I’ve felt like my blog is starting to be overrun by book reviews and there is less to do with random book banter than I would like. So I plan to rectify this with introducing some more regular segments. In this one, I want to look at thinks that I find in books that either annoy or don’t sit right with me. Everyone has pet peeves with literature, it can be topics that have been overdone, cliches or just the way people seem to write. So I wanted to go though some of my literary bête noires as a therapeutical way to vent and maybe generate some interesting conversations in the comments.
The first literary gripe I want to look at has to do with villains. If you are writing a book and the villains are Russians, Chinese, or Middle Eastern then you have pretty much lost me already. There are other countries that annoy me to a lesser extent. But it’s not really the country that is the problem, all the writer is doing is generalising the people by making it sound like that the entire nation is full of villains; that is just plain lazy.
Alright it’s understandable if you are setting it in a war but when writing a thriller how about mixing it up a bit try something original, that’s all I’m asking. This formulaic approach to villains are one of my biggest problems with action or thriller novels. As soon as you enter into overdone territory with villains you’ve lost me.
There are more elements I find annoying with villains in literature but I mainly wanted to focus on nationality for this one. Please let me know your thoughts on villain nationality or villains in general and if you have any other insights on the topic that I’ve missed.
i personally find it irritating that americans are never the bad guys
That would be awesome
I’m with you!
Me three!
Middle Eastern or Muslim bag duys annoy the hell out of me. I would even take it intot he realm of movies/TV. It’s so overdone anymore, I generally tune out as soon as I see it.
I don’t seem to get upset too much about TV or Movies; I’m just not too heavily invested in them.
[…] But there was something in the book that really didn’t sit well with me. This book has one of my Literary Bête Noires in it; the villains. I’ve blogged recently about how I never seem to enjoy cliché villains and […]
Villains can definitely be hit or miss for me, but it does depend on the genre or the tone of the book. A book that’s a bit silly or over-the-top can get away with a moustache-twirling villain far more readily than one that’s meant to be true-to-life. I’ll accept a villain in a middle grade novel or an adventure novel far more readily than I will in literary fiction!
That’s a very good point, it does depend on the book. I’m ok if Germans are considered as villains in a world war two novel, so I guess it does depend on the context
I once read an article about how villains usually reflect what was seen as the bad guys of the time. So its Germans in the 30s and 40s, Russians during the cold war, and now Middle Easterns due to the war on terror. I suppose authors do this, as propaganda has already created an image in the reader’s mind about their villainy and it saves some of the work in creating the character.
I wonder if Middle Eastern authors write thrillers with american bad guys.
I really hope they do