"All good books are different but all bad books are exactly the same."

[Eric Christopherson]

That's a quote (and literary allusion to the opening of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, I think) from Robert Harris's "The Ghost." His protagonist, a ghost writer, goes on to say that the way in which all bad books are exactly the same is: "they don't ring true. I'm not saying that a good book is true necessarily, just that it feels true for the time you're reading it." What do you think?

FYI, I am really enjoying this political thriller. It's such a treat to discover a new suspense fiction author with sharp prose skills.

[Susan]

Jack Getze said on June 21, 2012 at 10:08pm True is a funny word. I can't read a ghost, vampire, or zombie book because I don't believe in that stuff. It's not true. Feels stupid to be reading it. But millions of readers love that stuff. I guess because it FEELS true?]

And I say: Millions of people read ghost, vampire or zombie books because they want to ESCAPE what's real. Whatever aspect of their life that's paining, boring, upsetting or depressing them.

And I agree that "true" is not the word I would use to describe a book that enthralls me, with characters that grab me by the throat, a book that I don't want to end. And when I do finish the book, I want to immediately run out and buy another one by the same author! 

 

[Jonathan Francesco]

IDK, a lot of stuff I've seen heralded as great feels very fake to me in just about all areas. And I am not sure that all "bad" books are bad for the same reasons either.

[John McFetridge]

This is something Ingrid mentioned in another thread, characters not making "psychological sense." If the actions of the characters don't ring true (and that can be pretty subjective, I admit) it takes me out of a story.

[I. J. Parker]

Exactly!  :)

[Dana King]

Agree. Nothing takes me out of a book faster than reading what a character has done and having to stop reading for a few seconds to ask, "Now why the hell would he do THAT?" Not that everything a character does has to make sense. It mas to make sense in the context of that character.

Science fiction has a rule, you can let anything you want happen, so long as you are consistent with the rules of the universe you have created. In fact, that applies to all fiction.

[minervaK]

I agree with the quote, but I don't think he means "true" in the literal sense. I think he means that good books are convincing. For better or worse, you buy the people / situation. I still can't figure out how writers make that happen, but I know it when I see it.

[Caroline Trippe]

"Convincing" is the very word I'd have used.

Anyway, one person's truth may be different from another's. If one is  looking for an "absolute truth,"  good luck with that! :) 

[Eric Christopherson]

I took "true" to include everything. Yes, character, and therefore plot (as plot and character are more closely entwined than is commonly realized) but also world-building, as the sci fi people call it, or atmosphere. 

According to John Gardner the almost universal faults of beginning novelists are abstraction when concrete detail is needed and not enough detail. It's almost as if one is reading a blueprint of a story rather than the story itself, and that obviously never rings true.

[Jon Loomis]

G.K. Chesterton, one of the early inventors of crime fiction, said there are four kinds of books: good good books, bad good books, good bad books, and bad bad books.  Good good books are what we'd now call literary fiction that works aesthetically.  Bad good books are literary books that fail.  Good bad books are genre stories (entertainments, as Graham Green called them) that succeed, and you really don't want to write a bad bad book.  I'm very happy writing good bad books.  Good good books are wonderful when they happen, but I think I'd find it extremely frustrating trying to write one.  Bad good books are always insufferable.  

The quote Harris is (badly) paraphrasing is: "All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."  It's the opening line from Anna Karenina. 

[Dana King]

I like that good good/bad good/good bad/bad bad spectrum. Good bad books are fine with me.

[I. J. Parker]

Nope.  Don't want the bad in there at all unless the book really stinks.  I'd be happier with genre novel.  The truth is that books can cover a range between the narrow definition of genre (say, the mystery with its puzzle or the crime novel with its search and stop plot) and the wider definition of the literary novel, simply by taking the story to a more universal level and working interesting patterns with character and theme.

[John McFetridge]

I didn't want to make a seperate thread for this, and maybe it even fits in here:

Yesterday I heard a woman on the radio talking about her book club and their favourite books and she listed Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games and 50 Shades of Grey.

I really have nothing to say about it, I am actually speechless, but I wanted to throw it out there.