Nicholas Sparks is the Devil

[Countess]

I knew it! I found a sample of his work (about 10 pages worth) and ran it through my readability statistics and his work came up on a 2.1 reading grade level - which means my son who is 10 could easily master it with his eyes closed.

And he's a best-selling author. What are we to do? Where are the geniuses of our day? I fear the quick decline of literature...

Countess

[Kiwi Shelf]

Well, I knew he was an easy read, but I like him because of that. I don't like reading difficult books all the time...

[Xamonas Chegwe]

I always thought that the devil was supposed to be a brilliant orator and master of lies. Are you sure this guy isn't just some minor imp or demon? I can't see him beguiling the likes of Dr Faustus with a 10 year old's vocabulary.

[Schokokeks]

But hey, at least he keeps providing me with relatively cheap paperbacks that I can give give to my friend as a present for birthday or Christmas. ;) She says she likes being brought to tears by reading Mr Sparks' stories of 'true love'. So be it! :D

[Countess]

It's not his vocabulary that irks me so much as his sentence structure:

The sun set. The dog ran over to the tree. The tree was green. The dog peed on the tree. The tree turned brown.

He is the master of the simple sentence. He ought to write a book about it, but it would be 400 pages of simple sentences.

[PeterL]

Sentence structure reflects the way that the writer thinks: simple sentences reflect simple thoughts.

I have never been able to get my readability grade level lower than 7 or 8. A 2.1 is truly staggering. Most second graders write at higher levels than that.

[chmpman]

Im curious as to how that test worked. How do you actually test the readability level of a 10 pg excerpt?

[starrwriter]

What are we to do? Where are the geniuses of our day?

*Starrwriter holds up his hand and waves it*

Never heard of Nicholas Sparks, but if he's devilish, I'll bet his friends call him Sparky.

Don't take his success too hard. John Saul can barely write a complete sentence that's comprehensible and he lives in a multi-million-dollar mansion on the beach on Maui, purchased with the proceeds of his so-called novels.

Meanwhile, many talented writers never get published or can't quit their day jobs because of the piddling money they make even if they do get published. I blame the lousy tastes of the reading public. We are casting pearls before swine.

[Psycheinaboat]

I wonder if there really is a "dumbing down" of society taking place. All the theories I have heard about this sound so conspiratus, but if you look at what children were reading fifty or one hundred years ago compared with today, well, it raises questions.

Perhaps this explains why some of the most popular authors offer such poor works. They are writing for their audience, and it takes less talent to impress the current majority.

I tried to read Sparks once, but after a couple of pages I found him too maudlin for my taste. Bet he watches Touched by an Angel.

[EAP]

He's a master of the armchair mid-life lovey dovey sickeningly sweet pseudo tearjerker, pandering to a specific audience and reaping the dividends of his canny business sense.

But...

I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for Sparks because of 'A Walk To Remember'.

Society hundred years ago was far more bigoted, racist, misogynistic and religious cloistered than it is today. A lot of this is also reflected in the literature of the respective eras.

The diversity of the reading audience means that authors can make a decent living by producing works limited in scope and catering to the needs of specialized niches. The whole phenomenon of commerical genre's is a direct consequence of that.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Well put EAP.

Although I fear that bigotry, racism, misogyny and religious fanaticism still have more of a hold than we like to admit, even in the so-called, civilised West and certainly beyond it.

I too have a soft spot for Mr Sparks and his like. It's on the beach at Morecambe Bay, just past the sign saying, "Beware Quicksand!!"

[beer good]

I wonder if there really is a "dumbing down" of society taking place. All the theories I have heard about this sound so conspiratus, but if you look at what children were reading fifty or one hundred years ago compared with today, well, it raises questions.

Here's an interesting article on that: http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20060101-094046-4275r

The Sunday Times sent novels by Nobel Prize winner VS Naipaul and Booker Prize winner Malcolm Middleton to 20 publishers and agents under pseudonyms. Not ONE of them thought they were worth publishing. Meanwhile, Dan Brown can buy Bolivia with the loose change in his pocket.

(Whaddyaknow, my first post and I'm already whining about Dan Brown. But thanks for the warning about Sparks.)

[Logos]

You're joking, right? :)

Look at the Fox `news' network, look at their content and formatting. Look at `reality' teevee.

Look at how popular technological `communication' devices are among younger and younger people, ie: PDA's, Blackberrys, cell phones, `text speak' being what the majority of some people use to `communicate' with friends whilst incurring repetetive injury to their thumb ligaments. People don't even have to type properly anymore.

The further and further away people get from thinking for themselves, for finding out their own anwers instead of from the gubbmint, for questioning sources of information, the more the brain atrophies.

While I'm not gonna get political here, check out Mark Crispin Miller's The Bush Dyslexicon. Its a sad comment on popular culture as to how much credence a majority gives to someone who is less than `brilliant' intellectually.



I wonder if there really is a "dumbing down" of society taking place. All the theories I have heard about this sound so conspiratus, but if you look at what children were reading fifty or one hundred years ago compared with today, well, it raises questions.

Perhaps this explains why some of the most popular authors offer such poor works. They are writing for their audience, and it takes less talent to impress the current majority.

I tried to read Sparks once, but after a couple of pages I found him too maudlin for my taste. Bet he watches Touched by an Angel.

[Kiwi Shelf]

You know, the best books of the times right now are what, "Harry Potter"? I wouldn't exactly call that a literary great. Her books tend to be poorly written in my opinon. But, everyone thinks that she is so great because she is getting children in a world of television and computers, reading. Does it really matter if children are reading classic fiction with complicated sentence structure, or is it just important that they are reading? Same with adults, does it matter if they are reading Dickens instead of being a couch potato, or is it just good that someone will sit down with a good romance novel. I think that in todays society, there are many more things to do than read a novel. So, if one author can cause a person to take a break from their couch potato ways, than quotos to them. It is better than them not reading at all.

[Xamonas Chegwe]

Kiwi,

You advocate reading as another form of entertainment - which it is - and just like television, movies and computers, there's "couch potato" reading and there's reading which broadens the mind and stretches the imagination, makes the reader think for themselves and offers insights.

Both have their place in the world but I know which I prefer. And I know which category Sparks falls into.

And Harry Potter is not the best literature being written now (at least in my opinion - the best children's book perhaps) but I would dispute your claims that it is poorly written. If a cynical 43 year old like me can read and enjoy the books as well as a 9 year old that has never read a book because they wanted to before, JK must be doing something right.

There are many excellent, intelligent writers in the world right now, producing great books that deserve to be the 'classics' of the next century. Check out Salman Rushdie, Milan Kundera, Hanif Kureishi as examples.

Sparks books have their uses - door-stops and an alternative to firewood being just 2.

[Psycheinaboat]

Look at the Fox `news' network, look at their content and formatting. Look at `reality' teevee.

Touché!

**********

[ArcherSnake]

I don't like Nicolas Sparks either. The Notebook was one of the stupidest and most simple-minded books I have ever read. If she loved him that much, why didnt she just leave to go find him when she turned 18? It was just dumb.

[amanda_isabel]

i do't think i've come across a thread on nicholas sparks (or maybe i just missed it?) in the forums. i did just finish his message in a bottle (published in 1997, i think, but i only got to read it now) and was just wondering what you guys thought about nicholas sparks and on his work..

has he brought out any new work lately? haven't been informed...

looking forward to read your reactions

thanks

_amanda_

[kathycf]

Hi Amanda. :) As far as I can tell, Dear John is his latest novel. I got the information from his official website, which you can find by googling his name.

I have only read A Walk to Remember and it was a pretty decent book. It had alot more depth to me than it's movie adaptation.

[Scheherazade]

I read Message in a Bottle last year as well and well, it was just another story; something you can read without thinking and questioning much.

[grace86]

Completely unrelated to the criticism of the author....

Someone gave me one of Sparks' latest books, "Dear John," as a gift...and it was given to me because it was blue (my favorite color), green (fiancee's favorite color), it had a horse (said person's favorite animal) and the author's name was Nicholas....

...kind of makes you think.

[amanda_isabel]

thanks.. i should check a little bit more next time.. :)

[Matrim Cuathon]

i find kiwis comment so funny. no, crappily written books with horrible plots are not better than TV.

[Jane's Nemesis]

I think you have to bear in mind that people's tastes always change with time. People spend their time doing other activities besides reading, as opposed to nineteenth century audiences, for whom reading was a lot like tv in terms of its entertainment value. And even then people were writing some pretty awful books- think Jo March in 'Little Women' with her "sensational" stories. There are bad writers in every generation. And there are some good writers in the present day as well. Who knows- maybe they will be considered "classics" in a hundred years' time.

As for Nicholas Sparks, which was the original topic anyway, I admit to having read some of his work, and I didn't particularly like it. At the same time, you can't just say he's a bad writer because he uses simple sentence structures- isn't that seen as the mark of a clear, succinct writer?