Stuff I Will Never Read

[oselle]

I was thinking the other day that I literally can't remember the last time I read any contemporary novel that wasn't in the fantasy/horror genre. I read (and re-read) non-genre novels by authors like Dickens and Bronte all the time, and a couple of months ago I found Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men during a bookshelf cleanout and I read that in a couple of days, but it must be at least ten years since I read any "ordinary" modern fiction.

When I was at the airport last week I was flipping through Time magazine and came across an article on summer reading, where famous authors were asked what they were planning to read this summer...and more than a few said that David Foster Wallace's The Pale King was tops on their list.

This is a book with a deceptively intriguing title. It makes me think of that great line from Revelation:

"And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him."

Brrr, right?

Well, The Pale King is about...IRS agents in Peoria, Illinois.

Now, I've never read anything by Wallace. He's one of those authors who is adulated by critics and his peers but man...I don't care how good of a writer he is, I don't want to read anything about IRS agents in Peoria, Illinois unless one of them starts conjuring Satan from his Rolodex while his cubicle-mate just happens to keep a sawed-off shotgun full of rocksalt in his desk.

Maybe I'm missing out and maybe novels like this would have something to teach me, but at this stage in my life, I honestly have no stomach to read anything about real people in real life, no matter how gifted the writer is. Seriously, here is an excerpt from a review of The Pale King:

"Richard Rayner in the Los Angeles Times writes that The Pale King's subjects are "loneliness, depression and the ennui that is human life's agonized bedrock, 'the deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient low-level way, and most which most of us spend nearly all of our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from' [quoting Wallace] ... The Pale King dares to plunge readers deep into this Dantean hell of 'crushing boredom,' suggesting that something good may lie beyond."

For the love of God! "This Dantean hell of 'crushing boredom'" already IS my life! Why on earth would I want to read a 560-page novel about it!?

I'd also never read anything written by someone who committed suicide while he was working on it. Part of that is superstition, but part of it is OMG THIS MAN COMMITTED SUICIDE WHILE TRYING TO WRITE THIS BOOK! WHY WOULD ANYONE READ THIS??!?!?

Give me wizards and elves and hobbits and hot demon-hunters and hell, you can even give me sparkly vampires and perpetually shirtless werewolves. Keep your loneliness, depression and ennui. I'm full up on that, thanks.

Comments

[sixth-queen.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Revelation but it sounded familiar...a ha.

"When Frodo came to himself he was still clutching the Ring desperately. He was lying by the fire, which was now piled high and burning brightly. His three companions were bending over him.

'What has happened? Where is the pale King?' he asked, wildly."

-- FotR, Flight to the Ford.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Yes, I KNEW I'd heard that phrase somewhere else!

Alas, I don't think there are any ringwraiths in Wallace's book.

[merylmarie.livejournal.com]

Jeez,word. I have a hard time getting up any interest in contemporary fiction either unless its fantasy or sci-fi. British period novels are my other staple.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

To me, period novels practically do fall under the domain of fantasy, especially the kind that I like. Dickens is full of fairy-tale elements, and all of the Brontes leaned toward Gothic horror. Jane Austen probably comes as close to straightforward fiction as I get, and I don't even read that much of her.

[ghyste.livejournal.com]

I do read quite a lot of non-genre stuff on the quiet, but I'm never attracted to whatever it is that the cognoscenti are pimping this year - they always seem so terribly pretentious and dreary. I get the feeling that the only reason they get to be best sellers is that they're bought by people who just leave them around on tables to make themselves look intellectual.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

they always seem so terribly pretentious and dreary

I read an excerpt of The Pale King and I felt like clawing my eyes out. It was like something scribbled by a schizophrenic on acid...and not in a good way. And if that was the excerpt chosen as the best example of the novel, imagine what the rest of it is like. I think it's kind of telling that all those authors in the Time magazine article claimed to have The Pale King on their "must-read" list...I wonder how many of them will actually read it?

[kinkthatwinked.livejournal.com]

There's nothing wrong with wanting your entertainment to remove you from your reality. Some of us just want to be further removed than others. Take it from a Star Trek fan who occasionally needs to go where no one has gone before. :)

Speaking of entertainment, I took your advice and checked out The Walking Dead. OMFG!!! What a show! When the hell did AMC come creeping up on us with all these kickass shows?! Might have to try Breaking Bad next!

[twirlycurls.livejournal.com]

Breaking Bad is the best of them, IMO. It's not the sort of thing I ever thought I would enjoy but the writing and acting are absolutely top-notch.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I can't wait for The Walking Dead to return, although I've heard some crazy things about the show's creator flipping out and firing all of his writers and deciding to write the whole second season by himself. I really hope they don't screw it up.

[ramalama.livejournal.com]

What? What?! Oh man, I hate when people mess with a good thing. Don't be Heroes, WD.

[amber1960.livejournal.com]

The only time I've read 'contemporary novels' was when we had a book club at work and had to read things like The Life of Pi and Small Island. To be fair, those two were probably worth reading, but then neither of them were about real, present day hellish boredom. I am totally with you in being bemused that anyone wants to read about that when we are all living it.

Nope, I'll stick to fantasy and sci fi and fanfics. ♥

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I think this explains why I've never joined a book club.

[ramalama.livejournal.com]

I'm with you. The only contemporary books I read are nonfiction. But not the latest memoir of "how I survived the worst childhood/marriage/whatsit ever." I don't want to read anything I could write, yanno?

[ramalama.livejournal.com]

Wait, that sounds like I survived the worst childhood/marriage/whatsit ever. I meant in reference to the type of contemporary novels you mentioned.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I suspect a lot of those types of memoirs are embellished, qv James Frey.

[mews1945.livejournal.com]

I never will get why dreary and depressing are supposed to equal quality in something that is basically supposed to be entertainment.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I can understand being entertained by something that isn't "entertaining" per se, but this just sounds like pure torment. Actually, I read an excerpt and it IS torment.

[twirlycurls.livejournal.com]

"I don't want to read anything about IRS agents in Peoria, Illinois unless one of them starts conjuring Satan from his Rolodex while his cubicle-mate just happens to keep a sawed-off shotgun full of rocksalt in his desk."

I've never considered reading such a thing until now but yes -- I don't want to read anything like that either. Sadly, the bookstores are absolutely brimming with books that I would never want to read. I positively *shudder* when I walk past the chick-lit section; I think I have a rare but severe allergy.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I'd even take chick-lit over 500+ pages of crushing boredom.

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

IRS agents in Peoria, Illinois unless one of them starts conjuring Satan from his Rolodex while his cubicle-mate just happens to keep a sawed-off shotgun full of rocksalt in his desk.

I would read your version of The Pale King for damn sure. I wish that were a book for real.

You know, my mom keeps trying to get me to read all these books she is reading. For example...a book about a teen girl whose grandmother dies. She then helps her grandfather clean out her grandma's stuff and finds out that in her youth, her grandma was a dancer. Teen girl discovers her grandma in a light she never saw her in before, through the things in her attic.

Not kidding.

In a million years, I would never read that. I can't imagine being my mother's age or my grandmother's age and going, "And now is the time in life where I must read these types of books".

I imagine you, me and the girls at FGC will all be 80 in our nursing homes and still reading sci-fi/fantasy genre books. Yes?

[oselle.livejournal.com]

That book your mother's reading sounds like Nicholas Sparks or possibly Anita Shreve. I went through a brief, lamentable Anita Shreve phase many years ago, right around the time I was going through my even more lamentable Jan Karon phase. Then again, Jan Karon's freakshow "idyllic" small town of Canaan could very easily qualify as Shirley Jacksonesque horror, so I was still in my wheelhouse there.

I imagine you, me and the girls at FGC will all be 80 in our nursing homes and still reading sci-fi/fantasy genre books. Yes?

If I make it to 80, I'll probably be in such late-stage Alzheimer's that I'll just be sitting there in my diaper yammering aimlessly about "...this young man I knew. Dean something. He had a lot of guns you know. A lot of guns...his name was Dean...oh shit...Dean something...he had a lot of guns, you know!" And then the attendant will come over and pat my hand and bring me a lemonade to shut me up.

[dodger-sister.livejournal.com]

Oh, my mom loves Nicholas Sparks.

yammering aimlessly about "...this young man I knew. Dean something. He had a lot of guns you know. A lot of guns...his name was Dean...oh shit...Dean something...he had a lot of guns, you know!"

hahaha, this totally just happened in my head...

You: He had a lot of guns, what was his name?
J: He drove a car!
You: What kind of car was it again? Maybe his brother would remember.
J: Yes, he had a brother. He wore a trenchcoat.
You: No, that was the other one.
J: The other one what?
You: I know he had a lot of guns.

Lucky for me, I'll be dead before this happens. ;)

[oselle.livejournal.com]

You: He had a lot of guns, what was his name?
J: He drove a car!
You: What kind of car was it again? Maybe his brother would remember.
J: Yes, he had a brother. He wore a trenchcoat.
You: No, that was the other one.
J: The other one what?
You: I know he had a lot of guns.

This is so totally our future. You left out the belligerent old lady slapfight.

Lucky for me, I'll be dead before this happens.

You will be up in the ether with Castiel laughing at us.

[baylorsr.livejournal.com]

We're going to be fighting about whether the car was an Impala or a GTO.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Well I don't know about you, but I'm gonna have dementia so I'll just be sitting there yelling, "It was black! It was black! Black black black!" If I even remember that much.

Oh god. Kill me now.

[the0neru.livejournal.com]

Can't pick just one quote from what you've said - I agree with all of it. I have made an exception from my *modern writers suck" theory for Christopher Brookmyre (who is deadpan, dry FUNNY in addition to writing mysteries I never manage to figure out on my own) and Douglas Coupland, although Coupland has fallen off his game somewhat with his last few novels.

I will also read anything Max Brooks writes, simply on the basis of having loved The Zombie Survivial Guide and World War Z.

Aside from that, I'm perfectly happy just to re-read my Stephen King and other horror novels and anthologies along with my Tolkien.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

I think the only modern writer I do read regularly is David Sedaris, but he doesn't write fiction. Not really. And he doesn't write novels.

I am just finishing up a Stephen King/Peter Straub book I purchased almost ten years ago and never read, Black House. It's a sequel to my beloved The Talisman and I have to say, it's been quite disappointing, as many sequels are.

[the0neru.livejournal.com]

I *liked* Black House... it doesn't have the punch that The Talisman does, but I thought it was a good story. It may be due, though, to having read the entire Gunslinger series before Black House came out, and there are SO many connections to that series.

[oselle.livejournal.com]

You know, I think part of my problem with Black House was that I've never, ever been able to get into any of King's Dark Tower books. At all. Even his short stories related to it have done nothing for me.

I also felt like Jack Sawyer, after being so vivid in The Talisman was just awfully flat. As were most of the characters. There seemed to be a lot of telling instead of showing, especially where Henry Leyden was concerned (I couldn't at all understand why he was so "amazing," aside from being a natty dresser). Everything about those bikers bored me silly, Sophie's appearance in the story was as out-of-left-field as Lisa Braeden's in SPN (and she's about as interesting as Lisa), and I just rolled my eyes over the whole holy baseball bat thing at the end (I've never synced up with King's veneration of baseball as Everything Good in the World.)

I don't know, maybe I'm just a more critical reader now than when I was sixteen, but I found this a wholly disappointing sequel to a book that I really cherished.

[salty-catfish.livejournal.com]

The title does seem to be better than the content. Do you like Bulgakov?

[oselle.livejournal.com]

Never even heard of Bulgakov!