you know what i mean.. sometimes you read a book more because you're really enjoying the writing/ideas but forget the thing about a week later.. and then there're books, great books, that you love and remember but, for some reason, don't admire...

fr'instance..

i recently read The Master by Toibin - compelling, illuminating, profound, really couldn't put it down.. but can't recall a thing about it now, two weeks later, and i know ill never re-read it for pleasure.. worthy, might be the right word to dscribe it

on the other hand, i loved A Suitable Boy, lost myself in it, re-read passages all the time, remember all the characters, and yet, it's so unchallenging, formally unoriginal, reliant on getting easy emotions from the reader, and melodramatically plotted that i can't say i admire it...

i think i might be talking rubbish...

anyone?

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova. I admired the depth of research, the writing, the concept - but as a whole, it just didn't thrill me as it should have done for a book about Dracula.

My God, I sound like an agent writing a rejection!

JB

Admire but don't love: Tale of Two Cities - Dickens, The Corrections - Jonathan Franzen, Spies - Michael Frayn

Love but don't admire: Gaudy Night - Dorothy L Sayers, Atonement - Ian McEwan, anything by Libby Purves

But the latter's a tricky one, because I admire any novel that keeps pulling me back to it, even if I know the attraction's more about me than it.

Emma

Ooh, good thread.
Love but don't admire; anything by Rosie Thomas, especially Bad Girls, Good Women. A sort of not-so-secret passion, reading these, like chocolate, but not fair trade chocolate.
Admire but don't love; Ishiguro, the latest one; Josephine Hart's novels, which are very peculiarly precise and beautifully icy but you do not like the characters, the ethos of the story or feel anything for them, which is an uncomfortable experience. Damage in particular. Oh, and The Sea by John Banville- Booker winner- again, beautifully written but try as I might, nothing about it touched me, although I could admire the prose hugely. I find this depressing as a reading experience- to admire and not be moved by. Have to say, it mostly happens with male writers, for me...

Have to say, it mostly happens with male writers, for me...

Me too. I suspect your own gender of writer is more likely to 'speak' to you in that really comfortable, know-just-what-you-mean way. Couldn't finish Last Orders, much though I admired just about everything about it. Ditto Ishiguro, and all three pages that I've tried of Julian Barnes. Ackroyd (at least, the earlier ones) I admired and loved, in a horrified, disgusted, peering-between-my-fingers sort of way.

And yes, great thread.

Emma

Emma: you write you 'love but don't admire' "anything by Libby Purves"

Are you having us on? Are Libby's novels those ones with the weird covers - like close-ups of chrysthanemums (sp?)? Flowers of some description? How come she wrote so many of them? I saw one a while ago in our 'book crossing corner' at work, and on the inside cover was a whole rake of other clones.

I can see why you don't admire them (I'm not judging a book by its cover. I did read about twenty pages) but 'love'?

Or should I give Libby another go, and get beyond page twenty?

What's the story with you and Libby and love?

Jim

<Added>

Oh, sorry Emma, I see you go part way to explaining. Libby's books draw you back in some way - but what's that all about?

Jim, I don't recognise your description of her books. I think she's written about six or so. Not great literature, but not clones - are you thinking of someone else? She's a very longstanding radio journalist - was the youngest ever Today programmed presenter, I think - and has a column in the Times. She writes what used to be called Aga sagas, but that doesn't really do them justice - central character usually 30+yr old woman with children - with all the virtues and vices of journalist's books: well written, good eye for detail, the knack for pinning some small oddity of life down in a way that makes you sigh with pleasure, plot a bit creaky, sometimes sacrifices sophistication for moving the action along. Always a good, interesting central premise. Anyone who likes Joanna Trollope should give her a try.

Emma

I've just finished 26a by Diana Evans, which fits very definitely into this admire but not love category. The writing was quite stunningly good, but I still didn't love the book overall.


Emma
I felt the exact opposite about Atonement - admired, but didn't love it. Why didn't you admire, if you don't mind me asking?

and

with all the virtues and vices of journalist's books

Oh dear, better watch out then!

Caroline, I didn't admire Atonement in the end because a) I thought the structure was broken-backed and b) I thought the end was trying to be profound and was merely annoying. Oh, and c) there was a slight whiff of info-dump in the hospital scenes. It's something I'm particularly allergic to because it's an ever-present risk for anyone writing hist fic. But I did love it, minded like mad about everyone, and so on. Maybe that's why the end was so annoying, because I felt he was having his cake and eating it. It was the equivalent of 'then he woke up and it was all a dream'.

But this admire/love thing is interesting, because I can love a novel for highly technical reasons - the structure of Fingersmith had me entranced by its sheer bravura (well so did other aspects of it, though I didn't give two hoots about any of the characters, for instance). Certainly it was because so many aspects of Atonement were so terrific that the failed aspects felt like such a let-down: McEwan's talent sets his own bar very high.

Sorry, didn't mean to insult any journalists. There are few reading pleasures to beat that, 'Oh! Yes, it's so like that,' that I got from I Don't Know How She Does It, for instance, though it's certainly not one of the world's great novels. And Libby Purves's non-fiction books about bringing up children are my present of choice for all new parents - the only such books worth bothering with, to my mind.

Emma

No, don't worry, no offence taken!Anyway, I'm well used to being in an unpopular profession

I fell upon one of Libby Purves's books in horror because it is called Mother Country, as is my novel, and has a tiny grain of simnilarity in the story. I actually felt physically sick when I saw it. Luckily, when I read it, the story is just different enough for it to be OK.
Some bizarre superstition I can't explain has held me back from any more by her!

<Added>

simnilarity?

<Added>

simnilarity?

I actually felt physically sick when I saw it.

God, yes, I know that feeling!

Emma

The Da Vinci Code. I'd admire the fact he's made so much money out of a flimsy plot and terrible characters, and managed to capture the imagination of a quadzillion commuters around the globe, despite having an ending so lame Jesus and Mary Magdelene both rose up from the site of the "Holy Grail" and attempted to heal it. Of course they failed, Jesus shaking his head, looking up to the heavens and crying "Father, why have you forsaken me?"

Or should that be Jesus and Mary Christ? Jesus and Mary Nazareth?

And then, for something so staggeringly badly written, it is optioned for a huge blockbuster. The man must be pinching himself.

And I also admire the way he managed to make one of the most famous, mystical, legendary literary devices - The Holy Grail - and make it into something that even the people looking for it, non-stop for 500 pages, were disappointed about. That takes some doing. AND he did all this by just copying someone elses ideas. Absolutely brilliant. Full of admiration for a great con trick.

As for books I love, how can I love a book and not admire it?

The closest it gets to that would be Lord of The Rings I reckon as I love it, but don't admire the wordiness/length of it. I also cringe when Aragorn sings, in fact I don't admire the singing much at all. Well, I guess that answers the question!

So there you go! Nice one Sammy...

David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. I thought it was well written in parts and had a very clever structure but over all as a work of literature I just didn't work for me. I liked its cleverness, but that was all. I was astonished that it made the Booker shortlist.

Same way I have a grudging admiration for JKRowling, and accept she 'apparently' revived interest in children's reading (though I'm not entirely convinced of that).

I'm an admirer of anyone who comes from nothing much and makes up as a big deal. But love it? No, I think it's all crushingly inane.

Dav - I'm starting to see your viewpoint really. If I see one more Da Vinci Code based documentary or copy-cat book, I think I'll scream. I mean, at the end of the day, does anyone nowadays really give a shit whether Jesus got laid or not?

JB

Emma - I'm with you on the whole Corrections/Atonement thing. I've read Corrections twice and often go to it when I want to remember how to take something as mundane as a car alarm and turn it into poetry - but it terms of plot it meanders something terrible, and there are some bits which just don't 'turn pages'. I read Atonement aloud (bedtime book for the wife and I) and loved it from start to finish - then reread it and saw its many faults. It's still my favourite of McEwan's. That and 'The Innocents'.

Love but don't admire - The Sharpe Books
Admire but don't love - The Time of Our Singing by Richard Powers
Love and admire - We Need to Talk About Kevin. I'm banging on about this book at the moment, but it was pretty special.

D.