Comments on: Modern Greats

By: Shaun Evans

Shaun Evans — Sat, 29 Nov 2003 06:53:12 +0000

It is amazing to me that such an extended thread about literature has avoided mention of Marxism and meta-analysis. So I’ll jump in. Literary theorists, as a class, have a problem. A big one. Well-educated amateurs have opinions about their subject. Well educated amateurs rarely have opinions about physics, chemistry, economics, or physiology & medicine, to name four of the six Nobel prize categories. And since well-educated amateurs often read books, but rarely launch offensive wars of territorial conquest, the Peace prize is in a better position relative to Literature to defend its academic turf. To be blunt, the gatekeepers of Literature have more unwashed barbarians pounding at their gates than most other academic disciplines. (I count myself among the unwashed masses for purposes of this Marxist analysis.) As a member of Phi Beta Kappa* I feel perfectly qualified to opine on the merits of Joyce, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Gibson, King, Bujold, et al. I do not feel similarly confident holding forth on string theory, quantum computing, or the human genome project. So, members of the literary establishment must create and maintain barriers, artificially if necessary, between themselves and people like me. It is a class imperative. You may agree. You may disagree. In no case should you delude yourself that you can change this situation. Gatekeepers are threatened by independent power sources. King is rich, and is a New York Times best seller. He will continue to be both, regardless of the views of the literary establishment. King is therefore a type of counter-revolutionary, and must be removed from photographs with the scissors of literary criticism whenever possible. * “(and yes, I too have an education, since that seems to be something people are anxious to convey about themselves in this discussion)”. I really enjoyed that quote of Laura’s. It is partially responsible for this post.

By: jo.

jo. — Thu, 27 Nov 2003 06:03:25 +0000

And of course, I just read the other postings on the thread (the one after the Bloom-bash) and now realize how delayed my comment is. Must remember to read before posting, since almost all of this has been said before, by many others. People like Shakespeare, Dickens, and Dumas were, in their day, writing for a popular audience, yet their works make it into the “canon” (whatever that is). sorry, all.

By: jo.

jo. — Thu, 27 Nov 2003 05:40:29 +0000

Harold Bloom said that he didn’t understand reading a book that wasn’t going to make one a better person. It didn’t work. Harold Bloom has read an enormous number of books and he’s still a pompous gasbag. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I’ve got a PhD in English, I teach Renaissance lit, mostly drama, and I’ve never seen a bloody book that will make ANYONE a better person. Making people virtuous is not art’s job—although it can entertain people, stimulate people and enrage people. Popular fiction does that just fine: so does ‘serious prose’. Sometimes the one morphs into the other—drama was trashy garbage in Shakespeare’s day. Oh, and most of the academics I know are seriously addicted to murder mysteries, myself included. And Wodehouse and Pratchett both make me do the Happy Dance. jo.

By: cw

cw — Wed, 26 Nov 2003 03:48:09 +0000

re keith m ellis: I think that because tolstoy had a genius world view that he was able to create the characers that he did. We read his book we see (to some degree) the world through his eyes. We see how brilliantly he understands humand beings and their interactions. We feel his compassion. The lecures I agree are pretty dry. But maybe they fit in somehow. I haven’t read the book in a while. As for neuromancer, like I said, I haven’t read that in a while either, so maybe my memory is faulty. But to clarify, in both neuromancer and war and peace, I’m not talking about the characters world view I’m talking about the author’s as revealed in the book.

By: Anthony

Anthony — Wed, 26 Nov 2003 00:27:47 +0000

Ophelia – Dickens is not a great stylist. He reads as if her were being paid by the word from an unlimited budget. But he does draw excellent characters, and can put more into a one-paragraph sketch than a lit’rary author puts into an entire chapter. His story lines are excellent, as well. That is why we still read Dickens today.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 23:26:46 +0000

Well, Tolstoy's worldview in War and Peace is historical determinism, and he beats it into you in a few unfortunate near-authorial lectures. I don't think that's what makes it great. What makes both War and Peace and Anna Karenina great is Tolstoy's remarkable insight into human nature and behavior. In particular, I think that most writers see their characters (and other people) as far more narratively coherent than is true in real life. Tosltoy accomplishes the amazing feat of capturing the strange interplay between coherence and incoherence of real personalities within the context of a narrative that, nevertheless, makes perfect sense. As to your claim about Neuromancer and the "stupidity" of the "broken hearted-detective trope"...well, I don't think that, generally, the protagonist's worldview is the book's worldview; and I don't think it's the case with this book. It seems to me a weak foundation upon which to build a critique. It reminds me (a little) of someone who told me that they didn't like Lola rennt because they couldn't stand the two main characters who they thought were "scummy".

By: cw

cw — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 23:09:55 +0000

The problem with neuromancer was that (if I remember correctly) it was informed with the broken hearted detective trope. This is a kind of teenage boy pose. If you knew someone sporting this world view, you’d probably avoid them. It’s the same with the book. It’s world veiw is stupid. It has fun ideas in it though, so I’m not saying it’s totally worthless. But I think great literature is wise. A work of great literature has a genius world view. Maybe that’s what Bloom meant. If you read a book (like War and Peace) that has a genius world view, then maybe some of that world view will rub off.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:46:22 +0000

“Frankly, I think this whole populist anti-elitist guilt-trip thing is pretty absurd. I look within, I seek for any trace of a bad conscience about not reading romance novels. Whaddya know – it’s not there.” I can’t say that it’s absurd because I’ve never read a single romance novel. This thread and the new post make me consider the possibility that there’s something I don’t know.

By: Keith M Ellis

Keith M Ellis — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 21:38:22 +0000

“…I argue that character and story bolster longevity of a novel more than the craftsmanship.” I agree. But then, I would. I still contend that the people who complain most about bad writing in popular fiction are concentrating too much on the writing. They’re not seeing the forest for the trees. Yes, ideally, the really good books are well-written in every sense. But there’s not that many of those. Furthermore, technical ability comes easier than talent. There’s far more art that is technically adept than there is that’s truly an expression of talent. I think many writers of popular fiction could stand to be much better writers—but that doesn’t mean their books aren’t good. Look at this in a different context: music. There is great variability in technical musical ability, and its presence is not at all a guarantee of quality composition. This is partly an influence on my own viewpoint in this discussion: as a musician, it took me years to learn to listen to—and judge—music without focusing solely on its technical merits.

By: Henry

Henry — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 20:19:34 +0000

Laura – thanks for the recommendations. I’m charmed to discover that there’s an Irish bed-and-breakfast minigenre – I have no intention of reading it (any inaccuracies would be annoying), but I’m very pleased to know that it exists. Pouncer – the one Bujold book that I really enjoyed was the one where Miles gets married – A Civil Affair ??? A class of a romance novel, I suppose.

By: Pouncer

Pouncer — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 16:45:16 +0000

First, let’s get Lois McMaster Bujold’s name into this thread. Bujold Bujold Bujold. There. Okay, now, to denigrate Tom Clancy for hiring ghosts and elevate Alex Dumas for writing timeless thrillers is to expose either ignorance or disregard of Dumas’s methods. And in principle, what’s wrong with collaborative efforts? I’m rather enjoying Eric Flint’s “shared universe” of 1632, isn’t everybody? Then there was Thieves World and Aces High … oh well, collaborative genre fiction CAN be dreck. But, to return to our sheep, proving that “Clancy” novels are a collaborative effort doesn’t establish that they are dreck. Takes a second sentence to do that. Over at the Jane Galt comments section I argue that character and story bolster longevity of a novel more than the craftsmanship. I simply extend that, here, in noting that GREAT story and GREAT character transcends AWFUL translation. So Antigone is still compelling, as are Captain Nemo, Jean Valjean, Doctor Zhivago, and Beowulf. “Literary craftsmanship” will carry a writer only so far. “Storytelling”—a la Stephen King—can, potentially, make a writer’s ideas immortal. Bujold: Mirror Dance Check it out.

By: David Sucher

David Sucher — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 16:30:46 +0000

“I’m just saying popular fiction is rarely an original recipe: the great majority of currently very popular books are retreads on well-known themes.” Couldn’t one say that of a lot of very popular work e.g. Shakespeare and “MacBeth”? Nothing original in his plot at all; the guy cribbed the story.

By: Thomas Dent

Thomas Dent — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 14:14:04 +0000

Henry seems to have misread the food analogy. I don’t claim that literary awards always do honour the exciting and new, but that they should. And I didn’t make the equation that “genre”=hamburger and “literary”=original recipe, which is evidently false. I’m just saying popular fiction is rarely an original recipe: the great majority of currently very popular books are retreads on well-known themes. This is relevant to what Stephen King said because he appears to be boosting popular fiction whether or not it’s original. Evidently, the urbane and cultured Matt McGrattan was only pretending to be ignorant in dissing the middle-class novel…

By: laura

laura — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 13:47:39 +0000

Henry—I’m sure there are women who like Wolfe, I just never could get more than a few pages in even knowing that my dad loves him. I also don’t want to imply I don’t read sci-fi; in fact I do like a significant amount of it. I actually wrote my undergrad honors thesis essentially on why it was that I read romances and sci-fi for similar reasons but got a lot more grief about reading the former than the latter. I tarted that idea up to seem kind of academic, but that’s where it started. Anyway, my personal favorites as romances go are Mary Jo Putney (historical or contemporary), Amanda Quick (Ravished, Mistress, and Reckless are among her better ones, to my mind), Susan Elizabeth Phillips (contemporary), Jennifer Crusie (contemporary), Joan Wolf (only if you can find her historicals; avoid her contemporaries). Jude Deveraux has her ups and downs—some of her books include hilarious commentaries on romance conventions, if you know the genre, while others are overly laden with things like angels and time travel. These are all single-title books; there’s no point recommending any specific series romance since they come and go from the shelves too quickly to keep up with. Being irish, perhaps you should stay away from the fairly significant irish bed and breakfast subgenre, exemplified by many Nora Roberts books. Jeremy—We probably all have different standards for what qualifies as writing straining to write a home run, and admittedly that kind of writing is well spread out over genres. But it’s not that I WANT to be editing each sentence in my head, it’s that I can’t help it! For me, something about the standard writing style in romance novels really works when I want to relax. It is, as I said, fluid. But I recognize that others simply think it’s bad, and that may be the take-home point, that our standards are all so very different.

By: Mr Spectator

Mr Spectator — Tue, 25 Nov 2003 07:43:39 +0000

Reuben – Reginald Hill’s Dalziel and Pascoe novels. Don’t be put off by the execrable TV adaptations, but on the other hand don’t feel obliged to visit Wakefield either.