Image via WikipediaSometimes, the worst writing conceals the best of intentions. I learned this from Gene Weingarten's heartwarming article on the man behind the popular Hardy Boys series, Leslie McFarlane.Weingarten first writes of how he felt betrayed by the unbearably bad writing that characterized the adventures of his boyhood heroes, Frank and Joe Hardy:
"The dialogue is as wooden as an Eberhard Faber, the characters as thin as a sneer, the plots as forced as a laugh at the boss's joke, the style as overwrought as this sentence. Adjectives are flogged to within an inch of their lives: 'Frank was electrified with astonishment.' Drama is milked dry, until the teat is sore and bleeding: 'The Hardy boys were tense with a realization of their peril.' Seventeen words seldom suffice when 71 will do:
'Mrs. Hardy viewed their passion for detective work with considerable apprehension, preferring that they plan to go to a university and direct their energies toward entering one of the professions; but the success of the lads had been so marked in the cases on which they had been engaged that she had by now almost resigned herself to seeing them destined for careers as private detectives when they should grow older.'
Physical descriptions are so perfunctory that the characters practically disappear. In 15 volumes we learn little more than this about 16-year-old Frank: He is dark-haired. And this about 15-year-old Joe: He is blond.
These may be the worst books ever written."
