Trashing a little book called The Bridges of Madison County was a popular sport in the English department when I was in graduate school. Professors and creative writing students alike could not find a single thing to praise about the plot, the writing, the characters, or even the setting. My school was located less than an hour away from those famed bridges and most Iowans I knew revered anything associated with their beloved home state, so this extreme loathing seemed strange.
As fifty million copies of this “pretentious fluff” (as one professor repeatedly called it) sold, the nastiness escalated.
I had picked up the novel the previous summer because it looked like an entertaining love story – something I was certain not to have time to read once I became both a grad student and a composition teacher. I got exactly what I paid for – three hours of entertainment. Would I read it again? Probably not. Had I enjoyed it the first time? Sure. Clearly there was something wrong with me. Maybe I didn’t recognize good writing. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough to make it in academia. I sunk lower into my seat each time “that book” was mentioned in class and kept my mouth shut, not wanting to announce my ignorance to the brilliant masses.
And then one day, while meeting with the most vocal of my professors, I happened to glance at the bookshelf in her office. Her name appeared on the spine of a book I’d never heard of, a book I later sought out and could only find tucked away on a forgotten shelf in a local bookstore. (This was in the pre-Amazon days.) I could not have named a single character or plot point a week after reading it.
Those students who bashed Waller the most violently were the same ones who had nothing good to say about anyone else’s work in critique sessions. They read their own work aloud with a smirk, laughed at their own jokes, and paused at key areas to make sure everyone listening had time to appreciate a clever turn of phrase. They ignored all feedback.
At twenty-two I lacked the courage to suggest that the bashing stemmed from jealousy or insecurity, but I certainly thought it. I also made up my mind not to fall victim to that poison. I still don’t bash. Not publicly. Not among other writer friends. Rarely even in my own mind.
If a book becomes a runaway bestseller, there must be a reason behind it. It’s probably not the writing. How many non-writers pay any attention to that? An original premise will garner notice even if its execution is sloppy. A formulaic plot with a subtle twist may become popular if it hits that sweet spot between freshness and a predictable happy ending. Maybe there’s something in the story that hits an emotional chord with millions in 2010 but would fall flat in 2018. A lot can be learned by reading those books writers love to hate and searching for that element that sets the story apart from the crowd. Is it timely? Is it controversial? Experimental? Is there some golden nugget there that can be used to make our own work more compelling?
It is human to envy someone else’s dream book deal or sudden catapult to fame. We’ve all done it, I’m sure. (I know I have.) Whenever I feel that green ogre’s shadow darkening my thoughts, I remind myself that book deals happen every day. That there was a time when even the most successful writers were unpublished and in the query trenches. If the dream came true for them, it can come true for me, too.
I call that motivation.
Is there a book critics hated but you enjoyed? Have you read a book that taught you something even if it fell short of anyone’s idea of great literature? If you are published and have contended with public bashing of your own work, how did you deal with it?
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About Kim Bullock
Kim has an M.A. in English from Iowa State University. She writes mainly historical fiction, though has also contributed non-fiction articles to historical and Arts and Crafts publications in both the United States and Canada. She has just finished The Unfinished Work of M.A., a novel based on the rather colorful life of her great-grandfather, landscape painter Carl Ahrens.
Hey Kim – I guess I’ll just start by revising your main questions:
“Is there a *genre* that *most* critics hate but that *I love*? Have I read a *ton of books in that genre* that taught *me tons of things* even if they fell short of *the mainstream’s* idea of great literature?”
And the answers to both revised questions are unreserved yeses.
It’s funny how often I hear folks claim that they don’t look down their nose at Fantasy/SciFi in one breath, and then dismiss it in the next. In the spirit of your post, what I’ve learned is that it’s not only poor form and unwise to focus on the dismissiveness (or outright disdain), it’s counterproductive and produces an actual negativity that can infect me if I absorb it.
Wise reminders, Kim. Great seeing you today, my friend!
Good morning, Vaughn!
I hadn’t even thought about those questions applying to whole genres, but they absolutely do. I’m sure that romance and mystery writers often feel they must battle to be taken seriously as well. I’ve seen people turn their noses up at historical novels as well, either because many authors have to massage the truth a bit in order to make a compelling story or because they believe the book will read like a history lesson and those are “boring.”
I miss you, my friend. We will have some serious catching up to do in Salem!
Miss you, too! Can’t wait for Salem. First round’s on me!
My best friends from childhood are all voracious readers. When we get together, everyone talks about what they’re reading–usually literary books–and I’m usually in the corner with what I call my “mind candy”, which includes cozy mysteries, fantasy/scifi and in the past some romance. They never put down my reading choices to my face, but the way they talk I can tell that they don’t feel I’m living up to my full reading potential. Now add that I’ve written two books in the contemporary fantasy genre and I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know what they think of the genre! It’s okay though, because I have learned that different people look for different things when they’re buying/borrowing books. I like to be entertained, which means fast paced puzzlers which can make me laugh as well. They just have different interests.
This knowledge of “different strokes for different folks” is the main reason I don’t usually engage in full scale bashing of other people as well. I may not like it, but it doesn’t mean it’s a bad book (or song or movie, for that matter.) Over the last few years I’ve learned to be happy for the people who have success and that their success is not a threat to me or my potential writing career. :D
Hi Lara,
I relate so much with what you are saying here, though in my case it wasn’t best friends talking about reading material, but rather grad school classmates. I could never understand why, after reading about a thousand pages a week (not exaggerating) of challenging material from the literary canon, some students reached for more of the same in their free time. Maybe they tucked a copy of Bridges inside Pilgrim’s Progress just to appear smarter. I was definitely the only one openly reading Outlander!
You bring up a good point about other writers not being a threat to your potential career. That’s something I’ve come to realize as well. I have found quite a few successful authors who are incredibly generous with their time and who will go well out of their way to encourage and help those who still dwell in the realm of the unpublished. We aren’t competing, after all.
Kim, I watched Brene Brown on Netflix last night, talking about courage and vulnerability, and about the critics who bash the work of others. She focused especially on those who don’t have the guts to put themselves ‘out there’. Makes me wonder what it is in man that so loveth a takedown. Jealousy, yes. But sometimes it seems even more primitive. Like the dark side of hive mind. We see way too much of it these days, but its always been there. I have a friend who laughs at my love of RomComs (she watches French films), but I don’t care!! Meg Ryan and Sandra Bullock have pulled me out of many a funk. I read ‘Bridges’ years ago and I did learn something from it about love and loyalty and sacrifice. No small things, those.
Hi Susan,
We really do love a takedown, don’t we? Our culture seems to get a twisted pleasure out of building people up – actors, musicians, authors, politicians – only to rip them to shreds when they reach a certain level of success. It’s entertainment, and we are distanced enough from the situation to not fully see that we are destroying a fellow human. When I hear the bashing, my mind immediately goes to how I would feel if I were the target. The answer silences any urge I might have to join in.
I love RomComs, too. I don’t care if they are cliche or predictable. They bring me joy.
When I was in college, Twilight was my generation’s equivalent of Bridges of Madison County. It became insanely popular and universally reviled at the same time. I watched the first movie in secret on my laptop, hiding it from my roommates, but after reading multiple articles opining that the books teach young girls to idealize abusive men, I refused to touch the series again.
Ten years later, I was referencing Twilight derogatorily in a blog post when I thought, “I’m not being fair. Here I am criticizing it, but I’ve never read it.” I downloaded the first book from my local library and forced myself to read it.
Did I “enjoy” it? No. It absolutely teaches young girls to idealize abusive men!
BUT I also learned something from reading it. I learned that a book with cliche wish-fulfilling characters, a nonexistent plot, drab writing, and values that put society back a hundred years can also be engaging…as long as it is sincere. I could see that Meyer truly believed her story was romantic, and the raw feelings she spilled onto the page without hesitation overcame every other flaw in the eyes of her enormous fanbase.
Sincerity was one element that had always been missing from my own writing, and reading Twilight was a turning point for me. I made an effort to be more vulnerable and honest in my writing, and my small circle of readers saw a big improvement in my novels after that (though my stories still don’t contain any sparkly, worryingly possessive vampires).
At the time that Twilight was huge, I was going through a bit of a health scare. After much testing, the cardiologist assured me the racing pulse was caused by a harmless electrical glitch, but that didn’t change the fact that my body sometimes felt like I was fleeing from a tiger even while sitting still. It’s not a comforting sensation, that’s for sure, and before I knew what was wrong I had a very real fear that I would not live to see my kids grow up.
It was with this mindset that I picked up Twilight. I didn’t notice the writing much and since my daughters were way too young to even consider reading it, I didn’t give a single thought to what kind of message it might send about love to impressionable young girls. I was drawn in by the raw, uncensored emotion. I’m sure part of the reason was because the idea of immortality seemed especially appealing to me at that time. If I reread the series now, I may well say ‘meh.’
I laughed out loud when I read your “If a book becomes a runaway bestseller, there must be a reason behind it. It’s probably not the writing.” I read 70-80 books a year and select for quality, but every once in a while a stinker slips into my reading pile. I give up on the idea of the review before even starting it. (There but for fortune . . .) Yet when I check reader comments about these books, they are usually so glowing! I figure they’re from friends and family. Gotta be. And it again proves the truth of your “it’s probably not the writing.”
Hi Vicki,
I think that writers are especially attuned to the ‘rules’ we have learned about craft. We will notice, for instance, if the entire first chapter is backstory and will likely, on some level anyway, bristle that a well-established author got away with that when a debut author would not. It is rare for me to be able to fully turn off my internal editor while reading and so it always shocks me when I encounter people who don’t seem to possess one at all. Those comments on the “stinkers” may well be genuine. Something about the story could have resonated.
70-80 books a year? Wow! I go through about one a week.
Hi Kim,
Great post and everyone here has made such good points. As an author here is one criticism in particular that I faced. My novel’s main character is a manipulative abusive narcissist. The protagonist is a married woman who doesn’t have a romantic/physical relationship with him, but becomes obsessed with him and emotionally entangled with him. Many of my readers have said they hated her (the protagonist) for “cheating” What exactly defines cheating? In Bridges, she was clearly cheating and yet, readers embraced this story. Also many of my readers hate the main character. Well, you are supposed to!! I read across all genres but the books I feel remain with me are literary. I find flawed characters most interesting. I also found most of my writing is influenced by complex, character driven stories with a dark side like James Salter, Richard Ford, Ian McEwan, Jim Harrison and Cormac McCarthy, and novels like Moby Dick and Anna Karenina. Character driven authors provide a deep dive into affliction—yearning and shame. But, there is nothing wrong with enjoying a book that ends with a happily-ever-after. And, remind me, but Bridges wasn’t a happily-ever-after, was it?
Hi Luna,
No, Bridges was definitely not a happily-ever-after story. Pretty sure you have the ending right.
I love complex, character driven stories myself and some of the most memorable ones feature a protagonist who is flawed to the point of being nonredeemable. One that comes to mind is Austin Fraser in Jane Urquhart’s The Underpainter. The ending made me literally throw the book across the room because I was so furious at him. Of course, then I retrieved the book and finished it. Even the author had been so upset with him that she nearly didn’t publish the novel. It could not have ended differently, though. Any other choice would have been a jarring note in the symphony of his life. If you haven’t read this one or, really, anything by Urquhart, you would probably be drawn to her work.
Kim, I was going to the local Indie bookstore today and I will most certainly pick up a copy of The Underpainter. Thank you for the suggestion. If you are up for another book to throw across the room, (as some of the reviews have mentioned!) :) The Sleeping Serpent is a definite book throw!
I love books where I become that invested. Adding it to my ‘to buy’ list.
Kim–I like this a lot. You tee up the literati-general reader debate very well–and you have the background to speak with authority.
In the end, fair-minded people take the stand that books deserve to be judged on the basis of what they seek to do. It makes no sense to treat the book in your example as something it doesn’t try to be.
But the academics who did so aren’t necessarily jealous so much as frustrated. To admire books that test and challenge readers, books written for sophisticated readers, and to see the quantitative evidence that the values represented by those books really don’t matter to the general reading public is–well, frustrating.
But that shouldn’t lead to instructors going for cheap laughs in the classroom. What those laughs lead to is the response of an intelligent person like yourself. For every simple-minded success story, there is at least one tiresome, pretentious “academic” novel. I should know. I’ve read a few of them, of both kinds.
Correction: jealousy and envy are related, but not the same. My mistake, what’s at issue is envy, not jealousy.
Barry,
I went into grad school thinking I wanted to teach college level English, but quickly discovered that the politics of academia would have worn on me. Not to mention the lack of job security now that tenured positions are disappearing…
I think you are right that frustration was a prime motivator in the jabs at Waller. There are a lot of frustrated artists who teach in English departments, and all of them are well aware that the vast majority of people aren’t going to appreciate their area of expertise. This attitude may have been lessened a bit at the University of Iowa, which has a great MFA program. I was at Iowa State, though, which is mainly an engineering school.
I enjoy novels that lean literary, both reading them and writing them, but I don’t miss the pretentious academic ones a bit.
Hi Kim,
I remember reading BRIDGES on a plane–for me, a page turner. LOVE STORY was another big hit that got bashed. And the writer, a scholar in his own right, laughed all the way to the bank. Sometimes books just hit a cord with many readers. But I also know the “crowd bashing” that can happen in a classroom at the Un of Iowa. It takes guts to speak out and reveal aspects of any book that pulls in many readers. I have read and sometimes reviewed popular books that I felt weren’t worth my time. But each book is an adventure, and as a writer, exposure to the many trails on that adventure helps us to SEE good work, helps us improve our own craft.
Hi Beth,
Crowd bashing is a good way to put it. I wonder if it would be better or worse at the University of Iowa, since it has such a good MFA program. Alas, I was at the other school (Iowa State) because that’s where my then-fiance was finishing up his PhD in physics. The English department there was surprisingly good – just small. Jane Smiley still taught one class a year there when I attended.
Oh Kim, so cool that you studied with Jane Smiley. I lived in Des Moines for 17 years and attended the U OF I summer workshops, so you are more learned than I, but I loved Prairie Lights Bookstore and the whole vibe there. Then once in Des Moines, I was able to go to a talk done by Smiley. Living there had a lot going for it–a good orchestra 5 minutes from home and an excellent opera held at Simpson College. Thanks for your post!
Hi, Kim,
Your post comes the day after I finished what felt like a slog through “Where the Crawdads Sing” – I know I’m a major outlier on my severe disappointment in this NYT bestseller. Owens is an excellent craftswoman in the writing sense. But the story/plot left me snoring. So predictable.
All that said, I appreciate your wisdom here. It’s nice to know none of this is personal. It’s all judgment — and we’ve all got that. Including when it’s time to get back to our own work !
Melanie, I just finished CRAWDADS and had the same reaction. And when writing a review on GOODREADS I struggled to temper it. Owens knows her ecology, but I agree with your critique of the story. And the surprise ending? It didn’t work for me.
Hmmm, based on both your comments I’m definitely less inclined to pick that book up. Too many engrossing books, so little time.
What a wonderful reminder.
Just ’cause it’s not to my taste doesn’t mean it’s bad.
What can I learn from it?
There is always something to learn, even if it simply what NOT to do in your own work.
Ah, academia…your story takes me back! :-) I was spending time in grad school with scholars of modernism and post-structuralism, which are their own special cul-de-sacs of snobbery: if the writing is easy to understand, it’s clearly not good enough, right? (To be fair, I still love modernist writing, I just enjoy being free of many of the personalities who analyze it.)
I learned a lot of important things in grad school, about research, history, analysis, and teaching…not anything about writing fiction. (I wasn’t in the MFA, so I wasn’t even workshopping.) I also learned not to be easily intimidated by intellectual things (hat tip to James Joyce, lol). I agree that envy sometimes factored into the elitism, and sometimes it also stemmed from a kind of existential fear that what scholars were doing wouldn’t really matter–the frustration that Barry mentions, above. One of the best things about leaving academia was the opportunity to drop all that weird baggage and read whatever the hell I wanted. ;-)
I still retain a love of *some* literary work, but I’m so glad we have “upmarket” now–it was less of a defined category back when I was finishing up at school. I think two of the books I recall reading soon after I graduated were Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, and Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent. Very different books, but both page-turners! These days I think there’s something so very valuable about giving readers a good escape…I’m trying to learn how to do that well.
“Special cul-de-sacs of snobbery” … that is the PERFECT way to describe it. My specialty as an undergrad was 18th century through modern British lit, and I veered more into women’s lit in grad school. Both groups definitely included some snobbishness. It is a relief to be free of all that.
I would say that most of what I read now, and what I write, falls into that “upmarket” category.
What non “literary” novels teach me is how to write an entertaining novel that people will actually want to read. I don’t go to novels to teach me ethics, so political incorrectness is irrelevant to me.
I’ve also had the reverse experience when I am ready to adore a book because it’s been praised in literary circles, and then I am disappointed. They begin with an interesting premise and then run around in circles, employ various wonderful literary devices but fall flat and would have been better as an essay and not a whole book.