length of a novel.  And sometimes I am not sure he is as profound as his critics make him out to be.

5) Paul Coelho: The Alchemist

Possibly because all the people I despised in high school loved it so much.  Or because fable-type narratives always hit my cynical vein, from which then gushes forth pretentious twaddle.  Sometimes beautiful words are poetry that makes us gasp in wonder… and sometimes it’s a rich cake, giving me indigestion.  (On the other hand, I do like some of his other books, for instance ‘Veronika Decides to Die’.)

As I said, don’t take my word for it!  If you haven’t read these, then you may want to ignore my opinion and make up your own mind. Now I would like to know which books you love to hate!  Although I may shoot you if you dare to say ‘The Great Gatsby’ or Jane Austen…

Let the Battle Commence!

Enough marinading – time to start grilling!

Almost a month ago exactly, I wrote ‘The End’ on the first draft of my novel.   I printed it out and set it aside – yes, literally in a drawer – to marinade in its juices until I felt ready to tackle it again.   Meanwhile, the end of school revelries, birthdays, professional obligations, family demands swept over me, pulling me under, all but drowning me in waves of joy and salt, of midsummer madness and unknowable sadness.

But now it’s just me and those 150+ pages of single-spaced writing eyeballing each other.  I already know I have to take out some scenes, add others, move things around.  I know I will wince when I see redundant adjectives and adverbs, will frown at repetitions, will fiercely attack typos and careless grammar.  I am sure so much will escape me still…

And in the meantime, I continue to read and review crime fiction.  Many writers say that they stop reading in their genre when they are writing a book, but I’ve been writing this book for 12 years now!  Still, the reason for avoidance – to steer clear of contagion and envy – is becoming obvious.  Gone are the days when I could read a thriller purely for fun.  Now, if it’s a bestseller, like Simon Kernick or JoNesbø, I wish I could have that pace in plotting (even if they are light years removed from my own style).  If it’s the wit and prose that win me over, like Stav Sherez or Patricia Highsmith, I flame up in desire to achieve that standard.  And if it’s poorly written, I wallow in pools of self-pity: that I am unlikely to get published, when there is so much crime fiction already out there.

Yet none of these writers, admired or envied, are there with me.  None of my friends, online or off, can be there with me.  I step into the ring of fire, all alone.  I know nothing about grilling except for the eating. I probably have the wrong weapons with me: my glasses, my pens and my notebooks.  This time, it’s a battle to the death – and only one of us can emerge victorious.

Bon appétit!

 

Lucky 7 Random Editing

So much has happened during my absence from the Web: novels have been finished and/or edited, gorgeous new poems have appeared on some of my favourite blogs and, best of all, I have been remembered even though I have been away, which I find very touching!  So thank you, Joanne Phillips, who has tagged me for the Lucky 7 random sharing of novel excerpts, to give each other a bit of a boost and an opportunity to reflect on our own work.  The rules are simple:

1. Go to page 77 of your current MS/WIP (if you start a new Word file for each chapter, have a pocket calculator handy to add up the total number of pages).
2. Go to line 7
3. Copy down the next 7 lines, sentences, or paragraphs, and post them as they’re written.
4. Tag 7 writers and let them know.

There’s no pressure, no obligation to continue the chain, but if, like me (and a few others who have participated in this chain, see an excellent post about it by Audrey Kalman), you are deeply embarassed by just how pedestrian those 7 lines sound, it is perhaps time to go over your ‘masterpiece’ with fine-tooth comb and polish it up.  I have been completely wrapped up in plot and characterisation for the first draft, perhaps (no, make that ‘definitely’ instead of perhaps) at the expense of language and style.  And I would never have noticed that if I hadn’t been forced to take a small passage out of context.  Sure, I have excuses about why it is like it is, a wallpaper roll of them, but… the truth is, I needed this wake-up call!

So, without further ado, here is the dreaded passage:

Dinu sighed again.  ‘What do you mean?  We don’t “do” anything.  He’s gone.  It’ll be virtually impossible to trace him.  I’m not going to do a search of all airports, trains and so on.  That sort of thing only happens in TV shows, Liviu my boy!  Anyway, he could just have taken his car and driven off.’

‘Ah, that’s where I’m ahead of you and don’t you “my boy” me!  I checked on his registered vehicle and it’s parked safely outside his block of flats.’

‘Is that the vehicle he was driving when he witnessed my accident?’ Dinu suddenly thought to ask.

It was.   He felt sure that had to mean something, it all seemed too much of a coincidence.  Too convenient, somehow.  Still, he supposed it could all be some strange conglomeration of unrelated events.

And here are the seven writers I am passing it on to, in the hope that they are not too busy or negative about chain letters (as I have been since the age of about seven, when I realised that the curse would not kill me if I didn’t pass them on).  A few of them are poets rather than novelists, so it might be the 7th poem or something of that kind…

Ami de Reve

Quirina Rode-Gutzmer

Robert Crisp

Honoré Dupuis

Kyotzeta

Nicky Wells

Anna Fonte

Thanks for a kick up the backside and back to work on improving that novel!