I don’t read fiction — as a general rule, at least, and I haven’t in quite a while. Many years ago, I built up a collection of paperback classics from the used book store, but that was as much about crossing famous books of an imaginary list as it was about enjoying them.
Every now and again, I pick something up, from the library or the bookstore. And usually it’s a bust. The characters aren’t sympathetic, they say f*** a lot, and I end up reading through it in a semi-skim, wanting to know what happens but not really enjoying the process of finding out. Maybe I should take up my son on his suggestion to read his tween fantasies instead.
Of course, I know that not all fiction is like that — there’s always the sort with the soft watercolor covers, the love stories (no, not the Harelquin Romances) — and my husband, a couple years ago, even got me a decent historical fiction book for my birthday. But whenever I pick up whatever seems to be popular, I’m disappointed — and I wouldn’t go anywhere near 50 Shades of Gray.
Such it was with Gone Girl, which I picked up at the grocery store the other day (that’s Meijers, for locals, supermarket + discount store before SuperTarget conceived of the idea, so in an actual books section). Yes, it was a page-turner, and, yes, I stayed up late reading it. But after I finished it, I just felt dissatisfied with it. Even disregarding the plot itself, there were elements of the backstory that weren’t realistic (her parents get rich off a series of moralizing children’s books which sound horrid, he teaches a class on “how to write for magazines” for a community college, he and his sister buy a bar which appears to support both of them and a dad in a nursing home without his seeming to actually work very much, etc.) And that’s before the plot got going. And the characters are unlikeable (which is part of the structure of the book — it’s meant to keep you guessing, at least at first, as to who’s innocent and who’s not — but it still dampers the enjoyment of the book) and say f*** a lot.
Quite a while back, there was an article in Slate on fiction, and how fiction-readers are morally-superior to non-fiction readers, because reading “literature” makes them more empathetic to others. I didn’t buy this then and don’t now. And now I’ll head back to biographies (Unbroken was just as compelling as any novel), history, and current events.
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