Quote:
Originally Posted by gmw
It seems to me that there is not just a "Genre snobbery" but a popularity snobbery. "Ewww! If so many people like that it must be for the masses and so can't possibly be good."
To me the rejection of the taste of the masses is like harking back to the times when voting was only offered to landed gentry, never to the poor, idiots or women.
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Who is rejecting the taste of the masses?
The original question was "Can a popular novel be badly written?" and the answer is "It certainly can be", with various examples held up as examples.
But it doesn't mean that just
because it's popular it's poorly written. I suspect we could come up with counter examples of best sellers that were well written indeed.
The issue is that popularity has no observable connection with the quality of the prose, and the fact that it's well written isn't
why it's popular, even if it
is well written.
It might be more valuable to examine
why popular works commonly considered poorly written
are popular. What itch do they scratch? What makes them popular, if it isn't the writing?
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Dennis