Good grief

[desperance]

Just to emphasise - as though we didn't know already - how utterly pointless a public poll can be, The Book Magazine has polled its readers to learn who is the greatest living British author. Their verdict? J K Rowling, streets ahead of Terry Pratchett in second place. I suppose it's predictable, but it's also stupid. Fond as I am of Pratchett, it's still stupid, for any given value of greatness. And all the more meaningless, when you look at the rest of the top twenty, which gives you a mixed run through current bestsellers and Grand Old Names - and then there's Alasdair Gray, who is neither.

For those who can dredge up any interest at all in such an absurdly skewed list, the top 20 (as reported in Pravda, which is the only pleasure I can derive from this whole farrago) is:

1 - J K Rowling
2 - Terry Pratchett
3 - Ian McEwan
4 - Salman Rushdie
5 - Kazuo Ishiguro
6 - Philip Pullman
7 - Harold Pinter
8 - Nick Hornby
9 - A S Byatt
10= - Jonathan Coe and John Le Carre
12 - Doris Lessing
13 - Alan Bennett
14 - Iain Banks
15 - Muriel Spark (an interesting definition of 'living', but hey...)
16 - David Mitchell
17 - Martin Amis
18 - Ian Rankin
19 - Pat Barker
20 - Alasdair Gray

Now draw up a demographic of one magazine's readership, such as might produce this range of results. Sheesh...

Comments

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

Ah, but number 19 lives down our street!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Indeed she does - and her daughter used to make me coffee. And is now about to become a published novelist herself, did you know? Anna Ralph, her married name...

[hamadryad11.livejournal.com]

Most popular and most hyped, I'll concede. But I don't think Rowlings (as entertaining as her writing can be) is the greatest living author.

I'm sorry to see that Neil Gaiman isn't on the list. He's living in the States, but he's still a British citizen, I believe. While I admit that I'm biased, being a new fan of his, I think he's a much better writer than Rowlings.

And I'm sure that any number of other authors on the list are better writers, as well.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Of course Gaiman's better than Rowling; on or off the list, there are scores and scores of writers better than Rowling. Her vote is a consequence of popularity, not any kind of literary judgement; Pratchett's too. Then there are the well-known names who've been in the public eye - Pinter because of the Nobel prize, Spark because she just died. And so on. The whole thing is an exercise in folly, and not worth getting worked up over. So why am I so worked up...?

[hamadryad11.livejournal.com]

Because it's sometimes hard not to get a bit worked up when you see better writers being overlooked in favour of writers who are just popular and hyped up for no apparent good reason.

It's the same reason I can't help but get a little bit worked up every time I hear somebody gushing about The Da Vinci Code.

[hamadryad11.livejournal.com]

Although I can't help but like Pratchett. Well, the one book I've read. And Good Omens, although that was a collaboration.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, gotta love Pratchett. He's one of those rare writers who started with a gimmick - comic fantasy! Let's make jokes! - and was good enough to come through that and turn into a proper novelist. The later books aren't as funny, but they are much better novels. With, ooh, character development and insight and clever plotting and all sorts. And they are still lots of fun, even without the belly-laughs.

[hamadryad11.livejournal.com]

You know what I liked about Pratchett? The humour was actually more subtle than most comic fantasy I've read before.

I'd like to read more of his books. I just have to get around to it. There are so many!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

It is; and more complex, in the later vols. Which is not to say that the early ones aren't worth reading; which is just as well, because starting early does help, especially with the obvious sequences (the Night Watch books - my faves - or the Witches, where you really do need to meet the characters as they turn up).

I'd suggest going right to the start and reading them in order, if you can deal with the first couple being essentially frolics, and not very much in tune with what follows; he was having fun, writing pastiches of the genre and being wildly inventive and not very disciplined. Success steadied him, I guess, or he just realised what a jewel he had in hand.

[hamadryad11.livejournal.com]

I've read the very first book in the series, and enjoyed it. It was a frolic, but it was an interesting folic. I like the premise of the discworld, and how he used it. I thought it was clever in a not-entirely-bad way. ;)

I'm looking forward to getting further into the series, because I've heard it gets much better. The Night Watch books are the ones that have been recommended to me most often, with the Death books and the Witches tied for second place.

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yup. All of that. You started in the right place (sheesh, how patronising am I?) and you're right about the book; and they do get better; and yr recommendations are also v sound. The first of those you'll come to is Mort, the first of the Death books, and for a long time my favourite Pratchett; it's the book that convinced me to keep reading. You have lots of fun ahead of you, and a bit of serious too. Enjoy.

[hamadryad11.livejournal.com]

I don't think you're patronising. It's good to hear different opinions. There were a couple of people who told me to skip the first five books. I feel that if I had done that, I would have missed out on something, which would be a shame. So really, even though you also think the books get better later on, you're confirming my suspicions. ;)

[db2305.livejournal.com]

Hi!
*waves*

You don't know me, but I couldn't resist butting in. Such an odd list. Maybe correlate it with bestsellers from the past two years? But then there's Doris Lessing. And a couple of novelists I really hate, or maybe their humor is too British for me.
Five women, two otherly-racialled. If you forgive me for that word. I have no sensible conclusions to make...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Hi to you too. And welcome. Butt at will.

Doris Lessing is almost as odd as Alasdair Gray on a list like this; she has been a significant figure, of course, but she hasn't published for a while now, and public polls do tend to the immediate.

No sensible conclusions are possible; the thing is meaningless. See rant(s) above, and doubtless below.

And I'm sorry, but no forgiveness is possible for a word like 'otherly-racialled'. How's a man to maintain the purity of his journal, under these conditions? Eek!

[db2305.livejournal.com]

Knew you'd bite. Who could resist a word like that?

[samarcand.livejournal.com]

Yup. Like all other Top-X lists, it's complete crap. Although, I guess we can take some comfort in the fact that genre writers outnumber the 'mainstream' folk. Can't we?

[desperance.livejournal.com]

"I seek consolation whenever I can
In a Barbara Cartland and cheap marzipan."

Genre fiction is the mainstream now. It's all the rest of the world that's weird.

[hamadryad11.livejournal.com]

At least she's not on the list!

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Dead, long dead. Even they have noticed...

D'you remember the world's best description of her face - looking as though two crows had crashed into the white cliffs of Dover?

[hamadryad11.livejournal.com]

I've never heard that, I don't think. It's... fitting. And yeah, I forgot the list was supposed to be living authors. My bad!

Egads. Now I'm wondering if they would have put her on it if they could have. I read one of her books once. It didn't take long before I wanted to strangle her heroine. Why did she think it was a good idea to write the stutter her herione spoke in throughout the entire book? I have no idea. But it was one of the most irritating things I've ever read. And that includes the novel written almost entirely in exclamations that I read a couple of months ago. I can't even remember what either book was about anymore, just that they irritated the hell out of me.

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

What, no Jeffrey Archer?! No Jackie Collins?! What a bunch of snobs.

The only magazine I can think of that would publish all of these would be some hypothetical British equivalent of The New Yorker. (The Londoner?)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Oh, hey now, none of this metrocentrism (a word I seem to have invented, but I hope its meaning is clear): we too have cities outside the capital. If I edit such a magazine (and yes, I confess, I'd love to), it'll be called The Novocastrian. And actually I would happily publish everybody on that list except perhaps Rowling. I don't say that she can't write well, only that I'm still waiting for the evidence.

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

Oh, do you think she's really that bad? I've never read a whole HP book, but I've dipped into them enough to get the impression that her prose may not be golden, but it is all right. (Of course, I haven't ever been privy to the pre-copy-edited version, but I've heard no horror stories.) I feel like she gets piled onto much as some people rag on Stephen King (who I think writes well, basically--and I have seen his stuff before it was final) because he's so successful. (And in case you're wondering, I'm a big fan of lots of fairly difficult literary writers--Proust, Nabokov, etc.--but I have great respect for straightforward prose as well.)

One great thing about Britain is that you get to have great adjectives for cities: Oxonian, Mancunian, Glaswegian, Liverpudlian...while we Americans are stuck with ordinary suffixes. Well, there are Mainiacs, but that's not an official name...

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Do I think Rowling is that bad? No-o. With hesitations. I think she's pedestrian, largely; I think she has no feeling for language per se, for the excitement of the thing itself; it's just a tool to her. And I do distinguish between her and, say, Jeffrey Archer, who does active damage to the language every time he scribbles another page. Those who are tone-deaf should not attempt to sing.

I'm sure Rowling does suffer extra and possibly unwarranted criticism - from me, as much as others - just because she is so successful. I can't help it; somebody reaches that many readers, I just want to see them doing the job well. And to my mind, using a rich language richly is an element in that, and I do just find her prose quite dull. And her plotting leaden, and...

I've always admired Stephen King's early books; and I agree with you, he does write well, within a compass. I don't demand fancy writing; I'm quite happy with robust, so long as it's getting down and dirty with what's available. I got bored by later King, he didn't freshen, tho' I'm told I've missed some good stuff recently.

It's true, we Brits do have a linguistic advantage (I'm an Oxonian by birth, as well as being Novocastrian by choice), having the roots of modern English laid out in our geography, as it were. Which may have influenced the value that I lay on style, as well as everything else that we demand from our writers...?

[hamadryad11.livejournal.com]

More on this silly list...

Neil Gaiman apparently came in 21st. Since he wasn't actually one of the names that people could choose, that meant people wrote in his name. And he still came in 21st!

[durham-rambler.livejournal.com]

Today's Sunday Times (or at least the online version, thank you Mr Google for your alert) carries a comment piece by Anna Burnside which pretty much echoes what's been said above. To give you a flavour of it:

So it came as something of a surprise to discover that readers of The Book Magazine have voted J K Rowling as the greatest living writer in Britain. How can this be? She is no more the greatest living writer in Britain than George Galloway is the greatest living statesman, or Jack Vettriano is the greatest living artist. She is not even the greatest living writer of children's books. She had one good idea that became a formula that she has now worked into the ground.

(Google picked this out for the comment Fine writes for children of all ages as well as for adults, a rare talent.)

[desperance.livejournal.com]

Yay. That is very sharply put - and the whole article is worth reading, largely because she agrees with Us, which is always nice.