D Grades

Continuing in the analysis of why I give certain grades to books I read. This installment will concentrate on 'D' grades.

'D' is for 'D'amn I wasted my time. For the most part. You know, I think it's very hard for any story or novel to earn a 'D' or 'F' from me. Both grades basically mean the author failed at the very basics of storytelling. I think, as giving 'A' grades is, that failing grades are a good deal visceral. No, I take that back. 'F' grades are not visceral because I can usually pinpoint a reason why they fail outright. 'D' grades are different.

Well, I guess 'D' is for 'D'ifferent, then. A story I would give a 'D' grade to is John Barth's On with the Story. One reason is because I pretty much universally hate John Barth's writing. But there is a reason. It's a deeply personal reason, though, which is why it wouldn't get the grade of 'F.' Remember, I try to separate my emotions from my reasoning. The reason for Barth's failing is that he uses meta-fiction, but uses it in such a patronizing and atagonizing way that I feel insulted everytime his authorial voice interjects.

You see, Barth likes to tell readers how beneath his ability of thinking the readers must be. I mean that, literally. He will intereject to say things like, "I know you probably aren't following the story so I'll explain things again...." Except the characters are just talking on an airplane so what's so fucking complicated? If you wanted to make a statement about the world in general and were afraid your readers wouldn't get it through metaphor, why didn't you write an essay? Don't fucking give me an essay in the middle of the story.

I hate John Barth.

But the narration and story itself aren't unreadable. It's just so frustratingly condescending that I can barely force myself through it.

The opposite can be true, too, though. A novel could (and none come to mind) be so beautifully written but so confusingly subtle or disorganized that it becomes unreadable between the beautiful parts. This is a visceral reaction because I want to like it but just plain can't. Maybe The Sound and the Fury. I know, that's like blasphemy to say I hate that book, but nonetheless, I do. The idea is brilliant but I just...don't...have the patience for it. However, I love As I Lay Dying, which is equally as strange and disjointed but Addie's chapter in the middle just plain brings everything together in a way I don't remember Sound ever being able to do.

So 'F' grades are a colder "This just didn't work" than 'D' grades. 'D' grades are for that novel, the title of I can't remember, where these alien vampire things lived in a cave in, like, France or Germany or somewhere and all I really remember is the final shotgun scene because the writing was just so awful. It was like a fourth grader wrote it.

Let me explain something where I will sound condescending but tough luck. I can spot an amateur (read, a skilled writer) from a mile and many editors away. I make a distinction between skilled and talented and even gifted writers. I won't go into complete detail in this post but will someday. But just know that I really believe in a difference between writers who are good at employing a technique and writers who don't need techniques because they have style. In the novel above, the author kept trying to employ techniques like exposition in dialogue and suspenseful narration and descriptive setting. And what it came out sounding like was that kind of "Pow! Zing! Bam!" kind of writing and it wasn't done masterfully, like he was imitating a comic book. It was done because he thought those techniques were cool and how real writers write and he'd be a real writer the more he used them.

Well, no, not if it's obvious. I was, cruelly, laughing out loud and some of the awful writing. My visceral reaction was pity. In grad school, there weren't enough poetry, fiction, or non-fiction workshops for any student to concentrate in one area so we all crossed paths into different genres. I remember being so angry at some of my fellow students who were poets forced into fiction workshop. I wasn't angry they were in my genre but more that they were trying to write how they thought fiction sounded instead of just writing poetry in prose form. I was angry at myself for this very same thing when I was in non-fiction classes because I convinced myself non-fiction had to sound different than fiction. What came out in both instances was forced and unnatural-sounding writing because it wasn't the voice of the author on the page. Obviously. It was, instead, bad imitation.

I think that may be what earns most 'D' books/stories their grades. For the most part something about them is bad imitation. Barth's stories so badly want to imitate an essay but do it so poorly he comes off condescending. The vampire novel wanted to sound like a "serious" author but came off sounding like a child. I wanted to sound like a "true" story but came off sounding like I was lying to myself. And I was. And the vampire novelist was, and John Barth was. Lying to themselves, that is.

I guess, then, 'D' is for 'D'eception.