Popular novels

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Read any good ones lately?

I'm talking 'Gone Girl', 'The Goldfinch', etc. The sort of novel that millions of people buy.

Read any bad ones lately/ever?

What are your favourite pop novels?
 

martin

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'The Stud' by Jackie Collins is OK. Although the theme's light years from Richard Allen's skinhead pulp trash, there are similarities in style and pace. It's pretty much the spiritual godmother to all sorts of demented schlock, like Footballers' Wives (best ITV drama ever).

The only pop novel I've ever cringed reading was 'Camden Girls' by Jane Owen...the worst book I've ever encountered. Only recommended if you're suicidal - read this and, whatever misery befalls you in life, you'll be able to say "At least I never wrote 'Camden Girls'".
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Silence of the Lambs is good. I must read Jurassic Park one day. (Both ancient history by now, of course.)

Anyone read 'The Girl on the Train'?

These popular thrillers I reckon are more interesting than serious literature sometimes, at least in terms of tapping into some sort of public anxiety/obsession.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
I read a bit of '50 Shades' and it was unbelievably bad. Literally: I couldn't believe it could be so bad and so popular.

But I suppose it's just porn really, and I've never complained about the acting in my favourite filth clips.
 

version

Well-known member
I must read Jurassic Park one day. (Both ancient history by now, of course.)

I read Jurassic Park last year and wasn't particularly impressed, it had its moments but it's much more bloated than the film, the dialogue is appalling, the characters are flat and Malcolm is insufferable - Crichton appears to have inserted himself into the novel to stop every so often and go "Well, actually... " and lecture the reader and the rest of the characters.

I get the impression that his writing process consisted of reading about whatever was in vogue in science and technology then forcing a story around it so that he could position himself as the voice of reason and talk down to people. A lot of Malcolm's interruptions read like they were written by an edgy 4chan user, e.g.:

“They don't have intelligence. They have what I call 'thintelligence.' They see the immediate situation. They think narrowly and they call it 'being focused.' They don't see the surround. They don't see the consequences.”
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
Ah maybe I won't bother then

Lord of the Rings fans think Peter Jackson butchered the books to make the movies but having listened to some of the books on audiotape I have to say the first movie anyway is a huge improvement.
 

luka

Well-known member
Silence of the Lambs is good. I must read Jurassic Park one day. (Both ancient history by now, of course.)

Anyone read 'The Girl on the Train'?

These popular thrillers I reckon are more interesting than serious literature sometimes, at least in terms of tapping into some sort of public anxiety/obsession.

Mike Davis uses film and novel etc like this in city of quartz. Very convincingly. I don't read popular novel. I am a metropolitan elitist.
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
This was sort of inspired by a doc on Brian De Palma I saw last night

He was citing Hitchcock as an influence - the way Hitchcock adapted trashy pulp novels and made them into something like 'high' art
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
Tell a lie, I read da vinci code. Enjoyed it.

I enjoyed this a long time ago. Then I read Foucault's Pendulum, and realised TdVC was a sort of version of that book for idiots. Then I read that Eco's reaction to it had been to claim Dan Brown as one of his 'diabolicals' - the credulous minor characters in his novel who pay large sums to the main characters' vanity press to have their books of new-age hokum published.

The whole phenomenon around TdVC was raised to the level of a piece of postmodern performance art when the authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail, which Dan Brown had taken as historic fact, sued Brown's publisher for plagiarism but had the case dismissed on the grounds that Brown was entitled to use their "factual" book as a "research" basis for his novel. Cost the twats three million in legal fees.
 
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luka

Well-known member
I've had this discussion with droid. Imo eco is by far the lesser artist. I couldn't finish his turgid book but dan browns reads itself. This is because brown is able, if not to believe then at least to suspend disbelief. Eco is a sneerer, a class of man condemned by William Blake as the enemies of art.
 

luka

Well-known member
Popular novels are like conspiracy theories. The unconscious is almost unmediated. Fears and desires appear unvarnished, ugly, naive, taboo and prophetic
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I've had this discussion with droid. Imo eco is by far the lesser artist. I couldn't finish his turgid book but dan browns reads itself. This is because brown is able, if not to believe then at least to suspend disbelief. Eco is a sneerer, a class of man condemned by William Blake as the enemies of art.

I found TDVC hugely readable - although droid's description of the prose as 'Stephen King on ketamine' is accurate - but I guess this is all of a piece with your esteem for The Matrix.

Code is certainly readable, I'm not denying that. But Brown is very much a believer, or was when he wrote the book, at any rate.
 
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