Another Sign the End is Near

Times used to be such that people liked to read novels for a little escapism, a break from the ordinary life, the dull routine of day in, day out. Some people, perhaps looking for a challenge, would indulge in literary novels, those that revolve around character development and theme, which would prompt discussion and deep thought beyond the words on the page. Others just wanted something to read while they took a shit, and thus the mass market trade was born. Formulaic writing, frowned upon in literary circles, became the way for authors to get rich quick as the readers wanted a story like the one they just put down, only with a different setting perhaps. The characters could be the same, no matter, it all boiled down to the literary equivalent of a Clue game.

It is not specific to any one genre either; anything that is mainstream can be mass produced with shoddy quality, suited to the Walmart palate. Romance novels, around forever, are just as bad, but honestly, when you get past man seeking woman, woman seeking man, man seeking man, and woman seeking woman, the rest of the variations stray from the mainstream and no longer are appropriate on the bedside table, but rather, hidden in one of the bottom drawers, under that extra bottle of lotion you keep there. Chick lit is another popular formula that sells, as long as it revolves around high fashion, caring for someone else's young children, or being a single girl looking for Mr. Right, a handsome, successful man, only to find that Mr. Right was her homely loser best friend all along. But as bad as most mainstream novels are, no genre is worse in its lack of creativity and meaning than the mystery.

Mysteries, thrillers, and crime dramas all fall under that too lazy to think of a new angle category, becoming more like a math problem than literature. Plug character A into situation B and presto! everything is neatly wrapped up in chapter C. Take John Grisham novels, for instance. John took what he knew, law, and turned it into one story. Then he took that one story and made it into a whole body of work,almost twenty novels, which people who like legal thrillers love, because they are familiar and make one feel they too have the capacity to crack that difficult case, to ultimately bring people to justice. But they don't. They can only read about it before it is time to heat up another hot dog or take out the trash.

The more people want to read the same thing over and over, the more formulaic writers will continue to churn out the same crap, only with new variations. Known sometimes as "cozy" mysteries, these brain candy pages include such riveting drama as the bed and breakfast mystery (Will the croissants be fresh?), the culinary mystery (whose hair is on my sandwich?), the religious mystery (Did God do it?), the animal as companion mystery (Lassie! Get Help!), and even the sports mystery (where is my golf ball?). As inane as any of these types of mysteries may seem, however, they are still masterpieces compared to what I saw at the library yesterday.

It was entitled "Death by Sudoku: A Sudoku Mystery" and no, I did not check it out. I did snicker and show it to someone else, who luckily did not exclaim, "Oh, there it is! I have been looking for this!" Who exactly is the audience for a Sudoku mystery? Is it someone who wishes they could complete a sudoku puzzle, but, accepting their limitations, feels it is better to read a dramatization of what might occur if one falls victim to the dangers of puzzle solving? Is it possible to die from too much sudoku? Is that what happens if you actually finish a sudoku puzzle? Are people getting murdered because of their ability to complete newspaper puzzles? Is the possibility of murder limited to sudoku, or are there Jumble victims as well? I don't want to even think about the cryptoquote casualties.

I suppose I should not judge people for their reading material selection any more than I would like to be judged for mine. But at least I like to challenge myself now and then. I might read something fluffy, but I tend to follow it with something more complex, where I might have the opportunity to learn something about myself or the world at large. Does reading a sudoku mystery even constitute reading? And what can one learn from it? That a good story can be summed up by a line of numbers, not repeated, either in a small square or in intersecting lines?

I wonder if it can be finished by the time you flush the toilet.