I’m dragging myself through an “award-winning” “best-selling” “recommended” book I got from the library and wishing I hadn’t. (Yes I know those phrases mean little and I can stop, though I’m nearing the end after hoping it would stop being so hopeless. Yes I can be naively optimistic ;) .) The characters and story are all stereotypes and clichés. It’s not realistic or slice of life.
The Korean drama I’m watching is top rated on MyDramaList and is well done but it also tells a sad story every episode. I’m halfway through and I don’t think it’s that much better than some lower rated ones with more moments of happiness.
Anyway, this has me thinking about whether there’s a general trend to regard books - stories of any kind really, including real life ones - as “better” if they upset us.
Among a certain demographic in the US, there’s a lingering concept of adulthood which suggests that anything people actually enjoy and that makes us happy is childish; that, beyond a few, specific, pre-approved hobbies, our lives are not sufficiently “adult” if we’re not constantly miserable.
I kind of feel like this thing you’ve noticed about books is in the same ballpark. Reading is not one of those “approved” hobbies, so the best books are the books that make us sad, upset, or otherwise disgruntled. If they don’t, they’re not serious and adult enough. Which is why various parties did a Big Concern back in the late 90s when Harry Potter first got popular and a ton of, gasp, adults were reading it. Local news stations bemoaned the phenomenon as evidence of all sorts of uncouth things, from taking stabs at the adult literacy rate to pondering what factors made people not want to “grow up”. Anecdotally, I endured similar complaints from multiple people in my own life, including older co-workers and my ex-wife (this pattern being one of the first times I noticed a generation-based values divide).
Considering that the top literature reviewers, publication editors, literature professors, and award committees are more likely to belong to the same demographic, it’s not surprising that sad, “serious” books get all the good press and books that are actually fun to read get panned.
“When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” -C. S. Lewis
Exactly. Said it better than I could have.
There’s a societal view that play is for kids. We need more adults playing! Play is so important for mental health and building social bonds.
It’s a shame some adults only play when there’s the “excuse” of playing with children. Even worse are parents who won’t play with their own kids.
I think “fun books” fall prey to the same cultural bias.
It wasn’t a literary novel which inspired my post. Reading not an “approved” hobby? I suppose they wouldn’t approve of Oscar Wilde or even Jane Austen then.
All of this about a “certain demographic in the US” feels very culture war and it’s drive towards the negative so I’d best stay schtum rather than walk into one of those.
I tried to be as oblique as possible, given that my sample size, no matter how big it seems to me, is very small; only 40-50 people out of 350,000,000, though a large number of local news broadcasts back in the day decrying the trend of adults reading “children’s books” in their spare time may mean something (or it may not).
But yes, you’re right: The complaints/disdain have come exclusively from one specific generational demographic (if the bit about my ex-wife was confusing, she’s more than a decade older than me). Maybe I just haven’t met the Gen Zs who are actively upset that grown-ups are reading novels other than “the classics”, period pieces (specifically romances), and westerns. They very well could be out there in incredible, unfathomable numbers, spoiling the pattern that I believe I have seen based on my limited worldview.
So please, feel free to offer your own competing explanation for why fanciful and enjoyable books are so frequently snubbed by reviewers, etc., and why the “best” books are the ones that range from super sad to borderline unreadable experiments in frustrating your publisher’s typesetter.
I don’t have a “competing explanation”, except that it’s not likely to be as simple as laying it on a particular demographic or certain professions. Very little ever is.
Read back, I asked a question - is there a trend/tendency towards. Everyone who’s responded has gone straight to reasons why.
I’m also not inclined towards your snarky extremes, equating fanciful and enjoyable and setting them against the saddest and hardest to read.
i think this ties back to the idea that suffering is noble and enlightening, somehow. the flip side of that is the idea that nothing important or meaningful can be conveyed through happiness. i don’t think that’s true, but i guess a lot of people do.
Christianity has that element (from Greek philosophy) and because of it, much of western culture. I think we’d do well to collectively re-focus on sharing happy things. Would change our societies for the better. We can still be serious when needed; we’d have more energy for it if we stopped wearing ourselves out on stressful “entertainment”.
In that vein, here’s my current feel better go-to, Paolo Nutini’s Pencil Full of Lead :) https://piped.adminforge.de/watch?v=fR2j2eTfbKo
I definitely agree. Back in school I learned that a Newbury medal in a book meant that a dog and/or parental figure will die. I feel like it’s easier to make people feel something when the feeling is bad. Also joyful things are sometimes thought to be lesser or simple.
If anyone is a fan of scifi I recommend checking out Becky Chambers. A Psalm for the Wild Built is an optimistic solar punk book that will warm your heart.
I got myself onto the city library system’s e-book app specifically to read Becky Chambers (city closed our local branch so getting and returning physical books is difficult for me). There is no Becky Chambers on that app, nor anything else I searched for. Which is how I ended up with the one I found such a depressing slog.
Not sure it really is easier to make people feel something good. Live music can really do that. Comedic opera thrives on it. Chinese and Korean dramas can dive deep into grief but also soar with joy.
Perhaps it’s more that when we’ve put unnecessarily put ourselves through something difficult, we’re inclined to justify it by according it more significance? Not sure, thinking out loud here.
I think it could be that we relate more deeply to characters who struggle through difficult situations just as we struggle through difficult situations in life. Also how a character deals with or overcomes difficult/painful situations defines them and gives them depth. Thats my two cents anyway.
Why though? Maybe it’s more conditioning than anything inherent? That we’re fully capable of relating deeply to joy as well. Happiness can be shallow but doesn’t have to be, like when we open ourselves to love and a relationship. Why do we tend to not see that as having depth as well?
That’s true. So maybe it’s because you can’t really know happiness or appreciate it without having pain and sadness to compare it to. So like reading about sad or painful things also helps us appreciate things more. Like waking up from a nightmare and realizing it wasn’t real. It’s a relief. Or maybe it’s just schadenfreude.
Maybe it’s how far along I am in life, but I certainly have plenty of pain and sadness for comparison purposes already.
I don’t really do schadenfreude, but clearly other people do, so I suppose maybe that’s part of it? Bit scary if it is, if seeing other people in pain is a positive experience for many.
Either way, this is different to the idea of “better”. Yes, books about difficult things are important. They’re part of how we learn about ourselves and each other. I think we’ve gone too far in that direction and we really need more emphasis on models of positive emotions and interactions.Yeah I agree. I’ve often thought it would be cool to see a really good utopian novel rather than the usual dystopian.
If anything it’s the reverse I’d think. Just look at books without a Happily Ever After and how that’s looked down on, and why its a requirement for Romance publishers.