I’m a great fan of Rudolfo Anaya. His Bless Me, Ultima is, I believe, one of the best novels ever written for young adults. He wrote it in 1972, many years before the current explosion in YA texts. It is very well written and deals with identity possibly better than any other book. I’m currently reading The Anaya Reader – a collection of novel excerpts, short stories and essays. They are good – especially so if one remembers that he is not writing in his own language.
Yet he still gets away with some clichés and overwriting that I would pull my students up for. He uses “pervades” and “fills the air” quite often. These annoy me. Not as much as those writers who use the word “garb” or “vestments” when they really mean “clothes”. Such language should only be used as part of a character’s voice and even then there is an argument that says one should use modern speech… because in Tudor time, or whenever, they used what was then modern speech.
I think the more abstract examples, such as those I’ve quoted form Anaya, might come about because the writer is writing aurally. They are matching the voice they hear in their head of other writers reading their work out loud. As with all clichés, the “fills the air” and “pervades” were quite clever - the first time, but even then I suspect that particular writer ought to have killed off a darling.
Not that Anaya need worry. I award Dan Brown 58% for his work. So any of my own students who receive 59% or higher – and most of them are considerably higher – stand some chance of publication. I’m not afraid to award marks over 70% - a first class mark and again, several of my students achieve this. To Anaya, for all his works, I give 75%. If he ditched the clichés he be in the region of 87% - or higher.
Showing posts with label Dan Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dan Brown. Show all posts
Friday, 6 August 2010
Thursday, 27 May 2010
Dan Brown as Benchmark
“I couldn’t get out of MA marking mode,” said my colleague form Australia. “I was trying to read The Da Vinci Code on the plane. I was so disappointed. I would have failed it.”
Just sour grapes, I thought. She’s jealous. Because with the sort of money that book brings in she could afford to do what the heck she liked the rest of the time. It can’t be that bad, can it?
A couple of years later I read it.
What a disappointment indeed. Where was all that promising intrigue about Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene producing a family? All exposed in a short fast-paced episode when unbelievably the detective involved in the case is one of the “sang royal”. Oh come on, if my undergraduates constructed something like that they’d get exclamation marks all over their scripts. Never mind failing an MA.
“It gets worse,” said another colleague. “The first one’s not so bad.”
“Isn’t it?” I say.
“The first is bearable,” she says. “But after that, it’s the same old story over and over. When you’ve read one, you’ve read them all.”
But he must be doing something right, mustn’t he?
Well, yes, he is and actually I wouldn’t fail him on a BA assignment. I’d give him 58. A strong 2.2. His plots are well worked out even if they’re infuriatingly formulaic and improbable. He handles dialogue well even if it’s often trite. His characters are consistent even if not well drawn and believable. He has control over his writing – or he’s well edited - because he doesn’t have the lack of consistency and lack of grammatical accuracy that so often spoils the work of our otherwise talented students. But oh my, their work is so much more exciting, so much more convincing most of the time.
So when it comes to assessing my students’ work I ask myself –“Better or worse than Dan Brown?” Of course, there are other components to mark than just the wonderfully innovative but often quite raw piece of creative writing, so sometimes our students arrive at even less that Dan by another route.
Nevertheless, he’s a useful benchmark
Just sour grapes, I thought. She’s jealous. Because with the sort of money that book brings in she could afford to do what the heck she liked the rest of the time. It can’t be that bad, can it?
A couple of years later I read it.
What a disappointment indeed. Where was all that promising intrigue about Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene producing a family? All exposed in a short fast-paced episode when unbelievably the detective involved in the case is one of the “sang royal”. Oh come on, if my undergraduates constructed something like that they’d get exclamation marks all over their scripts. Never mind failing an MA.
“It gets worse,” said another colleague. “The first one’s not so bad.”
“Isn’t it?” I say.
“The first is bearable,” she says. “But after that, it’s the same old story over and over. When you’ve read one, you’ve read them all.”
But he must be doing something right, mustn’t he?
Well, yes, he is and actually I wouldn’t fail him on a BA assignment. I’d give him 58. A strong 2.2. His plots are well worked out even if they’re infuriatingly formulaic and improbable. He handles dialogue well even if it’s often trite. His characters are consistent even if not well drawn and believable. He has control over his writing – or he’s well edited - because he doesn’t have the lack of consistency and lack of grammatical accuracy that so often spoils the work of our otherwise talented students. But oh my, their work is so much more exciting, so much more convincing most of the time.
So when it comes to assessing my students’ work I ask myself –“Better or worse than Dan Brown?” Of course, there are other components to mark than just the wonderfully innovative but often quite raw piece of creative writing, so sometimes our students arrive at even less that Dan by another route.
Nevertheless, he’s a useful benchmark
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