Mort Castle

WHEN JUST A GOOD READ … ISN’T

Back in the day (well, actually, back in my day, when I was a yout’ and full of pith and vinegar), the Ramsey Lewis Trio had a major bust-out, hoo-hah! Crossover to Ed Goddamn Sullivan hit!!! with “The In Crowd.” Did the song offer any harmonic innovations for the knowledgeable jazz connoisseur? (No, Leonard Feather and Nat Hentoff did not find reason to gush praise and praise and praise while falling prostrate in worship of the New Jazz). Was there something new in rhythm: nope, just a solid — why so simple, it might have been rock ‘n’ roll beat (shudder … oooh…)

 

Well, the melody was infectious. Infectious doesn’t mean “nothing,” but it can mean “pretty close to nothing,” because infectious also describes the melody “I’d like to Teach the World to Sing,” a tune which has caused the deaths of over 125,000 diabetics, and “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.” (Further references to “99 Bottles” may be found in the testimony of people on Death Row who have been convicted of killing their children.)

 

But, hey, it was thumping and energetic and presented with an authority that led to only the right notes played at the right time. And, you know, Mr. Clark, it had a good beat and you could dance to it! 

 

“The In Crowd” was “a good listen”–

 

A Good Listen being the musical equivalent of A Good Read.

 

All this by way of leading up to what I am hearing with piss-offing frequency: “What’s wrong with you, Castle? Why do you rag on and on and sometimes on about the need for quality in the fiction you choose to read? What’s wrong with a story that’s just a good read?”

 

Partly that might be the result of my having declared in the Public Forum that I have had the realization that I! Am! Mortal! (If it’s hard for you to believe, ah, boychick, it ain’t doing me a lot of laughs.) That means I have a finite time upon this awkward ball of mud to contemplate the wayside rose, to chomp through a greasy bag of sliders, and to read books. With less time ahead of moi than behind, why should I spend minutes reading fiction(s) that cannot enlighten me or affirm something within me or disturb or offend me as I seek the answer to the occasionally occurring question: What is truth?

 

And partly that might be the result of my having proclaimed to the literary world (or at least the eight or 13 people who make up my literary world) that these days I seek to make … Art. Yeah, I confess. I am striving to create wordworks that could last beyond my time. (Ah, Castle, you are so pretentious … )

 

But I think it mostly comes from other people in the (argh!) literary community, not having the same definition as do I of “good read.”

 

“Okay, Castle, I’ll grant you there wasn’t any characterization in that book except for ‘he was pretty tall.’ But the plot sure moved, huh?”

 

Yeah, there was pace there–speed. The jetliner heading for the ground from six miles straight up has .. speed. Then it crashes and burns.

 

“But there were a lot of good ideas in that book … “

 

Here’s a good idea. Let’s do something swell for Germany. Here’s another: Let’s do something grand for Mother Russia. Here’s the last belaboring one: Let’s do something for Muslims everywhere. Choose from the following list of jerks: A) Hitler. B) Stalin. C) Osama bin Laden. D) all of the above jerks.

 

What I am saying with wit as subtle as a battering ram is that too often what is termed the “good read” by Vox Populi does not meet / mean my definition.

 

I recently picked up–with every attempt to read, so help me!–a first novel written by a person I knew to be a fine person (and a very fine person is she!), an award nominated book, and a book which had been touted to me as “a good read.”

 

The novel was informed by both years and tons of research. The novel had ambition. The novel …

 

Aw, goddamnit, I could not make myself read the thing.

 

It was a “good read” — for those who do not read with any set of standards other than “Is something happening / about to happen?”

 

The dialogue was not clumsy; it was stupid.

 

The “local color” was presented in so flat (make that tuneless) a voice that it read as lumpy as the mountains in which the (alleged) story was set.

 

And then there was the … plot. Plot is supposed to be a series of related events. We had events. Related? Well, they all involved people–or at least those lifeless non-dimensional klutzolas who were supposed to be characters…

 

Good read? No, it was unreadable.

 

As are too many of the stories created by people who declare something like, “I’m just a storyteller, okay? I’m not trying to be a William Hemingway or a Flannery Fitzgerald or a Dashboard Hammet. I just tell stories, that’s what I do … “

 

No, you don’t.

 

Not for this guy.

 

And the analogy: If the Ramsey Lewis Trio had given us nothing but notes, whether in the key of A or G or L (sounds like ‘l’ to me!) set to a four four beat …

 

That gives us the unlistenable.

 

So, please don’t tell me it’s a good read …

 

If the characters are no more human than what you see in Macy’s window at Christmas.

 

If the dialogue would offend August corn in Iowa.

 

If the credibility requires the reader to first produce his JR. SANTA’S HELPER ID card.

 

If it’s … If it’s so crappily written that …

 

Crappy? Aw, come on … What about those bestsellers that are poorly written but sell gazillions and wind up movies starring Tom Hanks …

 

And what about those beautiful books that don’t sell millions but just might live forever …

 

This is a digression.

 

Mort’s “good read” is a well written read. Maybe it’s not a Rosetta Stone unscrewing the inscrutable nor a Ginsu for the Gordian knot, but it makes me happy I read it — and that I could read it because there wasn’t the sole and singular “negative factor” preventing my doing so.

 

The negative factor = Bad writing.

 

And Bad Writing cannot

 

mean a Good Read.