I’m currently reading Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose.” It’s an intriguing work. But it’s not the point of this post. Its contents could be controversial to some, and great to others. No, what I want to focus on is an argument in it. One that still goes on, and can affect writers as well.
It is about the heretical works that were in this Catholic monastery. One of the monks argued that every evil thing, every work of heretics, etc., was unnecessary. They saw no use for them, and thought the abominations should be done away with. And one of the others raised a counterpoint, that in viewing imperfect works, it gave them a greater appreciation of the true and pure works. Not just that, but using heretical examples to prove an orthodox point by examining the error. Now, I’m just summarizing this, as the actual details and arguments are far too much to even begin to describe. What I want to point out is that they used “bad works” in order to see “good works” better.
And this is the parallel to us: Should a writer purposely read works they know are bad or terrible, in order to know what not to do?
After all, knowing something is bad isn’t reason to not watch or read it. Sometimes, it’s even moreso a reason. A campy B movie has its place. I have a few books that are silly and somewhat nonsensical. Ah, but wait, the books I have that are silly and nonsensical are written by Douglas Adams and Isaac Asimov. On second look, they are great books, written with an unusual twist.
So, that’s an example of what not to include in your list of bad books not worth reading. Confused? Yeah, so am I. Let’s try this again.
Read books by Douglas Adams and Isaac Asimov. They write great works of all kinds.
See how much easier that is? Instead of saying what not to do, I said what to do. What to learn from. There is an illustration I hear often. To spot a counterfeit currency, how do you do it? Do you get a copy of every single counterfeit, learn what makes each of them counterfeit, and then try to spot those in the wild? Or do you learn how a real currency looks, exactly, and then look to verify it? The latter. Learn what the real one looks like, and then the fakes will be apparently.
So, same should go for reading. If you know a book is terrible, there isn’t a reason to read it! If you read a terrible book and a good book, what separates them? Is every single thing in the terrible book bad? It might even have some good parts in it, even if the whole is terrible! But, with the good book, there is no second guessing. Recall the points in it, do what it does, and if you’ve done it right, it’ll work.
Don’t listen to don’t do this.
Do listen to do this.
Wasn’t that wonderfully hypocritical? Yep. I’m confused now too.
Better yet: Read great works. Then write great works.
534 words I could have used in a novel.
Bingo!
Ignore the negative, pursue the positive. It’s how the universe works. Light isn’t an absence of dark. Warm isn’t an absence of cold. The things we choose in the physical world are the positives.
But so many people make the silly argument that we can’t appreciate what’s good unless we experience what’s bad. It’s a short-sighted argument, and they’re welcome to it.
Where this conversation gets dicey, as you discovered along the way, is when we try to pass along the subjective opinions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ when it comes to reading and writing. But you make the valid point that it’s what *we* choose, not some universal standard.