Putting the Cont into Controversial

By Ashley Lister

I hold several opinions which people deem controversial. This is their polite way of saying I am wrong and they are right. Here are some examples.

Tolkien is overrated. CS Lewis (or maybe even Hugo Dyson) read Tolkien and famously said, “By God, not another bloody elf!” Personally I wasn’t troubled by the number of elves. I just thought there was too much description and an offensive absence of anything interesting. I’ve never bothered with the movies. If you seriously want to argue about this let’s just say that Tolkien can’t write an opening that engages this reader’s enthusiasm.

Monty Python are not particularly funny. Some of their stuff made me smile. Twenty years ago. Nowadays it’s flat. There’s funnier contemporary material out there. There was funnier stuff going when Monty Python were at the height of their success.

Jeffrey Archer is a good writer. This also goes for Dan Brown, Stephanie Meyer and the majority of those writers currently working for Harlequin Mills and Boon. Many people slate these authors for possessing a perceived inability to write. But, too often, the people criticising the Archers, Browns and Meyers etc have never read those writers. I’ve read them. They’re good storytellers.

Prize-winning books are showcased as though being dull is something of literary merit. Glancing through the synopses of the Booker archives I found this blurb for J G Farrell’s Troubles:

Major Brendan Archer travels to Ireland - to the Majestic Hotel and to the fiancée he acquired on a rash afternoon’s leave three years ago. Despite her many letters, the lady herself proves elusive, and the Major’s engagement is short-lived. But he is unable to detach himself from the alluring discomforts of the crumbling hotel. Ensconced in the dim and shabby splendour of the Palm Court, surrounded by gently decaying old ladies and proliferating cats, the Major passes the summer. So hypnotic are the faded charms of the Majestic, the Major is almost unaware of the gathering storm. But this is Ireland in 1919 - and the struggle for independence is about to explode with brutal force.

In other words, this is a book about a man staying in a hotel. WTF? Travelodge the novel? The purpose of the blurb is to make the book sound sufficiently intriguing, so a potential reader will part with the cover price before it’s discounted heavily and dumped in the remainder bin. I hope to God the book is more interesting than the blurb suggests because this genuinely makes it sound like the dictionary definition of watching paint dry.

Or take this blurb from Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1989 winner Remains of the Day:

A compelling portrait of the perfect English butler and of his fading, insular world in postwar England. At the end of his three decades of service at Darlington Hall, Stevens embarks on a country drive, during which he looks back over his career to reassure himself that he has served humanity by serving “a great gentleman.” But lurking in his memory are doubts about the true nature of Lord Darlington’s “greatness” and graver doubts about his own faith in the man he has served.

Honestly, if I wanted to read about a butler serving Nazi-sympathisers, I’d pick up one of Paul Burrell’s autobiographies. I only sat through the movie because I thought Sir Anthony Hopkins was going to eat Lord Darlington’s liver served with fava beans and a glass of Chianti.

But these are just some of my controversial opinions. Doubtless there are many people who will tell me that Tolkien is not overrated, Monty Python sketches are still funny, Archer et al are not particularly noteworthy and stories of butlers and hotels do make for page-turning reads.

And, doubtless I’ll fall back to my usual stance about the controversy of conflicting opinions and quote Lindsay from yesterday: Opinions are like ****holes. Everyone’s got one – and everybody else’s stinks.