Some friends and I started a (somewhat half-assed) book club several months ago, and we’ve ended up mostly reading books that can really only be categorized under the larger umbrella of popular fiction: Stieg Larsson, Dan Brown—the sort of books that are being published by the major New York presses and that are getting read by millions and millions of readers.

While we have enjoyed some aspects of these books—usually aspects related to plot—we quickly learned that when a group of people with various levels of advanced English degrees (BA, MFA, and even a current PhD student) pick apart and analyze these sorts of popular books, the flaws in the writing seem to far outweigh any enjoyable aspects of the stories. The discussions are interesting, and we definitely disagree on what parts of the books we like and what parts we don’t, but the general consensus is usually the same: these are not well written pieces of literature. 

It’s been kind of bittersweet to read these popular fiction books and find myself constantly getting caught up in how poorly crafted they are. It isn’t that none of these books have the potential to be good literature, but they almost all seem noticeably under-revised. They read like first or second drafts, written by decent authors who are surely capable of turning these books into something much better but who have signed a however-many book contract and need to just call this book done so they can move on to the next one.

In a way, it’s sad to realize that there once was a version of myself who wouldn’t have noticed these things that I notice now, but that version of myself is gone. Studying craft and literature for many years in advanced courses seems to have killed my ability to just enjoy a crappy piece of escapist literature; I’m too busy focusing on how contrived the plot is, how one-dimensional the characters, how bland the narration.

But I guess that my ability to enjoy those sorts of books has been replaced with the ability to enjoy a different sort of book, which I really couldn’t have enjoyed before studying English as an undergrad and then grad student. A lot of the stuff that I love now would have just been too subtle for the me who might have been able to appreciate, say, Dan Brown. That me wouldn’t have had the patience or the know-how to read closely between the lines and pick up on the subtle nuances buried beneath each carefully chosen word. That me would have found the stuff I read today boring, pointless, with no discernable plot. “Yeah, it’s very realistic,” I would have said, “but real life is boring. Who wants to read about that?”

So I guess, while some part of me does mourn the loss of the ability to enjoy reading the Dan Brown style of fiction, I celebrate the ability to revel, instead, in the sort of fiction that does more than just pass the time. Yes, it takes more focus; I can’t just zone out to it. But I get something more out of it, and the experience is far more satisfying. But that’s certainly not to say there’s not value in the other kind of fiction, too. Now that I’ve had my first taste of Dan Brown, I can’t picture myself ever voluntarily reading another book by him, but I’m still able to enjoy some of that popular stuff. I still like, for example, Stephen King (even though I no longer am able to read a Stephen King book without forming a list of complaints in my head). Reading the less carefully crafted stuff can be its own kind of fun, and sometimes I think it would be nice to be able to do so without feeling the need to workshop every single novel in my head.