Does it bug anybody else where otherwise good reads are spoiled usually in the name of realism by giving the heroes domestic worries or emotional problems ?
The Hornblower series ,excellent adventures but we have to endure page after page of Hornblowers neurotic personality which can be a bit of a downer.
Or in Sharpe his being bullied and his tormentor …
The arch enemy whos plan is defeated at the end of the book but escapes and returns ad nauseam .
People read for escapism ,we’re prepared to share the hero 's shipwrecks ,hunger ,wounds,exhaustion and even fear .
But we dont want to share his worries about paying his bloody mortgage or his sisters struggle against cancer when we’re reading a thriller or an adventure story.
Other bugbears I have are where characters for example in Ancient Rome act and speak exactly like New Yorkers or Cockney Brits.
And where an exciting historical "who Dunnit"s main character keeps taking time out to think how desperately in love he is with his wife and how hes not worthy of her and despite being a fast thinking dynamic man of action is, around the female members of his family a whining ,pussy whipped, loser.
Even women readers find this sort of thing obnoxious.
Has anyone else got specific items that mar but not totally ruin otherwise bloody good reads?
Maybe it’s because I’m one of those “women readers”, but those things you’re complaining about are usually my favorite bits in fiction - the little background information about characters that ground them in reality. Where’s the fun in a hero with no domestic worries or emotional problems?
Something that jars me in an otherwise enjoyable book is when, in a novel set in the far future, the characters make repeated references to Earth’s past that happen to coincide with the time period during which the book was written. Like when a character uses “archaic” slang, and has to explain to another character about its origin (e.g. “old Earth circa 1985”).
Sometimes it annoys me, when it goes way too far. (Elizabeth George’s mysteries, for example.) But in Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford books, for example, are full of great little personal/family bits–never overused, IMHO. They also tie in fairly nicely with whatever case he is solving.
I am of two minds of this. I like character developent. But what I hate is when the character is reduced to his problems. One of the biggest things that drives me crazy about femme fiction, for example, is the woman always has to be something. A man in fiction can just be. But the woman must be a single mom, or a divorcee, or have some kind of past that makes her what she is. She begins to identify so strongly with that label that she becomes that label and nothing else.
I don’t see this just with women in fiction but I see it most of all with women and it drives me crazy.
Try reading Robert Ludlum or Clive Cussler. They don’t worry about piddling things like insightful characterization or thematic complexity. Don’t, by any means, read anything by Graham Greene, Patricia Highsmith, or John le Carre.
Hornblower, by the way, isn’t the swashbuckling Errol Flynn-type character you seem to envision him; he’s a reserved, thoughtful, reluctant hero who fears battle but is devoted to notions of duty and maintaining a stoic, disinterested persona for his crew. This is a key part of his personality, and a standing theme in the series of books. The character is based in large measure on the lives, natures, and exploits of British Naval legends Horatio Nelson and Thomas Cochrane, and much of the tension in the novels comes from charting the rise and fall of Hornblower’s fortunes, about which he himself realizes are largely luck combined with a native intellect and his difficulty mustered bravado. Removing that from the character would leave a pale, flat characture of a man with endless descriptions of otherwise indistinguishable naval battles.
Try reading Robert Ludlum or Clive Cussler. They don’t worry about piddling things like insightful characterization or thematic complexity. Don’t, by any means, read anything by Graham Greene, Patricia Highsmith, or John le Carre.
Hornblower, by the way, isn’t the swashbuckling Errol Flynn-type character you seem to envision him; he’s a reserved, thoughtful, reluctant hero who fears battle but is devoted to notions of duty and maintaining a stoic, disinterested persona for his crew. This is a key part of his personality, and a standing theme in the series of books. The character is based in large measure on the lives, natures, and exploits of British Naval legends Horatio Nelson and Thomas Cochrane, and much of the tension in the novels comes from charting the rise and fall of Hornblower’s fortunes, about which he himself realizes are largely luck combined with a native intellect and his difficulty mustered bravado. Removing that from the character would leave a pale, flat characture of a man with endless descriptions of otherwise indistinguishable naval battles.
I hate when a character is reduced to his quirks (which often rise to a problem, self-perceived or not.) It’s like the novelist is sitting by the keyboard and thinking “what seemingly frivolous oddity can I equip this character with which they will obsess on and blow up until it becomes a major life-altering problem?”
I especially hate this when it is couched in such flowery and highfalutin language that is crafted by the author or the speaker or both to convince the reader or at least make him empathize with this quirky observation or obsession. It’s one thing to mention that you or one of your characters has an idiosyncracy, another when it takes the place of genuine characterization.
It doesn’t help that a lot of the worst offenders are idiosyncracies that aren’t very believable: I mean it’s refreshing when it’s not all about sex and drugs, but to be fair many of the most common real-life quirks do involve these.
I’m absolutely done with brilliant detectives who have alcohol issues.
Women who have chosen their career over personal happiness (we can’t have both?)
Actually, men who have chosen their career over personal happiness too. (Ditto)
Unless these things have a bearing on the plot, they’re just cliches. It they do have a bearing on the plot - it’s usually a bad message. (Give up your career to be happy!)
And any young, untried lad who just happens to stumble upon the magic item that means he can outwit the evil master with heaps of experience? Lazy. Boring. Done to death.
Is anyone else reading this thread title as a quote from 300? For some reason the rhythm of it is exactly matching “Spartans! Tonight we dine in hell!” in my head.
My favourite recent example of this is in the movie I Robot, when Will Smith’s new “retro Converse, vintage 2006” sneakers are delivered.
I was quite gratified to read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and discover that someone had finally prevailed on JK Rowling to drop her adverb habit.
I was not so gratified to see that she’s yet to kick her deus ex machina addiction, though.
My favorite TV detective these days is Adrian Monk – this series would be the most boring and short-lived detective series ever without his personality quirks. Of course, he’s not your typical swashbuckling shoot-em-up-cops anyway. But it’s arguable that almost every great detective in literary history is defined, and differentiated, by personality quirks.
I agree, that character development is a very good thing, but that artificially endowing a character with quirks is not character development. I especially dislike historicals or fantasies set in rough, brawling time periods that endow the action hero with the neuroses and sensitivities of a 20th century artiste. Doesn’t work. Real action heros don’t have time to whine. Though they may reflect on what happened afterwards.
(I’m not speaking of the Hornblower series, as I haven’t read it. Real worries and character traits, appropriate for the character and time period, are good.)
Reminds me of the golden age of the detective story – heros were endowed with so many quirks, that they became less realistic and more fake and formulaic. Currently, the niche marketing for mysteries is annoying as heck. The hero has to do crossword puzzles, or knit, or garden, or cook or something like, and the book has to include a crossword puzzle, or a knitting pattern, or gardening advice, or a recipe. About 15 years ago, it was an interesting anomaly, but now it’s another formula.
I’ll perfectly admit to having disliked Slaughterhouse Five because I spent most of the book wanting to slap the main character upside the head and just didn’t care much what happened to him. And I would probably feel the same about Neo-Genesis Evangelion if it didn’t have episodes which entirely had nothing to do with the main character.
But the one author who I grew to dislike for simply dealing with the life of the characters is Mercedes L. Lackey. I started reading her books before she hit it big with the Valdemar series, and thought she was really good. But then as time progressed and her books expanded in size, it came to be that I’d sit down to the newest 500 page novel, and on page 400 a bag guy would suddenly be introduced, story unfold, and a basic and plain triumph occur. The first 400 pages had absolutely no story beyond the characters walking about having various soap opera-ish things happen to them. Now had it only been soap opera, I could have lived with that, since she still writes it well. But having a sudden, linear story introduced 4/5ths of the way through the book just strikes me as being absurd.
Arrows of the Queen, Arrow’s Flight, and Arrow’s Fall are darned good though. And the Black Gryphon is, I think, the last book of hers that I read which still impressed me.
She did? If I’d known that, I might have made it past the third book. Dammit.
It doesn’t take much to pull me out of a story. Sometimes it’s just one word, and then I’ll start nitpicking and ruin the book for myself. Most recently, it happened when an author used the word “terrain” to describe an ordinary yard. Then he had someone driving a souped up 1958 Comet. Mercury didn’t start making Comets until 1960, and I don’t think anybody ever bothered to soup up a Comet.
I can be quite unreasonable.
ETA: Terrain wasn’t wrong, but it was too much word.
Adrian Monk is a good example. He’s defined by his quirks, but it works.
I do, but to a degree. The thing is, for me, escaping from reality only means escaping my reality. I don’t mind reading about a character’s mundane life because it’s not my life. It’s his/hers.
Sorry, but she had someone smile at someone else “sycophantically.” I must say, that one pulled me up short.
Repetition…I’m looking at you, Jane Auel. How may times can you have Ayla formally introduce herself? Apparently six times to six different people at the same exact meeting!
I’m not sure why you felt this insult was necessary, but regardless of the reason, this type of post belongs in the Pit. You can disagree in Cafe Society without resorting to personal comments. Your implication that he/she is not an adult is out of line for this forum.