Of good books and bad books

[katikat]

Why are only the books that don't have a happy end considered "good", "well-written" and "realistic"? Why do these "serious" readers not like a happy end? Why is a tragic love story better than the one where the couple ends up happily ever after? Why does the main character have to "search for their identity" all the time? And why do readers read books they know from the beginning they won't like?

Comments

[kracken.livejournal.com]

Someone once told me that the happy ending of my book was cliche' and boring, because it was a happy ending. O_o' I don't think I'm alone in not wanting to read or watch movies without happy endings, so I don't get it, myself.

[seraphim-grace.livejournal.com]

I suppose it's because it's harder to write the expanses of human emotion than just joy, we tend to look at books with "happy" endings as being written for the masses, pulp you might say, it's not that they're not good, it's that they have little shelf life. People will read a happy ending book once and then discard it, they might pass it to their friends, but a book that strikes a chord, that takes their own misery, their own self doubt, their own fears and explodes them large they will read time and time again.
But not all literary "classics" have unhappy endings, I can think of a fair few that end nicely, Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre sees her married to Mr Rochester, Captain Corelli's mandolin sees them together at the end (and that is a wonderful novel)
the difference between drama and melodrama is the shifting of roles, from protagonist, to antagonist to crux. People must change to switch roles, they have to learn, and truth be told if Nurse Brown meets Dr Smith and they live happily ever after despite initial reticence on the part of their friends what have they earned of the relationship.
Anything worth having has to be earned or it's worthless. That I think is why (although the searching for their identity can be terrible)

[merith.livejournal.com]

a good book is one that keeps you riveted to it, makes you miss sleep, and makes you think about it long after you've finished it. happy endings, not so happy/realistic endings - it doesn't matter.

however, if we're talking pulizter material, literary award type books, it's more of what sephrim's said. it's man's fallacy that 'true love' ends happily, when the truth is - most of the time it doesn't. there is death and hurt, and the emergence of growth that always brings pain.

happily ever after stories remind us that it is a fallcy, that it isn't going to happy... not really. but, we still enjoy those stories because we wish it to be there. to apply our own lives to the story we're reading/seeing.

as for the why we read what we're not going to like... could be because we're all a little bit masochistic. :)

[xtrek.livejournal.com]

I've always asked those questions myself and sadly I don't think that there is a sufficient answer (and maybe they are rhetorical anyway?!).
It would be fair to judge books after the quality of their story (of the tale they tell) but most critics judge from a certain literary tradition and an accepted canon of 'good' books and forget about the simple things that make books readable. In the end it's all about story telling and has always been.
Sometimes I think critics love only complicated books (they get paid for analyzing complex plots, characters, etc. otherwise they wouldn't be needed). I guess that's why I don't trust book reviews and the like. I want something unique that not everyone likes and I really prefer happy endings.
The whole 'identity' discussion is basically crap. What is 'identity' and do you really have to look for it? It gets boring after the 10th book on the topic. Like the whole 'I was born in the GDR - where is my identity?' literature.
As to why people read books they don't like: some think it's better to have read the boring canon because it makes them look intelligent. I don't think it's because someone really discovers their love for e.g. Goethe.
Here's a quote from 'Xenophobe's guide to the Germans' that illustrates 'our' behavior towards literature: German readers are happiest when they know that every penny spent on a book has brought them an hour's worth of hard, self-improving labour.
I like reading for the pleasure of it and I don't get people that can't at least understnad that position.

[disutansu.livejournal.com]

I say that readers, at least some of them, are masochistic. They read something they know they won't like, just to complain about it. Flames much? *doesn't understand*

And true that real life isn't all about positive things but things don't necessarily end horribly either. Either why, we all judge what good/bad books are by ourselves. No one can tell us different when we believe a book is good/bad. ^_^

[klingonpoo.livejournal.com]

I need a happy ending. If it doesn't have one, I don't want to read it or watch it. I have real life for sadness. I don't want it in my entertainment.

[matimate.livejournal.com]

Blood, gore and suffering...yeah fine stuff.
Well lets take things seriously. It depends on the mood but I generally dislike fantasy and scifi books, only few of them are according to my tastes. I am picky and it is hard for me to go trough the fantasy trash. I like some fantsy stuff....but ...it give me pains when author is trying to solve mysteries of the universe with elegance of blind elephant in the pottery.There are several genres of the literature which can be overfilled with very bad books it is mainly scifi, fantasy, novel for women aka bodice rippers fantasies and some wild wild west stories. I think there will be more of it.

Speaking about endings. It depends on the story. I think if ending is bent either way and does not fit to the story it spoils the fun.

[katikat.livejournal.com]

If a happy ending is cliché, then I will take cliché any day, thank you :( Why is it so bad when books end good? I mean, the real life is miserable enough. I don't need to identify myself with the characters. I need to enjoy them!

[katikat.livejournal.com]

Well, from my own experience, the books that are considered excellent by the critics are mostly unreadable, films unwatchable. How many of these classics would kids/students really ready if not forced by their teachers? Here, Alois Jirásek is considered the classic among classics. To actually read his books is for 99 % of our population punishment worse than death, thank you :( For me, a good book is one that I like, not one that so called experts consider good. And since I have weird tastes the recommended books usually don't fit my parameters :(

[katikat.livejournal.com]

Well, I'll take the makes-me-lose-sleep books over the pulitzer price stories any time. For me, these two categories never match XP

[katikat.livejournal.com]

I hope I won't ever have to read the famous, praised authors like Goethe or Th. Mann. Igit! Give me gay porn any time :D

[katikat.livejournal.com]

I agree. Every one should chose what they like themselves. It's when the so called experts start calling you dumb when you don't read the stuff they rec. I would take a good gay romance over critically aclaimed books about a gay man searching for his identity any time. Does it make me shallow? So what. I have enough miserable stuff in my RL, I don't have to spend time reading about it too!

[katikat.livejournal.com]

Me too! A happy ending is a must-have! I always read the last page of a book first to learn if it ends well. And I always try to find someone who read the book I want to buy to ask if it has a happy ending or not. When not, thank you, you can keep it :D

[katikat.livejournal.com]

Well, you know me. If it doesn't have a happy ending, it's not for me. Remember me asking if the bro survives in Ayashi no Ceres? After what you told me, I still haven't watched it :D

[xtrek.livejournal.com]

I second that. There's nothing like a healthy dose of gay porn to brighten up a day.

[matimate.livejournal.com]

You should watch it even if it is little ehm it has happy ending but in anime style:P I know that you like happy endings, I like them too in a way. I think seeking happy endings is good for improving mood. I must confess I am still on by buckled shoes, stockings and tall ships fetish:) Napoleonic wars and those British sailors...you know small wooden world without women or they are not mentioned and those male bondings and particular friendships ...slash ahead. I have big imagination in such things:P

[klingonpoo.livejournal.com]

I do the same thing! I'm not going to buy the last Harry Potter book until I find out who dies. If she kills off Harry, I'll never read it.

[seraphim-grace.livejournal.com]

i can think of loads of "classics" that I wouldn't read again under torture, most Dickens, Sister Carrie, the jungle, the octopus.
but for all the crap ones there usually is a star and someone had to like them along the way.
but then again, in English, there are a lot of classics that aren't openly recognised as such and read for fun and passed about, like Rebecca (I was really surprised to find out how old it was) people do read Jane Austen and Wuthering heights for fun, maybe not Charlotte Bronte, or Lorna Doone, or Brave new world.
Often experts will call a book "good" because it has a secret message, something underlying but that doesn't make it readable.
I like old novels, but if they're dire I'll stop and wander off and read something else, I'm as happy knee deep in Thomas Hardy as I am with Anne Rice (although I'd be happier with hardy without all the greek references which are there, I'm sure, to pad his wordcount - I do not need to know that Eustacia climbed the hill and turned her face towards the sun like Clytemnestra in love with apollo)

[seraphim-grace.livejournal.com]

I can't stand either of them, Mann is so windy, but there are a lot of gay porn literary novels, by authors like James Baldwin (who i adore) and Gore Vidal, or Truman Capote
Look at Brokeback Mountain.
but if i was to recommend one I'd say read Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin, which is haunting. I couldn't put it down.
Or for a straight novel I couldn't put down and read bits out - The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford.

[seraphim-grace.livejournal.com]

the ending has to fit the story, I don't care if it's happy or not, it has to fit. There is nothing worse than a tacked on ending.
On the whole people tend to look at books as being more "literary" than films which is rubbish, I can show you pulp novels from the 1820's as happily as i can from yesterday, this doesn't make the books rubbish, I can think of some great pulp novels that I've loved, but it doesn't make them lasting.
Look at Virginia Andrews (and i have read them all) 11 books, all best sellers, but are they any good in a literary sense? No, they're populist crap, she went out of her way to find things that would make her audience go ooh, ahh, but yet she sold millions of copies and there is an age when you're 14 or so when everyone reads them. They're passed about like contraband and then you all sit around talking about the bit where Heaven caught Tony in his wife's nightgown.
THey're fun books, but they didn't set the world alight, they didn't touch some part of you deep inside. And a "good" book will do that, and often they're as much fun as Virginia andrews (who makes me cry) I'm currently reading Anne Rice, not some obscure author who wrote one book before a hideous nervous breakdown. I read books for fun, and some of them touch me, and some of them amuse me, that's the difference.

[katikat.livejournal.com]

Okay, tell me more about the nightgown thingy! *snickers*