A gripe from one literary writer to another...

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maestrowork

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Plotless novels.

Yes, we've all heard that one: literary is just writerly masturbation with plotless stories, a bunch of words about characters pondering their existential significance, with nothing resolved at the end.

We'd like to rebut that. We'd like to defend that. We'd like to prove them wrong.

Then you come across a literary fiction, a bestseller and award-winning masterpiece, that does EXACTLY that. What would you say?

I recently read such a novel. Best seller. Award-winning. The opening actually was very charming; I enjoyed it. Then came the rest of the book: plotless, meandering, redundant, repetitive, and a great example of how not to use the thesaurus. I kept hoping for some kind of plot... didn't happen.

Worst of all, I don't like any of the characters. They're dull, boring, and self-righteous, self-indulgent, self-absorbed. I don't care about their conflicts. I don't care about them. Period. I have no emotional investment with them, and no emotional payback. I keep hoping at least, if there's no plot, I can relate to these characters, or marvel at the word play. Instead, I felt like I'd just been hit over the head with a dictionary.

I finished the book desperately hoping for a plot and a nice conclusion. Instead, the story meant absolutely nothing. It was totally a waste of time. And I ended up very angry, for investing so much of my time on this. I kept convincing myself it must be a taste thing. The book must be really brilliant if it won great literary awards and millions of people bought and read it. Then I read the reviews online and it confirmed that I wasn't the only one. Most of the praise came in the form of "you have to read it for the language, and the subtlety..." To which I'd reply: "Bullshit, I read for story. I read for amazing characters. I got neither. And to be honest, the language isn't all that great either, except that I've learned a few big words."


I write literary novels, too, and that's not something I aspire to. Am I too bitter? Am I missing something? Often when I read literary magazines I puzzle over why certain stories get published, because I see nothing spectacular about the writing or the story. It's as if I just heard someone on the street ramble for 10 minutes. If that's what literary novel is about, then I think I'm writing in the wrong genre.

Am I the only one?

p.s. I'm not trying to bash literary fiction. Like I said, I write it, too. I'm just a bit baffled and confused right now.
 

mccardey

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I absolutely understand where you're coming from here - I've had the same response myself a million times. But last month I loaned my copy of the best book ever written to a friend of mine - and he said exactly this. About my favourite ever book. Said. Exactly. This.

I was shattered. So I guess it's all about personal tastes, except that in that instance he was just wrong.
 

mccardey

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Yes, indeed. As am I. And he has wonderful taste in books generally - non-fic as well. He's one of the people I feel most in tune with.

Shattering.

(But he's still my friend. He says he understands because of my thing about not liking seafood. He thinks living in Sydney and not liking seafood is somehow vaguely immoral.)
 
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Well, there are plenty of shitty genre novels out there. That doesn't make them all bad. Finding a shitty literary novel doesn't make every one ever published self-indulgent claptrap (although the literary-haters will probably use this as the exception which proves the rule).
 

Mr Flibble

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So I like literary as much as I like anything else

BUT

But it's just another genre, and hey, 90% of everything is crap, right? It's not your cup of tea. I read a VERY lauded book not so long ago - couldn't keep track, was promised (and very much looked forward to) a flamboyant MC. What I got was an MC who had forgotten that he used to be flamboyant and a plot that was all but incomprehensible....

Sometimes, books let you down. But that same book will be ZOMG WONDERFUL to someone else. For instance me and SP there have very differing views on the Book Thief. Doesn't mean it's a bad book or a good book - it means, as always, no one book can be for everyone. Thta goes for lit fic as well as any other genre.
 

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I can take a lot of meandering and not much plot and still find it very interesting, definitely. OTOH, I've put down books whose meandering was about things I have no interest in.

Same with characters, really. Some folks think they are being deep, for instance, and I think they are being pretentious, maybe. That sort of thing.



Fight Club has some great examples of stuff that annoys me, yet is the best thing ever to lots of folks.
 

milly

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I can take a lot of meandering and not much plot and still find it very interesting, definitely. OTOH, I've put down books whose meandering was about things I have no interest in.


I agree with this 100%.

I read almost exclusively literary fiction and, I too enjoy the meandering, the questioning of life, of one's existence, etc....but then again, if the topic that's being dwelled upon is something that turns me off...I get turned off to the novel as a whole


it's more of a topic thing with me more than it is a style or plot thing


I had never really thought of it that way until this thread but it makes total sense now
 

fourlittlebees

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Am dying to know if it's the same one I think it is. :)

And yes... and this is why I generally stick to contemporary. I think people have been burned by too much of the masturbatory variety of literary and it's gotten a bad rap. It's going to take some serious overhauling to get back to a place where award winners are more than just "Oh, this says nothing but looks very pretty so here's your medal."
 

Deleted member 42

Y'all get no sympathy from me.

I had to read the entire oeuvre of Henry James.
 

Old Hack

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I quite liked The Turn of the Screw. But then, I am an obsessive, anxious kind.
 

Deleted member 42

I quite liked The Turn of the Screw. But then, I am an obsessive, anxious kind.

It's the least obnoxious of his works . . . After I passed my quals, I packed up all the D. H. Lawrence, James, Smollett, and all criticism of said authors, and put them in storage.

Can't say I've missed them . . . that said, I know a number of people who I like, respect and admire, who like one or more of the authors that I wouldn't voluntarily read or teach, so de gustibus non est disputandum.
 

donatos

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I've never enjoyed literary journals or story magazines. They've always bored me. But sometimes great novels have been written without much point. But I think not having a point was the point. It's much harder to do that now, you can't surprise someone expecting a surprise, so people are going to typography and the form of the book itself. While it is fun to read one of these novels it still can get old too and you could say, yes, it looks wild, but the story and characters blow.
 

Jamesaritchie

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So what's the book? Criticism is meaningless without a title.
 

HarryHoskins

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It could be this:


Am I missing something?


To which I would say this:

The books I read before I went to school were awful - nothing more than a collection of squiggly lines, but at least they had some pictures in them.

The books I read before I went to college were awful - people did strange things and I had no comprehension of why they would want to do them, but at least there was a plot to follow.

The books I read before I went to university were awful - they had no plot, but at least I was reading something other people said was valuable.

Now I have been to school, college and university and I am equipped to articulate why a book I don't understand is rubbish.


Or it could be this:


I kept convincing myself it must be a taste thing.


To which the old-style lady would say this:


de gustibus non est disputandum.


And I would agree and paraphrase this:


The thing about taste is that it's all about taste.
Either way, I know exactly what you mean - on both counts. :)
 

Prawn

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I agree, any more posts would be pointless.

Futile.

A waste of time.

Proof that the poster was himself as aimless as the nameless literary fiction in question.

Do people who like literary fiction call it lit fic?
 

Graz

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The ending of this thread is ambiguous and nothing has been resolved
 

Deleted member 42

This thread has run its course. It is a defunct thread.

I go now to contemplate whether or not a character should put on a sock and then a shoe, or both socks, and also, whether it is zip and then fasten, or fasten and then zip.

These things take precedence.
 
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