I have tears streaming down my face and I have been cackling like a maniac for 10 minutes.
I LOVED the Hardy Boys. They felt serious for that age. The hardbacks had a classic feel. The pages were thick, the illustrations mysterious and the covers were heavy and ornate. When I finished one I felt like I accomplished something. I would put it on the shelf in between 10 others and decide on the next one - usually by coolness of cover. I vividly remember the scene in "Missing Chums" when they drove the boat into the smugglers cave. My heart was pounding. I remember I got so nervous that I hid under a table and shifted positions constantly while reading it. It may have been the first time I got completely immersed in a book.
Knowing that he called the books, "The Juveniles," and that he viscerally hated every every word of every page, is like finding out that Santa Claus doesn't exist - at age 32.
And just to twist the knife, on my birthday the author wrote in his diary:
June 9, 1933: "Tried to get at the juvenile again today but the ghastly job appalls me."
Ok I just woke my girlfriend up by laughing so hard. I don't know what to think. Goodnight HN. Thank you for the best thing I've read all year.
First: Gene Weingarten is always a pleasure to read.
I know it is not relevant to his main angle, but I wish he had followed up on this part: In 1959, many of the old Hardy Boy books were redone, streamlined, modernized, sterilized.
I, like many HNers, I imagine, first read the Hardy Boys in the post-1959 editions. A couple decades ago, when I learned about the rewrites, I decided to collect the originals, and compare them. It was a fascinating experience.
Weingarten's phrasing above gets to the key elements. Racial stereotypes were removed-- the old versions were quite offensive to modern sensibilities at times-- along with about 1/3rd of the text. Plots were simplified, and a much more formulaic approach to action (from one mini-cliffhanger to another) took over. Descriptive passages were omitted, more often than not.
So: if you really want to read Leslie McFarlane, be sure to check out the pre-1959 editions.
That is fascinating. It solves a puzzle for me: the books I read, which would certainly have been the 1959 revisions, were definitely of a 1950s and not 1930s sensibility. The feel is that of the beginning of the rock and roll era, when teenagers would drive around in cars of their own and devote themselves to fun, but the social and family structures were still stable. Nothing transgressive had happened yet, but it was about to. The late 1950s were nostalgic for themselves before they were even over.
My bet is that the 1959 revisions were a great contribution to the Hardy Boys' longevity. It sounds like the books were stripped down to their essence. Talk about uncelebrated. If McFarlane was at the bottom of the literary barrel, how about the anonymous hack who had to go in and clean up his work! Whoever it was, I'm on their side. Snobbish though every critic may be, you can't argue with those books' success. I don't mean success at selling copies; I mean success at captivating children, generation after generation.
Harry Potter had a similar ability to suck children into an imaginary realm and get them reading. But its popularity was more intense and perhaps short-lived. The Hardy Boys' effect has been more diffuse but extraordinarily durable. Maybe in 15 years someone will cut the Harry Potter books down to size and turn them into perennials too.
Indeed. When I started to read such fiction, I had 2 or a few more volumes of the novels and one of them was a pre-1959 edition. By comparison the newer ones were very thin gruel, and not having any way to procure the older ones and knowing science was my calling I concentrated on getting what Tom Swift Jr. books I could manage.
One funny thing happened with my 5th grade teacher sometime later: we realized we were both fans of Tom Swift and started reeling off titles, none of which the other recognized. He had of course read the original series about the (future) father, I was reading the 2nd focused on his son (Jr.).
I just dug out my old Hardy Boys hardcover books from way at the back of the book shelf (behind the Saberhagen Swords books) and sure enough, mine were all from 1959.
Here's the inscription from inside th cover of book #1 "The Tower Treasure"
(c) Grosset & Dunlap, Inc. 1959
all rights reserved
ISBN: 0-448-08901-7 (Trade edition)
ISBN: 0-448-18901-1 (Library edition)
In this new story, based on the original of
the same title, Mr. Dixon has incorporated
the most up-to-date methods used by police
and private detectives.
Unlike the book referenced in the article, mine begins
Chapter I
The Speed Demon
Frank and Joe Hard clutched the grips of their motorcycles
and stared in horror at the oncoming car. It was careening
from side to side on the narrow road.
"He'll hit us! We'd better climb this hillside -- and
fast" Frank exclaimed, as the boys brought their
motorcycles to a screeching halt and leaped off.
A little later comes what I believe is the scene referenced at the start of the article:
Frank chuckled and sad, "After the help we gave Dad on his
latest case, he ought to set up the firm of Hardy and
Sons."
"Why not?" Joe replied with a broad grin. "Isn't he one
of the most famous private detectives in the country? And
aren't we bright too?" Then, becoming serious, he added,
"I wish we could solve a mystery on our, though."
Now I'll have to try and dig up a couple of the originals just for fun. I loved these books when I was 10~13... practically inhaling them one after another.
The original Hardy Boys books were what got me started reading really, when I was probably 6 or 7. My dad had a whole box of them from when he was a kid, and once I discovered them, I had my nose in them all the time. From there, I discovered the Tom Swift Jr. books, another Stratemeyer creation. I still think those books were responsible for 90% of my attraction to tech that ultimately led me here.
I just met a guy who has ghostwritten a few of the newer Hardy Boys books. He says that he's given a picture of what the cover will look like and it's his job to write the entire story based on that.
This seems like an exaggeration. What does the person who creates the cover illustration get to work off of? Surely there's at least a short treatment or something.
Also notice how Chet was never 'fat', but 'plump','chubby','stout', etc? I learned more synonyms for fat from Hardy Boys books than should have been allowed.
I have to say that, despite the terrible, terrible writing, reading the Hardy Boys did a) pique my interest in vocabulary and b) introduce me to the idea of learning words through context.
For that reason (and nothing else) I do not regret having read them.
I learned about the solar plexus (they were always knocking out goons by hitting them in that mythical spot)... never could seem to find it in real-life fights though...
Reminds me of the relationship Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had with Sherlock Holmes.
Doyle despised writing Sherlock stories and did not consider them serious fiction. At one point he killed Sherlock, only to revive him years later because of popular demand.
Today there are societies and museums around the world dedicated to the great detective.
Popular writing reminds me of image compression: part eternal truth, part Human Visual System. People enjoy fiction because it connects with them somehow; pop fiction targets the Human Narrative System. Joseph Campbell has the idea of the universal monomyth; Orson Scott Card claims that a writer's best writing happens despite the author. Orson is conceited enough to believe he's not a great writer, just a conduit of man's soul.
A clever writer can easily get carried away with himself - solipsistic, narcissistic - such as those quoted in the submission (the elimination pun; the parallel of temper and years.) Maybe being restrained was good for him? if you come across a passage you think particularly fine, strike it out. I actually enjoy the straightfowardness of his "bad" writing (including this image: "scattering the town's 4,000 inhabitants before its terrific blast.")
Popularity is a tricky measure of technical merit, because it has more to do with what people need than with what you have created. Perhaps the credit for mining that need here really does lie with the publisher, who specified the story.
"... scattering the town's 4,000 inhabitants before its terrific blast." is straightforward.
The 60 words in the sentence preceding that clause, are not:
"A leering tornado of flame from the southwest roared down through a half mile of underbrush upon the town of Haileybury basking sleepily in the September sunlight on the shore of Lake Temiskaming early Wednesday afternoon, ate its way across the railway tracks and then, fanned by a 60-mile-an-hour gale, ripped its way to the water's edge ..."
In general the phrase "the 60 words in the sentence" and the word "straightforward" are incompatible.
And I believe that it was good that the boys are never described much (contrary to Weingarten's disappointment at the discovery of that). It's not a bug but a feature -- it allows the readers to identify with the boys more not less!
I've read a bunch of Perry Mason books as I was very young and I remember that none of the main characters was described much. I believed even then that it's good so. I was able to imagine them as I'd like them to look like.
He might get carried away with his writing, but I liked this little gem quoted in the article: "If you have never seen a blonde society editor kicked in the ass by a flaming wastebasket, you have missed one of the rare experiences of journalism."
And now we can have a big list of nostalgia which disappointed us. Like when I recently watched a Knight Rider episode for the first time after a dozen years and suddenly realize, how bad the actors and plots are.
German readers should probably revisit the TKKG novels for a particular disappointing experience.
My mom took the approach of just reading out loud whatever she read, so I grew up with Lord of the Rings and other good solid books. I personally read Madliene L'engle's books in 3rd and 4th grade then skipped directly up the ladder to Dune (making me the only 9 year old I've ever met that managed to make it through Dune Messiah (and man did I ever manage to miss the subtext and analogy and etc)) .
But cartoons, man I loved em all. Tried to watch GI Joe and Transformers a couple years back and could barely last an episode.
I was talking to my friends about this the other day: NES games (with a few exceptions) are terrible now. SNES games are still fun, though. I guess the 16 bit mark was a timeless threshold.
What's extraordinary is that those books remain the favorites of small boys everywhere. The Hardy Boys franchise has turned out hundreds if not thousands of more contemporary knockoffs
over the years. These are all quickly forgotten, yet those original McFarlane potboilers, disdained by everybody with fancy taste (including the OP), still excite passion among early readers.
Is anything comparable? Children's literature that survives that long is usually regarded as classic; but these have survived whilst being regarded as trash. They keep going on the literary pleasure of children alone - an audience that can't be fooled. Each new generation just seems to discover them.
The passion of those first adventure novels
only lasts a year or two before one begins to find them a little embarrassing. So even older children share McFarlane's opinion on the "juveniles". My son mocks their stilted dialogue now. But he devoured the entire series with fervor.
If people like bad media, does that make it good? Or do we just have poor taste?
"Good" seems to be a combination of "quality" and "entertaining". Funny how we talk about these bad books, movies, and other media as if their literal quality were their only value.
Created things can aim to inspire and challege (art) or they can seek to comfort and warm (pop art). That Hardy Boys was great pop art. The books didn't challenge or inspire, however they did make you feel comforted, safe, and protected. The mystery got solved, all the threads got tied up in the end. Nice. Neat. Comforting.
Makes you wonder about possibility of such literary hearts who would be chucking out "SEO-compliant" articles at "2$/100 words" rate on freelance websites while their heart aches with misery attributed to nothing but their own creations.
This is why we have more developers working for others instead of working for themselves. They're in big corporations, working on the latest version of whatever snoozefest their information infrastructure needs to just produce a better TPS report that now highlights this stat instead of that stat.
It's not software you go bragging about in the next user group meeting, or even to your spouse or your kids or best friend. It does, however, pay the bills.
Just how they could be having this ludicrous discussion over the roar of two motorcycles is never quite explained.
The imagination of a 12-year-old boy is generally not so hampered by skepticism. Ridiculous, implausible stories are the most fun to read, anyway. Ironically, the parts that the adult Weingarten find to be the best are the parts I didn't like as a kid. I always found Aunt Gertrude to be boring.
The comparison with Little House on the Prairie interested me, as I read both when I was young. I probably could have identified LHotP has superior fiction, but in terms of enjoyment I most certainly did not care. Reading the Hardy Boys did not ruin my ability to appreciate Laura Ingalls Wilder.
I have never read a Hardy Boys novel, although I've always meant to, just out of curiosity. What I did read was the entire Danny Dunne series, about a young teenager whose widowed mother was the live-in housekeeper for a science professor. Danny always got involved in a complicated situation involving the professor's latest invention. I'm sort of afraid to go back and read them now.
Ooh, thanks for mentioning him; for this entire thread I've been thinking about those books, but I couldn't come up with any more of his name than "Dan or Daniel". And I was not looking forward to trying to Google for "juvenile fiction scientist Dan". ;)
In the past year, I have gone back to reading the Enid Blytons (Secret Sevens and Famous Fives) that I fondly remembered. I was amazed at how bad I found them this time around.
Especially, because I've read 2 Harry Potters recently and they are fairly readable. I also pick up Tintins and Asterixes from time to time and I still find them very enjoyable and appealing.
My 8 year old son LOVES the hardy boys, though he's mostly reading stuff a bit older now. I wonder sometimes about the...cheesiness and some of the less-than-PC content in this series and others, but I figure if I turned out OK he could too.
He likes the cheesy dialog, but I suppose he's young enough that I won't worry about his tastes too much. I'm just glad he likes to read. It's a huge load off--like now all I have to do is point him in the general direction if something he likes.
I think I'll hold off on mentioning the article, though. :)
Interesting, the Hardy Boys were practically my childhood. I even chose my username because of that series. Knowing that the author hated writing the books sort of saddens me. But what makes an author hate the work he's writing? When I code a website for someone, it doesn't really make me hate making the website.
I'm not sure the comparison works though. He doesn't object to the act of writing a book, I suspect he didn't even really have too big an issue with writing a detective novel. He objected to being asked to do those things badly when he knew he could do better.
We're talking plots he felt made no sense, poor characters, clunky dialogue, and when he tried to improve these things he was told in no uncertain terms to stop messing about and go back to what the publisher was paying him for.
The equivalent for a programmer would be to be told to code a website with actively bad coding standards, no use of style sheets or code reuse, no normalisation or referential integrity in the database and no error handling. And every time you try to make something better, you get told to shut up and do it the way you've been asked.
I don't know about you but that would make me hate the project.
FWIW, I loved the Hardy Boys and I've turned into an avid reader... at least for a 20 year old. The books are what they are, and if you're looking for any sort of depth, you're unlikely to find it.
I think the Hardy Boys books do two things well: 1.) sell 2.) get kids interested in reading
A really brilliant, moving post. It is extremely difficult to work on something you despise. We don't get to know how many such artists had and will have to work on uninteresting stuff and work with stupid, demanding people. Having a family may increase the fear of failure and other apprehensions in people who work for their daily survival.
I have never read Hardy Boys in childhood, as I am not a native speaker of English. But, I had definitely enjoyed some juvenile books (boy-detective fiction etc.) written for kids. Talented people often fall victims to such profit seeking organizations at the expense of their art and craft. Lets wish we will not be pushed to such extreme pains.
[+] [-] uuilly|15 years ago|reply
I LOVED the Hardy Boys. They felt serious for that age. The hardbacks had a classic feel. The pages were thick, the illustrations mysterious and the covers were heavy and ornate. When I finished one I felt like I accomplished something. I would put it on the shelf in between 10 others and decide on the next one - usually by coolness of cover. I vividly remember the scene in "Missing Chums" when they drove the boat into the smugglers cave. My heart was pounding. I remember I got so nervous that I hid under a table and shifted positions constantly while reading it. It may have been the first time I got completely immersed in a book.
Knowing that he called the books, "The Juveniles," and that he viscerally hated every every word of every page, is like finding out that Santa Claus doesn't exist - at age 32.
And just to twist the knife, on my birthday the author wrote in his diary: June 9, 1933: "Tried to get at the juvenile again today but the ghastly job appalls me."
Ok I just woke my girlfriend up by laughing so hard. I don't know what to think. Goodnight HN. Thank you for the best thing I've read all year.
[+] [-] michael_dorfman|15 years ago|reply
I know it is not relevant to his main angle, but I wish he had followed up on this part: In 1959, many of the old Hardy Boy books were redone, streamlined, modernized, sterilized.
I, like many HNers, I imagine, first read the Hardy Boys in the post-1959 editions. A couple decades ago, when I learned about the rewrites, I decided to collect the originals, and compare them. It was a fascinating experience.
Weingarten's phrasing above gets to the key elements. Racial stereotypes were removed-- the old versions were quite offensive to modern sensibilities at times-- along with about 1/3rd of the text. Plots were simplified, and a much more formulaic approach to action (from one mini-cliffhanger to another) took over. Descriptive passages were omitted, more often than not.
So: if you really want to read Leslie McFarlane, be sure to check out the pre-1959 editions.
[+] [-] gruseom|15 years ago|reply
My bet is that the 1959 revisions were a great contribution to the Hardy Boys' longevity. It sounds like the books were stripped down to their essence. Talk about uncelebrated. If McFarlane was at the bottom of the literary barrel, how about the anonymous hack who had to go in and clean up his work! Whoever it was, I'm on their side. Snobbish though every critic may be, you can't argue with those books' success. I don't mean success at selling copies; I mean success at captivating children, generation after generation.
Harry Potter had a similar ability to suck children into an imaginary realm and get them reading. But its popularity was more intense and perhaps short-lived. The Hardy Boys' effect has been more diffuse but extraordinarily durable. Maybe in 15 years someone will cut the Harry Potter books down to size and turn them into perennials too.
[+] [-] hga|15 years ago|reply
One funny thing happened with my 5th grade teacher sometime later: we realized we were both fans of Tom Swift and started reeling off titles, none of which the other recognized. He had of course read the original series about the (future) father, I was reading the 2nd focused on his son (Jr.).
[+] [-] Sukotto|15 years ago|reply
I just dug out my old Hardy Boys hardcover books from way at the back of the book shelf (behind the Saberhagen Swords books) and sure enough, mine were all from 1959.
Here's the inscription from inside th cover of book #1 "The Tower Treasure"
Unlike the book referenced in the article, mine begins A little later comes what I believe is the scene referenced at the start of the article: Now I'll have to try and dig up a couple of the originals just for fun. I loved these books when I was 10~13... practically inhaling them one after another.[+] [-] whatusername|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanwaggoner|15 years ago|reply
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Swift_Jr
[+] [-] Alex3917|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kingkilr|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanwaggoner|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pge|15 years ago|reply
1) first reading the word "rendezvous," which I never heard anyone say, so for years, my brother and I talked about secret "rend-a-visses"
2) never quite figuring out what a "jalopy" was, as chet's car was never a car, always a jalopy.
[+] [-] mgkimsal|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djacobs|15 years ago|reply
For that reason (and nothing else) I do not regret having read them.
[+] [-] superk|15 years ago|reply
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/146656.Hardy_Boys_Complet...
[+] [-] shrikant|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] steve19|15 years ago|reply
Doyle despised writing Sherlock stories and did not consider them serious fiction. At one point he killed Sherlock, only to revive him years later because of popular demand.
Today there are societies and museums around the world dedicated to the great detective.
[+] [-] 10ren|15 years ago|reply
A clever writer can easily get carried away with himself - solipsistic, narcissistic - such as those quoted in the submission (the elimination pun; the parallel of temper and years.) Maybe being restrained was good for him? if you come across a passage you think particularly fine, strike it out. I actually enjoy the straightfowardness of his "bad" writing (including this image: "scattering the town's 4,000 inhabitants before its terrific blast.")
Popularity is a tricky measure of technical merit, because it has more to do with what people need than with what you have created. Perhaps the credit for mining that need here really does lie with the publisher, who specified the story.
[+] [-] Avshalom|15 years ago|reply
The 60 words in the sentence preceding that clause, are not:
"A leering tornado of flame from the southwest roared down through a half mile of underbrush upon the town of Haileybury basking sleepily in the September sunlight on the shore of Lake Temiskaming early Wednesday afternoon, ate its way across the railway tracks and then, fanned by a 60-mile-an-hour gale, ripped its way to the water's edge ..."
In general the phrase "the 60 words in the sentence" and the word "straightforward" are incompatible.
[+] [-] acqq|15 years ago|reply
I've read a bunch of Perry Mason books as I was very young and I remember that none of the main characters was described much. I believed even then that it's good so. I was able to imagine them as I'd like them to look like.
[+] [-] Natsu|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cstuder|15 years ago|reply
German readers should probably revisit the TKKG novels for a particular disappointing experience.
[+] [-] Avshalom|15 years ago|reply
My mom took the approach of just reading out loud whatever she read, so I grew up with Lord of the Rings and other good solid books. I personally read Madliene L'engle's books in 3rd and 4th grade then skipped directly up the ladder to Dune (making me the only 9 year old I've ever met that managed to make it through Dune Messiah (and man did I ever manage to miss the subtext and analogy and etc)) .
But cartoons, man I loved em all. Tried to watch GI Joe and Transformers a couple years back and could barely last an episode.
[+] [-] ralphc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philwelch|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jarin|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] microtherion|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gruseom|15 years ago|reply
Is anything comparable? Children's literature that survives that long is usually regarded as classic; but these have survived whilst being regarded as trash. They keep going on the literary pleasure of children alone - an audience that can't be fooled. Each new generation just seems to discover them.
The passion of those first adventure novels only lasts a year or two before one begins to find them a little embarrassing. So even older children share McFarlane's opinion on the "juveniles". My son mocks their stilted dialogue now. But he devoured the entire series with fervor.
[+] [-] darinpantley|15 years ago|reply
"Good" seems to be a combination of "quality" and "entertaining". Funny how we talk about these bad books, movies, and other media as if their literal quality were their only value.
[+] [-] brandnewlow|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dschobel|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hardik|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dschobel|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hrabago|15 years ago|reply
It's not software you go bragging about in the next user group meeting, or even to your spouse or your kids or best friend. It does, however, pay the bills.
[+] [-] Goladus|15 years ago|reply
The imagination of a 12-year-old boy is generally not so hampered by skepticism. Ridiculous, implausible stories are the most fun to read, anyway. Ironically, the parts that the adult Weingarten find to be the best are the parts I didn't like as a kid. I always found Aunt Gertrude to be boring.
The comparison with Little House on the Prairie interested me, as I read both when I was young. I probably could have identified LHotP has superior fiction, but in terms of enjoyment I most certainly did not care. Reading the Hardy Boys did not ruin my ability to appreciate Laura Ingalls Wilder.
[+] [-] superk|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andrewl|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] blahedo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aniket_ray|15 years ago|reply
Especially, because I've read 2 Harry Potters recently and they are fairly readable. I also pick up Tintins and Asterixes from time to time and I still find them very enjoyable and appealing.
[+] [-] heresy|15 years ago|reply
I don't want to discover Captain Haddock and Professor Calculus suck :P
[+] [-] dschobel|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akkartik|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Poiesis|15 years ago|reply
He likes the cheesy dialog, but I suppose he's young enough that I won't worry about his tastes too much. I'm just glad he likes to read. It's a huge load off--like now all I have to do is point him in the general direction if something he likes.
I think I'll hold off on mentioning the article, though. :)
[+] [-] hardy263|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tyrannosaurs|15 years ago|reply
We're talking plots he felt made no sense, poor characters, clunky dialogue, and when he tried to improve these things he was told in no uncertain terms to stop messing about and go back to what the publisher was paying him for.
The equivalent for a programmer would be to be told to code a website with actively bad coding standards, no use of style sheets or code reuse, no normalisation or referential integrity in the database and no error handling. And every time you try to make something better, you get told to shut up and do it the way you've been asked.
I don't know about you but that would make me hate the project.
[+] [-] adamokane|15 years ago|reply
I think the Hardy Boys books do two things well: 1.) sell 2.) get kids interested in reading
No harm there...
[+] [-] dheerosaur|15 years ago|reply