I correct my stance on the general public. Turns out, Caucasian females are the root of all literary evil.

Check out the stats for OkCupid users (http://blog.okcupid.com/index.php/the-real-stuff-white-people-like/)

Specifically, see what happens when you press the female icon for Caucasians. That’s right. Watch and shudder. The second most frequently found word in white women’s profile essays is Jodi fucking Picoult! Followed closely by Nicolas Sparks.

I’m so ashamed to be white right now.

What GIVES? According to the statistics, white women apparently love Sparks and Picoult more than “[their girlfriends]”, motherhood and “[being blonde”]. Toughies to beat.

Latinas and black women have astronomically better reading tastes, mentioning authors and books such as “Isabel Allende”, “The Bluest Eye” and “The Color Purple”. But then again – these books and authors are inextricably tied to the ethnicity and literary history of these two groups. Which leaves me with a horrible conclusion. Toni Morrison and Alice Walker are to modern black women what Jodi Picoult and Nicholas Sparks are to modern white women. A commenter recently suggested I should move to a deserted island. I’m strongly considering it at the moment.

In conclusion: stay away from white women on OkCupid! Actually, I’m not so sure I’d go on that site to begin with.

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Nicholas Sparks Reaches New Levels Of Delusion Every Time You Buy His Drivel. I’m Also Pretty Sure A Baby Panda Dies.

The face of delusion. Creepy as hell.

Nicholas Sparks. My friend and I have an inside joke about him. One of us says his name. Then we spontaneously start laughing. But really. If you’re ever feeling a bit down, just read one of his interviews. Sparks might just be the most deluded person in the history of literature. I have a terrible suspicion his ego increases exponentially as his paychecks increase, which means his head is going to implode any time now. Seriously. Stop buying this man’s crap. You’re feeding a horrible monster of delusion.

I’ll start you off easy. This man doesn’t think he writes romance novels. He thinks he writes “love stories”. The difference being something nonsensical like “people read romance novels for predictability and love stories to  be surprised”, his novels, of course, falling into the latter category. Gag. I think he has a case of the Jodi Picoults: he’s completely unwilling to recognize that what he writes is commercial drivel seeing as his books sell as if they’re going out of style (oh, they’re classics all right), meaning he must therefore be a literary genius worthy of like, EIGHTY Pulitzers.

In an in interview with USA Today, Sparkzilla proved he is only becoming douchier by the minute. This is what he had to say about one of his colleagues. One who’s actually good. Who actually won a Pultizer (and was very worthy of it):

“Cormac McCarthy? “Horrible,” he says, looking at Blood Meridian. “This is probably the most pulpy, overwrought, melodramatic cowboy vs. Indians story ever written.”

Ladies and gentlemen – the Dunning–Kruger effect in action. I really wonder if the interviewer was able to keep a straight face. I think I’d literally be ROLFing.

Sparkzilla just kept the good stuff coming. The interviewer asked him what he liked in his own genre. Are you ready for the response?

“There are no authors in my genre. No one is doing what I do.” Are you kidding me?? EVERYONE is doing what you do! Romance novels are the most frequently purchased books of ANY genre! Oh, sorry. Love stories. Sparks writes love stories. Allow the esteemed author to explain (I don’t recommend reading this after any large meal) :

“I write in a genre that was not defined by me. The examples were not set out by me. They were set out 2,000 years ago by Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides . They were called the Greek tragedies….What is the purpose of what I do? These are love stories. They went from (Greek tragedies), to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, then Jane Austen did it, put a new human twist on it. Hemingway did it with A Farewell To Arms.“

Am I the only one who imagines he was masturbating to the sound of his own voice as he said that?

But here’s the really good part. Sparks and the interviewer were apparently walking through a bookstore while conducting the interview. At one point, Sparks pulls out a copy of A Farewell to Arms and compares himself to Hemingway:

“Good stuff. That’s what I write” … “That’s what I write.”

Bahahahhahaha! If Hemingway was alive to hear that, he’d falcon punch Nicholas Sparks so hard he’d forget what a fucking book was!

Please. Someone summon the ghost of Hemingway. It would be the literary showdown of the century. Jodi Picoult could be in Sparks’s corner. Papa H would probably be so friggin’ mad he’d have the strength of ten Picoults. But I’d let him have some weapons or something. An angry bull, maybe. I’ve read Hemingway used to carry Ava Gardner’s kidney stone in a necklace. I’d let him use that too. Quite possibly the classiest way of strangling douchebags. Team Ernest!

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Dear General Public: Did You Never Find Your Way Out Of The Commercial Fiction Section Of The Bookstore?

According to a recent Forbes list, the following fiction writers made the most money out of all their colleagues in the past year:

1.  James Patterson ($70 mill)

2. Stephenie Meyer ($40 mill)

3. Stephen King ($34 mill)

Jodi Picoult Asked For Her Latest Book Advance In Cash So She Could Get A Jonathan Franzen Haircut And Suit Right Away

4. Danielle Steel ($32 mill)

5. Ken Follett ($20 mill)

6. Dean Koontz ($18 mill)

7. Janet Evanovich ($16 mill)

8. John Grisham ($15 mill)

9. Nicholas Sparks ($14 mill)

10. J. K. Rowling ($10 mill)

If there is a God, I sincerely hope he regrets the whole free will schtick right about now. Although, this list isn’t all bad. I am fine with J. K. Rowling and Ken Follett. But Patterson, Meyer, Sparks and Steel earning that much money in a year is unholy. And you know who’s to blame? The general public.

It is no secret Literature’s Police Woman thinks the general public’s choice of books is about as intelligent as Bristol Palin’s baby.  With good fucking reason. According to the bestseller lists (and this Forbes list), the general public loves Dan Brown, James Patterson, Nicholas Sparks, Danielle Steel and Stephanie Meyer. The general public is incapable of picking up a book from any genres except romance and crime. The general public has an eerie buying power, leading me to believe some of these people might actually have college degrees. The thing is, I know countless people who shun the reading tastes of the general public with an equal or greater amount of snarkiness than I do. But an actual member of this mysterious breed? If I know one, I am being tricked by a most deceitful Iago.

Who are you people?

What are your physical characteristics? How can I spot one of you on street level? Are there any particular phrases or gestures that reveal your identity?

If you are a member of the general public, I would greatly appreciate a comment or guest post demystifying your ubiquitous (yet oh-so-sneaky) presence. I’ll pay you for it. In birth control pills.

Unfortunately, I have a sneaking suspicion any lover of the commercial fiction writers named above is also the type of person who scoffs at literary “elitists” who don’t understand The Da Vinci Code is the best book in the history of the multiverse and that literary fiction is like, so dumb, seeing as it requires you to actually think while you read rather than just chill back with a piece of pulp that demands about as many brain cells as a re-run of an a particularly predictable episode of Law & Order. That you’ve already seen. Twice.

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Anything Jodi Picoult Has Ever Written Can Be Summed Up In One Sentence

This is basically the plot of any book by Jodi Picoult:

Horrible medical condition befalls child of white, middle class family.

If you want to get particular about it:

Moral dilemma and courtroom drama ensues. The story is told through multiple viewpoints, one of which is an overworked mom tirelessly fighting for “[her] child!”

Twist ending. Usually involving the revelation of who really wrote that series of anonymous notes which had no other real function in the story. Someone also has to die for the book to end.

That’s the plot of at least three of her books (and those are just the ones I’ve actually read. Who knows how many of her novels follow this formula?). No, really. Does anyone have the count? So far I’ve got My Sister’s Keeper, Nineteen Minutes and House Rules pretty much following the above description step by step.

I wonder if her editor is like, “Shit, AGAIN, Jodi?” in her head whenever she reads a new manuscript. But then. Why bother fixing a commercial money-making machine if it’s not broken? Her latest, House Rules, was an immediate bestseller. In spite of pretty much just being My Sister’s Keeper with Asperger’s instead of leukemia.

Picoult majored in creative writing at Princeton. And I suspect she wildly resents being labeled a “commercial fiction”-writer seeing as she so obviously got snubbed for the 2009 Nobel (Fucking Herta Müller and her Nazi poems).

On the subject Picoult says : “I think you can consider my books literary, because they make you think,” admitting of course that they are also at least a little  commercial “because they are a compelling read.” She goes on to say “the best books straddle genres“.  OK, Jodi.

A lot of authors disagree with the genre ’em evil marketing departments erroneously place their holy works of art. But Picoult just can’t seem to let it go. This woman actually thinks the reason she won’t win a Pulitzer is because her books are labeled ‘commercial’  (Yeah, THAT’S why.) Correction: she thinks “chances are” she won’t win a Pulitzer. Eh. I don’t even know what to say to that.

In a recent interview with The Telegraph, Jodi did  the Sarah Palin by comparing herself to Shakespeare. “What kills me about the whole commercial/literary debate is that what we consider to be the classics were the commercial literature of their day. Shakespeare, Dickens or Austin – they were all widely read. It’s a good point, right?” Yes. A few hundred years are all that stands between today and the day Jodi Picoult is hailed as the greatest writer of her time.

The journalist for The Telegraph also asked Jodi Picoult about the formulaic nature of her novels. Jodi’s answer was priceless:

“I can’t stand that accusation,” … “I defy you to find another writer who has written about as many subjects and taken you on as many journeys as I have. John Grisham doesn’t get complaints because his books are about the legal system. Maybe it’s because I’m a girl.”

Stupid misogynistic critics.  History will redeem you, Jodi Picoult! Just like it will Stephen Baldwin and Hitler.

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