The Corean Chronicles
Reading the Same Book?
Because I'm a glutton for punishment, as some readers know, I do read the reader reviews of my books, and occasionally, those of other writers. The one thing that strikes me consistently is that there is certainly a percentage of reader reviews where I'm left asking, "Did these people even read the same book?"
The answer is: They read the same assemblage of words, but not the same book.
How does this happen? Why does it happen so often when readers see exactly the same words on the page?
In the simplest terms, words on the page evoke not only their meanings, but the emotional connotations that accompany those meanings. But even meanings vary from reader to reader, and that's scarcely surprising when you consider that most words have more than one dictionary definition. Then add to that the emotional responses that we all have to words and situations, and we're bound to have different reactions.
As a writer, what bothers me about all this, I have to admit, is not the difference in the range of reaction to a book but the violence of the reaction by those who dislike a book. In more than 35 years as a professional writer, I've seldom ever seen a "positive" reaction to my books or those of any other author of the sort that says, "This is the world's greatest book" But I have seen more than a few books, and many were not mine, with assessments like, "the most tedious book ever" or "the worst book I've ever read" or "totally unreadable."
What I found most intriguing about these sorts of comments was that they usually occurred amid other comments that praised the depth of the book and the skill of the writer. In fact, they were more likely to occur with a book that other readers praised.
This would tend to support my long-time contention that any review [either by readers or critics] reveals at least as much about the reviewer as about the book being reviewed.
And, unhappily, that leaves us writers with yet another question: Did anyone read the books we wrote, or did they just read their interpretation of what we wrote?
The fact that, at least in my view, the whole series is about ethical choices and their consequences just wouldn't factor into it, because they wouldn't get that far.
I've always read and enjoyed your fantasy series - and will continue to do so - but I find it interesting that I interpreted much of your political commentary to be along the same lines as my own beliefs. Once I read more of your blog, however, it was clear that we're frequently on opposite ends of the spectrum. Not only were your words not meaning what you intended, as far as I was concerned, they probably said something you would never have wanted them to say - even if I did keep buying your books.
1) You typically only wind up with two types of people commenting on the book - the people who really really really like it, and those who couldn't stand it. I don't think I've written any reviews of any of your books, but between my wife & I we own all of them (she buys the fantasy, I buy the science fiction). So you wind up with an odd view of the world when you read these reviews.
And since you wind up with True Fans writing reviews, invariably they liked This Other Book Of Yours better, which is why it doesn't get the "Best Book Evar".
2) It is almost always the reader's interpretation of the book. When you write it you are trying to set it so that we view the book a certain way. And when you proof it and reread it everybody knows the story, or that you're trying to write a particular type of book. However, as the reader our impression is from the presentation of the book, the content of the book, and our preconceptions of it. And the dumbest things change that. I just read "Dragon's Wild" by the late, great Robert Asprin. It has the same cover as all the Myth books (and it's Bob Asprin) so I read the first bit expecting humorous fantasy. It's not that kind of book, it's a lot more serious... but I had to fight that mindset when reading it. It could be the cover, it could be the synopsis, heck it could just be that it's That Author and That Author writes a particular style of book. You can guide us, but the preconceptions matter (heck, I watched the first 30 minutes of Delta Force III thinking it was a spoof; I'd taped the wrong show. But I laughed myself silly at it. Same content, different context.)
Actually, you may have very well read what I wrote. On a number of "issues," I've written from different "sides" at different times. Just because I raise an issue here in one context doesn't mean I won't write about it in a different sense. For example, the viewpoints taken in the Ecolitan books on the use of force are totally at odds with the views in Adiamante, and not totally in agreement with those in Flash. Even in the Recluce books, Justen ends up with a different world-view in the end.
One of the reasons I like your books is the differing ideologies and viewpoints your protagonists have. You seem to be able to imbue them with a believability that is refreshing even if you don't agree with them.
People will see different things in books regardless. You only have to do a course in English Literature to experience this phenomenon. Or of course you could read reviews!
A friend of mine read the book as if the person was guilty. Seems like an entirely different book that way.
"I supply the content, you supply the meaning"
Writing and reading are not solitary activities. Since I have a mind unique from you, I am going to read a text that you write in a different manner than you intended.
Sometimes that divergence is small. However with anything as complex as a novel, I would argue that the number of interpretations of a novel is equal to or exceeds the number of readers.
In addition, re-reading a novel can lead to new interpretations and viewpoints, because of the passage of time and changes in the reader.
My conjecture is that these undeserved rave reviews stem from two factors: reader inability to discriminate between great writing and trash and a strong liking for at least one aspect of the book that lets the reader ignore the flaws. For example, my teenaged daughters read the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyers because they were fascinated with the emotional triangle involving a teen girl, a vampire, and a werewolf. They ignored the poor writing to see how this turned out (and then screamed about the ending).
Getting back to the original point, I suspect that my girls would have joined the crowd that wrote rave reviews of the first three Twilight books, but their reviews would have been about how they loved certain characters and hoped that A, B, or C would happen. The reviews would not have been about the books per se. These types of reviews are common for popular novels. The other type of undeservedly great reviews appears in series books when fans give every book rave reviews, though some books in the series obviously don't equal the others in quality. This is another situation where the low scoring reviews more accurately reflect reality.
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