I know it happens occassionally, that one person’s tastes won’t line up with another’s. Whenever it happens with me and books, however, I always feel embarrassed and wrong-footed.
There is an author in a particular genre that I used to read heavily but now only read occasionally. (Rediscovering the joy of epic fantasy has really eaten into the time I once gave elsewhere…) In conversations with other genre fans this author’s name has come up repeatedly as a sterling example of the genre exceeding its mandate. Whenever people write off the genre as “just Genre fiction” the ardent supporters reply with this author’s names and one or two of her titles that back up their claims.
I hadn’t read any of her stuff–see above re. epic fantasy–but then when I needed a genre break a few days ago I took the plunge and downloaded samples of the two titles everyone raves about.
I find them to be horrible. The samples I read were difficult, mannered, overly-constructed. They sounded like something a novice writer in the throes of adolescence would churn out after a steady diet of soap opera viewing.
So now I’m disappointed on two fronts. First, I’ve saved these books for a rainy day, as it were, thinking “well, if I’m ever in the mood for a good read in that genre again, I can always count on Book A and Book B.” Now I feel my secure wall of TBRs shifted by the loss of two sturdy bricks. Worse, however, is the feeling that I’m missing something. There must be some gene I don’t have or some day of class I missed that keeps me from loving these things that everyone else just adores.
I know that every book I love unreservedly has its detractors. Reviewers on Amazon complain about Patrick Rothfuss’ Name Of The Wind being too long, spending too much time on plotlines the reader doesn’t care for. My husband hates everything that flowed from the pen of Charles Dickens in spite of the fact that A Tale Of Two Cities is one of the greatest books in the universe. I read it first as a young girl and was indeed Recalled To Life.
So yes, I know that there’s always a hold-out on even the most wondrous of literature. I guess I’m just embarrassed when that hold-out is me.
I don’t know how it is that I love you. You hate Anna Karenina, Objectively The Greatest Novel Ever Written ™, and you love A Tale of Two Cities, a book I loathed so greatly when I had to read it in high school that I have never been able to pick up any other book by Dickens.* I bet you don’t love George Eliot, either, and I know already how you feel about Ursula K. LeGuin even if that’s not who you were referring to in your post, which it probably was. I mean, something’s wrong with you, woman. Yet you are dear to my heart. I solace myself with remembering that there really, truly is no accounting for taste.
Oh, and I didn’t think the Rothfuss book was too long, but I was offended by the lack of character development, and haven’t bothered to read the next book, so there!
*I am being a little unfair to AToTC here; I did indeed pick up one other work of Dickens’s, but it was “A Christmas Carol,” and that closed off any possibility of there ever being a third.
If it makes you feel better, re-reading _Anna Karenina_ is on my to-do list for this year. Maybe the years and my changes in life will give me a new perspective. 🙂
Be sure to read one of the more recent translations — the Mauds’ is good, and there are a couple of others. But Constance Garnett’s translation can get in the way of enjoying Tolstoi the way he wrote.
Personally, I can’t see how anyone could hate Jane Austen….he he. 😉
It’s not her whom I hate. Just her works of fiction.
[sigh]
of course you know we’re all now dying to know the names of the author and the disappointing books… 🙂
wait, you didn’t like Anna Karenina either? that is a relief. I thought I was the only one who didn’t get or appreciate that one, and it is a bit of an embarrassment, as you say.
I don’t worry about it. There are too many works that get these inexplicably high ratings for me to worry about what I am missing in them. I have enough problems reading all the things I’d like to than adding on more by worrying about what I don’t like.No time to agonize over why I don’t get something.
I really need to adopt your attitude. It’s much better for getting through life without ulcers.
When you take on Anna Karenina, let me know and I’ll read it with you. I’ve never read it.
Oh, Bridgett, what a lovely idea. Can I read it with you two, if I promise not to be spoilery about it? I don’t think I’ve read it right through for 10 years or so.
It works for me. 🙂