The Worst Book Ever

Lisa — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:54:42 -0700

Alison at ShelfTalker has a post with lots of juicy comments about books loved by everyone but you.

I'm usually reluctant to dish out criticism online. In the past, a few too many random people have taken my criticism of a freakin' book as cause to insult me personally, and that hurts my feelings more than I want to admit. (Yes, I am thin-skinned; sue me; just don't pick on me!)

Second, I'm afraid that someday I'll meet the authors and they'll hate my guts because I was vocal about hating their book. And I know it could happen, because I've already met very cool authors of books I couldn't stand. (If you're reading this, there's a 99.99% chance it was not you.)

Third, life's too short to accentuate the negative. Since I'm not a professional critic, I'd rather save my scathing remarks for late night literary conversations with friends. It's more fun that way.

I suppose I ought not to be shy about criticizing books by people who are bestselling authors or dead, because neither gives a fig what I think. And I will say that I share the opinions of several commenters on the ShelfTalker post. However, my fourth reason for not posting about books I hate (and I will have to break my own rule to give it) is this:

Hands down, the worst book I have read in my entire life is The Celestine Prophecy, by James Redfield. It is a literary black hole. It is Absolute Zero. It is the most clumsily written, ridiculously plotted piece of pseudo-spiritual dogmatic hooey ever to hit the mainstream—much less hit the bestseller list. It's hard to complain about any other book, knowing it is still out there, lurking in libraries and bookstores and people's bookshelves at home, waiting for someone to open the cover. I challenge anyone to name worse.

On Criticism

Lisa — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 13:32:03 -0700

Happy Equinox! How I love that word, equinox, so magical and mysterious-sounding. And come springtime, I love what it means even more. More daylight than nighttime! Crocuses and daffodils! T-shirts and open windows! I’d definitely put the vernal equinox in Room Lovely.

What is Room Lovely? First you need to know about Room 101. In Orwell’s 1984, Room 101 was the dreaded chamber where dissidents would be tortured with whatever they feared most. For example, if Indiana Jones went into Room 101, he would most assuredly scream, “Why did it have to be snakes?”

Anyway, the British, wonderfully odd ducks that they are, have a TV program called Room 101, in which various British personalities discuss things they hate with funny man host Paul Merton. If Merton agrees with the guest, with a pull of a lever, those things (or a physical representation of them) go down the chute into Room 101.

And that’s it. That’s all there is to it. This is why you’ve got to love the BBC.

Recently, I watched the episode of Room 101 in which Stephen Fry was the guest (currently available on YouTube). You’d probably know Stephen Fry as the actor who played Jeeves in TV’s Jeeves and Wooster, the narrator of the British Harry Potter audiobooks, or—the way I know him—the host of the offbeat BBC comedy/talk/quiz/intellectual show QI. Fry is a remarkable extemporaneous speaker. Everything he says sounds incredibly intelligent—generally because it is. Oh, all right, and because he’s got a British accent.

Anyway, Stephen Fry’s the one who suggested that instead of focusing on the negative, sending things you hate to Room 101, we ought to send things we love to a place called Room Lovely—and that Room 101 itself ought to be sent to Room 101.

Earlier in the show, he also remarked on critics. I believe late night TV film critics were the specific target of his ire, but he talked about professional critics more generally:

I just have this feeling that these people are going to go, when they’re dead, and St. Peter’s going to say, “What did you do with your life?”

“Well, I looked at things other people did and said, ‘That doesn’t really work. Ah, it worked from two levels, but not satisfactorily on either. And to me it wasn’t as good as the thing you did before.’”

“I’m sorry, that’s what, I gave you two legs, and two arms, and a soul, and you did that for all your life—you told people what was wrong with the stuff they were doing?”

You know, I think it’s just a terrible waste of a life.

Now, as the person who develops my library’s picture book collection based almost exclusively on journal reviews, I do rely heavily on such criticism. And I want to read scathingly honest reviews. I hate ordering books based on gently positive reviews, to find them blah on multiple levels (in own admittedly critical eyes). In our media-buried world, we need critics. There’s just too much material out there to wade through to the junk to the good stuff all by ourselves.

And we need to be critical consumers on our own, too. Even a garbage disposal won’t eat everything you feed it. (Ever drop a spoon in there? It’s not pretty.) It revolts me to think of the blank-stared, slack-jawed couch potato who passively ingests all media that comes his or her way. Do take in books, movies, music, TV, but don’t just gulp them down. Taste them. If you find them pleasing, savor them. If you don’t, spit them out. And think about why. Think about how they might have been better and how they make you see the world differently, if only for a few minutes. Discuss them. Think about them in the shower or when you’re lying awake in the middle of the night.

But best of all, be an active producer, creating your own content, whether it's a book or a painting or a garden or a wooly hat or a delcious meal. You still need to be critical. Developing a critical eye is essential to writing. You need to be able to recognize what is successful and what is not in the books you read, apply what you’ve learned in your own writing, and critically approach what you’ve written. You won’t always be able to recognize just what you’re doing right or wrong, but you can’t be completely hopeless at it, either, or you’ll never improve.

Believe it or not, this is all a lead-up to the revelation that I don’t generally like writing book reviews and have no desire to advance my career in librarianship through professional reviewing. I do read critically, view critically, listen critically, but when it comes down to it, I don’t usually feel like taking the time to write down my thoughts for a public forum like this. It takes a very special piece of work to do that, and even then I have to be in the right mood. It really takes a lot of thought and time and energy to write good reviews. And that’s thought and time and energy that, most days, I’d much rather put toward creating my own work than critiquing others’.

I’m not about to put the critics in Room 101. We need them. But I’m with Stephen Fry in wanting to put my own arms, legs, and soul to work, doing things, rather than spending my precious time remarking on what other people are doing with their own precious time.

Posts on criticism

The Worst Book Ever

On Criticism