A couple of weeks ago, I answered one of the daily prompts that WordPress provides, talking about the book Room by Emma Donoghue. Today, I remembered I had another one stored for future use, and here it is:
Have you ever regretted reading a book — which one and why?
If you don’t want to know what happens in the novel Crawling Round South Oakwood by Stephen Slaughter, then stop reading here.
This book was released in 2012, and I first heard of it in Writing Magazine after it won an award for cover design. The words become fuzzier as you read down the cover, and they’re interspersed with pictures of beer glasses gradually emptying. I thought it deserved the award, but it proved the old maxim of Never judge a book by its cover.
It’s an tried-and-tested technique to hook the reader with immediate action. Just as Romeo and Juliet opens with a street brawl, I expected to see it all kicking off down the pub. Instead, we’re presented with the overwritten opening sentence.
Although I was more interested in the thought of a weekend break for two in Paris, which was the first prize of a competition in the local paper, the attention of my colleagues was firmly gripped by news which had not been reported in the paper and which was unlikely to ever reach its pages.
This sets the tone for the entire novel: dense with unnecessary detail and light on plot. We have to sit through pre-drinks at the narrator’s house, some uninteresting description of their favourite TV show So You Think You Know What You Are Talking About, and then a turn-by-turn account of how the group walks to the pub.
I don’t regret reading the book per se, but I do regret carrying on past the first chapter. Some authors can skilfully do virtually nothing with their characters, but not Stephen Slaughter.
The closest we come to any interesting action is a scuffle that breaks out in the middle of the book. There is no foreshadowing, no build-up of tension, just two characters who seemed like friends until they decided they had some sort of problem with each other.
Off the top of my head, I can’t think of another book with as few redeeming features. The plot is so banal that that I can’t even remember how it ends, and I’m not buying another copy just to find out. It’s likely some idle chatter about their beloved TV show.
