There's been a spirited discussion over on Cornflower Books in the last few days about the latest Cornflower Book Group choice. I read and reviewed The Good Soldier on here about 18 months ago -- I'd been bowled over by it and was really looking forward to hearing what others thought of it. As it turned out, only four of the thirty-three comments admired the novel as much as I did.
I'm not going to enter into it all here -- you can go and have a look if you are interested to see the range of mostly disparaging opinions. But all this has really made me think about what people look for in a novel. Several people were annoyed by the non-linear narrative and judged the characters very harshly, while those of us who liked it found those very things a cause for admiration.
Speaking for myself, if there's one thing I really like in a novel, it's ambiguity -- unreliable narrators are my food and drink, I might say. But clearly not everyone shares that opinion -- many seem to want a cracking story that draws them in and doesn't make too many demands on them. In fact I've nothing against that sort of thing, as my continued love of crime novels will tell you. But I also love being made to think, being surprised, being unsure of where I stand and what or who I am supposed to believe, and for me The Good Soldier does all that supremely well. But who's to say I'm right, or that those others are wrong?
I've also been thinking about the importance, for me, of the quality of writing in the novels I read and enjoy. I know when I recognise what I think of as a really well written novel but I don't know how to put my finger on what it is I recognise. It's not just "poetic" language, or unusual metaphors and images, though those may help. It always seems to me that there is a life in the words of good writers which is absent from those who are merely adequate. But that sounds ridiculously woolly and feeble. I guess I am partly talking about language and its use here, but I don't have the first idea how to analyse this, if it even is analysable. So I might as well just shut up.
