Sometimes I find myself reading a novel that is so poorly written that it does one of two things for me:
1. Irritates the ever living daylights out of me.
2. Makes me laugh. A lot.
Truth be told, certain student papers have done the same for me over the years, but out of respect for those former students, many of whom have gone on to live beautifully literate and productive lives, I will remain silent regarding their past errors.
Tonight I was reading such a novel, and actually found myself vacillating between the two extremes.
You can tell you are reading a bad novel when you see the name of the main character (in this case, Katherine) and cannot put a face or personality to the name every time you read it. All of the characters in this book were like that. Katherine. Nancy. Jane. Sarah. Printed names on a page, not people.
I tell you, when I read a really good novel, I don't even see words on a page anymore: I live what those words are saying. I am the main character. I am Katherine, fiercely independent, and I can smell the crisp odor of fall leaves, taste the fog on my lips, and squint at the lawn before me as I hear leaves crunch beneath figures approaching me through the mist.
For some reason, I was halfway through this novel and feeling extreme agitation over how insipid it was before I realized that these names on the page were what the trouble was. This is what happens when I'm plowing through something for pleasure and not giving it too much thought. Reality comes crashing down on me like the cliches I'm spouting out while complaining about bad writing. (Don't think for one moment that I don't appreciate the irony of my own hypocrisy)
It didn't get really funny to me until I read "She hadn't realized until now how much she had missed this experience: sharing a delicious meal and an interesting conversation with an attractive man who obviously enjoyed her company."
I said out loud to myself, "What am I reading this for?!"
Being rather melodramatic, I almost threw the book across the room. Don't for a moment think that I wouldn't do it anyway, audience or not, if I really felt like it, but not having an audience possibly did render the gesture rather pointless.
I was reading it because I was bored and it happened to be lying around.
Knowing that I love books, people pass them along to me all the time. And when they don't, I find myself picking them up whenever I get a chance, whatever I chance to find. This particular book was a library cast-off, so I should have been wary.
The book was irritating because I couldn't "see" any of the characters and because it was predictable.
The book was irritating because the main character was having an experience I can't say that I relate to, and it was so poorly written that I couldn't even live it vicariously. I can't tell you when the last time was that I had an interesting conversation, let alone one with an attractive man who enjoyed my company. Who cares about attractive anyway, if they enjoy your company?
The book was shallow in more ways than one, and I realized at that moment that I didn't care to finish it. I knew what was going to happen to every character. If I were a poor reader, I wouldn't have even known that, because it would be very difficult to keep all those names straight when the characters that went along with them were all so much alike.
The sad thing about me is that I'm such an incorrigible optimist that I can't really put a book down once I've gotten that far. I keep reading, hoping that suddenly a character will flesh out and do something that matters, something that surprises me in the end.
You might go so far as to say that I remained married far too long under that same pretext.
Sometimes being an incorrigible optimist can work against you.
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