Where have you gone, Lizzie Bennett?

Life's too short to read crap.

You'll note I didn't say, life's too short to read trash. Or fluff. Well-written books of little consequence are one of the perks of literacy. Unless it's required for class, reading a book you do not enjoy is, well, pointless. I mean, why would anyone subject herself to that?

Putting aside the Greats (otherwise known as the "literature" portion of the "fiction and literature" section), there is still contemporary Serious Fiction, and then the stuff that, well, isn't so serious. In fact, I'd consider them romance novels, but those still seem to have their own category. Instead, these are usually referred to as "chick lit." I think the biggest difference between chick lit and romances is sex -- that is, the heroines have sex, and probably have already had sex before the story begins. They have sex, they have jobs, they have friends both wacky and wise, and they always have a man by the last page. Usually the man the reader roots for them to have.

The other difference seems to be the author's willingness to let our heroine look like an utter jackass. Believe it or not, this is a good thing. In no proper romance novel would the heroine experience such jaw-dropping bad luck or act with such blatant boneheadedness as we see in the current crop of modern tales of women and love. Even the sainted Elizabeth Bennett only looks like a bit of a jackass, and that only for a short while. (English teacher moment: Does Elizabeth embody "pride" or "prejudice?" Answer: both.)

Being a jackass (or temporarily acting like one) and not being a virgin are not necessarily liabilities. In fact, they're qualities with which, I daresay, most of us can identify. (And even Lizzie Bennett in the 21st century might have drunk a Cosmopolitan or two.) It's all in the execution. Book reads like fabulous dessert, reader is happy, author is successful. Book reads like crap... well, now we're back to the original thesis. Life is too short to read crap.

Bridget Jones' Diary, for example, is not crap. Bridget Jones' Diary is an excellent example of the fabulous dessert theory. It's also one of the funniest things I have ever read, as is its sequel. The books of Anna Maxted are not crap, nor are Wendy Holden's. Predictable? For the most part, yes. Formulaic? Certainly. Even the best recipes are nothing but formulas: the proof is in the pudding.

So, if these books I mention are not crap, why am I talking about crap? Because I came across one entry in the chick lit genre that was so bad, I decided I was done with the book long before I was done with the book.

I flinched when the author made a reference to "matriculated from." (Look it up.) I shook my head when a character "hissed, 'Fuck you.'" (You can't hiss "Fuck you." Try it now. I'll wait.) And you can say something and smirk, but you can't "smirk" something. ("Go on, try it," she smirked. See what I mean?) But what I could not get over was the clunky, first-person prose, describing everything in laborious, Tom Clancy-esque detail with none of Clancy's exquisite precision. The author was too busy talking to get on with telling her story, and not in any kind of a good way. Page after page, I kept thinking, it's got to get better. It's got to get off the ground. Now. Now. Now. But no. Finally, at p. 114, I scrubbed the mission.

While I'll admit to starting a book and wandering off, only to finish it months (or years) later, I think this is the first time in a long time that I've put something down because continuing to read would be more unpleasant than stopping. I'm not expecting perfection or greatness, but don't insult me with sheer laziness and sloppy writing. Even the book where the author didn't know a "waist" from a "waste" was better than this.

(I was going to type in passages from this book as evidence that yes, that wheezing, gasping, groaning you hear is indeed being made by the words on the page, all crowded together and grinding, like metal on metal, rusty clockwork gears moving forward but making you grimace with every turn until you clap your hands over your ears -- or in this case, your eyes -- and scream, "Make it stop!"... but I changed my mind. Life is also too short to type crap.)

If there's an up side here, I suppose it's that these types of books are in such high demand that even a few duds get past the publishers. So I can find more, and, I hope, better ones than this. A girl can only reread Pride and Prejudice so many times in her life.

Posted on September 12, 2004 to horticulture

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