Taking Out the Trash ( a further reflection on objectivity)

The ability to separate the subjective from the objective is something that most people cannot do. Okay, maybe "cannot" is the wrong word, but "do not" is certainly accurate. Actually, I think "cannot" is accurate, but I think it's only accurate in that most people have never learned to do it. Studies tend to indicate that many people simply cannot learn the skill, though, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to go that far. At any rate, for our purposes here (or my purposes, at any rate) "cannot" is the applicable word.

When doing reviews and making suggestions, I think this is something that's invaluable and something that needs to be distinguished. There is a difference between "I like this" and "this is good." Good, in this sense, being a qualitative, objective measure.

Most people don't see it that way, though. For most people, if they arrive at "I like this" it also means "this is good" and, likewise, "I don't like this" means "this is bad." This is why "everything is subjective" has become such an important mantra for writers and, well, all the arts. It's just not that easy, though, and people really do need to learn how to tell the difference between what is good and what they like.

Michael Offutt often talks about all the trashy TV he likes to watch. He kind of even glories in it sometimes. One of the things I really appreciate about him is his ability to say, "Hey, this is trash, but I like it anyway." That's an amazing thing that you just don't see a lot of people doing. You don't see people doing it, because, if they like it, they, for whatever reason, need to defend it and elevate it above trash. As my wife says, "It's okay to like trash as long as you acknowledge that it's trash."

Sir Peter Stothard, the chair for this year's Man Booker Prize, says, "It is wonderful that there are so many blogs and websites devoted to books, but to be a critic is to be importantly different than those sharing their own taste... Not everyone's opinion is worth the same." He adds, "As much as one would like to think that many bloggers opinions are as good as others, it just ain't so." As snobby and elitist as it may sound, I agree with him.

After all, there is a reason we go to a doctor when we're sick and not the grandmother down the street.

There is a reason we talk to astrophysicists about the origin of the universe and not the backyard astronomer next door.

Not everyone's opinion is worth the same.

Sure, only you can decide what you like, but you liking it doesn't somehow make it better than it is. A turd is still a turd even if you paint it gold.

No, all of this doesn't take away a degree of subjectivity that hangs around any artistic endeavor, but it's not all subjective, and people kind of need to own up to that.

For instance, even if you don't like The Lord of the Rings, you can't actually deny that it is a great work. Well, you can try, but that's sort of like trying to deny that 2+2=4. This is not a subjective view. Tolkien did something in creating Middle Earth that has never been equaled. The scope of his creation is staggering, the writing is intricate and wonderfully descriptive, the tale is timeless. I get that it might bore some of you, but your personal reaction to it doesn't make it "bad" as much as you might like or want to think so.

Also, as much as you might like The Hunger Games or Fifty Shades of Grey, it doesn't make it "good." It's kind of like eating candy or smoking; just because you like it doesn't mean you should try to fool yourself into thinking that it's good for you. Just own it. "This is bad, and I like it."

All of this brings me to the point, which is something I've said before, but I want to make clear again: my basic way of evaluating books. I say basic because it is a little more complex than this, because not everything breaks easily into good or bad or like or dislike, but I'm sure you can get the idea. So here is how I look at a book as I'm reading it and, then, reviewing it:

1. This is good, and I like it.
2. This is good, but I don't like it.
3. This is bad, and I don't like it.
4. This is bad, but I do like it.

This is important because, as I said back at the beginning, most people can't differentiate like this. Most people see "like=good" and "dislike=bad," and those things are not necessarily the truth. Yes, it is true that most often, if something is good, I will like it, and, if something is bad, I won't like it. BUT
As my wife says, I like the Dresden books, and it's debatable as to whether those fall into the "good" category. They are decidedly pulp fiction, that's how they're written, and many people consider that a lower art form, which goes back to subjectivity, but they're well written pulp fiction, and Butcher does deal with important issues. His problem is that he can get preachy about them and go on for pages, and, then, it falls into the category of bad, because he's stepped outside of his story so that he, the author, can lecture us. But, see, I like them anyway. My wife does not. They are my junk food books when I just need something fun to read. But, see, I know that, and I'm not trying to make them into more than they are.

The complication of all of this is that good and bad are opposite ends of a spectrum as are like and dislike, so it can all get kind of muddled. However, it is important to at least make the attempt to separate your subjectivity of an experience from the objective reality of it. Like being scared of a roller coaster. Subjectively, you may be so scared you're peeing your pants, but, objectively, you can look at the thousands and thousands of people riding and not dying and know that the chance of you dying is actually pretty small.

Common Zeitgeist

I have a confession to make. Before I do, though, let me make it abundantly clear that it is only a confession because my wife makes me feel guilt over this issue. I would imagine that others of you out there like me feel no guilt whatsoever over this particular issue nor do you (probably) have anyone in your life that makes you feel guilt for this. It's a subject of interest to me, though, because it deals with the different tastes that people have in reading. The confession? I'm a fan of The Dresden Files. No, not the abysmal and ill-conceived television series, the books.

I just finished Proven Guilty, last week, and am about halfway through White Night. However, I don't think my wife even managed to finish Storm Front. There are a lot of reasons I like the series. Primarily, I like it because it's not static. Often, books of this type are so episodic that the characters never change or grow. You take the same character(s) from one book and transplant it exactly as it is into the next one. That was fine when I was a kid reading The Hardy Boys, but I'm a bit beyond that, now. I appreciate that Butcher allows for change and growth both in his main character and in his supporting characters.

Of course, my wife is not wrong when she, basically, lumps Dresden into the pulp fiction category; it is. I know pulp fiction has pretty much always been looked down upon, but I don't have a problem with that form of entertainment the way my wife does. Yes, pulp fiction can be... well, I suppose there's no other way to say it... bad... just bad, but! it's not always bad. What I mean is that I don't think there's any real significant difference in the proportion of the good/bad between pulp fiction and any other kind of fiction. For instance, I'm pretty sure that no one would lump William Gibson into any kind of pulp fiction category. He's pretty "high brow" reading by most standards. I don't find his current work at all engaging, though. My response to Pattern Recognition was so neutral that I don't have anything I can even say about it. I'm not sure why I finished it. My wife didn't, although it certainly falls within her reading tastes. I'm having the same reaction to Spook Country. I did almost put that one down, but I'm really bad about not finishing a book once I've started it no matter how bad it is (ask my wife), so here I am 20 pages from the end of it and no more engaged in it than I was after the first 20 pages. I'm not sure if my wife made it 20 pages in before she put it down. The real problem, though, is that I can't even say they're "bad" books. They're well written. They just don't engage. At the end of both of these books, my response is that nothing really happened. The plot just flatlines all the way along.

But I digress...

Dresden. Well, Butcher. Let me step back a moment.

I started planning my book in the fall of 2009. At the time, I didn't really know anything about The Dresden Files. I knew it kept popping up on my suggested viewing on Netflix and that it was based on some books, but that's about it. However, I bought the first two books in the series for my oldest son for Christmas that year since, I figured, it was the kind of thing he'd be into. [Books are included as part of Christmas for all of our kids every year. It's tradition.]

I started writing The House on the Corner in February of 2010 and picked up Storm Front to read somewhere around the same time, based on my son's approval of the book. Besides, I wanted to see what it was exactly that I'd given him to read. It became immediately apparent that Butcher and I were operating under the same zeitgeist with our books. Magic in a modern world setting. Pop culture references. But, then, he's of an age with me, so that doesn't surprise me. At any rate, the Dresden books resonate with me because of that. I like their feel.
Of course, as a writer, I also find the books somewhat frustrating for that very reason. The more of them I read, the more similarities of design I find. I finished The House on the Corner at the end of July 2010 (a few days after my van blew up while I was inside it), and I'd probably read the first four Dresden books by that time. The conflict between magic and religion, which I touch on in my book, is brought into Grave Peril. And, as I said, I just finished Proven Guilty, more than 6 months after I finished my book and 2 months after making my book publicly available, and I've found another similar theme. So, yes, it appears that Jim Butcher and I have been eating from the same table for quite a while. But, you know what? I really don't mind that. In the end, my book has no overt resemblance to his. The kid heroes in mine aren't detectives, and I have no plan on writing crime novels. I do enjoy reading his, though. Sometime or other, I'm going to have to try out his high fantasy series and see what I think about that. I'll let you know when I do.