Solid Walls of Text in books

Cafe Society
21

No, not a joke. Whatever you think of Ellis’ writing (and I think it is indeed tedious and puerile myself) he is going for a certain effect. When, as mentioned by another poster, Patrick Batemen goes on a seemingly endless spiel of commercial products, Ellis is making a commentary on the vacuousness of the 'Eighties consumer culture, and Batemen’s psychopathic behavior is supposed to be an extension of this. Now, whether this appeals to you as cogent literary content, engaging wordsmithing, or pathetically self-involved stylings is a matter of personal preference, literary exposure, and experience.

While I won’t defend the style of Ellis, similar criticisms are often advanced of the writing of Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, and David Foster Wallace, who are all favored authors in my collection. I will admit, though, that my first reading of all of these authors was less than celebratory; in the case of Heller, it took some amount of life experience before I could appreciate the dark humor of Catch-22 and Something Happened, although his other subsequent works came easily (except for Closing Time, which was clearly a second-rate work of an author at the end of his career). This “type” of writing is intended to challenge the reader, and cannot be compared in terms of entertainment with enjoyable but predictable and formulaic genre writing. It isn’t about plot and sympathetic characters; it is about tone, style and effect. The best writing (in my opinion) manages to do both–see Don Quixote or The Honorable Schoolboy–but not all authors aspire to or intend that.

Whether the o.p. wishes to stretch the bounds of her literary exposure that the peril of wasting a few hours on an ultimately unsatisfying book (which I think American Psycho is) or reject it in favor of something more palatable is her own choice, but it is worthwhile to pick up a book once in a while that is difficult, challenging, or disagreeable just to see if there is something more to it than a superficial, plot-centered read would suggest.

Stranger

22

I am sorry it was not clear. What I mean, is detailed exposition is fine. I may or may not read it, depending on what you wrote. It’s when you write pages and pages and pages of text without one single paragraph break, that my eyes just start to glaze over. There is punctuation, periods and commas and such, but just no breaks anywhere. FIVE PAGES. Unforgivable in my book (ha!).

I read a lot. I don’t think I am a “bad reader” as was implied above (:)). I read enough where I certainly feel I have a right to criticize.

I made it to about page 50 of this book and I won’t read anymore. It’s terribly non-entertaining and boy does he not go anywhere with it. Excrutiatingly detailed minutaie about every person he speaks to or goes out with, and a bunch of pretentious sods they all are.

I try new books all the time. Some people I can’t stomach, and you know what - that’s OK with me. I am currently trying Atlas Shrugged, which is also kind of boring me to tears. The great thing is - I don’t have to suffer. I can just go back to the library and get some more.

Stranger on a Train, funnily enough I have Something Happened at home right now. I’ve not been able to read Catch-22 either and I thought I’d try something else by him.
Mr Shine, it’s like this. Hope you don’t mind, Stranger, but it would be if Stranger posted his comments like this:

No, not a joke. Whatever you think of Ellis’ writing (and I think it is indeed tedious and puerile myself) he is going for a certain effect. When, as mentioned by another poster, Patrick Batemen goes on a seemingly endless spiel of commercial products, Ellis is making a commentary on the vacuousness of the 'Eighties consumer culture, and Batemen’s psychopathic behavior is supposed to be an extension of this. Now, whether this appeals to you as cogent literary content, engaging wordsmithing, or pathetically self-involved stylings is a matter of personal preference, literary exposure, and experience. While I won’t defend the style of Ellis, similar criticisms are often advanced of the writing of Joseph Heller, Thomas Pynchon, and David Foster Wallace, who are all favored authors in my collection. I will admit, though, that my first reading of all of these authors was less than celebratory; in the case of Heller, it took some amount of life experience before I could appreciate the dark humor of Catch-22 and Something Happened, although his other subsequent works came easily (except for Closing Time, which was clearly a second-rate work of an author at the end of his career). This “type” of writing is intended to challenge the reader, and cannot be compared in terms of entertainment with enjoyable but predictable and formulaic genre writing. It isn’t about plot and sympathetic characters; it is about tone, style and effect. The best writing (in my opinion) manages to do both–see Don Quixote or The Honorable Schoolboy–but not all authors aspire to or intend that. Whether the o.p. wishes to stretch the bounds of her literary exposure that the peril of wasting a few hours on an ultimately unsatisfying book (which I think American Psycho is) or reject it in favor of something more palatable is her own choice, but it is worthwhile to pick up a book once in a while that is difficult, challenging, or disagreeable just to see if there is something more to it than a superficial, plot-centered read would suggest.

and then going on for five pages like this. Nope. Don’t have the time or patience. You want to get a message to me? You want to communicate with me? Then write for your audience. That is the first thing I learned when I was taking my writing classes - always write with the reader in mind.

23

A similar stylistic “technique” that bugs me is the refusal to provide quotation marks or any other conversational clues.
Cormac McCarthy comes to mind.
Hasn’t stopped me from reading every book he has had published, but I sure don’t appreciate it or see how it adds anything. To the contrary, it simply convinces me to read it more superficially than I otherwise might.

24

Dinsdale, Cormac McCarthy is on my list of “Authors I’m Not Reading Because I Don’t Have the Time for Their Shenanigans*” mostly because of the lack of quotation marks. I don’t mind the technique in some books- it’s not that bad in “Cold Mountain”- but when I was forced to read “All the Pretty Horses” in my senior year of high school, I wanted to scream. Between the literary technique he seems to adore that replaces the commas in every list with yet another “and” and the lack of quotation marks, I got lost on almost every page.

Someday I’ll probably try to read some of his other works, but I think “All the Pretty Horses” was permanently ruined for me by AP American Literature and Composition.

*Where "shenanigans has been twisted to mean “an obvious obsession or addiction of the author of repeatedly using any literary technique that makes me spend longer trying to figure out who said what or why I should care than I do reading 5 pages in a less confusing but still competently written novel on an adult reading level.”

25

If you didn’t like Catch-22 you’ll likely hate Something Happened, 'cause for most of the book absolutely nothing happens at all; just the narrator’s stream of consciousness about the insignificance of his life and why his wife, daughter, and son don’t care about him. Great book, but it’s exactly the sort of thing I mean; not a plot-driven story. The trick about reading and enjoying Catch-22 is to understand that the repetitive and disorienting non-linear nature of the book is intended to put you in the same place as Yossarian, who of course, lives a life of repetitive missions, non-linear regulations; every time he finishes yet another run of pointless bombing missions and has reached his required flights, Colonel Cathcart ups the missions for no greater reason than personal hubris. I won’t go on with a tangent about the book in this thread, but it is one of my personal favorites and I consider it to be one of the greatest modern novels…but admittedly difficult to access on a first reading. (It took me three readings over the span of twenty years to “get it”.)

An author like Ellis is writing for his audience, but not to entertain the general public; he is writing for a more selective audience. If that isn’t you–and it certainly isn’t me–then it isn’t a criticism of your intellect or even literary maturity, but taste. Plenty of people like Chuck Palahniuk and consider him a literary genius, but I find him tiresome and pointless.

Stranger

26

Nope. It’s truly THAT boring. This is from someone who got through The Mayor of Casterbridge in high school. (And Thomas Hardy, we love ya, but you don’t need to describe every detail of every blade of grass. You can tell he was paid by the word.)

I toughed it out for the first third or so of the book, so about 120-150 pages, I suppose. It didn’t get any better in that space, so I figured that it probably wasn’t going to in the last two-thirds, either.

I was actually cheering when he finally shivved the homeless guy, thinking that we would actually be getting on to plot, now. But no, he walks home and we’re right back to the endless laundry list of brand names. Dude, we get it. He’s obsessed with brand and image and blah blah blah… can we move on to something interesting now? A plot point? Or at least something more interesting than shaving cream?

Seriously, painfully boring.

27

A good book doesn’t have to be plot-driven; it can also be character-driven, if the characters are interesting enough to make you care about them (even if “caring” equals “hating”).

The problem with AP is that it was not driven by… anything that I could tell. Not plot, certainly, and the characters were flat and one-dimensional (and come on, even shallow people are real people with personalities, quirks, passions, insecurities – these were cardboard cutouts. It was like watching really bad actors read lines in monotone, and maybe once in a great while playing to a hackneyed stereotype).

I do get what Ellis was “trying to accomplish,” I just think that he absolutely fails to pull it off. It doesn’t matter if I “get” that everyone is shallow and self-obsessed – yes, I got that, in the first 5 pages – if I’m absolutely uninterested in continuing to read the book. The point of a book is for your audience to read it and enjoy it in some way – even if that way is to be challenged by it. Not just to keep writing because 400 pages sounds like a good length for a novel, and not caring whether anyone makes it to the last page or not. That’s bad writing.

28

This is how I understand the book.

Being that the novel is first-person, it would be odd to gloss over what is exquisitely important to the narrator. His morning routine is a cohesive whole and as such it is represented in a single paragraph. Its length and level of detail speak to the personality of the character.

29

I don’t disagree, but some people obviously find…well, something worthwhile in the book. Beats me as to what.

Stranger

30

This is a bit of an appeal to popularity. Some people find something of value in Dan Brown’s writing – that doesn’t make it any less dreadful.

I think what makes Ellis so irksome is that his writing is so relentless vapid, while maintaining the posture that there’s something important or profound there, soemwhere.

Good writing can be a challenge to the reader, sure. Joyce has no shortage of difficult passages, (and yes, even laundry lists,) but there’s something to be had from them, at least. There’s a wealth of ideas informing the superficial randomness, and there’s some beautiful language.

Joyce may be likened to a Rubik’s cube - a bit of work to get through, but there’s a reward in it. Ellis is like a Rubik’s cube that some bastard has rearranged the stickers on.

Trying to read a Bret Easton Ellis novel is like trying to read something that a hack like James Patterson (who’s appeal is that he can *definitely *tell a compelling story, even if he doesn’t have any Big Ideas and can’t string words together any better than the average college student) would come up with if a stroke obliterated the part of his brain responsible for sketching a plot, and also the part responsible for inhibiting the tendency to take oneself very seriously.