post itt writers you think are bad

Simon Rich is bad in the same way as A.J. Jacobs but Jacobs is much worse. Rich at least has some unique premises on which to unleash his bad writing

Camille Paglia

Hawthorne's stories are... non-good

nonsense

Okay maybe I need to revisit the subtle messaging in "Young Goodman Brown." I mean, are we supposed to interpret the name "Goodman" as... hear me out... GOOD MAN? Like is the character supposed to be a good man? Or, maybe, not good? Oooh, perhaps it could be irony. This is a story about going to meet a mysterious spectral figure in... a forest. At night. Perhaps this forest and this night are metaphors.

The mind boggles at the authorial wizardry at work here. Clearly a master of his craft at the height of his powers.

Oh, and maybe to heighten the drama his wife could be named something potentially symbolic. How about "Prudence"? "Charity"? "Mercy"? Naw.

Ooh ooh I know, how about "Faith"?

He’s definitely not subtle, and I get why the heavy handedness turns people off, but I think it works in the short stories.

I like “Young Goodman Brown” and I love “The Minister’s Black Veil.”

Melville (roughly contemporary) could be heavy-handed as well, but brought more inventiveness and playfulness to his maniacal projects.

they are very different writers! i don't disagree that Melville was more inventive (his writing is crazy!) and i prefer him, but hawthorne was Good imo.

chuck_tatum finally bringing in some genuinely spicy takes!

yes, i confess i can't see Lepore as a bad writer.

I love the story ideas that Hawthorne recorded in his note-books - they're like précis of stories that Borges never got round to writing.

https://biblioklept.org/2013/05/09/ten-ideas-from-nathaniel-hawthornes-note-books/

As with movies, I tend to do a pretty good job of filtering out stuff I won't like. One exception that comes to mind is a Cintra Wilson collection I read--excruciating.

those are great, Ward Fowler! i appreciate how Hawthorne seemed to think in fairy tales about how American Puritanism is fucked.

6. To make one’s own reflection in a mirror the subject of a story.

This was the original inspiration for my memoir, My Greatness.

Oh yeah, Anthony Lane. Awful.

Focusing on a couple of ILX faves, I dunno if he's a "bad writer" but I despise 2666, and Gene Wolfe has yet to show his face to me

i despise a lot of poets but that doesn't mean much here.

Film critic John Simon was utterly useless as a critic and writer both. His bad reviews were spiritually and emotionally malignant and his good reviews were preening about his superior taste.

There's an ILX thread on him, with posts before and after his death.

The John Simon Thread

There a big discussion of him in some other thread where I may have been the only person (can't remember) offering a measured defense of him. He wrote some horrendous things, for sure.

William Golding (as a writer for high school children, not adults)

not sure what this means? i’ve read a few of golding’s later books and i can’t imagine anyone thinking they were targeted toward high school age readers. (he’s also a superb writer by any standards imo, whatever you think of the one famous book.)

btw “goodman” is not young goodman brown’s first name; it’s an archaic way to address someone, so basically it’s “young mr. brown.”

"Goodman" or "Goodwoman" was specifically the terms used to address people who weren't upper class.

I get it, like "Goody Sibber" etc. in the Crucible. Sorry for the lazy zing in my post. Doesn't make it a good story tho.

no, but the fact that it's a good story does.

good writing doesn't only look one way...i'd never call Spike Lee a bad director because he has no interest in subtlety.

Ohhhhhhhh xp

sorry, English teacher smugness dies hard.

Somehow we got 107 posts and no mention of Ayn Rand. Shocking!

x-posts

IMO Lord of the Flies is one of the worst possible things you could give to a child to read. Adults, sure, of course. Actually I have no idea if they even give it to kids to read anymore! Think I read it in high school circa 1991

At her worst, Jill Lepore is just Gladwell with better sentences

Lol just recalled that I actually know what I will never bother with.

Authors you will never read

Seems like a slightly different category, though? I will never read Cormac McCarthy, but I believe people who say he’s a “good” writer in some way.

“Will never read” definitely a different category but imo funnier. How often does one find oneself reading something bad? It’s not altogether hard to avoid, I think.

I see what you mean about Lepore, Chuck; I guess that goes in the category of sometimes wrong or glib, but not a bad writer.

Unless it’s your job to deal with reading stuff you might rather not or whatever. Idk. Easier to encounter awful writers in the periodicals.

In any case “will never read” is more amusing to me, doesn’t lead to dubious arguments about what things are “good not bad”

Yeah different category. I ask about ppl's instincts. Its def easy to read good things -- you know what you like -- but can be tricky to put off something because you think it's bad when it could be good...

xpost

I'm just not a fan of the "I'm gonna research this subject for a few months and tell lifelong experts why they're wrong" genre of New Yorker story

Speaking of which John Lanchester obvs

I read Lord of the Flies while I was still in primary school and it opened my mind up to whole new ways of reading and writing. I wouldn't trade the experience for a later, more 'mature' read.

dubious arguments about what things are “good not bad”

― Canon in Deez (silby), Sunday, February 14, 2021 1:20 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

that’s the whole fun of talking about what makes literature “good” though! It’s totally dubious, especially the way I do it, with an orientation toward absolutism, but the arguments are fun and sometimes help you get specific about your aesthetics.

xpost

It opened my mind to a whole new way of feeling clinically gloomy about human existence, probably 2-3 years too early than was strictly necessary

Hmmm, I'll bite. Foucault was an important thinker but I can't stand his turgid prose. Conversely, most of the hate Derrida used to get over his supposed abstruseness makes little sense if you read him in French and are familiar with his frames of reference.

The real answer, though, is that all writers are bad because writing is bad. Speech, presence, logos 4evah.

naming theorists is cheating

Nah, some of them are/were remarkable writers qua writers is what I'm saying.

How often does one find oneself reading something bad?

i guess as the thread starter i’m reflecting how much, despite my best attempts at untethering myself from it, i am still tethered to media, which is so lousy with bad writers it’s like a garden for the purpose of cultivating them. on second thought scratch the “like,” it’s exactly that

but also if any of y’all read some modern literature when you are not baking sourdough or binge-watching yourselves into invertebrate zombified stupors, plenty of shitty writing there, somehow people publish whole books without managing to cultivate anything resembling a style

which reminds me

taffy brodesser-akner

Imo if you are ever tempted to read The Road by Cormac McCarthy you can just read The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban instead.

Slightly tempted to say Jia Tolentino, but I don't think she's bad exactly, just disappointing.

but also if any of y’all read some modern literature when you are not baking sourdough or binge-watching yourselves into invertebrate zombified stupors, plenty of shitty writing there, somehow people publish whole books without managing to cultivate anything resembling a style