Ten Writers I Can No Longer Read

One of the things I have learned after many years of reading and writing is that you are allowed to dismiss what you once loved; you are allowed to give up on writers who no longer speak to you and have set up a barrier in your mind to enjoyment of their work. I do not mean that I care that deeply about their political, racial, psychological or emotional issues (the list of acceptable writers would be incredibly short if I dismissed the ones who did not reach such high standards). I am simply concerned with what is on the page and how it makes me react, as Vladimir Nabokov once stated, “between the shoulder blades” (where you really do feel the work).

This particular piece was inspired by a passing comment by Naomi Gold, one of my favourite writers on Vocal. She had written a piece on the flack she received over her Top Story wins, and in response to my support, she made a comment where she was able to forgive the haters, and even accept that editing and cutting things out were not acceptable to her…unless it involved the work of Anne Rice.

I found that funny, realizing that I had the same feeling about Ms. Rice’s work. But I began to wonder about this: Ms. Rice is an extremely popular writer. Her “Interview with A Vampire” is a bestseller, a film, and part of a popular cult that outshines that other set of novels devoted to those bloodsuckers. So, why could I not enjoy that or any of the other books she published? Why did I feel like that I would never be able to enjoy them?

This is not a scientific study. My opinions, like all opinions, are completely biased and subjective, as they should be. I am again limiting a list here to ten scribblers I now have very mixed or determined feelings over (believe me, the list could be longer). And I expect that many of you, having read my other pieces or looking at my collection of work for the first time, might doubt my sanity and taste. Fair enough. Keep your comments coming, but accept that we all have our choices to make in life.

And here is the list…

Frank Herbert

Yeah, come after me for this one. I have tried and tried again, and I have failed and failed consistently. I started when I was in high school and chose to read…that book. I got to about page ten and gave up. I just did not care, but I understood that this was science-fiction (not the genre I enjoyed reading) and that the story was complex. Maybe when I was older I would get it…I would appreciate the world and the politics therein.

No…a thousand times…no…

I have received free copies of the book through book boxes and well-intentioned friends; I have seen the two versions and yawned and lost interest in them. I have been told that you need to take you time with them.

No thanks. I have to give Mr. Herbert and his spice-wormy world a pass (is that what it’s all about?).

George Bernard Shaw

Oh, Shaw. You had such a good run with so many people who did not know better. You still have your festival in my backyard, and we do still read your plays and admire your wit. But you are not a readable writer. You sound like a preacher at full strength who does not hear the yawns and see the eye rolls. Your prefaces are wonderful…and usually the best part of your plays. You chose topics that were controversial (“Mrs. Warren’s Profession,” where the profession is never professed), but they seem so badly dated and dull that feels as radical as Art Nouveau or wearing white after Labor Day. And you knew all about that holiday, didn’t you, George? A committed socialist who defended both Stalin and Mussolini (threw flowers to the latter when he was on parade, didn’t you); a committed eugenics supporter (look that word up…and forgive me). You go in the dustbin, Bernard, where you and your long-winded and dull work belong.

John Updike

This is a difficult one for me. I deeply admire many of the reviews and essays you wrote, but those novels… Those are where your reputation was made. And I failed miserably the first time I picked up a copy of “Rabbit, Run”. Who really cares about such a failure – Harry Angstrom? Not a bad touch – who seems obsessed with the worst obsessions of his culture as a reactionary used car salesman? In your short stories, at least in the early years, you had a particular gift for nailing down what a character was and driving the narrative home. But again, the old problem arises: who really cares when your books seem to made up endless “golden sentences” (V.S. Naipaul’s complaint over your style of writing) that simply show off your academic career and early success with a bland reading public?

Pass.

J.K. Rowling

Those of you who know my work and have heard my opinions on different subjects should not be too shocked by this one. Again, it was a case of, “Who Cares?” I know that there is the argument that I should feel involved in a story about an orphaned boy who discovers he has a gift while living with a family that barely understands what they have living in their home. But, once again, I was given a free copy – so many of them out there; it was like getting a flyer in the mail – and…I could not finish it. Maybe it was being above the age of an adolescent boy that did it, but I hated anything beyond the domestic setting that the first book opened with. Magic was not something I cared to read about, or watch (still not a fan of the films, either). So, I’m sorry, J.K., but I cannot contribute to the fund.

Paul Auster

You may have noticed that I am rather selective about the types of writing I like from certain writers. Some writers are better with novels than essays; others have a talent for articles and prefaces, but should never write a play or poem ever again. With Mr. Auster, I can name exactly one article he wrote that I admire – “Why I Write”. And the reason why I picked this one is that he describes the reason why he always carries a pen (it involved Willie Mays and a chance encounter with the New York Giants legend – look it up). And from that, I tried to read the novels. And I failed to enjoy anything I could find by the man, in both fiction and nonfiction. Again, maybe that early encounter ruined my love for his other work, but I still felt indifferent to the themes of New York alienation shared by one of their own. No thanks.

Richard Brautigan

The sixties were a very interesting time…especially for those of us who were not there and had to hear about it from a young and impressionable age. I fell for the Boomers’ myth-making (hard not to as a Gen-Xer), and that meant more than showing an interest in the Beatles, hippies, JFK, RFK, Dr. King and other icons. I went to the literature…and I got disappointed. Vonnegut was great for his time, but he was writing about events several decades in his painful past or a science-fiction idea of the future. Then came Joe Orton (great), Norman Mailer (umm…), Saul Bellow (okay...just about), and…the Great Trout Fisherman of America. Maybe I should have been born when his reputation was at a peak, but after reading one of his books, I regretted all the books he wrote that I may never read yet know exist. Why and what are the two questions that stuck in my head with “Trout Fishing in America”: why was it written, and what did they do to his editor when it came out. Maybe some things should just age themselves out and be forgotten. Mr. Brautigan, I say goodbye.

Thomas Pynchon

This is also hard to write. Like many first encountering the reclusive writer, I picked up “The Crying of Lot 49”…and then I picked up a dictionary. And I must admit that I tried to read “V” as well and wondered if the writer was on a particular drug that perhaps Mr. Brautigan slipped to him during a reading or seminar. I figured out why Pynchon kept me from reading more (certain writers give up their whole game from one book – Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Chuck Palahniuk, etc.): he will get certain characters to come into his narrative, make them dance for a few chapters, and then they are gone. That is why I was pretty much done with him after that book. Seriously, can anyone tell me why we needed to have the auction or why I should care about Oedipa Maas and her paranoid ideas?

Thomas, you can stay hidden…and make the occasional Simpsons cameo.

Henry James

Oh, Henry… You flabby snob and genius of your age, your novels are completely and totally unreadable to me. And I don’t mean things like “The Portrait of a Lady” or a shorter piece like “Daisy Miller”. I mean the big boys: “The Golden Bowl”, “The Ambassadors”, “The Wings of a Dove”, etc.. I always suspected that you rued the day you discovered that you were just an American and could not put on European airs without being dismissed as an antique and bore (that trip to England was a smart move). But it is not all bad: you met some of the best writers of your age – Turgenev, Tennyson, Browning, Wilde, George Eliot, Ford Madox Ford, William Morris – and your essays are remarkably detailed (read his work on Hawthorne). I just wish I could read and enjoy more of your work and see why your reputation puts you on the highest tiers of modernism.

Dan Brown

This is going to be a very easy section to write. Again, a free copy – a friend this time, not a book box (maybe they were trying to stop polluting the well) – and opened the book…and I closed it. It took me about one paragraph – not page – to decide that Mr. Brown and his Code could take a walk. And no, I did not see the film. Watching Tom Hanks and Audrey Tatou hunt down albino freaks protecting the Vatican’s secrets did not appeal to me.

Goodbye, Mr. Brown.

William Faulkner

And finally, I come to the modern master of the American Southern novel. I have read “Absalom, Absalom!” and “Light in August”. Please do not ask me to recall or recite details from those books. I once confessed to a friend that I was in the middle of reading his work, and she wondered if I had lost my mind. There are plenty of reasons why it is easy to dismiss him: his dense and difficult prose; the stand he took over integration in his native Mississippi (he freely admitted that the South should be allowed to “go slow”); and yes, as a southern writer, he freely put that word in the mouths of his characters. That can be forgiven. But I seriously doubt that I will be reading his work again. They are gathering dust on my shelves, as they did when I bought them used and remaindered.

So, that is the list. I expect that this might lead to a great amount of debate within the Vocal community. And I have a list of also-rans (only partial because of the word limit):

• Dean Koontz
• S.J. Perelman (not funny)
• David Foster Wallace
• William T. Vollman (to the last two, more means less)
• Elizabeth Gilbert
• Barbara Gowdy (''The White Bone'' did it for me)
• Terry McMillan
• Ezra Pound
• D.H. Lawrence (not even the dirty stuff)
• Norman Mailer (his sex scenes are hilarious unintentionally)
• And...? (Come at me!)

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You can find more poems, stories, and articles by Kendall Defoe on my Vocal profile. I complain, argue, provoke and create...just like everybody else.

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