What makes a good piece of fiction? I suppose there are many views on this. In my opinion, there are 2 overarching themes to what comprises a good book; namely the quality of individual elements and the way the book makes one feel. I'll break down the elements later on, but I think that feeling is more important in the making of a good book than any one element. A good book makes one feel something. If you walk away and forget the book, chances are it wasn't good. I have dozens of books on my "read" list that I glance at the covers and wonder what that book was about anyway. There is not much likelihood that any of them would qualify for "good books" on my list. This, naturally varies from person to person, and in fact, 10 years ago I reviewed a certain series as good which I can now pick apart and say it is a dramatic failure as a good book. The bottom line is that if a book does not inspire some sort of emotion, all the words are basically wasted. Sure, there may be facts and quotes and all sorts of technical goodnesses, but if feeling is key, anything that obscures it makes the book worse.
A Song of Ice and Fire does, in fact, inspire a lot of feeling. One point in its favor. But there is a strong difference in the feeling of, for example, the Girl Who Drank the Moon, Love That Dog, The Magician's Elephant, or Anna Karenina. These books all inspire strong feeling in me. It isn't always positive feeling (see me sitting on a bench at the blood donation center bawling my eyes out to Love That Dog or gasping in pain as I literally commit suicide with Anna), but there is a sense that they are wholesome. They are real. They are true. And although they aren't always pleasant, there is a sense of nobility, understanding, and overarching honesty to them that makes me feel more human.
Compare this to the feelings I get from Fire and Ice: despair, loss, confusion, a sense that no matter how much good is in the world, those who are powerful can follow their selfish and lustful whims without consequence. This book makes me feel depressed. While there is certainly a lot that is depressing in the world, I have reason to believe that good can triumph over evil, and that selfishness and lust are not the only controlling forces in this world. But, as I've said before, if that's the sort of thing you like, then feel free to like it.
Anyway, everyone feels differently, and that's fine. While I think that Ice and Fire will always be popular, I'll never get on the bandwagon with the series. I'm also pretty sure it will never make it to the shelf of "great classical literature." This is primarily because it doesn't score well on the elements of good writing: characters, plot, writing style, pacing, dialogue, believability, imagination, value and themes.
Now, I am going to say right away that personally I have loved many a book that scores a fat zero in all categories except characters, but I still call it a good book. This is because people matter. A book can hardly be good if there's no connection, no understanding, no revelation. In fact, one of my favorite examples of characters is We Have Always Lived in a Castle, a classic gothic horror. This book meanders on for a long time in a confused, inexplicable mayhem, but suddenly, at the end, you realize who you've been dealing with, and it's like a clap of thunder. I can't say I love the book. It is sinister. But I consider it good because after all that time, I could connect with the characters, and that made it believable. There are a lot of other things going on in that novel that I don't have time to address here, but I have to say that believable, likable or at least interesting characters are the hallmark of good literature. No novel can truly be good if it lacks at least one good character.
Next we can discuss plot. I honestly don't have much to say on this topic because in my opinion every plot that has ever been imagined has, in fact, been written about somewhere, and there is very little likelihood that anything can happen in a book that will surprise me. This is what happens when you've literally read thousands of books. What makes a plot interesting is not so much whether it has a beginning, climax and resolution, although those items are important, but how the author writes about these items. Hence the next two elements.
Pacing and writing style are separate entities, but I'll treat them here together because I have much the same thing to say of each. Writing style, voice, tone, syntax and related items factor greatly into pacing in any case, because if one writes in a comical tone with medium pacing, it loses a lot of its effect. If one is factual and long-winded, it makes for a very heartless read. While I do have some favorite styles of writing personally, both pacing and writing style are contingent on content, and while one can have brilliant style, it falls flat if it's a poor match with the characters, plot and general writing.
Dialogue is sort of a sub-category of both writing style and characters. Good dialogue is interesting, believable and helps advance either plot or character development. While some critical background is helpful at times, it's easy to lose interest in a story if none of the dialogue makes sense for the person who is saying it.
IDK, I could go on. I feel like I've touched on believability. Books have got to be captivating, and there has to be something tangible in there to make them so. Imagination would seem to be an opposite of that, but they actually play together well, balancing each other to stretch the limits of what should be possible.
I'm not sure what to say about value and themes that I haven't said about feelings already. But basically, if a book makes me feel like garbage for reading it, it doesn't matter what else it has done right.
So, anyway, that's my 2 cents or whatever. Sorry I'm finishing this so lamely, but I've got a lot of Don Quixote to finish before I have to return it to the library on Tuesday, so I'll talk to youse later.
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