Interesting...

[telophase]

Perhaps apropos to my previous post, I just ran across a comment by hapax on the Slacktiverse, to a post about the book Twilight. In part:

I really don't think Meyer's writing is shallow at all. I would instead call it exceptionally "porous"; it is, as many people have pointed out, so lightly sketched that it is very easy for the reader to project their own fantasies, desires, and concerns (or, with some of her critics, their own anxieties and wounds).

Which is why I also can enjoy the TWILIGHT books, even re-reading them with a critical eye, much more than the HUNGER GAMES books. Whatever else Collins' writing may be, it is concrete -- detailed, grounded, comprehensive, in a way that makes it look like solid granite compared to the wispy latticework that is Meyer's style.

Unfortunately, that means when a crack appears -- illogical worldbuilding, an unappealing character, even a niggling inconsistency -- it is much more difficult to ignore or handwave away. It grates on me constantly, to the point that I couldn't even finish the trilogy.

(Unfortunately I can't link directly to the comment - the date/time looks like it ought to, but doesn't. :/ It's Mar 26, 2011 at 09:11 PM.)

That may be part of the Lackey appeal, at least to me. I whine and rail abut the flaws I see, but they don't stop me reading.

Comments

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I largely agree with the comments about Meyer's writing.

She's bad, but she's also generically bad, with little individual voice, making it easy to spin one way or the other and fill out with what you want. Add to that that Bella is the most teenagery teen ever and that all the qualities we have that we'll told make people not want to date us/be our friend instead make all the boys chase her and all the girls want to sit with her at lunch, and it's scarily easy to see some of the appeal.

That isn't necessarily a good thing.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

I think that's a very insightful comment—and yes, is almost certainly a big part of why I could devour Lackey, and certain kinds of McCaffrey books also (and often still can, and indeed the Pern books I can't get through these days in many ways are the ones that contradict the Pern I made up for myself when I was thirteen). I could make Valdemar or Pern what I wanted them to be. The same was true in spades of the Bordertown anthologies, and the Redwall books. Some of the Tortall books (by Tamora Pierce), same thing, although not all of them. (I could make Alanna's Tortall my own, or Kel's, but not Beka's. This isn't, I think, a function of quality, either—I think the Kel books are about as well-written as the Beka Cooper ones, but they're distinctly different in that Beka's world is very concrete, and Kel's is much more generally medievaloid and sketched-in, even though they technically are the same world.)

Now granted, there were also books that I read and adored at that age that I couldn't do that with. I couldn't make Damar my own, even though I adored Aerin and identified with her, because it was concretely-written; same goes for the Chrestomanci books by Diana Wynne Jones. But it's interesting that so many of the worlds I imprinted on when I was thirteen had that kind of generality that I could make specific in my own way.

[coraa.livejournal.com]

(I admit that I tend to get defensive about people talking about how dreadful the Twilight books are, even though I am not myself a fan, and I think this is part of why: they present a very specific kind of fantasy that clearly some women women find appealing, and want to project themselves into; one of the things that's particularly appealing about them is that they make that projection easy.

And I just don't think it's my place to say, "No! Your fantasy is wrong! Have a fantasy that I approve of!" And even if I thought I had the right to dictate what fantasies I think other women should have, I wouldn't think that attempting to shame people out of them would be effective. How long has it been culturally laughable/shameful to read category romance? And how well does it sell?

But I digress.)