See, This Is Why I Read Kids' Books

It's one of the reasons, anyway.  It's also why, when I dabble in writing fiction, these days my writing always turns out to be for kids.  I'm talking about the tendency of modern adult fiction to walk almost exclusively on The Dark Side.  Now, I'm not saying writers shouldn't have sad or even disturbing elements in their tales, and I'm not even against all violence in stories, but I really don't want or need to read stories that just make me feel worse about the world.

Recently I borrowed Watchmen (DC Comics, 1986) by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons.  I was very excited to read it; I like graphic novels (the good ones), and I love superheroes, and several people whose opinion I respect enjoyed this book.  I didn't get far, though.  The story involves quite a bit of flashback, and I quit reading shortly after one such flashback to the end of the Vietnam War in which one of the (American) super-characters shoots a Vietnamese woman who is very pregnant with his child.  I asked my husband, who had read the book twice, if the rest of it was equally upsetting, and he said, "Yeah, it gets worse.  You shouldn't read it."  Done.  Snap went the covers, and I moved on to something else.

This is a book that has won awards and inspired what looked to me like a cool movie (no longer on my list of must-sees).  Why do writers have to go so far?  There have to be problems and distasteful characters in every story, but do I have to walk around with the image of that woman and her unborn baby lying in a bloody heap on the floor of a bar?  It's kind of a good reality check, I guess.  It reminds me to be grateful for writers who don't do that.  

Come to think of it, the last modern adult novel I read--Infinite Jest (Back Bay Books, 1997) by David Foster Wallace--didn't hold me until the end, either.  It was some of the best writing I've ever read.  There is no doubt that Wallace really was a living, breathing, actual genius.  But I stopped reading during a scene with a burglary when the bungling criminals gag the owner of the house, who happens to have a bad cold.  He only speaks French and they only speak English, so they don't understand that he is telling them that gagging him will kill him since he can't breathe through his nose.  After he suffocated, I closed the book.  It's supposed to be dark humor, but honestly, that kind of humor I can do without.

Oh, well.  We all have our preferences, right?  And at the moment I am pretty pumped because I finally got my hands on Jeanne Birdsall's latest: The Penderwicks on Gardam Street (Knopf, 2008).  I'm hoping for a good rabbit chase like last time, but even without that, I'm looking forward to a great story.