Hype and prejudice

[oursin]

Thinking about the discussion riffing off in various directions from fannishly's post on Tam Lin, and without going into the question of self-indulgence, I realise that I possibly judge The Secret History more harshly than I might have done had it (and Tartt) not been so massively hyped everywhere at the time of publication. It was okay (with various

Comments

[cija]

I read it well after its publication (was too young to be aware of the hype when it first came out) & hadn't heard of it before it was thrust on me by someone, so the lack of expectation probably did help me to like it as much as possible. I also love the prose, but possibly I have inconsistent standards for that sort of thing.

[oursin]

Oh yes, 'slipping down like blancmange' wasn't a criticism, it was just that it didn't strike me as Jamesian.

[cija]

Oh, and also, the question of hype is weirdly skewed on lj - many of the people on my flist are, I think, likely to strongly prefer Tam Lin and find The Secret History distasteful. I sometimes get the impression that for many sf fans, drinking, screwing, and social climbing may not be immoral pastimes as such, but are rather silly - so a novel that obsesses over anxieties about those things is not terrifically appealing to them. (Maybe? Maybe that's not as true as I think.) But I love it. (No anxiety is alien to me!)

And though of course I know where it comes from, The Secret History is the second best title in the history of the universe for implicit promise to the reader, right after The Neverending Story - might as well call it The Best Book Ever, really.

[oursin]

I suspect it might also be the 'social aspiration as dark and tragic force' angle?

I have no objections as such to writing about 'drinking, screwing and social climbing'. It's all in how it's written.

[cija]

And to reinforce oursin's point, I hated tGG intensely at first because I was forced to read it in 9th grade (and to do a presentation on it to the class dressed in an ill-fitting silver sparkly flapper outfit, God help me.) I've gotten along fine with the other Fitzgerald I've read since then, so I think it was the hype that did it in. If being ordered to like something by an authority figure counts as hype, and I think it does.

[ironed_orchid]

I think I'm the same wrt to hype - it's not that I eschew the hyped and like things merely because they are obscure, somethings are obscure because they are not very good. Rather it's just that hype always creates a sense of expectation, that a book or etc should live up to, or fail to live up to, the hype surrounding it.

There are somethings I like quite a lot that get a lot of hype and have a massive fanbase, but I found them on my own before I found the fan communities or etc.

[oursin]

There's a difference between word of mouth buzz and commercial hype I think.

[ironed_orchid]

Yes, although sometimes it seems to come from all angles.

[mrissa]

People often think I'm saying something is bad when I say it doesn't live up to the hype, but that's not what I mean. I think an Almighty God In His Heaven could scarcely live up to the hype some people give to J.K. Rowling's works. That doesn't make them bad books any more than it makes them good books. It just makes the hype overblown.

[mrissa]

And every time a new HP book comes out, I get a friendslist full of, "OMG SQUEEEE!", dotted with, "YARG HAAAATE!" And really, I don't care either way. I'm glad people are enjoying something (and I strongly suspect that the "YARG HAAAATE!" crowd enjoys their ranting--at least, I hope they do). It's just not really my thing. I will eventually read the sixth and seventh books (I've already read the first five) because I write YA fantasy and feel I should know what's going on in the field. I don't resent this, and I don't anticipate it eagerly. It just is.

[sam_t]

That may be because all the people who are thinking that are trying not to contribute to all the HP-related noise. I know several people who are lukewarm about Rowling's work, especially since the fourth book appeared.

[wonderlandkat]

I love love Tam Lin, but I first read it in early highschool and then later went to a (different) small liberal arts school in Minnesota. I used to read it on the plane every year flying back to school.

Sadly enough, I can't seem to get into the rest of her books. I don't know if it's just that I'm reading them at the wrong time in my life or that I identify so much more strongly with the idea of college than the other settings.