Don’t be ashamed of what you like
Reading time: 5 min
Intro
When I first started talking to my friends about my literary aspirations, the writer at the top of the Italian charts was Fabio Volo.
To my English-speaking readers, this name probably won’t ring any bell, but if you’re Italian and 25 or older, you know who he is.
Fabio Volo was already famous when he started publishing novels. He had massive success in both radio and television during the late 90s, and, as far as I know, he’s still right at the top of his game.
I remember criticising mercilessly Fabio and his books with my crew during those scorching Italian summers. Easy reads, trivial, ridiculous stories—the real mirror of a society of idiots. He’s only selling because he’s on tv, I used to say, and so on and so forth. There was a catch though; none of us had ever read him.
Fabio Volo. Courtesy of Wikipedia
I don’t want to go too hard on myself; I was in my early 20s, and I wouldn’t expect anything better from a twenty-something today. Youth comes with arrogance; I know it, you know it, and it’s fine, as long as you grow up. Eventually.
I’m not saying Fabio Volo is a world-class writer, I’m just saying I shouldn’t be critical of him or judge badly the ones who enjoy his work.
Actually, I want to say it out loud. There’s nothing wrong with reading Fabio Volo.
De Gustibus Non Disputandum Est
Even if he was a bad writer—and I don’t know that—there’s nothing wrong with enjoying a bad book.
Have you ever heard of The Room? Generally recognised as the worst film of all time, The Room is now so legendary it developed a cult. Some movies are purposefully made badly to attract a specific target audience (Sharknado’s got 5 sequels and 2 spinoffs), but there’s also a huge market for mass consumption, where quality is often a matter of debate.
Taking myself as an example, I must admit my music taste hasn’t changed a lot since I was five. I still listen to Disney soundtracks, and I’ve got Despacito into every single playlist on Spotify. Should I be ashamed of it? Maybe. My friends have always been into universally acknowledged “good music;” Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, stretching their reach to Ludovico Einaudi and some obscure Jazz. I like “good music”—most of it anyway—but I can’t dislike Let it go.
There’s usually no right or wrong in tastes, and we can’t all have the same taste as top performers or critics. Martin Scorsese famously said that Marvel movies are not real “cinema;” instead, they remind him of a theme park. I appreciate his point of view, and I liked The Irishman, but I still get excited for the new Dr Strange.
The last of my guilty pleasures is a book (actually, a book series) called Mistborn. It’s an epic fantasy with a cool magic system and loads of action. Is it an instant classic? I don’t think so. Will its author, Brandon Sanderson, win the Nobel Prize? Probably not. Is it a perfect story? You know it’s not. But do I admire Brandon? Profoundly.
The plot is quite linear and at times predictable, some exchanges are way too long to be entertaining and a few female characters are not developed like their male counterparts, but I couldn’t put it down.
When he raised forty million dollars in his Kickstarter campaign, I was shocked, but not surprised. He might not become the next Charles Dickens, but who am I to judge? I am loving the Mistborn series, and I beg you to give it a go.
How to enjoy “better” work
When I don’t like something, usually I don’t understand it.
I remember picking up a copy of the New Yorker and reading their fiction. I remember thinking that their short stories were boring and not worth my time or money.
Enter, their fiction podcast.
With a famous author explaining to me why that particular story was brilliant, a new world opened up to me. This is why George Saunders’ last book, A Swim in the Pond in the Rain is so good. It makes you understand deeply why the masters are masters and, nine times out of ten, you end up loving them as much as he does.
At the end of the day, you don’t have to like Dostoevsky to consider yourself a reader. Read what you like, watch what you like, and listen to the music you like. Life is too brief to worry about judgment.
Thank you, Beth O’Leary
There is nothing wrong with enjoying art, especially if it’s doing you no harm. Books are not cigarettes; even the bad ones make you a better person. (Extremist propaganda excluded.)
It took me years to embrace this concept, and maybe my writing career would have proceeded much faster if I had abandoned my posh convictions about literature and what’s worth writing, but it is a journey and my pace is the right pace for me.
I wasn’t familiar with Beth O’Leary before I attended her touching speech for the Hampshire Writers Society last month, but I’m so glad I did.
She’s astronomically successful in her genre (what is usually referred to as Chick Lit) and went through the same process I am stuck in. She’s now writing books she would have snubbed when she was eighteen, and she became a bestselling author as a result.
I hope I can learn from her, and can’t wait to pick up her new book; The No-Show.
Alla prossima
Photo by Road Trip with Raj on Unsplash
