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I can't hope to reply to all these wonderful responses. Thanks everyone, there is definitely some food for thought in amongst it all.
Just a couple of general responses:
Communication is the goal, the hoped for end result. There are many ways (means) to communicate (books, movies, lectures, etc etc) and many sorts of things that a person may want to communicate (entertainment, religious message etc etc). A novel represents one form of communication and if lots of people successfully receive that communication then it has succeeded. It seems churlish to describe such a success as inherently bad just because I didn't like it.
A novel is much more than the technical or grammatical correctness of it's writing. If the book becomes very popular it seems (to me) to suggest that it managed to get the mix right. It may be a stretch to call such a work "good writing", but I also find it a stretch to call it "bad writing" - such an accusation seems to be missing the obvious: it worked. Indeed a more formally correct writing style may even reduce the impact of the novel on the audience.
A book's ability to communicate does vary with time. Some stories work over the long term, some don't. In an interview John Irving said that he got his publisher friend to admit that "Setting Free The Bears" (his first book) would probably not be published now. Having recently re-read it I can see why. It was very much a book of it's time (late 60's). But that doesn't (or shouldn't) take away from the books success at the time it was released. Effective communication is often time sensitive.
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