Why We Love Bad Writing
Jan. 18th, 2011 12:00 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
world-dancer.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
lkh_lashoutsI thought this community might find the article interesting since the majority opinion is that LKH is a horrible reader. This might shed some light on why she still sells. -world_dancer
Forget peace on earth -- there won't even be peace among the bookshelves after the salvo against popular fiction launched in the pages of the Guardian newspaper this week by the British novelist Edward Docx. Docx, dismayed to find himself on a train full of passengers with their noses stuck in Stieg Larsson thrillers, announced "we need urgently to remind ourselves of -- for want of better terminology -- the difference between literary and genre fiction." This, all too predictably, ignited multiple charges of outrage across the Internet.
Guardian readers have already ably dismantled the straw men in Docx's essay. I don't agree with most of what he says, but he has a point when he suggests that the other side often resorts to arguments as trumped up as his own. In fact, ferocious defenders of genre fiction seem far more numerous to me than its (public) detractors, and Docx may have even done them a favor; they seem to enjoy their indignation an awful lot. The not-so-secret reason why pissing matches are so common, after all, is that some people just really love taking it out.
Instead of getting into all that, however, let's consider the original source of Docx's concern: the enormous popularity of Larsson's Millennium Trilogy and the novels of Dan Brown. Certainly, these writers are far from the best their genres have to offer. Even the most vehement of genre champions will not argue that either man is a good, or even adequate, stylist. (Larsson himself seems to have been well aware that he was no Hemingway.) Rather, they are both, in many respects and apart from the whole genre question, fairly bad writers. So why do so many people devour their books?
I pose this question as someone who enjoyed all three of Larsson's books, although I don't care for Brown's. I am exactly the sort of person who might be glimpsed reading "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" on a train. Docx seems to think his fellow citizens only resort to these books because they aren't aware of the much better ones out there. "We simply have to find a way to bring the finest writers of the language more often to the attention of the carriages of people up and down the country who are evidently still willing and able to buy novels for the journey," he writes. These hapless souls are currently being "subjected" to "atrociously bad" thrillers when they could be immersed in such Docx favorites as "Franzen, Coetzee, Hollinghurst, Amis, Mantel, Proux, Ishiguro, Roth."
Now, I'm not only aware of all of those novelists, I've read much of their work, too; some of it I love, and some of it I don't. Yet this didn't stop me from reading Stieg Larsson with a considerable amount of pleasure. Most people who read a lot also read to satisfy a wide spectrum of moods and hankerings, and sometimes trash (provided it's sufficiently engaging) is just the ticket. This taste, like any other, can be highly idiosyncratic. My friend Lev can't abide Larsson, while I have in turn needled him for enthusing over a -- to my mind -- cheesily hard-boiled action-adventure fantasy novel. (Also: He claims to be a "Twilight" fan.)
Why do people like bad books? Some of them probably don't read enough to know the difference. But all the same, I suspect that they wouldn't be equally content with Martin Amis' "The Pregnant Widow" should the bookstore clerk have mistakenly slipped that into their shopping bag instead of "The Lost Symbol." Chances are, Amis' strenuously inventive prose would strike them as too much work. The popular species of bad writing (for there are many, many kinds of awful prose) abounds in clichés, stock characters and conventional plot twists, and, as Amis indicated in the title of a collection of his literary criticism, he is a general in the War Against Cliché.
Until recently, hardly anyone considered why some readers might actually prefer clichés to finely crafted literary prose. A rare critic who pondered this mystery was C.S. Lewis, who -- in a wonderful little book titled "An Experiment in Criticism" -- devoted considerable attention to the appeal of bad writing for what he termed the "unliterary" reader. Such a reader, who is interested solely in the consumption of plot, favors the hackneyed phrase over the original
... because it is immediately recognizable. 'My blood ran cold' is a hieroglyph of fear. Any attempt, such as a great writer might make, to render this fear concrete in its full particularity, is doubly a chokepear to the unliterary reader. For it offers him what he doesn't want, and offers it only on the condition of his giving to the words a kind and degree of attention which he does not intend to give. It is like trying to sell him something he has no use for at a price he does not wish to pay.
With the advent of Amazon reader reviews, such readers have finally found a voice, and a vocabulary with which to express their taste. Speed is the operative metaphor. Novels are praised for being a "fast read" and above all for having writing that "flows." "Flow" is an especially fascinating term because it's one that literary critics have never used, and it perfectly captures the way that clichéd prose can be gobbled up in chunks at a breakneck pace. "The Da Vinci Code" is over 400 pages long, but you can race through it in about three hours. Combine the large population of casual readers who limit themselves to such books with the hardcore bibliophiles who like an occasional dip into something easy, and you have enough buyers to create a hit.
Lewis also juxtaposed the unliterary reader with what he called the "Stylemonger," who makes too great a fetish of words and sentences for their own sake. (Persnickety grammar and usage monitors are included in this group.) "He creates in the minds of the unliterary (who have often suffered under him in school) a hatred of the very word 'style' and a profound distrust of every book that is said to be well written." Even if Docx were in a position to lecture his fellow railway travelers as to the superior merits of Proulx and Hollinghurst, he'd run the risk of activating just this sort of resentment, and doing his favorite authors more harm than good.
And, chances are, quite a few of his listeners would be well aware that Larsson and Brown aren't very good writers. If pressed, they'd say that sometimes they just want to gallop through a story -- or in the case of Larsson's novels, proceed along with a weird methodicalness that taps into what appears to be an amazingly widespread streak of latent obsessive-compulsive disorder. They'd say that they're not, at the moment, equal to the demands of literature, but that just last week they finished "Disgrace" or "Wolf Hall." And then they'd say, Would you mind? Are we done here? Because I'd really like to get back to my book.
http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/12/14/docx
I'll add my personal opinion that flow and short hand probably have a lot to do with her continued popularity, but that it might also be what's driving some of us away. To me, the porn scenes (aside from character issues) break up the flow of the plot narrative. We don't get any particular plot or character points in sex any more, so it's just there, like running into an ice burg when we had been sailing along at a decent clip.
I hope you all enjoy.
Forget peace on earth -- there won't even be peace among the bookshelves after the salvo against popular fiction launched in the pages of the Guardian newspaper this week by the British novelist Edward Docx. Docx, dismayed to find himself on a train full of passengers with their noses stuck in Stieg Larsson thrillers, announced "we need urgently to remind ourselves of -- for want of better terminology -- the difference between literary and genre fiction." This, all too predictably, ignited multiple charges of outrage across the Internet.
Guardian readers have already ably dismantled the straw men in Docx's essay. I don't agree with most of what he says, but he has a point when he suggests that the other side often resorts to arguments as trumped up as his own. In fact, ferocious defenders of genre fiction seem far more numerous to me than its (public) detractors, and Docx may have even done them a favor; they seem to enjoy their indignation an awful lot. The not-so-secret reason why pissing matches are so common, after all, is that some people just really love taking it out.
Instead of getting into all that, however, let's consider the original source of Docx's concern: the enormous popularity of Larsson's Millennium Trilogy and the novels of Dan Brown. Certainly, these writers are far from the best their genres have to offer. Even the most vehement of genre champions will not argue that either man is a good, or even adequate, stylist. (Larsson himself seems to have been well aware that he was no Hemingway.) Rather, they are both, in many respects and apart from the whole genre question, fairly bad writers. So why do so many people devour their books?
I pose this question as someone who enjoyed all three of Larsson's books, although I don't care for Brown's. I am exactly the sort of person who might be glimpsed reading "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" on a train. Docx seems to think his fellow citizens only resort to these books because they aren't aware of the much better ones out there. "We simply have to find a way to bring the finest writers of the language more often to the attention of the carriages of people up and down the country who are evidently still willing and able to buy novels for the journey," he writes. These hapless souls are currently being "subjected" to "atrociously bad" thrillers when they could be immersed in such Docx favorites as "Franzen, Coetzee, Hollinghurst, Amis, Mantel, Proux, Ishiguro, Roth."
Now, I'm not only aware of all of those novelists, I've read much of their work, too; some of it I love, and some of it I don't. Yet this didn't stop me from reading Stieg Larsson with a considerable amount of pleasure. Most people who read a lot also read to satisfy a wide spectrum of moods and hankerings, and sometimes trash (provided it's sufficiently engaging) is just the ticket. This taste, like any other, can be highly idiosyncratic. My friend Lev can't abide Larsson, while I have in turn needled him for enthusing over a -- to my mind -- cheesily hard-boiled action-adventure fantasy novel. (Also: He claims to be a "Twilight" fan.)
Why do people like bad books? Some of them probably don't read enough to know the difference. But all the same, I suspect that they wouldn't be equally content with Martin Amis' "The Pregnant Widow" should the bookstore clerk have mistakenly slipped that into their shopping bag instead of "The Lost Symbol." Chances are, Amis' strenuously inventive prose would strike them as too much work. The popular species of bad writing (for there are many, many kinds of awful prose) abounds in clichés, stock characters and conventional plot twists, and, as Amis indicated in the title of a collection of his literary criticism, he is a general in the War Against Cliché.
Until recently, hardly anyone considered why some readers might actually prefer clichés to finely crafted literary prose. A rare critic who pondered this mystery was C.S. Lewis, who -- in a wonderful little book titled "An Experiment in Criticism" -- devoted considerable attention to the appeal of bad writing for what he termed the "unliterary" reader. Such a reader, who is interested solely in the consumption of plot, favors the hackneyed phrase over the original
... because it is immediately recognizable. 'My blood ran cold' is a hieroglyph of fear. Any attempt, such as a great writer might make, to render this fear concrete in its full particularity, is doubly a chokepear to the unliterary reader. For it offers him what he doesn't want, and offers it only on the condition of his giving to the words a kind and degree of attention which he does not intend to give. It is like trying to sell him something he has no use for at a price he does not wish to pay.
With the advent of Amazon reader reviews, such readers have finally found a voice, and a vocabulary with which to express their taste. Speed is the operative metaphor. Novels are praised for being a "fast read" and above all for having writing that "flows." "Flow" is an especially fascinating term because it's one that literary critics have never used, and it perfectly captures the way that clichéd prose can be gobbled up in chunks at a breakneck pace. "The Da Vinci Code" is over 400 pages long, but you can race through it in about three hours. Combine the large population of casual readers who limit themselves to such books with the hardcore bibliophiles who like an occasional dip into something easy, and you have enough buyers to create a hit.
Lewis also juxtaposed the unliterary reader with what he called the "Stylemonger," who makes too great a fetish of words and sentences for their own sake. (Persnickety grammar and usage monitors are included in this group.) "He creates in the minds of the unliterary (who have often suffered under him in school) a hatred of the very word 'style' and a profound distrust of every book that is said to be well written." Even if Docx were in a position to lecture his fellow railway travelers as to the superior merits of Proulx and Hollinghurst, he'd run the risk of activating just this sort of resentment, and doing his favorite authors more harm than good.
And, chances are, quite a few of his listeners would be well aware that Larsson and Brown aren't very good writers. If pressed, they'd say that sometimes they just want to gallop through a story -- or in the case of Larsson's novels, proceed along with a weird methodicalness that taps into what appears to be an amazingly widespread streak of latent obsessive-compulsive disorder. They'd say that they're not, at the moment, equal to the demands of literature, but that just last week they finished "Disgrace" or "Wolf Hall." And then they'd say, Would you mind? Are we done here? Because I'd really like to get back to my book.
http://www.salon.com/books/laura_miller/2010/12/14/docx
I'll add my personal opinion that flow and short hand probably have a lot to do with her continued popularity, but that it might also be what's driving some of us away. To me, the porn scenes (aside from character issues) break up the flow of the plot narrative. We don't get any particular plot or character points in sex any more, so it's just there, like running into an ice burg when we had been sailing along at a decent clip.
I hope you all enjoy.
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no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 05:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 06:59 pm (UTC)The best example I can think of is Shakespeare. In his day, I'm fairly certain he wasn't considered a literary genius. He wrote to entertain. All the "literary" baggage on him now is the result of scholars.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 11:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 05:32 pm (UTC)No, it's not about being fast or easier to read. It's about not wanting to read about someone's drug addiction, their marriage splitting up, the death of a child or any other unpleasant experience made universal through prose. Genre fiction fans like genre fiction because it takes them out of their world and places them in another, where everything either always turns out right or spectacularly wrong in ways that never actually happen.
What a person reads is not a comment on their intelligence, full stop. We need to stop running around screaming about how we're all really smart, we just like the dumb, bad things. Because it's bullshit.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 06:14 pm (UTC)Also, I might point out, a lot of literary fiction is about upperclass white people and their manufactured problems which many people can't relate with. Or some is written by upper class white people about social issues that they have little experience with while trying to be edgy so it rings false.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 05:41 pm (UTC)At one point in history, it was thought by some that reading novels AT ALL would rot your brain. At least we've progressed beyond that!
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 11:11 pm (UTC)Sorry, I couldn't resist.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 11:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 11:21 pm (UTC)Also, your icons are awesome. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 11:24 pm (UTC)And thanks on the icon love. ;)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 05:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 01:07 am (UTC)I dunno, I just can't think ripping your SO's face up and scarring her arm badly after she's told you you're a douchebag for saying she's not interested in you and you're still dating her cousin is romantic* (the Sam/Emily relationship in the Twilight books), or any of the others I could name from there.
*Emily did marry Sam... after he left 3 long scars down the right side of her face, leaving her unable to smile on that side (if I remember correctly) and her right eye a bit 'droopy' (I think), as well as a long scar on her arm.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 05:57 am (UTC)Unfortunately, Anita is just the other side of this, currently. She treats all of her men poorly, doesn't respect any of them. She throws tantrums and refuses to take responsibility for anything she does, yet thousands of idiots read her books and think this is romantic and sweet.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-27 06:30 pm (UTC)Heh, I agree with you on Anita. I came THIS CLOSE to having a big dent in my wall while reading Danse Macabre. If I remember right it was the one where she raped London-he kept telling her no, etc but Anita didn't listen. I really don't understand how anyone can view Anita's behavior as 'sweet'. O.o
This comment is not so much directed at *you* as at the mentality of the article
Date: 2011-01-18 05:53 pm (UTC)A lot of people enjoy "bad books". This does not make them worthy of ridicule or pity, and it doesn't make them stupid. Do I wish that authors with greater skill with words and story had more popularity? You bet. Do I think that people who like "bad books" would be ~oh so improved~ by reading "literary" books? Not necessarily. They could slog through something literary, but if they don't enjoy it, what's the point?
(Also, I resent the idea that literary fiction is so much harder and thus of more worth than genre fiction. I can get through Austen like a breeze, North and South is a favourite, and I parse Austen-era language easily. If you enjoy it, it's not that hard.)
Also, fuck you, CS Lewis. Of course I read for plot; what else would I read for? You don't have much story without plot, unless it's in the hands of a very talented writer. Which is actually what turned me off LKH after a while: her books started having less and less plot and more and more meaningless sex. Which has a bit to do with "flow", but is mostly because if I wanted to read smut, I can find several better-written stories with plot online.
Re: This comment is not so much directed at *you* as at the mentality of the article
Date: 2011-01-18 06:37 pm (UTC)(Your comment about Anne Bishop reminds me of when I was insulted and bashed for saying that I loved Anne Bishop's Black Jewels books. Apparently I didn't specify that I loved the books as brain candy. My intelligence was insulted, my reading comprehension was insulted, my worth as a person was insulted; it was kind of amusing after a while. I think it was a member of this community who bashed me. I have to wonder what that person would say about this article.)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 06:45 pm (UTC)I've never been bashed for saying I like them (yet). I'm sorry you had that happen to you, but I can see how it would get amusing after a while. :D
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 06:59 pm (UTC)It's one thing to say, "Wow, these books suck!" (as we do in this community). It's another thing to say, "Wow, you suck for liking these books and you're stupid and uneducated too and I am better than you."
I really loathe the Twilight series, but I don't bash fans of those books like that. While I will quite often point and laugh at the frantic obsession of some fans of various books, I wouldn't insult them over and over, nor would I proclaim myself better than them.
To each his or her own, I guess.
Anne Bishop has gone down in quality with her more recent books, I will say. I enjoyed the first trilogy for its imagery and emotion, but I was perfectly aware that the books were candy.
Among the reasons I stopped reading Laurell K. Hamilton are because she: Plummeted in quality; gave up any sort of plot for excessive bad porn; excessively wrote her ego, personal values, and sense of self-worth into her characters; and stopped caring about good editing. But none of that really gives me a right to nastily lash out at people who do enjoy the books (although sometimes I want to, with certain people).
Re: This comment is not so much directed at *you* as at the mentality of the article
Date: 2011-01-18 08:34 pm (UTC)Re: This comment is not so much directed at *you* as at the mentality of the article
Date: 2011-01-18 08:40 pm (UTC)Re: This comment is not so much directed at *you* as at the mentality of the article
Date: 2011-01-19 03:46 am (UTC)I really dislike that mindset.
Like a lot of people in here, I used to really enjoy LKH. (I read the first three each in a night when my medication post-wisdom-teeth-removal made it impossible for me to sleep) But when they started getting super repetitive, when I started learning more about LKH's sexual tastes than I wanted to know (the oh-so-lovingly detailed fellatio and group sex scenes which I basically felt were Not Sexy), I finally had to give up. The pregnancy scare in Danse Macabre and pretty much everything after that did me in.
The stories simply aren't good any more, especially since no one important is ever in any real danger.
If I want to read something with good characterization (no cardboard cutouts), good dialogue, decent sex scenes, and a story that keeps me involved - I'll pick up a Nora Roberts book any day.
Re: This comment is not so much directed at *you* as at the mentality of the article
Date: 2011-01-18 08:37 pm (UTC)Style alone, however, doesn't work.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 09:46 pm (UTC)Re: This comment is not so much directed at *you* as at the mentality of the article
Date: 2011-01-18 09:53 pm (UTC)Beats the hell out of me, but apparently some people do read for something other than plot, judging by the number of books I've come across that never bothered to have one. (The Master Butcher's Signing Club, I am so looking at you . . .)
Re: This comment is not so much directed at *you* as at the mentality of the article
Date: 2011-01-19 05:37 am (UTC)I've seen too many of these idiots on twitter to be convinced any of them have any worth whatsoever.
Re: This comment is not so much directed at *you* as at the mentality of the article
Date: 2011-01-19 06:17 am (UTC)I have a hell of a lot more respect for people who are aware of the difference between the objective and the subjective worth of a story. If you can recognize a book is bad and love it anyway (in spite of and/or because of it's faults), more power to you. I just like people who are capable of reading critically.
Re: This comment is not so much directed at *you* as at the mentality of the article
Date: 2011-01-19 06:26 am (UTC)Typing fail.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 12:43 am (UTC)This is precisely why my husband hates to read - because an English teacher back in high school told him that sci-fi wasn't worth reading and wouldn't let him do a report on it. He loves sci-fi (Clarke and Asimov especially) and can't get enough of it - and it's only recently that he's started to read as a fun pastime.
For my part, I try to encourage him to read whatever the hell he wants to read, and discuss it with him to the best of my abilities. It's almost like saying, "Hey, it's totally all right for you to have an opinion about the use of descriptors in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and for us to compare the movie and the book to one another and ask questions about symbolism."
no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 02:06 am (UTC)Tea. All over the computer. You win an internet! XD
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 06:46 pm (UTC)Preference for so-called bad books is an interesting phenom to explore, but this seems more of a credo about genre vs. literature.
And a fast read doesn't immediately become bad, and flow? Isn't flow supposed to be good? Maybe I spent too long in poetry, but flow is a word I heard all the time in regards to the cadence of the words. It's something I often think of when reading.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-18 10:32 pm (UTC)I don't care what people are reading as long as they are READING! And understanding! And enjoying it! Some people get so caught up in what you should read that they forget many people can't read, or don't have time to read, or hate reading. There are people in the world, girls and boys, men and women, who can't read and because of that they are not able to advance past where they are and get to where they might want to be.
READING IS GOOD! READING books or magazines or manuals or newspapers or comics or the placards in art museums or the backs of milk cartons is good!
Okay! That is my passionate outpouring of response to this debate...back to work! :)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 06:53 am (UTC)Actually (and interestingly), Nancy Pearl, who is a goddess of the library world, said in a very interesting speech that there are 4 doorwayss to reading (ie 4 ways that people choose to come into a book)- plot, character, setting, and style. For many people, plot is the most important thing, but for others, it's one of the other ones.
I found this interesting because I realized that I couldn't ignore style, whereas I tend to be more forgiving about the other three. Yes, I want a good plot and believable characters and setting, and I'll likely stop reading at some point if I don't get those things, but I can't even get past the first page if I don't like the author's style. I can't read Nora Roberts or her JD Robb books, even though her plots sound pretty good, the characters, from the little I read, were not bad, the setting seemed ok -- but I just did not like her style and had to quit after a page or two.
I found Nancy Pearl's talk very valuable in making me realize that not everyone reads the same way I do. It was an "ah hah" moment.
If anyone's interested, I found a little recap of Nancy Pearl's talk here - http://mvls.blogspot.com/2008/05/sue-speaks-nancy-pearl-entry-1.html
no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 02:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 07:01 am (UTC)But, the LOTR movies were really good. :)
no subject
Date: 2011-01-19 07:13 pm (UTC)I'd just like to say that I don't think the majority of people who are still buying Hamilton's books are hardcore fans who think she's a genius or an inspiration, or that Anita Blake is character to be emulated. I don't have any proof for this, though. But many people who are voracious readers of genre fiction just read anything that crosses their radar. Hamilton is fairly popular, so they see a familiar name and get the book. And I don't think these people are sheep, necessarily. I have one reader at the library where I work who's a good example of this: she reads pretty much any new thriller or mystery or domestic drama book that comes out, because reading's her escape, her version of zoning out in front of the t.v. And she's a highly intelligent woman in her seventies who still works a demanding and stressful social services job. She just happens to like to devour books for escapism. (Though not LKH as far as I've noticed! But other stuff just as vacuous.) I know another who is a huge fan - but she reads tons of paranormal romance and other romance. I doubt she's as invested in LKH as the average person who posts here. It's just brain candy to her. Another cheesy series to pass the time.
Hell, I found the books entertaining up and through to "Incubus Dreams" before I'd had enough. Other people's tolerance for LKH ended much earlier. I just can't judge someone because they still like something I find distasteful.
I guess I have a problem with what I consider to be the "fallacy of the troo fan". I think these fans are in the minority, and don't account for the bulk of the sales. They just stick out more because they come off as so goofy. It's kind of like when the Michael Jackson molestation trial was going on, and the news showed rabid fans camped outside his compound in support. Most fans wouldn't consider doing that - they just bought albums and concert tickets, but he wasn't their life.
I find the constant rape apologism in LKH's books disturbing, and people trying to justify it scary. But it's not like it's produced in a vacuum - there's thousands of other culture messages saying the same damaging stuff - girls cry rape arbitrarily; men can't be victimized; women are catty and competitive and can never be friends; you're a slut if you want it; all gay men need is a good fuck from a woman. Etc. Hamilton's books aren't inventing these notions, they're just holding a mirror up to some of the uglier attitudes in our culture. I can find other mass media examples upholding these attitudes in television commercials, mainstream porn, popular music, fim & t.v., literary fiction, and mass media interpretations of scientific studies rewritten as pop evo psych.
Doesn't mean that LKH doesn't suck or seem to have (judging from her work) really damaging and bullshit attitudes. Just that her promoting these ideas is a drop in the bucket, unfortunately. Not giving her an out - she's morally culpable for promoting some awful ideas. But I don't think she's that influential, and in fact any influence she has would be negated if the same awful sexist creepy shit wasn't so ubiquitous.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-20 10:21 am (UTC)because i have YET to read a "literature" book that didn't fit into a genre.
just sayin'