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How’s this for irony?

My co-worker asked me if I had ever read the book “The Bridges of Madison County.” I had not. She told me it was a short read but very good and would bring the book in for me to read.

Then I remembered. I have this funny little cube sized book called “The Writer’s Block” which is filled with spark words, words of inspiration, writing exercises, ect. One such piece of inspiration has to do with “The Bridges of Madison County.” The writer of “The Writer’s Block,” Jason Rekulak, suggests that in your darkest hours of your writing life, when you think you don’t have what it takes to be a writer, you should read Robert James Waller. Specifically, “Bridges” which stayed at the top of the best seller list for 115 weeks and Warner Books claims it’s the best selling hardcover novel of all time.

Yeah, I know. You’re thinking: “How the hell is that supposed to make me feel better?!”

Because, despite the success of the book, it’s full of the most awkward and “clumsily constructed” sentences you will ever read. Rekulak points out three of them. Having now read the novel, myself, I could point out a lot more.

So the point of that, obviously, is if a book with such terrible writing mechanics is the best selling novel of all time, why the hell ain’t I famous yet?

More than that, and this where some irony comes in, you might say that “Bridges” had mass market appeal and was suitable for the average taste yet by some writing standards it’s dreck. Funny isn’t it that, after coming off my previous rant about Andrew Keen and his “Cult of the Amateur” I was struck by this part of “Bridges” as spoken by the photographer, Robert Kincaid:

“That’s the problem with earning a living through an art form. You’re always dealing with markets, and markets - mass markets - are designed to suit average tastes. That’s where the numbers are. That’s the reality, I guess. But, as I said, it can become pretty confining. They let me keep the shots they don’t use, so at least I have my own private files of stuff I like.

“And, once in awhile, another magazine will take one or two, or I can write an article on a place I’ve been and illustrate it with something a little more daring than National Geographic prefers.

“Sometime I’m going to do an essay called “The Virtues of Amateurism” for all of those people who wish they earned their living in the arts. The market kills more artistic passion than anything else. It’s a world of safety out there, for most people. They want safety, the magazines and manufacturers give them safety, give them homogeneity, give them the familiar and comfortable, don’t challenge them.

“Profit and subscriptions and the rest of that stuff dominate art. We’re all getting lashed to the great wheel of uniformity.”

I think Kincaid, were he alive today, would marvel at the Internet, (although he lamented about the end of “free range” and the concept of computers and robots running things in place of humans). However, with the Internet he could have set up his own website to display his photos that were “too daring” for the likes of National Geographic or other mass media publications. The Internet, in some respects has become the new “free range” outlet for creative expression. Like I pointed out in my previous post, there’s no middle man. There’s no studio executive or magazine editor or somebody to tell you that your art is crap and they’re not going to feature it.

Art is not dead, nor is it dying. It’s flourishing. Mr. Keen’s fear of there being no audience is absurd. Technology changes the way we create and view various art forms. This has happened many times over the past century. But what technology has not done, and never will do, is obliterate art in it’s entirety.