Authors who become boring

[bazfaz]

It used to be an exciting treat to read John Le Carre. After a stuttering start he hit his stride with the George Smiley books. Even when dear old George was put out to grass he wrote some wonderful stuff - A Perfect Spy was terrific. Then, for me, he began to wobble. The Little Drummer Girl was frankly unbelievable though exciting. And then he got into a ranting mode. I haven't seen the movie of The Constant Gardener but the book had pages and pages that read as if they came from a political tract not a novel.

I am nearly half way through The Mission Song. I have been picking up and putting down the book for a couple of months which is never a good sign. A quote from an Observer review talks about the wonderful tale but it is a long time coming. The narrator (an African interpreter who constantly boasts about all the languages he speaks) is whisked off to a meeting between assorted Western corporate baddies (as they must surely turn out to be) and African plotters. Some deal is going to be hatched. Doubtless mercenaries will be involved, and a duplicitous British government. But I am on page 174 and nothing has happened. All we have had so far is this meeting (and it isn't finished yet). Even his felicitous way with language seems to have dried up.

Oh dear.

[Deleted]

I feel the same way about Harlen Coben, but more because he is one of those writers who keeps writing the same book again and again. Each time it is gripping and full of surprises, but as you start to reach the end, you realize that it is all identical to the last half dozen books he has written.

[bjd]

The only LeCarre book I didn't manage to read was The Tailor of Panama. It was just annoying. I agree that his earlier spy stuff was good -- I recently reread The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Oops, no -- I also didn't like The Little Drummer Girl.

I liked both the book and movie of the Constant Gardener -- the movie cut out most of the tract stuff and it had great music. The Mission Song was okay but he did go on.

I used to take Patricia Cornwell's books from the library but don't bother any more. Same old gruesome stuff and body parts.

[traveler63]

I like James Patterson and his Alex Cross and Women's Murder Club books. However, the one called Swimsuit was so horribly bloody and disgusting that I read the first 10 pages and promptly took it back to the library. I guess I am just getting tired of all the blood and body parts. Also, I am really tired of women being portrayed as victims and stupid ones at that. Right now my stack of books to read is really limited. I feel the same way about Patricia Cornwell.

It seems to me that there are no great authors like James Michner, etc anymore. Everyone seems to be going for the formula book. Same general plot, same characters, different places. I would rather read one outstanding book, then 10 so-so ones.

There is one author that I really like and unfortunately she passed away in 2001. Here name is Dorothy Dunnet. She was a historical fiction writer and her writing is in my opinion is superb. Her two series are The Lymond Chronicles and the House of Niccolo.

www.dorothydunnett.co.uk/

Here is the website if you are interested.

[bixaorellana]

Yay ~ a thread tailor-made for a gripe I want to air!

All of the authors cited have written tons of books and have staunch fans. Maybe the problem is that they have contracts with publishers eager to continue milking the cash cow long after the well of inspiration has run dry. (<-- effective use of mixed metaphors)

I found Patricia Cornwell ultimately too depressing to keep reading. Also, apparently she wanted to downplay the fact that she is a lesbian, so harped on her character finding men attractive. What was amusing about this was that none of her male characters seemed to exist below chin level. I think I gave her a couple more chances with the later books. That's when I realized that she was no longer writing them. I assume she thinks up a plot and gives it to an assistant. How else to explain "Patricia Cornwell" books that sound nothing like her, to the extent of bad grammar, terrible sentence construction, etc.?

A writer who went the formula route after he'd lost interest in his successful series is Robert B. Parker. There are far too many Spenser books with the same tired lines and interactions among the three main characters. Also, there are several of his books with an enormous amount of leading between lines and huge margins -- lots of pages, few words.

That brings me to my specific gripe. I have always enjoyed Sue Grafton's novels and was pleased to find "T is for Trespass" in the library. However, I'm really disappointed that she is now using so many of the padding devices employed by other authors of successful series. We don't need to know detailed specifics of the character's driving routes, nor lists of every item of clothing she's wearing. The really obvious padding in this book is the inclusion of the minutiae of everyday tasks:

She went into the kitchen and retrieved a spray bottle of cleanser from under the sink. She wet a sponge, squeezed out the moisture, and then saturated it with the cleaning solution.

That's just one example -- similar sentences designed only to build up word count are all throughout the book.

[Deleted]

Maybe it's just to help the homebodies fully identify with the character's actions.

[bjd]

Ah, traveler63, how nice that you are a Dorothy Dunnett fan. I found the first of her Niccolo books cheap somewhere and bought it even though I don't usually read much historical fiction. Then I discovered that there were all the others in the series. I have managed to read all but one in the series. What an incredible amount of research went into those books.

"She went into the kitchen and retrieved a spray bottle of cleanser from under the sink. She wet a sponge, squeezed out the moisture, and then saturated it with the cleaning solution. Sounds like the screenplay from a Chantal Ackermann film. I'm sure Kerouac knows who I mean.

The great advantage of getting books from the library is being able to return them unread without feeling ripped off.

[bixaorellana]

Traveler63, do you have any interest in starting a Historical Fiction thread? I really enjoy well-written historical fiction, but as you know, there's a lot of junk hiding under that label, too.

I know where I can get some Dorothy Dunnett books, and now I'm eager to, based on your recommendation.

Re: James Michener -- I have to say I think he belongs here in the boring authors section. If you read him and liked him when you were young, go back & read him again to see if you still like him. You may be unpleasantly surprised. One thing I don't like about him is that he wants the reader to continuously admire him for all the research he's done. Another mark against him is that I've discerned some traces of what sounds dangerously like white supremacy thinking in his books.

[bazfaz]

Bixa, I think Robert Parker was a university lecturer/prof. He dashed off his Spencer books during the summer vacation. He had little time to make them good (or even long enough).

[bixaorellana]

The early ones were "normal", for want of a better word. It's the later ones that suggest a signed contract was setting on his desk like a ticking time bomb.

I didn't know that about his having taught in a university. One thing I always liked about his books was his obvious fondness for Boston, and how he made it part of the stories.

Unfortunately for me and John LeCarre, the only one of his books I ever read was The Constant Gardener. I thought if he said "Mephisto boot" one more time I was going to go over to his house and clobber him with his too long tome.

[traveler63]

Bixa:

Yes I would love to start an historical fiction thread. I am currently waiting fora couple of reserves. Also, I just saw at Borders that there is a book just out on Catherine De Medici called the Devils Queen and another one is Philipa Gregory called the White Queen .

[bazfaz]

Has anyone ever finished Le Carre's Naive and Sentimental Lover? On a charter flight to Rhodes I saw a teenage girl reading it. Two weeks later on the return flight she seemed to have got about half way through it.

[bixaorellana]

Baz, in the OP you say you have been picking up and putting down The Mission Song for a couple of months. Do you generally persevere that much with a book you don't like?

I'm always reluctant to abandon a book that by all rights should be good, and have finished books that did nothing but irritate or bore me throughout, but as a rule they only get so much chance, then I close them forever.

[bazfaz]

Bixa, in the past couple of years I have started many books that visitors have left behind and stopped after a hundred pages or less. With le Carre I feel different. His style changed radically after Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Looking Glass War which both had punchy openings and were short books. After that the opening was often slow and the writing grew much longer. But they were rewarding to read. Mission Song is, for me, not rewarding. There are lots of meetings/conferences in his other books and the interplay of characters make them interesting. I find none of the characters engaging. in MS - and the meeting drags on and on. I'll struggle on, thouigh with packing up the house there is little time.

[bixaorellana]

I can definitely understand your loyalty to an author who you've enjoyed and admired in the past. I've done that to. You somehow feel you owe such an author the respect of really trying with the one or two books that don't really do it for you.

[Deleted]

So, I may pick up some Dorothy Dunnett to take along on my trip,any suggestions with which one to start with. bjd,you and I have had similar tastes going on in books,help me here please.

[bixaorellana]

Maybe that could go in the "check out a book" thread, or its own separate thread. Otherwise Dorothy Dunnett will forever be stuck here under the "authors who become boring thread".

[Deleted]

This is true,how did this get so jumbled up ,resident librarian?

[bixaorellana]

Because I cannot backhand people online.

[imec]

[bixaorellana]

A whole new world just opened up!

[bjd]

Casimira -- start with the first of the series =)). Kidding aside, there are so many characters in these books that if you don't start at the beginning, it's rather complicated. Of course, they are also stand-alone books, but it's more interesting if you get the background.

I have only read the House of Niccolo -- the first is Niccolo Rising. You can get the complete list if you click on bibliography on the link posted further up the page here.

However, on that link it also says many of the books are out of print, which turns out not to be the case. I just ordered some on Amazon from the Lymond tales.

[Deleted]

Thanks bjd,I saw one of her books in a used book store yesterday and it was #2 and I was certainly not going to start with that. The library in NY where I'll be is excellent and I will follow your lead.I am a big fan of historical fiction.

[nic]

Sept 1, 2009 8:12:21 GMT kerouac2 said:

I feel the same way about Harlen Coben, but more because he is one of those writers who keeps writing the same book again and again. Each time it is gripping and full of surprises, but as you start to reach the end, you realize that it is all identical to the last half dozen books he has written.

It's not writing, K2, it's typing.

LeCarre has an interesting dilemma. He made his bones in the Cold War, and that experience lent an immeasurable amount of credibility to his writing; that metastasized with Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Suddenly that world is no more, and then what?

Of his post-Cold War books, I have only read The Tailor of Panama & The Constant Gardner. Both were exceptional in their treatment of spies burnt by their home offices, and with the intersection of ideology, capitalism, governments, and private interest.

No comment on The Mission Song yet. Once I finish it, I'll let you know.