First of all, I detest literary snobbishness for personal reasons. My mom wrote romance novels and she did it well. Over 30 of them were published. She was the most popular romance author in Germany for 3 years in a row in the late 80s.* And every single year, English class would start with the teacher trashing romance novels as if someone, somewhere were attempting to replace Ulysses** with the current Harlequin releases. Honestly.
I rather detest tautology, but entertainment is what it is. Video games involve pressing buttons, movies involve staring at a screen and kids' shows will feature bright colors and near lethal levels of overacting.
However, that's not to say that a good story is limited by format. The Halo franchise has been telling an amazing story for the better part of decade, touching on sacrifice, loss, the essence of humanity and ethics in the face of genocide while gamers everywhere scream, "Boom! Headshot!" and then get blown up by the noob who can't figure out how to throw a grenade. (Why, yes, that was me last night. I got two kills for that.)
All of this might help to explain my annoyance at yet another self congratulatory "Most of the reading public is stoopid and that's why my book won't sell even though thinly disguised erotica does quite well" post, this time at Salon.
Likability is indeed just another word for "morality." A huge section of the American reading public does not want art for art's sake, or even realistic characters; it wants the books we read and the movies we see to be clever public service announcements, meant to uphold public morality.
Ever read a book with an unlikeable protagonist? I have, though it's rarely done on purpose. Here's the thing: I could be doing anything with my time. I could be cleaning or shopping or watching TV. I don't have to be reading your book. There has to be some kind of motivation to get me started (cool cover!) and some sort of motivation to keep me going. That's where likeability factors in.
If we like someone, we care about what happens to them. If we dislike someone, we don't care what happens to them. Or we want bad things to happen to them. So, if your protagonist is unlikeable, what's my motivation to continue reading? Yeah, I don't have any. That's why writers stick with likeable protagonists, because while unlikeable yet sympathetic protagonists can be done, it's very difficult to do and if you miss the mark, people stop reading.
I've been trying to think of successful unlikeable protagonists and I've come up with two, one from movies.
There's Riddick***. (Yeah, it's Vin Diesel, but it totally works. It especially works the less he's wearing. Anyway.) He's not likeable at all, but it sure is fun to watch him kill in the most primitive possible manner with an air of ennui that seems to say, "Yeesh, why am I always the one that has to do all the killing? Is there no one else with the requisite slashing skills available, ever?"
That's it. There's plenty of likeable antagonists, they abound, but unlikeable protagonists? Really difficult to do.
It all reminds me of a classic defense mechanism, "You're weird!" This epithet is used by many young people whenever they are confronted with a challenging person or a person with a challenging thesis. Having read many literary reviews on Amazon in order to get an idea of what the average person thinks about fiction, I've come to believe that half of the negative literary reviews can be broiled down to those two words: "You're weird."
The "average person" as represented by Amazon book reviews? Really? If by average you mean "Buys books online and then returns to review them later", sure. That's not the average person, however. And you're assuming we're stupid?
The sad truth is that most American writers are professionals first, artists second. We need a Mark Twain to make all these Horatio Algers look ridiculous. The case of Nirvana and '80s rock is also instructive.
I will now explode into laughter for two reasons. 1) Samuel Clemens a/k/a Mark Twain was under no illusions as to what he was. He knew he was a professional, he liked being a professional. 2) Kurt Cobain was not allowed to listen to anything but gospel music growing up. The music he wrote for Nirvana? He thought that was punk. He was pretty surprised the first time he heard actual punk.
I guess the point here is art is accidental and if not, it's not art? I dunno, I clearly don't understand literature.
*No, we never did find out why, exactly. I guess some things work out even better in translation.
** I'm told that book is art. I think it's 1,000 pages of masturbation and unless I'm the one getting off, I'm not interested in masturbation.
***The DVD version of Chronicles of Riddick includes about 20 minutes of pure sci fi cut scenes that completely explain Riddick as a Furyan. The movie makes so much more sense if you've seen them. And Escape from Butcher Bay is an excellent video game.
