Why Does Difficult Equal Good?
Disclosure: I have not read The Hours by Michael Cunningham. After sitting through all 400 hours of the movie and hating almost every minute of it, I decided never to read The Hours by Michael Cunningham. Yeah, I know about the Pulitzer and the 1.5 million copies sold. Stories that center solely around suicide and women in despair just don’t work for me.
The Washington Post did a feature on Cunningham yesterday so I’m guessing I’m alone. The article discussed the surprising success of The Hours. Despite my feelings on the movie, I appreciate how amazing it is when a book explodes onto the scene like this one did. A book The Post describes as a "combination of narrative complexity, self-consciously literary theme and highbrow presiding spirit." Cunningham pared it down a bit:
I think it’s safe to say nobody connected with The Hours expected it to do much more than sell a few thousand copies and march, with whatever dignity it could muster, to the remainders table.
He also talked about his new book Specimen Days. I’m not going to describe it. Go here and try to figure it out yourself. In chatting about his newest, Cunningham said to write a book that’s "maybe a little difficult" and people might still read it. This sounds a bit like Oprah’s theory on the Toni Morrison picks for her Book Club (see: Beloved or any of them, really).
Cunningham was speaking in general terms but this theory of writing - this idea of being purposely obtuse - is one I don’t understand. I’m not saying everyone should write the book version of USA Today. I’m not saying books shouldn’t challenge and educate us. I’m just wondering about promoting an idea of writing that depends on people not understanding you. What does that do exactly?
Though Cunningham didn’t come right out and say it, the implication was that popular fiction amounted to a waste of time and intellect. With respect to Cunningham, I don’t get this theory either. There should be room for both. The litmus test for whether or not something is well written shouldn’t be based only on a scale of how incomprehensible it is. Maybe - just maybe - some of these works that purport to be so far above us intellectually really aren’t so well written after all. Seems to me a book can inform and shock and push the boundaries of our understanding. Those are all positive things if that’s the type of book you’re looking for in that moment. But, if readers actually can’t understand what an author is trying to convey, how well written is the book really? Just a thought.
July 12th, 2005 at 9:59 am
Don’t feel bad about not having read The Hours. I read it for a book club I was in, and while I appreciated it for the complexity of the storytelling - he was able to connect three seemingly unconnected women, one of whom was dead - the story itself was just kind of depressing. I went to see the movie wanting to know how in the world they would translate the book onto film, and other than the acting, again my response was “meh”.
I tend to find writers who disparage other forms of writing, well, can I say this here?…pompous asshats. I mean, no one has to like or appreciate every form of writing out there. But to imply that their form is superior whilst another form is inferior smacks of self-importance that is annoying in any instance. And since I’m clearly not intelligent enough to understand Cunningham’s books, being that I do understand romance novels, I guess I’ll spend my stupid dollars on stupid books.
July 12th, 2005 at 10:49 am
I loved The Hours. Read it ages before it was made into a movie, and to this day I haven’t bothered to see the movie because I love the book so much that there’s no way it can live up to my expectations. So anyway, much fangirl love for that book. But then I’m the infidel who doesn’t appreciate Nora, Linda or Suzanne, so never mind all my quacking.
I can appreciate writing that’s difficult to read if it serves a purpose. Books written in dialect, for example (it took me a little while to get into the rhythm of certain stories in Trainspotting, which were written pretty much phonetically) or stream-of-consciousness narratives (The Sound and the Fury). Sometimes, however, some books strike as just too self-conscious about their obscurity, structure and/or language, like The English Patient or The Stone Diaries, in which case my patience burns out real quick.
I tend to read and love books on a wide spectrum. Michael Cunningham on one end, Dara Joy on the other….
July 13th, 2005 at 8:10 am
Candy - Dara Joy? I read Knight Of A Trillion Stars (believe it or not) but that’s it.
I just had a feeling you liked this book. Maybe you want to go in my place with the hubby to some of the upcoming movies he wants to see - no? Please…
You made my point exactly and Lynn’s too, I think. If it’s difficult for a reason and not just to prove how highbrow it is, then that’s great. I do wish, on the back end, authors of popular fiction and literary fiction would learn to appreciate each other and understand the work of each has value.
Lynn - You’re certainly not stupid. You don’t like his style and that should be okay. My frustration is when its somehow not okay for you to have an opinion.