Best Living Novelist!

[Megatron46]

Okay- the title says it all. The world's best living novelist, the key word there is living so your Dickens, Tolstoys and Twains etc are out. Playwrights are not allowed, unless of course they also happen to have written a novel, likewise with poets!

I don't have a set idea yet, but I'm going to start with
Salman Rushdi- "Midnight's Children" is one of the best books I have ever read- it is a gripping narrative, combined with the cultural differences make it a book I could not put down. I also like the fact that he does not pander to readers. He rights about another culture and if the reader doesn't quite understand it, rather than writing a lengthy digression to explain, he just kind of expects you to go and find out; which I found nicely refreshing, being treated like an adult! What do you all think?

[bosssmiley]

Dan Brown

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:smallamused:

...

:smallbiggrin:


Sorry. Couldn't resist it.

Rushdie? He's ok as Anglo-Indian magic realism (aka: fantasy with literary pretensions) writers go, but he's no V. S. Naipaul.

Umberto Eco eats Salman Rushdie's lunch, as do Milan Kundera and (the sadly departed) Jorge Luis Borges.

[Yora]

Walter Moers!

His books are just plain weired. But in the sense, that all good children books are really weired. But some years ago he started to make novels for adults, which are still as weired, or even more so. :smallbiggrin:
Most of the Zamonia novels have been translated to english, and I highly recommend them.

[snoopy13a]

J.D. Salinger
Toni Morrison

[Astrella]

Harry Mulisch, The Discovery of Heaven is still one of the best books I ever read.

[Thufir]

Neil Gaiman.

[Athaniar]

JRR Tolkien. What? He's alive. In my basement. Stop trying to break out, the door's made of mithril! You're only going to hurt yourself. Now finish that sequel!

More seriously, Timothy Zahn. I love those Thrawn books.

[Brewdude]

with the exception of his latest book, Neil Stephenson.

[Starscream]

Terry Pratchett.

Neil Gaiman is a close second.

[Tengu_temp]

Seconding Umberto Eco. Pratchett and Gaiman are great, witty and entertaining (and I actually like them more, but this is "best" and not "your favorite"), but they pale in comparison to him, and there is only one place at the top.

[pita]

George R.R. Martin.
Every blessed word of his is music to my... eyes... I guess...
Neil Gaiman is also a pretty close runner, as is (I think) Mark Haddon.
I'm surprised there isn't anyone here saying Salinger. He's still alive, and the literate community generally likes him even if I think he should burn in hell for his various crimes against humanity, like: Thinking of The Catcher in the Rye, writing The Catcher in the Rye, going to a publisher with The Catcher in the Rye, and finally, having a lot of sex with teenage girls. But mostly those first few.

[Cracklord]

JRR Tolkien. What? He's alive. In my basement. Stop trying to break out, the door's made of mithril! You're only going to hurt yourself. Now finish that sequel!


But that can't be right...

I've got him trapped in my basement...

[Catch]

Fantasy authors, really? I appreciate their niche, but it's just that. There's certainly literary merit there, but if a Terry Pratchett book is the best you've got on your shelf, it's time to hit the library.

Mentioning Toni Morrison is an Oprah's-Book-Club cop-out - her work had literary merit far before it was in vogue. I don't like her assertions, however, (Morrison, that is) that white writers lag behind black women writers because they haven't experienced the crucible of racial and gender discrimination. Possibly true, but pretentious anyway.

Citing the best living novelist is difficult, though, because successful writers have individual talents that others don't.

Isabel Allende has tones of magical realism, a bit like Gabriel García Márquez, but unique in her own right, but that's not a fair summation of her work.

Edwidge Danticat has a strong multi-cultural voice that reminds me of Zora (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Neale_Hurston), but Alice Walker makes for a better successor in almost every respect.

Dorothy Allison is absolutely fearless. Her work chases the flies away from "white trash" and strong-lesbian stereotypes, and recants a miserable upbringing with fictional mastery, not authorial self-pity. During Story Week at my college last year, she read a pretty revealing account of her sexuality with such measured fervor that we all simultaneously wanted to applaud and slink out of the room with red faces.

Male authors... Richard Price, for his snappy dialogue, Michael Chabon for his metaphors, Salinger's still kicking, but he really ought to die so his kids can publish all those sequestered stories. I could go on, but most of me wishes Nabokov was still alive so there'd be some unanimity. :smallwink:

Edit: I'd forgotten that Joyce Carol Oates is still writing, and a lot of it is pretty good even though she can sound like a boring old biddy.

[Lioness]

Robin Hobb

Patrick Rothfuss (well, he's only written one book, but I've read it 7 times, and declare its pure awesomness every time)

[Starscream]

But that can't be right...

I've got him trapped in my basement...

So wait, there's at least a 2/3 chance that the guy in MY basement is a fraud?! That's it, I'm watering down the gruel again! You can't trust anyone these days.

[Vaynor]

Clive Barker.

End of story.

[WhiteHarness]

Another one for Neal Stephenson.

Or maybe Sharon Kay Penman.

But definitely not Dan Brown. The guy's a complete and utter hack.

[Megatron46]

Oooh, I'd forgotten about V.S Naipaul, I haven't read much of him, but I did like "The Mystic Masseur"

I like Neal Stephenson, especially the Baroque Cycle and "Snow Crash", but not all of his books are good enough to give him the title Best Living Novelist in my mind.

I like Isabelle Allende too, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez too, and in a similar vein, I really like Louis De Bernieres- "Captain Correlli's Mandolin" obviously, but his South American trilogy is also awsome, and reminds me very much of Marquez.

As for Dan Brown, (and let us include Sam Bourne here as well), maybe we could start a "Worst Living Novelist" thread.

There must be more people up for nomination, I just need to think!

[WalkingTarget]

with the exception of his latest book, Neil Stephenson.

I don't get why people have a problem with Anathem (besides maybe jumping on the xkcd bandwagon bashing it for its invented terminology). I thought it was one of his more thought-provoking books.

Well, my favorite living authors are Gaiman and Pratchett.

Best living author... that's tough. By what metric are we measuring things here? Gaiman's work has spoken to me, personally, more than anybody else that I've read (with the possible exception of Steinbeck, but he's dead). Certainly more so than Salinger.

I've heard good things about Eco, but I've only gotten around to reading Foucault's Pendulum so far and while it was intelligently and interestingly constructed (and I enjoyed it quite a bit), it didn't really click for me. I do plan on reading The Name of the Rose here in the near future, though, but I'm always kind of sad that I only speak/read English so I've got to deal with translations for stuff like this.

[Douglas]

I don't know about best (what standard are we judging by?), but my favorite author is Brandon Sanderson.

[Cyrion]

What's our criteria for best? Most impressive single work? Most consistent quality?

John Irving (A Prayer for Owen Meany) is probably my candidate for the first, and Paul Auster for the second.

I'll take issue with those that relegate fantasy and sci-fi, sci-fi especially, as a niche and not good literature. They often have better characterizations, closer touch with "the human experience" and better crafted plots than a lot of the "classics." I'll happily defend Asimov's early Robot novels or Foundation series, or Roger McBride Allen's Modular Man or Rawn's Dragon Prince over anything the Brontes, Melville, or Salinger ever wrote.

[Megatron46]

I've just started reading the first book of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series, only about 20 pages in so far and enjoying what I'm reading of it.

As for what criteria makes up the best novelist, I didn't realy think that far ahead I must confess, but I suppose consistently good has got to be one of the criteria. I'm just interested in what people rate as good contemporary literature, and maybe get tips for some good books to read.

[Telonius]

Me. :smallbiggrin: (If you don't have confidence in your own work, you have no business writing a book).

Other than that, it's a tough call. Three years ago, I'd have suggested Naguib Mahfouz, but he no longer qualifies.

I got off to a very bad start with Toni Morrison. Beloved probably shouldn't be your introduction.

I really want to put Stephen King up there. He's written some excellent, excellent stuff. But there's so much filler in between the gems (not to mention between the front and back covers) that he doesn't make the cut.

Gene Wolfe and Neil Gaiman are at the top of my list for Fantasy.

[valadil]

with the exception of his latest book, Neil Stephenson.

Really? I thought Anathem was Neal's best. The beginning took a while to slog through but by page 200 that book is gold.

My favorite authors are Stephenson and GRRM. I don't presume to think fantasy or speculative fiction is best though.

[warty goblin]

Fantasy authors, really? I appreciate their niche, but it's just that. There's certainly literary merit there, but if a Terry Pratchett book is the best you've got on your shelf, it's time to hit the library.

Which reminds me, I really need to read more contemporary fiction. After the mound of history I'm buried in right now...


Mentioning Toni Morrison is an Oprah's-Book-Club cop-out - her work had literary merit far before it was in vogue. I don't like her assertions, however, (Morrison, that is) that white writers lag behind black women writers because they haven't experienced the crucible of racial and gender discrimination. Possibly true, but pretentious anyway.
Indeed. Black women writers may be ahead of white writers in writing about racial/gender discrimenation- and indeed probably are, but a statement such as that is very differerent than universal superiority. I'm no literary expert, but as far as I know, there are entire genres and sides of the human experience untouched by Morrison and her ilk. War novels come to mind.

[Erloas]

Fantasy authors, really? I appreciate their niche, but it's just that. There's certainly literary merit there, but if a Terry Pratchett book is the best you've got on your shelf, it's time to hit the library.
Well I think you are using your own specific definition of best to automatically discount Pratchett. I've read a lot of " best books" according to people that are supposed to know that sort of thing, and while they pretty good they aren't really enjoyable, at least no in the same ways.
Is a good movie a movie 10 critics really liked but the population as a whole didn't or is it a movie 100 million people watches and really liked and often watched again. Considering that it is entertainment, what is best is what entertained the most people, because it is doing what it is supposed to do. And all fiction books are entertainment and have been since people started writing them.

Not that you can define best simply by best selling, but it is a much better gauge in practical terms then most people give it credit for.
Of course Pratchett isn't one of the best selling either. But for what I want out of a book, they are some of the best I've ever read.

[TelemontTanthul]

Despite the genre in which Richard A Knaak writes, I did enjoy his writing style, and the way he describes everything.

(He writes books on Diablo 2 and Warcraft)

...sigh... if only he did his own stuff.

[LCR]

Paul Auster.

[Lord Seth]

Dan Brown

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:smallamused:

...

:smallbiggrin:


Sorry. Couldn't resist it.Dan Brown, to be fair, is very good at writing a pageturner. What he's not good at is doing any blasted research at all into what he's writing about (he actually used the phrase "Mandarin symbols" with a straight face). But hey, if lack of research/factual basis can make him as much money as The Da Vinci Code did, maybe he's onto something.

[WalkingTarget]

Well I think you are using your own specific definition of best to automatically discount Pratchett. I've read a lot of " best books" according to people that are supposed to know that sort of thing, and while they pretty good they aren't really enjoyable, at least no in the same ways.
Is a good movie a movie 10 critics really liked but the population as a whole didn't or is it a movie 100 million people watches and really liked and often watched again. Considering that it is entertainment, what is best is what entertained the most people, because it is doing what it is supposed to do. And all fiction books are entertainment and have been since people started writing them.

Not that you can define best simply by best selling, but it is a much better gauge in practical terms then most people give it credit for.
Of course Pratchett isn't one of the best selling either. But for what I want out of a book, they are some of the best I've ever read.

The problem is that for a lot of people who decide what "good" books are (by which I mean people who don't just "read books" but "study literature"), whether something is entertaining is irrelevant. They're looking for books that mean something or have larger artistic merit, whatever that is, or even something that was groundbreaking at the time it was written, even if by today's standards it's nothing special.

That's the thing about reading a lot of the "classics" of literature. They're read to give context for things that came afterward (think... reading Tolkien and Robert E. Howard before you read Moorcock and Zelazny before Jordan and Martin, or Wells and Verne before Asimov and Clarke before Gibson and Stephenson, or Poe before Lovecraft before King). The thing is, the more I read about modern literary criticism the more it looks like self-referential navel-gazing and less about enjoying a tale well-told.

[Mr. Scaly]

The problem is that for a lot of people who decide what "good" books are (by which I mean people who don't just "read books" but "study literature"), whether something is entertaining is irrelevant. They're looking for books that mean something or have larger artistic merit, whatever that is, or even something that was groundbreaking at the time it was written, even if by today's standards it's nothing special.

That's the thing about reading a lot of the "classics" of literature. They're read to give context for things that came afterward (think... reading Tolkien and Robert E. Howard before you read Moorcock and Zelazny before Jordan and Martin, or Wells and Verne before Asimov and Clarke before Gibson and Stephenson, or Poe before Lovecraft before King). The thing is, the more I read about modern literary criticism the more it looks like self-referential navel-gazing and less about enjoying a tale well-told.

This. Just this. Books are made to entertain, educate and make the authors money. Sure some authors have a statement they want to make, but I refuse to believe the first three aren't mixed in as well.


Margaret Weis. Closely followed by Richard Knaak.

[GoufCustom]

I don't know about best (what standard are we judging by?), but my favorite author is Brandon Sanderson.

This. His more serious works really connect with me, and the man just has a wonderful way with words, and is incredibly inventive with his magic systems.

And the Alcatraz books are some of the most hilarious reading I've done in some time.

[JonestheSpy]

I hate to say it, but I kind of suspect that folks who putGaimen and Pratchett at the top don't read too much outside of fanstasy...both very good authors, but not in the top leagues. I actually find Gaimen usually a bit of a let down - clever ideas that he doesn't have the mental discipline to follow thorugh on.

That being said, I think that as for folks writing in English (let's remember that big caveat), the ones I regard as the best have in fact written a fair amount of fantasy and science fiction - they just aren't put in that section of the bookstore for some reason. I'm talking about folks like Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Isabella Allende, and Margaret Atwood.

There are a couple of living writers who ARE put in the fantasy/SF section who qualify for the absolute top tier - Ursula LeGuin and China Mieville spring toi mind, and maybe Susanna Clarke.

[Verruckt]

Neil Stephenson, by a long, long shot. If Stephenson could write at the rate and consistency of King and the visceral quality of Abnett or Salvatore he'd be the best author alive. As it is he's my favorite. I don't know that best is really a good way to title this one though, it implies that there's some empirical standard for judging this stuff. As it is, definitely my favorite author. I mean, the man wrote Victorian Nanopunk, Baroque SciFi, made international finance exciting, and is the father of cyberspace, the katana+trenchcoat combo and the most badass man-portable minigun in fiction,

I'm also in the "Anathem was Jaw Droppingly Good" club. xkcd's rant on made up words pertains more to the fantasy convention of adding apostrophes everywhere to make something seem more exotic, for Anathem there is an very well thought out reason for the slight differences in language that is really integral to the world of the book. Also: "Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
How can you not love it?

On a side note, should we do the "in" thing and start a voting thread?

[TheBST]

I hate to say it, but I kind of suspect that folks who put Gaimen and Pratchett at the top don't read too much outside of fanstasy...both very good authors, but not in the top leagues.

Haven't read much Gaiman, but Pratchett is a fantastic author. Of course, as a genre writer..and a comedic writer, he'll never get the literary respect he's owed.

I'll second Rushdie and add Phillip Roth, Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo to the pile of great modern writers. 'Best living Novelist' depends on who's still alive.

[Telonius]

Also: "Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
How can you not love it?



... I've never read the book, but that reminded me of a quote from a (probably) terrible movie I saw when I was about 10, "Spaced Invaders."


Giggywig: Let me sum up the entire situation in a nutshell: there are five of us, and four billion of them. They have Strategic Air Command, nuclear powered submarines, and John Wayne. We have this.
[holds up a small rifle]
Captain Bipto: Is it loaded?

[WalkingTarget]

I hate to say it, but I kind of suspect that folks who putGaimen and Pratchett at the top don't read too much outside of fanstasy...both very good authors, but not in the top leagues. I actually find Gaimen usually a bit of a let down - clever ideas that he doesn't have the mental discipline to follow thorugh on.

That being said, I think that as for folks writing in English (let's remember that big caveat), the ones I regard as the best have in fact written a fair amount of fantasy and science fiction - they just aren't put in that section of the bookstore for some reason. I'm talking about folks like Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Isabella Allende, and Margaret Atwood.

There are a couple of living writers who ARE put in the fantasy/SF section who qualify for the absolute top tier - Ursula LeGuin and China Mieville spring toi mind, and maybe Susanna Clarke.

I haven't read enough Chabon to have an opinion, but I liked The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay well enough.

As for Mieville, I've read the first two Bas-Lag books and, while they aren't bad, I found them to consist of too much weird-for-weird's sake stuff to really get into. However, I mean to read The City & the City when I can get my hands on a copy. Here we're coming down to personal preferences, though. I prefer Gaiman's writing to Mieville's, plain and simple.

[LCR]

Oh, Michael Chabon is great. I wonder why so few on these boards have read his books (or maybe those that did, don't want to talk about it).
"Kavalier and Clay" is about comic books, "Gentlemen of the Road" is about swashbuckling Jews and "Yiddish Policmen's Union" about alternate history.
So, comics, sword fights and crazy "What if ..." scenarios.
Why don't you guys love him?

[Helanna]

I hate to say it, but I kind of suspect that folks who putGaimen and Pratchett at the top don't read too much outside of fanstasy...both very good authors, but not in the top leagues. I actually find Gaimen usually a bit of a let down - clever ideas that he doesn't have the mental discipline to follow thorugh on.


Or, you know, we just really enjoy their books because the books are really good.

Or hey, maybe we just have no idea what we're talking about. :smallannoyed:

I hate the idea that in order to be a "great" writer, an author HAS to put in all sorts of deep meanings that can be analyzed. That doesn't automatically make a book good or even "deep". And I truly hate the idea that fantasy isn't as good as other genres - if anything, it's *better* at subtly reflecting human nature without being irritatingly obvious. Going back to Pratchett, his books are hilarious, entertaining, AND they reflect human nature. You can analyze Pratchett's books as much as any other book out there, but people dismiss it because it's fantasy humor.

Aside from Pratchett, I'd definitely agree that Brandon Sanderson is working on this. His books are already amazing, and each one is better than the last. It's only a matter of time before I can confidently say that he is one of the best writers ever.

[Telonius]

If you ever get someone who genuinely thinks that sci-fi and fantasy is by definition lowbrow and only done by hacks who have no idea how to put deeper meaning into a work...

I just picked up a new one by Eric Flint called "Time Knight." It involves time travel, King Arthur, Merlin, and a plucky hero who uses his knowledge of future technology to win a battle.

After you get his reaction, complete with eye-rolls and "See, modern genre stuff is absolutely stupid!" - inform him that you lied. It's actually by Mark Twain, and is called "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court."

[GoufCustom]

Telonius, as I was reading that description I had the thought, "Eh. Sounds like a ripoff of Conneticut Yankee." :smallbiggrin:

Also, Death Dragon, you made me want to give you message board hugs, if such a thing were possible.

[Ozymandias]

Haven't read much Gaiman, but Pratchett is a fantastic author. Of course, as a genre writer..and a comedic writer, he'll never get the literary respect he's owed.

I'll second Rushdie and add Phillip Roth, Thomas Pynchon and Don DeLillo to the pile of great modern writers. 'Best living Novelist' depends on who's still alive.

Really? I thought Pratchett was generally well respected - I remember that AS Byatt in particular is a fan, and she's pretty harsh somtimes.

Come to think of it, I'd nominate her as far as best living novelists go. Also Gunter Grass is still alive, and Jeffrey Eugenides is one of my favorites.

[JonestheSpy]

Oh, Michael Chabon is great. I wonder why so few on these boards have read his books (or maybe those that did, don't want to talk about it).
"Kavalier and Clay" is about comic books, "Gentlemen of the Road" is about swashbuckling Jews and "Yiddish Policmen's Union" about alternate history.
So, comics, sword fights and crazy "What if ..." scenarios.
Why don't you guys love him?

Probably because he's put in the wrong section of the bookstore, so most folks here simply haven't read his work.




I hate the idea that in order to be a "great" writer, an author HAS to put in all sorts of deep meanings that can be analyzed. That doesn't automatically make a book good or even "deep". And I truly hate the idea that fantasy isn't as good as other genres - if anything, it's *better* at subtly reflecting human nature without being irritatingly obvious. Going back to Pratchett, his books are hilarious, entertaining, AND they reflect human nature. You can analyze Pratchett's books as much as any other book out there, but people dismiss it because it's fantasy humor.


Well see, that's thing - part of being a great artist is what you have to say in your art (the other part being how well you do so, of course). And for Crom's sake I don't think fantasy is inferior at communicating important ideas - I actually agree with DD that it's often better, certainly better than the rather nihilisitc, navel-gazing, nothing-really-happens style of fiction that is so esteemed by the mainstream literary establishment nowadays.

As for Gaimen, in the end I really don't think he has all that much to say - at least not much that interests me, and I don't think his portrayal of the human condition. Pratchett is definietly better, I just don't see him quite in the same league as folks like Ursula LeGuin or Sherman Alexie (another great author who's books are full of the fantastic but are put in the 'literary' section for purely arbitrary reasons).

[Kroy]

Arthur C. Clark!





...






What? He's right here next to Tolk...
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!




:smalltongue:

In all seriousness, I'm gonna have to say Dan Brown. I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code immensely. Plus, most of my favorite Authors died.

[Silence]

Varthy. (http://forums.deletionquality.net/showthread.php?t=9726) <------- Even though it's a fanfic, it's one of the most delicious pieces of literature ever.

This guy is actually considering going to Harvard for writing, but doubts he can make it in. He's probably got the highest intelligence to age ratio of anyone I know. I'm good friends with him.

But in the world of actual writers, Jack Finney is amazing.

[WalkingTarget]

As for Gaimen, in the end I really don't think he has all that much to say - at least not much that interests me, and I don't think his portrayal of the human condition.

More and more I find I dislike the term "human condition" like it's this unified thing that applies equally to everybody. What is meaningful to one person could be meaningless to another. I didn't particularly care for The Catcher in the Rye, but Holden Caulfield's life and behavior in no way resembles my own. His experiences don't make me reflect on my own life in ways other than disliking "phony" people (but since he is himself pretty phony, that means I dislike him as a person).

This might say more about me than I'd like, but Shadow from American Gods spoke more to me, personally, than any other character I think I've ever run across. I identified with him within the first couple of pages and he stuck with me right up to the end.

Gaiman might not write for you, but he sure as hell writes for me.

[Myshlaevsky]

Or, you know, we just really enjoy their books because the books are really good.

Or hey, maybe we just have no idea what we're talking about. :smallannoyed:

I hate the idea that in order to be a "great" writer, an author HAS to put in all sorts of deep meanings that can be analyzed. That doesn't automatically make a book good or even "deep". And I truly hate the idea that fantasy isn't as good as other genres - if anything, it's *better* at subtly reflecting human nature without being irritatingly obvious. Going back to Pratchett, his books are hilarious, entertaining, AND they reflect human nature. You can analyze Pratchett's books as much as any other book out there, but people dismiss it because it's fantasy humor.

Aside from Pratchett, I'd definitely agree that Brandon Sanderson is working on this. His books are already amazing, and each one is better than the last. It's only a matter of time before I can confidently say that he is one of the best writers ever.

I don't analyse anything I read unless I'm forced to by an exam or class. I don't study literature so that rarely happens anymore.

I still prefer people like Sybille Bedford, James Salter & Ford Maddox Ford to Terry Pratchett. I like Pratchett, but in terms of enjoyment - and more importantly to me, in terms of the way I am affected by a book - these people are light years ahead of him. I would place most authors I read above him but I don't think he's a bad writer. It's just that nothing in Pratchett's books has provoked an emotional response from me to the degree many other books have.

You're assuming enjoyment of 'classic' novels is in some way inevitably distinct from your own enjoyment of books - apparently the right way to enjoy them.

As for the original question, I can't make up my mind. James Salter, J.D. Salinger and Umberto Eco are some of the choices in my head. With Rushdie, I remember there was one chapter in The Satanic Verses that I thought was completely fantastic, but I can't groove on him as much as many others apart from that.

[Joran]

I hate to say it, but I kind of suspect that folks who putGaimen and Pratchett at the top don't read too much outside of fanstasy...both very good authors, but not in the top leagues. I actually find Gaimen usually a bit of a let down - clever ideas that he doesn't have the mental discipline to follow thorugh on.

That being said, I think that as for folks writing in English (let's remember that big caveat), the ones I regard as the best have in fact written a fair amount of fantasy and science fiction - they just aren't put in that section of the bookstore for some reason. I'm talking about folks like Michael Chabon, Jonathan Lethem, Isabella Allende, and Margaret Atwood.

There are a couple of living writers who ARE put in the fantasy/SF section who qualify for the absolute top tier - Ursula LeGuin and China Mieville spring toi mind, and maybe Susanna Clarke.

Neil Gaiman's last novel, The Graveyard Book, is probably his most complete work and is winning every children's book award known to mankind and deservedly so.

I'm surprised at the inclusion of Susanna Clarke, who to my knowledge has written a grand total of one novel. Does one very good to great novel make a novelist or does the author need to be able to replicate it with several?

Do graphic novels count? Then do we start including people like Alan Moore into the conversation?

Sadly, I can't pretend to be well-read enough to evaluate this type of question. Most of the books I've read are by people who are dead :(

[Myshlaevsky]

Neil Gaiman's last novel, The Graveyard Book, is probably his most complete work and is winning every children's book award known to mankind and deservedly so.

I'm surprised at the inclusion of Susanna Clarke, who to my knowledge has written a grand total of one novel. Does one very good to great novel make a novelist or does the author need to be able to replicate it with several?

Sadly, I can't pretend to be well-read enough to evaluate this type of question. Most of the books I've read are by people who are dead :(

She wrote a book of short stories too. And I'm the same - even most of the living authors I've read are pretty old.

[JonestheSpy]

I'm surprised at the inclusion of Susanna Clarke, who to my knowledge has written a grand total of one novel.

That's why I said "maybe". Jonathan Strange and Mr.Norrel is one of the best novels I've ever read - and probably my 2nd favorite fantasy novel after Lord of the Rings - but as it is only one book, it's a bit dicey to put her among the 'best'. If her future work is of the same quality, then she definitely will be at the very top, in my humble opinion.

BTW, I did enjoy her collection of short stories, but think she's better at the novel form.

[Catch]

I hate to say it, but I kind of suspect that folks who putGaimen and Pratchett at the top don't read too much outside of fanstasy...both very good authors, but not in the top leagues. I actually find Gaimen usually a bit of a let down - clever ideas that he doesn't have the mental discipline to follow thorugh on.

This was the point I was trying to make before, but didn't want to offend, and ended up being misconstrued anyway. Fantasy and Sci-Fi can have literary merit, and there are authors who've written genre fiction almost exclusively and are held in high esteem. Tolkein and Bradbury come to mind immediately. (As a point of interest, Sam Weller, the official biographer of Ray Bradbury, teaches in my department.)


Or, you know, we just really enjoy their books because the books are really good.

Or hey, maybe we just have no idea what we're talking about. :smallannoyed:

I hate the idea that in order to be a "great" writer, an author HAS to put in all sorts of deep meanings that can be analyzed. That doesn't automatically make a book good or even "deep".

I don't think this was implied at all, and I think you're confusing cause with effect. Authors don't write "deep" prose to impress literature teachers. A good teacher should recognize a great book from a good one, however.


And I truly hate the idea that fantasy isn't as good as other genres - if anything, it's *better* at subtly reflecting human nature without being irritatingly obvious. Going back to Pratchett, his books are hilarious, entertaining, AND they reflect human nature. You can analyze Pratchett's books as much as any other book out there, but people dismiss it because it's fantasy humor.

I'm aware the nature of GiantITP lends to discussion of authors who are only recognized at GenCon, but to say that Douglas Adams or George R. R. Martin is the best novelist is to spurn the bulk of literature. What a person likes the best is irrelevant; the search for authors who exemplify the novel form implies a certain adaptability and mastery of techniques that is unlikely to be present in a niche author. What I'm saying here is simple: Entertainment value is not the litmus test of a great novelist.

@V: What did I just say? :smallsigh: I have all the HP books in hardcover and they've been read more than once. So don't say I'm an unfair judge.

[BatRobin]

Joan.

Katherine.

Rowling.

[Dienekes]

I'm aware the nature of GiantITP lends to discussion of authors who are only recognized at GenCon, but to say that Douglas Adams or George R. R. Martin is the best novelist is to spurn the bulk of literature. What a person likes the best is irrelevant; the search for authors who exemplify the novel form implies a certain adaptability and mastery of techniques that is unlikely to be present in a niche author. What I'm saying here is simple: Entertainment value is not the litmus test of a great novelist.

I have to disagree a little bit. Almost anyone can write a story about tragedy or feelings or oppression. It takes a very skilled author to make it entertaining.

That being said, time to shoot any message I may say on this thread in the foot. Does anyone else find Toni Morrison's books as annoying as me? I have now read 3 of them, and each one seems worse than the last (Starting with Beloved, those poor poor cows)

[Closet_Skeleton]

I don't like Gaiman. I've only read Sandman vols 1 + 2, The Graveyard Book, Coraline, Good Omens, The Wolves in the Walls and I sold my dad for two goldfish and the only one I really liked was Coraline and bits of Sandman. I didn't like any of his characters and the only ones who seemed interesting had minor roles and pointless bad stuff happen to them.

[Catch]

I have to disagree a little bit. Almost anyone can write a story about tragedy or feelings or oppression. It takes a very skilled author to make it entertaining.

Sorry, that wasn't as clear as it could have been. Popular entertainment value does not a good novel make. See the Twilight series, or anything written by Dan Patterson, Danielle Steele, Jodi Picoult and the rest of the new-bestseller-every-year crowd.


That being said, time to shoot any message I may say on this thread in the foot. Does anyone else find Toni Morrison's books as annoying as me? I have now read 3 of them, and each one seems worse than the last (Starting with Beloved, those poor poor cows)

There's your problem. Start with The Bluest Eye and Sula. I can't speak for her later works, because I've not kept up (mostly because I don't want anything in common with Oprah-watchers.)

[Talya]

Terry Pratchett.

Neil Gaiman is a close second.



Both of them are best when mixed in equal quantities and shaken with ice, and poured into a highball glass.


<3 Good Omens.

I prefer Gaiman in general to Pratchett. American Gods wasn't bad, but Neverwhere was a piece of literary genius.

I really want to say John Twelve Hawks. I won't, because as fascinating as I find the Fourth Realm series, it has some obvious flaws, but I really want to.

[Helanna]

You're assuming enjoyment of 'classic' novels is in some way inevitably distinct from your own enjoyment of books - apparently the right way to enjoy them.


What do you mean by this? I never meant to imply that there's a "right" way to enjoy a novel, I just enjoyed Pratchett's books more than most classic novels. I do read classic literature, and I enjoy quite a bit of it. But I've been taking English for far longer than any person should ever have to, and I'm tired of being told that books are only good if there's some deep meaning or that ALL books have some greater meaning when all you're trying to do is enjoy the damn book. I realize that nobody here claimed that, but some people seem to be implying it, possibly unintentionally.


What a person likes the best is irrelevant; the search for authors who exemplify the novel form implies a certain adaptability and mastery of techniques that is unlikely to be present in a niche author. What I'm saying here is simple: Entertainment value is not the litmus test of a great novelist.

And that's why this discussion is solely that of opinion. I believe that it's possible to judge (mostly) objectively whether a book is "good" or "bad", but which is the best is just impossible. Is it books that fulfill their purpose? That are entertaining? That have a deep message? That have the best character/plot/setting combination? How do you even judge all that? Yeah, you can say for the most part "(Author) is better than (author)", but once you get to the high levels it's really just a matter of opinion.

Edit:

I don't think this was implied at all, and I think you're confusing cause with effect. Authors don't write "deep" prose to impress literature teachers. A good teacher should recognize a great book from a good one, however.

Some of them do, in fact. Nobody springs to mind but I'm sure that there are people who write "deep" novels because they think that's all there is to 'real' literature. And I'm sure we all know the people who dismiss fantasy/sci-fi because that can't possibly be 'real' literature. Many, many teachers only teach books because they're classics, and therefore they believe that they MUST be the best literature available and that if it's not a classic, it can't possibly be worth anything. Sad, but true.

[Jorkens]

Off the top of my head, I'd say James Kelman (who just makes everyone else feel like a cop out) and Thomas Pynchon. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is also high on my list, and until recently, JG Ballard would have been too.

Eco's a good call too, although I'm currently in a bit of a huff with him after getting royally irritated by Travels in Hyperreality.

[Dumbledore lives]

Joan.

Katherine.

Rowling.

I love the Harry Potter books I really do. I don't think they're the best written or whatever, though I'm not very good at analyzing that kind of stuff, but I do think Rowling is one of the most influential living writers. The books have affected many children, and the world renowned fame is amazing.

I don't know if she's the best living novelist, but she is definitely one of the most influential, and defining best novelist is extremely difficult, as it's all subjective.

[Dienekes]

Sorry, that wasn't as clear as it could have been. Popular entertainment value does not a good novel make. See the Twilight series, or anything written by Dan Patterson, Danielle Steele, Jodi Picoult and the rest of the new-bestseller-every-year crowd.

This is a fair point. However, saying an author is not great because he is popularly entertaining is making the same mistake. I would say GRRM is popular, entertaining, and is one of the better author's I've read recently. The best? Probably not, but definitely shouldn't been passed over for simply being a "fantasy author." As I believe Hemingway said (read, quoting historically recognized great author to give likely halfcocked idea more weight) "Write what you know" Fantasy authors know about fantasy, ergo they write about it. This doesn't make their work any worse or any better, the actual skill they have writing it decides that.



There's your problem. Start with The Bluest Eye and Sula. I can't speak for her later works, because I've not kept up (mostly because I don't want anything in common with Oprah-watchers.)

Sula was one of the one's I've read. Still thought it was crap.

[Talya]

Well see, that's thing - part of being a great artist is what you have to say in your art (the other part being how well you do so, of course).


No, I really believe the message is irrelevant. Some of the best art conveys no message at all - most visual art is entirely about visual appeal. Some of the most famous composers say nothing at all with their music, because they were instrumental only. Frankly, any attempt to put a message into a literary work usually irritates me to no end. (See Ayn Rand--I share a lot of common ground with Objectivism, but Atlas Shrugged is the most horrid ham-fisted peice of trash I've ever slogged through.)

Now, all art does tend to evoke (not convey) emotions in the beholder/listener/reader/watcher. It's those emotions that give the art meaning for those who enjoy it.

[Myshlaevsky]

What do you mean by this? I never meant to imply that there's a "right" way to enjoy a novel, I just enjoyed Pratchett's books more than most classic novels. I do read classic literature, and I enjoy quite a bit of it. But I've been taking English for far longer than any person should ever have to, and I'm tired of being told that books are only good if there's some deep meaning or that ALL books have some greater meaning when all you're trying to do is enjoy the damn book. I realize that nobody here claimed that, but some people seem to be implying it, possibly unintentionally.

The impression I got was that you were saying "I enjoy X for Y reason, not Z." It seemed to insist everyone into the 'classics' sought Z and not Y - or rather, everyone saying the classics were better sought Z.

[pita]

I'm aware the nature of GiantITP lends to discussion of authors who are only recognized at GenCon, but to say that Douglas Adams or George R. R. Martin is the best novelist is to spurn the bulk of literature. What a person likes the best is irrelevant; the search for authors who exemplify the novel form implies a certain adaptability and mastery of techniques that is unlikely to be present in a niche author. What I'm saying here is simple: Entertainment value is not the litmus test of a great novelist.

I call bull. To call anybody the best novelist is to spurn the bulk of literature. To say that fantasy authors don't deserve to be called the best novelist is even worse, because I've enjoyed many do-called realistic novels.
In my opinion, George R. R. Martin is the greatest author because he's managed to make me love all of his characters, become attached to all of his storylines, and just enjoy reading his prose, more than any other author.
George R. R. Martin is not a niche author. He's written fantasy, scifi, and horror, as well as combinations. He's written romantic stories, adventures, world spanning novels, isolated stories focusing on individuals, grand heroes, pathetic anti-heroes, he's written everything. He prefers not to be limited by reality. But I find your claim that he can't be the greatest author because he only writes fantasy (as opposed to Dostoevski (a man who has been considered by most to be deserving of this title) who wrote only real, serious fiction about people who speak much more than is logically possible) offensive, and continuing the ghetto fantasy has been in for a while.
Dostoevski enchanted me with White Nights (which I think is the single best short story ever, and that's including GRRM), and I enjoyed Brothers Karamazov and Crime & Punishment (Which were good, but not absolutely brilliant, IMO).
And also, I don't go to GenCon, I live in Israel. I went to Icon this week, though. Got meself some Perry Bible Fellowship Almanack.

[Talya]

And also, I don't go to GenCon, I live in Israel.

I think Kol Korran is from Israel, too, but I forget...

[Catch]

I call bull. To call anybody the best novelist is to spurn the bulk of literature. To say that fantasy authors don't deserve to be called the best novelist is even worse, because I've enjoyed many do-called realistic novels.

So do you want an award or something? You read a "realistic" novel, good for you! There's a few good ones out there and plenty of crap, just like fantasy. The problem is that people who read exclusively fantasy often can't tell the difference.

:smallfurious: "Moby **** sucked!"

:smallconfused: "Okay, why?"

:smallmad: "It was stuffy and nothing ever happens."

:smallannoyed: "Well, Melville's voice is over-the-top on purpose, but I can see why you'd say that. Who's your favorite author?"

:smallbiggrin: "Robert Jordan!"

:smallsigh:

My point is, you must consider all forms of literature. I've read plenty of fantasy and science fiction myself, but the art of the novel, as I've found, is usually mastered by those who write traditional novels. That isn't to say niche writers are inferior, but too often the narrative suffers for sake of world-exploring. I'd almost say it takes more effort to write a successful, competitive fantasy novel, which is why the good ones are so rare. Sometimes, there's only so much you can do with genre fiction, and each flavor has a purpose and limitations.



In my opinion, George R. R. Martin is the greatest author because he's managed to make me love all of his characters, become attached to all of his storylines, and just enjoy reading his prose, more than any other author.

That makes him your favorite, out of what you've read. We're talking about the best, out of all that's out there.


George R. R. Martin is not a niche author.

Are you sure? :smallconfused:


He's written fantasy, scifi, and horror, as well as combinations.

So you're agreeing with me.


He's written romantic stories, adventures, world spanning novels, isolated stories focusing on individuals, grand heroes, pathetic anti-heroes, he's written everything. He prefers not to be limited by reality.

Choosing your domain isn't a literary crime, but it can be a strike against you. Saying that an author "isn't limited by reality" is just as much spin as saying "he can't write anything real."



But I find your claim that he can't be the greatest author because he only writes fantasy (as opposed to Dostoevski (a man who has been considered by most to be deserving of this title) who wrote only real, serious fiction about people who speak much more than is logically possible) offensive, and continuing the ghetto fantasy has been in for a while.

Please. Tolkein practically invented modern fantasy and his books were sold mainstream and with worldwide acclaim. Same goes for science fiction with Bradbury, Asimov, and others. Any "literary ghetto" for niche novels is self-imposed, because authors cloister themselves among readers and critics of their ilk. And, there's not as much prejudice as you might think. Neil Gaiman, Robert Jordan and George R. R. Martin have all appeared as NY Times bestsellers (a feat which has no literary merit, unfortunately), despite being in the "ghetto." Simply, if your work really is worthy of note, it will be noticed, because those who see a story for what it is can tell.

[SurlySeraph]

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is still alive. All of your arguments are invalid.


I have to disagree a little bit. Almost anyone can write a story about tragedy or feelings or oppression. It takes a very skilled author to make it entertaining.

That being said, time to shoot any message I may say on this thread in the foot. Does anyone else find Toni Morrison's books as annoying as me? I have now read 3 of them, and each one seems worse than the last (Starting with Beloved, those poor poor cows)

I read The Bluest Eye, and hated it. But I'm an upper-middle-class white Anglo-Saxon Protestant male heterosexual from the Northeastern United States, so I don't know anything about discrimination. If I had much personal experience with the themes Morisson writes about, her work wouldn't seem like an endless series of attempts to shock the reader to me. But I don't, and it does.

[Helanna]

The impression I got was that you were saying "I enjoy X for Y reason, not Z." It seemed to insist everyone into the 'classics' sought Z and not Y - or rather, everyone saying the classics were better sought Z.

Ah. I can see how you'd think that's what I was saying, I just didn't separate my complaints clearly enough. That's certainly not what I was trying to say, though.

I was really making two separate complaints, a) that many people dismiss fantasy, and b) many people refuse to acknowledge a work of literature as "good" unless it has some great hidden meaning in it. The two overlap sometimes, but they're separate.

I'm also not saying that classics can't be entertaining, of course, I read classic literature often and most of the time I enjoy it - the vast majority of classics are classics because they are good. It's just that there are so many people that insist that only classic literature "counts", or that if it is a classic it's automatically some of the best literature ever, which isn't necessarily true.

[Catch]

I read The Bluest Eye, and hated it. But I'm an upper-middle-class white Anglo-Saxon Protestant male heterosexual from the Northeastern United States, so I don't know anything about discrimination. If I had much personal experience with the themes Morisson writes about, her work wouldn't seem like an endless series of attempts to shock the reader to me. But I don't, and it does.

That... wasn't the point at all. I'd say the book is about beauty and love, and while it features both blatant and subtle racism, those are a vehicle for storytelling, not a black woman's plea for pity. Unfortunately, many black authors are stigmatized as (or expected to be) writers about solely discrimination, and that's just not the case. Toni Morrison simply used the cultures she knew.

[Dienekes]

So do you want an award or something? You read a "realistic" novel, good for you! There's a few good ones out there and plenty of crap, just like fantasy. The problem is that people who read exclusively fantasy often can't tell the difference.

:smallfurious: "Moby **** sucked!"

:smallconfused: "Okay, why?"

:smallmad: "It was stuffy and nothing ever happens."

:smallannoyed: "Well, Melville's voice is over-the-top on purpose, but I can see why you'd say that. Who's your favorite author?"

:smallbiggrin: "Robert Jordan!"

:smallsigh:

Hey now, don't lump us all together cause some idiots agree with us. Moby D was great, but times change and what's considered interesting prose changes with it. Unfortunately sometimes the masses don't care and dismiss the old greats as boring. This is not a knock on new author's though for changing with the time and being entertaining, it simply means that the current populations expectations have changed. For better or worse is up for debate.


My point is, you must consider all forms of literature. I've read plenty of fantasy and science fiction myself, but the art of the novel, as I've found, is usually mastered by those who write pure prose. That isn't to say niche writers are inferior, but too often the narrative suffers for sake of world-exploring. I'd almost say it takes more effort to write a successful, competitive fantasy novel, which is why the good ones are so rare.

The first bit, I agree. So to make this thorough claim of who's the best of the best we must read all literature. From fantasy to drama, from smut to comics. However, this is so incredibly impractical. Personally, I never liked the idea of "pure prose." To me anyway a fiction is a fiction. What makes the difference between a fantasy and a mystery? Does only one have literary value? No. Can only one be the best at descriptive writing? No. How about defining theological or philosophical ideas? No. Is one worth more than the other? Apparently to some people. Why? No clue, a books a book to be judged as such.


That makes him your favorite, out of what you've read. We're talking about the best, out of all that's out there.

Which is impossible for us to know. Hell, somewhere out there is a smutty romance author who can create more meaning for there characters and portray them all perfectly with pure artistic fervor better than anyone for all we know.


Are you sure? :smallconfused:



So you're agreeing with me.

No argument here, GRRM is a niche writer. It's what he does, and he does it good. I wouldn't ask a "prose" authors to stop their thing and start writing fantasy. Why would I take points off of GRRM for writing fantasy and not prose?


Choosing your domain isn't a literary crime, but it can be a strike against you. Saying that an author "isn't limited by reality" is just as much spin as saying "he can't write anything real."

Very good point. Though I will admit I have heard this used against fantasy authors before (by a literature teacher no less... ugh...)



Please. Tolkein practically invented modern fantasy and his books were sold mainstream and with worldwide acclaim. Same goes for science fiction with Bradbury, Asimov, and others. Any "literary ghetto" for niche novels is self-imposed, because authors cloister themselves among readers and critics of their ilk. And, there's not as much prejudice as you might think. Neil Gaiman, Robert Jordan and George R. R. Martin have all appeared as NY Times bestsellers (a feat which has no literary merit, unfortunately), despite being in the "ghetto." Simply, if your work really is worthy of note, it will be noticed, because those who see a story for what it is can tell.

This I think is a bit of bull. Not everyone who's an excellent writer will be noticed. People will always fall through the cracks. And even the considered greats are not agreed upon by the high and mighty critics. And the idea of fantasy as a ghetto did exist and I'm sure still does. Though thankfully it's declining. Hopefully soon all books will start on an even platform and then be judged as books and not by genre, but that's simply my humble opinion, which probably will never get around to happening.

[SurlySeraph]

That... wasn't the point at all. I'd say the book is about beauty and love, and while it features both blatant and subtle racism, those are a vehicle for storytelling, not a black woman's plea for pity. Unfortunately, many black authors are stigmatized as (or expected to be) writers about solely discrimination, and that's just not the case. Toni Morrison simply used the cultures she knew.

All griping aside, the message I got out of it was that internalizing societal norms of beauty is harmful and leads to self-hatred among those who don't live up to them; and to extend the point, that people should make value judgements for themselves rather than letting their surroundings influence them too much. I found that paragraph near the end about how the family loved badly - I can't remember the wording at all, but it was something about how their love ended up harming each other because of the flaws they had - very moving. But it felt like for every beautiful image or good insight, there'd be pages and pages of "Look how screwed up everybody is!" That pedophilic fortune teller character, in particular, seemed just gratuitous to me.

[Catch]

All griping aside, the message I got out of it was that internalizing societal norms of beauty is harmful and leads to self-hatred among those who don't live up to them; and to extend the point, that people should make value judgements for themselves rather than letting their surroundings influence them too much. I found that paragraph near the end about how the family loved badly - I can't remember the wording at all, but it was something about how their love ended up harming each other because of the flaws they had - very moving. But it felt like for every beautiful image or good insight, there'd be pages and pages of "Look how screwed up everybody is!" That pedophilic fortune teller character, in particular, seemed just gratuitous to me.

Ah, I thought you were just dismissing the novel entirely. Didn't mean to imply that you were, sorry. Anyway, I'll agree that it can be a difficult read, with characters like Cholly Breedlove and Soaphead Church, but they're extremely developed characters. Is it fair to say that the uncomfortable parts of the novel are also functional, and further the whole of the story? If Morrison was dropping in disturbing scenes like a shiny lure for audience emotional response, I'd be bothered, but I felt the awfulness served a purpose besides shock value, and that removing any one scene or character would destroy what the author built.

Not that I enjoy reading about rape, incest, pedophilia, and abuse, but I wouldn't summarize The Bluest Eye as about those things, just including them.

[Lioness]

Terry pratchett is great, but I wouldn't consider him a best living novelist.

Neil Gaiman...I've heard good things, but the two books I've read (Stardust and Coraline) haven't impressed me. When I read fantasy I want writing as colourful as the world it describes. Coraline in particular felt rather dry and undescriptive. Story line good, loved the movie, but the book felt too childish to me. I know it was for children, but it could've been more complex and gotten away with it.

[JonestheSpy]

No, I really believe the message is irrelevant. Some of the best art conveys no message at all - most visual art is entirely about visual appeal. Some of the most famous composers say nothing at all with their music, because they were instrumental only.

I think you're being wayyy to literal here - purely instrumental or visual art is still communicating things, and not just vague emotional reactions. Ask (or read) any scholar of classical music or art history.

And anyone is of course free to disagree with me, but I hold fast to the idea that truly great art must both be saying some important truth (and that doesn't mean it has to be boringly academically heavy or whatever) AND communicate it in a way that captures our interest and makes us want to pay attention.

Trying to communicate an idea without being entertaining is just a lecture. Being entertaining without having anything worthwhile to say is just junk food for the brain.

[Tiktakkat]

Best . . . hard to say.
Really good . . .
Two already mentioned:
Neil Gaiman
John Irving

Two others:
Peter Straub
Richard Adams

[cowboyhero]

I can't believe that Cormac McCarthy has gone unmentioned. He's probably the greatest literary stylist working today.

I'd throw my weight behind Thomas Pynchon, Don Delillo, and Philip Roth as well. Maybe even Haruki Murakami, though I think he's kinda... dry? Sometimes his prose leaves me a little cold. Hubert Selby, Jr., is dead, but up until then he was numero uno.

[Megatron46]

Hmmm, been having a think over night and read some of the new posts this morning, I loooove Michael Chabon! Still haven't read "Wonderboys" yet but have read everything else.

One of my work colleagues really likes Ian McEwan, but I couldn't get into him at all, I've tried "Saturday" and "Enduring Love", but it just doesn't do it for me.

Has anyone read anything by Steven Gutterson? I've only read "Snow Falling on Cedars", which I found very evocative and a real slow burning page turner, but haven't tried anything else. A friend has read some of his stuff, but other than "...Cedars" didn't like any of it.

[Quincunx]

The impression I got was that you were saying "I enjoy X for Y reason, not Z." It seemed to insist everyone into the 'classics' sought Z and not Y - or rather, everyone saying the classics were better sought Z.

As a Zphile. . .yes. This. Lock me in a room with nothing but books by Gaiman and Pratchett, and I'll be entertained and happy but something in my spirit will starve. Gaiman will talk about the spiritual food but not serve it, and Pratchett's comes only in tiny, ironic, nouvelle-cuisine portion sizes. Lock me in a room with nothing but Tolkien, and while I will not be happy one bit (still haven't slogged through it), I will be able to read small doses and be content.

[Myshlaevsky]

I can't believe that Cormac McCarthy has gone unmentioned. He's probably the greatest literary stylist working today.

I'd throw my weight behind Thomas Pynchon, Don Delillo, and Philip Roth as well. Maybe even Haruki Murakami, though I think he's kinda... dry? Sometimes his prose leaves me a little cold. Hubert Selby, Jr., is dead, but up until then he was numero uno.

I completely forgot about Philip Roth - he'd be on my shortlist as well. Cormac McCarthy is a good call I suppose, and I'd put forward Kazuo Ishiguro. I've only read him in translation, but Gao Xingjian might be up there - and on that note, some might place José Saramango in the same stead but he is not to my personal tastes. I liked Blindness, but very little else.

[pita]

So do you want an award or something? You read a "realistic" novel, good for you! There's a few good ones out there and plenty of crap, just like fantasy. The problem is that people who read exclusively fantasy often can't tell the difference.

:smallfurious: "Moby **** sucked!"

:smallconfused: "Okay, why?"

:smallmad: "It was stuffy and nothing ever happens."

:smallannoyed: "Well, Melville's voice is over-the-top on purpose, but I can see why you'd say that. Who's your favorite author?"

:smallbiggrin: "Robert Jordan!"

:smallsigh:

My point is, you must consider all forms of literature. I've read plenty of fantasy and science fiction myself, but the art of the novel, as I've found, is usually mastered by those who write traditional novels. That isn't to say niche writers are inferior, but too often the narrative suffers for sake of world-exploring. I'd almost say it takes more effort to write a successful, competitive fantasy novel, which is why the good ones are so rare. Sometimes, there's only so much you can do with genre fiction, and each flavor has a purpose and limitations.

You're assuming that I didn't. I read a lot of books, and I'll admit the majority of them are fantasy, but I also read a lot of non-fantasy. I enjoy reading Dostoevski as well, and he's stuffy and nothing happens, which is, I know, the point. I also enjoyed Q&A, which wasn't stuffy and a lot happened, and The Mysterious Case of the Dog at Nighttime.
For me, it's more like:
:smallsmile:: What's your favorite novel?
:smallbiggrin:: A Feast For Crows
:smallamused:: So you read fantasy? that sucks.
:smallannoyed:: Why, what's yours?
:smallsigh:: I read only good literature. My favorite novel is The Old Man And The Sea.
:smallfurious:: And what makes The Old Man And The Sea better than A Feast For Crows?
:smallmad:: Are you comparing your genre fiction to my literature?
:smallcool:: I believe I may have lost track of this metaphor, and besides, I'm running out of smileys. But the general point is that intellectuals, and now I believe that it includes you, think that fantasy is a waste of time, only for the horrifying task of "enjoyment".


That makes him your favorite, out of what you've read. We're talking about the best, out of all that's out there.

What is the best author supposed to be? Some guy I thought was very literary but didn't like? For me, what I've read is what's out there, because I can't consider authors I haven't read. That's like I said that snails are my favorite food, even though I've never tasted them or never even seen them. For me, I prefer my lo mein, because I have no knowledge of better foods. It's why recommendations exist in the first place.


Are you sure? :smallconfused:
So you're agreeing with me.
I believe I addressed that, and said that even if you consider it one genre, you have to agree that GRRM writes many forms of literature.
I've always objected that fantasy is called a genre, because it isn't. Thriller is a genre. Comedy is a genre. Fantasy is a domain. Heroic fantasy is a genre.


Choosing your domain isn't a literary crime, but it can be a strike against you. Saying that an author "isn't limited by reality" is just as much spin as saying "he can't write anything real."
He can and has written a historical story. He's written a story that may be fantasy and may be real, depending on interpretations (IE. the main character is insane). When he writes, he like to write everything.



Please. Tolkein practically invented modern fantasy and his books were sold mainstream and with worldwide acclaim. Same goes for science fiction with Bradbury, Asimov, and others. Any "literary ghetto" for niche novels is self-imposed, because authors cloister themselves among readers and critics of their ilk. And, there's not as much prejudice as you might think. Neil Gaiman, Robert Jordan and George R. R. Martin have all appeared as NY Times bestsellers (a feat which has no literary merit, unfortunately), despite being in the "ghetto." Simply, if your work really is worthy of note, it will be noticed, because those who see a story for what it is can tell.
Exactly. Fantasy is allowed to make money (and it does that more than non-fantasy "literature"), but it's illegal for it to be considered literature itself. The literary ghetto is what you just said. Nobody who can see a story for what it is is a literary type. Fantasy is allowed to sell, it's allowed to get critical acclaim, but it can not be considered true literature. Many authors who write in the genre say that they don't so they can be considered for literary achievements. Kurt Vonnegut, JK Rowling, and even the horrifying cliche-ridden Terry Goodkind are among those. Has a fantasy novel won a Nobel prize? Or just a literature prize that wasn't specifically designed for fantasy? Do schools generally teach even the high quality fantasy novels? How about comic books? Hell, the ghetto exists even within fantasy. The WFA decided that no comic book could ever win a short story award after Neil Gaiman accidentally won with Midsummer Night's Dream.
I believe there's a point somewhere here, but I tend to get lost in the middle of an argument, so...

[WalkingTarget]

I managed to track down a relevant point (http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/20/1518217) made by Neal Stephenson that I'd read a while back but had trouble finding again.

Particularly the answer to question 2 in which he describes "Beowulf writers" and "Dante writers" and the awkwardness that can result when they run into each other. One of my favorite quotes ever is "In order to set her straight, I had to let her know that the reason she'd never heard of me was because I was famous."

The rest of it's pretty entertaining as well. I especially like the Stephenson vs. Gibson fights.

[The J Pizzel]

Christoper Paolini.

What? No, I'm serious. He's just so...original. Free thinking. I love how he comes up with his own unique ideas.....

Damn. I tried so hard to keep that going. :smallbiggrin:

[Cyrion]

Despite the genre in which Richard A Knaak writes, I did enjoy his writing style, and the way he describes everything.

(He writes books on Diablo 2 and Warcraft)

...sigh... if only he did his own stuff.

Knaack has done his own stuff. Check out Frostwing if it's still available. My cousin also gave me a copy of Lord of the Grey (I think) that was misbound- it had Knaak's cover but was actually a gay romance novel.

@ Catch-

How are you defining "best" and "niche"? What are your standards for literary merit? Also remember that many people who have written the classics that are considered "serious" literature and are traditionally put forth as high quality or even "best" novelist were niche writers. Melville wrote sea adventures. The Brontes all wrote gothic romances. Tolstoy wrote Russian tragedies (to be fair he wrote other historical stuff, but that's not what he's remembered for).

If you're looking at impact on society, especially their current society, there are science fiction authors who have tremendous impact on society. Asimov's three laws of robotics are actively used in the current development of AI. Jules Verne's novels predicted/inspired many modern inventions. If you look at it from the perspective of inspiring change in society, you could probably make a case that the best novelist MUST be a science fiction author.

Michael Chabon is great! If you like him you'd probably also like Auster and T.C. Boyle, though Boyle's work is frequently somewhat darker.

[WalkingTarget]

How are you defining "best" and "niche"? What are your standards for literary merit? Also remember that many people who have written the classics that are considered "serious" literature and are traditionally put forth as high quality or even "best" novelist were niche writers. Melville wrote sea adventures. The Brontes all wrote gothic romances. Tolstoy wrote Russian tragedies (to be fair he wrote other historical stuff, but that's not what he's remembered for).

If you're looking at impact on society, especially their current society, there are science fiction authors who have tremendous impact on society. Asimov's three laws of robotics are actively used in the current development of AI. Jules Verne's novels predicted/inspired many modern inventions. If you look at it from the perspective of inspiring change in society, you could probably make a case that the best novelist MUST be a science fiction author.

Even though it started as kind of a joke, take a look at the point made by the PJF (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Joycean_Fellowship). Essentially, they're authors who lament the bifurcation of writers (arbitrarily decided have occurred in English with James Joyce) into those who write for a general audience and those who write for the literary establishment (similar to what Stephenson calls Beowulf and Dante writers).

[HamHam]

Good literature shouldn't be shallow, but it should also remain accessible. There's a balance that should be struck.

I think trying to decide who's "best" is pretty pointless because the differences at the top are so minute you can't really say one is better than another. Relatively broad classes of people who can make a case for being the best would work better.

Anyway, I would second Neal Stephenson and also suggest Dan Simmons.

[Thrawn183]

Probably Tom Clancy. He's the only author who's books I just can't put down once I start.

[Kneenibble]

I do love a good fantasy, but I'm going to rub against the grain a bit and profer Margaret Atwood with her very diverse and erudite corpus.

[Telasi]

Well, bear in mind that my reading is done either for fun or school, so I tend to read lighter, fun works and classics. BUT, this being an RPG forum, I'm surprised no one has said it already: R.A. Salvatore

I'm certainly a fan, and not just of his D&D books.

[JonestheSpy]

Probably Tom Clancy. He's the only author who's books I just can't put down once I start.

No offense to Thrawn, but the idea that anyone could think that this:

JOHN CLARK HAD MORE TIME IN AIRPLANES THAN most licensed pilots, and he knew the statistics as well as any of them, but he still didn't like the idea of crossing the ocean on a twin-engine airliner. Four was the right number of engines, he thought, because losing one meant losing only 25 percent of the aircraft's available power, whereas on this United 777, it meant losing half. Maybe the presence of his wife, one daughter, and a son-in-law made him a little itchier than usual. No, that wasn't right. He wasn't itchy at all, not about flying anyway. It was just a lingering . . . what? he asked himself.

is good writing makes me want to weep on the grave of E.B. White.

I realize that many many people disagree with me on this, but, damn...

Don't even get me started on Salvatore.

[multilis]

IMO some of the reasons for preferences of certain hot selling "fantasy" authors can go into bias in subjects we are not allowed to discuss on this board, and if you took a "loved" work and did a quick search and replace of keywords to make the villian an opposite side of the spectrum, fans would think the writing was much worse, perhaps even "hate" literature. (eg for theme that a faction promotes/legalises rapes or murders)

Personally I prefer authors and satirists who can make fun of both sides of an issue when appropriate rather than propoganda for one side.

[Catch]

You're assuming that I didn't. I read a lot of books, and I'll admit the majority of them are fantasy, but I also read a lot of non-fantasy. I enjoy reading Dostoevski as well, and he's stuffy and nothing happens, which is, I know, the point. I also enjoyed Q&A, which wasn't stuffy and a lot happened, and The Mysterious Case of the Dog at Nighttime.

I believe I may have lost track of this metaphor, and besides, I'm running out of smileys. But the general point is that intellectuals, and now I believe that it includes you, think that fantasy is a waste of time, only for the horrifying task of "enjoyment".

Haven't we gone over this already? Enjoyment != literary merit. I'm glad you enjoy fantasy. I'm very happy for you and I hope the two of you have a wonderful life together. I'm even proud that you've struggled through "normal" works. But what you personally like doesn't matter. As a fiction writer, tutor and eventual teacher, I'm dedicated to the craft, and to demand that fantasy be included in the study of literature is to allow it to be subjected to a full, withering deconstruction.

Most fantasy novels can't survive that, and there's your ghetto.


What is the best author supposed to be? Some guy I thought was very literary but didn't like? For me, what I've read is what's out there, because I can't consider authors I haven't read.

There's a difference between liking a work and understanding it. Herbert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn is immensely disturbing, but command of dialect, structure and tone are valuable to learn. There are very famous, very strong books that many people don't enjoy, because they read solely for entertainment, and may prefer only a selective range of work. That doesn't make literary works any less valuable, but it does diminish the opinion of those who can't comprehend.



I believe I addressed that, and said that even if you consider it one genre, you have to agree that GRRM writes many forms of literature.
I've always objected that fantasy is called a genre, because it isn't. Thriller is a genre. Comedy is a genre. Fantasy is a domain. Heroic fantasy is a genre.

Fantasy is a genre, genres can be combined, and ultimately, naming things has nothing to do with how valuable they are. Get past the label.


Exactly. Fantasy is allowed to make money (and it does that more than non-fantasy "literature"), but it's illegal for it to be considered literature itself. The literary ghetto is what you just said. Nobody who can see a story for what it is is a literary type.

That's actually the reverse of what I said. "Illegal," really? Drop the martyr act, please. The point that I was trying to make is that a person who views and understands a novel structurally, thematically, and as a story - not based on genre or content - should recognize a good work from a poor one. It's why some fantasy and science fiction authors have risen to great literary acclaim.

It's also why many of them haven't. Perhaps it's a world-shattering thought, but maybe - just maybe - the literary world doesn't have it out for the authors you favor. Maybe they just aren't up to snuff.



How are you defining "best" and "niche"? What are your standards for literary merit?

To the first? Heck if I know. Literary merit, for me, is about construction. I'm a writer myself, so I'm more inclined to examine stories structurally rather than thematically. It seems one immediate response to someone criticizing popular or genre fiction is to suggest they're a stuffy English major who writes essays about ennui. That's crap. You don't judge a building by how it makes you feel, but by the techniques used to build it and how well it was utilized.


Also remember that many people who have written the classics that are considered "serious" literature and are traditionally put forth as high quality or even "best" novelist were niche writers. Melville wrote sea adventures. The Brontes all wrote gothic romances. Tolstoy wrote Russian tragedies (to be fair he wrote other historical stuff, but that's not what he's remembered for).

I'm not particularly hung up on genres, unless they're shoved in my face. Fiction is about about making the best choices for the story you're trying to tell. Here in my department, we're picking apart novelists to steal their techniques. Flaubert to understand the arc of his story, Nabokov's character development, Hemmingway's dialogue, but we mess around with everything. Here, you're just as likely to read a story by Iceberg Slim as a play by Tennessee Williams. I may be harsh on fantasy, but that's only because I have the same standards for any piece of fiction: Voice, place, character development, the dream-like quality of seeing, story arcs, complex relationships, and so on.


If you're looking at impact on society, especially their current society, there are science fiction authors who have tremendous impact on society. Asimov's three laws of robotics are actively used in the current development of AI. Jules Verne's novels predicted/inspired many modern inventions. If you look at it from the perspective of inspiring change in society, you could probably make a case that the best novelist MUST be a science fiction author.

Asimov and Jules Verne are excellent examples of authors with a narrow scope, but strong novelist form, and that's what's important.

Though if you want to talk about societal change, the modern novel owes its origin to Madame Bovary.


Michael Chabon is great! If you like him you'd probably also like Auster and T.C. Boyle, though Boyle's work is frequently somewhat darker.

I'm pretty critical of modern authors, but I may look into those two. There's certainly something to learn from every writer.

[Talya]

Trying to communicate an idea without being entertaining is just a lecture. Being entertaining without having anything worthwhile to say is just junk food for the brain.

What's your basis for this? I'm of the opinion that looking for deeper meaning in anything is often intellectual snobbery and intentionally implanting such deeper meanings is a corruption of pure art, attempting to push an agenda rather than revelling in the form itself.

[TheBST]

What are you talking about? Can you give any examples of 'pure art'?

[warty goblin]

Haven't we gone over this already? Enjoyment != literary merit. I'm glad you enjoy fantasy. I'm very happy for you and I hope the two of you have a wonderful life together. I'm even proud that you've struggled through "normal" works. But what you personally like doesn't matter. As a fiction writer, tutor and eventual teacher, I'm dedicated to the craft, and to demand that fantasy be included in the study of literature is to allow it to be subjected to a full, withering deconstruction.

Most fantasy novels can't survive that, and there's your ghetto.

Fantasy fails your standards, that's absolutely fine.



There's a difference between liking a work and understanding it. Herbert Selby Jr.'s Last Exit to Brooklyn is immensely disturbing, but command of dialect, structure and tone are valuable to learn. There are very famous, very strong books that many people don't enjoy, because they read solely for entertainment, and may prefer only a selective range of work. That doesn't make literary works any less valuable, but it does diminish the opinion of those who can't comprehend.
Not in the slightest, see my argument below.


That's actually the reverse of what I said. "Illegal," really? Drop the martyr act, please. The point that I was trying to make is that a person who views and understands a novel structurally, thematically, and as a story - not based on genre or content - should recognize a good work from a poor one. It's why some fantasy and science fiction authors have risen to great literary acclaim.


It's also why many of them haven't. Perhaps it's a world-shattering thought, but maybe - just maybe - the literary world doesn't have it out for the authors you favor. Maybe they just aren't up to snuff.

While I agree with much of your post, I find I do not with this section. It seems to imply that there exist universal, verifiable tenants of quality. I have never seen, heard, read or otherwise had communicated to me any convincing argument or evidence for the existance of such about any purely intellectual activity.


The only thing that one can evaluate something on is whether you find it worthwhile, like it, enjoy it, find it fun or whatever other terms you care to use. Quality is, in short, not inherent but decided upon. Saying something is good, bad, literary, nonliterary or whatever other term one imploys makes a statement, at best, about a view you share with a group of other people on the work in question.

In the case of literary analysis, it seems to me that the group of people who engage in said have a very specific set of criteria they use to determine whether a book is 'literary' or not. That's fine, but they are just as arbitrary as any other method of judgement. I think what tends to annoy people about literary criticism is that it couches itself in a language that denotes universality. Thus the exclusion of much of 'genre' fiction looks arbitary to people, because it is, and claiming otherwise simply appears elitist.



To the first? Heck if I know. Literary merit, for me, is about construction. I'm a writer myself, so I'm more inclined to examine stories structurally rather than thematically. It seems one immediate response to someone criticizing popular or genre fiction is to suggest they're a stuffy English major who writes essays about ennui. That's crap. You don't judge a building by how it makes you feel, but by the techniques used to build it and how well it was utilized.
But there exist reasonable, rational means to evaluate a building, which is a physical entity with clear, definable purpose. Books (well, the words printed in books anyway, one can certainly evaluate the quality, durability readability etc of the physical entity itself), as I argued before, don't have that. Any attempt to judge how well a book is executed is based on a set of rules with no grounding in verifiable physical reality. One could reasonably enough deduce patterns of books people enjoy using statistical methods, but these would not be laws in the scientific sense of the word. I further suspect, although without evidence, that the standards of literary criticism would match poorly with any patterns one did establish through such means.

[Catch]

While I agree with much of your post, I find I do not with this section. It seems to imply that there exist universal, verifiable tenants of quality. I have never seen, heard, read or otherwise had communicated to me any convincing argument or evidence for the existance of such about any purely intellectual activity.

Just quoting what appears to be your thesis. If you think I've skipped a point, I can always come back to it.

While there is no universal metric by which to judge literature and I'll never say there are literary rules that can't be broken (avoid second-person, don't shift tenses, etc), I do feel that standards can be established and agreed upon, as long as critics respect the value and appropriateness of each.

Functional criticism, for example, approaches a literary work from a novel-building standpoint, with the explicit purpose of reverse-engineering writing in order to understand its foundations and how to improve on the reader's own work. My area of study is workshop-centric, with the focus that criticism of other work fuels and improves creation.

Thematic criticism, on the other hand, seeks to interpret and evaluate what a novel means, what it may say about the culture of its origin, how it captures the spirit of an age or misses the point entirely. I don't concern myself with that sort of scholarship, though it's valuable in its own right. It's why my school has a differentiated English department and a Fiction department.

So there is no universal truth for art, but if you refine and explain what you're looking for, it's easier to understand a person's judgments. I'll be the first to admit my bias, so we can communicate on the same level, and figure out the standards for specific kinds of quality.

[JonestheSpy]

What's your basis for this? I'm of the opinion that looking for deeper meaning in anything is often intellectual snobbery and intentionally implanting such deeper meanings is a corruption of pure art, attempting to push an agenda rather than revelling in the form itself.

My basis? Um, my entire life?

Oh and as for Warty Goblin and folks of similar POV, I think you're missing Catch's point - and Catch, I don't know if your rather academic responses are helping.

Seems to me that Catch is in no way saying fantasy is inferior to any other style of fiction, only that there is an unfortunate tendency among those who read only (or mostly) fantasy/sf to not apply any real critical standards to what they read.

[warty goblin]

Just quoting what appears to be your thesis. If you think I've skipped a point, I can always come back to it.

Nope, that's definitely my thesis. I'm one of those deeply boring writers who always states the damn thing first. Comes from too many five page essays and way, way too many proofs.


While there is no universal metric by which to judge literature and I'll never say there are literary rules that can't be broken (avoid second-person, don't shift tenses, etc), I do feel that standards can be established and agreed upon, as long as critics respect the value and appropriateness of each.
Sure, standards can be agreed upon. I never denied that. The point that I feel I need to emphasize is that agreement is all that can be done about standards. There's not really a way to prove or disprove them in a satisfying manner.

One can of course attack the logical consistancy of a set of standards, benchmarks or what-have-you, and thus rule out the clearly flawed such as, to indulge in a particularly pithy example "always use second person" and "never use second person." Where this ceases to function is how one judges between differing sets of consistant quality metrics.


Functional criticism, for example, approaches a literary work from a novel-building standpoint, with the explicit purpose of reverse-engineering writing in order to understand its foundations and how to improve on the reader's own work. My area of study is workshop-centric, with the focus that criticism of other work fuels and improves creation.

This is where I begin to have questions. Improvement is a relative term, it needs to be measured in comparison to something else, be it another work, an earlier draft of the same work, or as I suspect (and please do correct me if I am incorrect) some standard set.

How then do you judge whether to hold a given piece of work up against a standard that says "avoid second person" versus a different one that might encourage the use of second person? After all, both may be logically consistant systems of thought that yield dramatically different results.

Now granted, I'm way outside of my chosen field of mathematics, limited as it is, so judgements of quality are not really my strong point. About all my language allows me to do is to tear stuff apart to a microscopic level to find out exactly what can and cannot be truthfully said given one's starting assumptions. If I am missing something huge here, please do enlighten me.


Thematic criticism, on the other hand, seeks to interpret and evaluate what a novel means, what it may say about the culture of its origin, how it captures the spirit of an age or misses the point entirely. I don't concern myself with that sort of scholarship, though it's valuable in its own right. It's why my school has a differentiated English department and a Fiction department.
Lucky. At my school, if you are a mathematician with the outrageous desire to learn multivariable calculus, you have to suffer through four semesters of physics.


So there is no universal truth for art, but if you refine and explain what you're looking for, it's easier to understand a person's judgments. I'll be the first to admit my bias, so we can communicate on the same level, and figure out the standards for specific kinds of quality.
So we seem to actually agree then.

Also, I hope you do not feel as if I'm singling out your specific area of expertise and interest as unworthy or anything of that nature, as this is by no means my intent. I merely seek understanding, and one perhaps unfortunate side effect of taking Analysis classes is the habit of questioning absolutely everything in exhaustive detail. I suspect we actually have more than a few standards in common when it comes to literature, although you are probably more aware of yours than I am of mine.

[Cracklord]

H P Lovecraft.

That is not dead which can eternal lie
And with strange eons, even death may die.

[jlvm4]

Lois McMaster Bujold
and
Tad Williams

I usually judge 'best' by how often I can and want to read the book. If I find new things, even after reading it a dozen times before, even better. Bujold is amazing in this regard. I have read some of her books over 30 times. I've quoted her and her characters in a wide variety of circumstances, they're just that good. She has a phenominal ability to create real characters. Everyone I have recommended her Vorkosigan Series to has become a convert. She's not 'high literature' but I don't think being the best requires that.


To a lesser degree, and sticking with the fantasy genre. Tad Williams' Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn Trilogy was also very excellent. Many authors who grab for the brass ring of epic fantasy find themselves sunk by their own success and the lack of a strong editor that usually follows such things. That Tad Williams avoided that trap makes it is another book series I have read more than once and did not find my enjoyment less on subsequent readings.

[Jalor]

Harlan Ellison. I also like Thomas Pynchon, Neal Gaiman, and various others, but they just don't compare. I'd like to list Nick Sagan, but he hasn't yet written enough for me to say anything for sure.

[Talya]

What are you talking about? Can you give any examples of 'pure art'?

Art itself is the form: the telling of a story, the creation of an image (be it a painting or sculpture) or music. There are other less recognized arts too; the architect is no less an artist than the sculptor, though there are great differences in their art. The movie director is an artist, and though his art involves more combining of other artistic elements than the creation of his own, the combinations themselves are unique and require great artistic skill. The same goes for other performing arts -- the actor brings storytelling to life, etc.

The purpose of art, in all its forms, is to make the person who experiences the art feel. Art is about emotion. The specific emotion is irrelevant, what matters is that the art evokes it. When the artist can make other people feel what they want them to feel when viewing the work, it was successful.

Art may include a moral or an underlying message, but this is a corruption; even at its best when it can be worked in unobtrusively and tastefully, it is still the incorporation of indoctrination into the pure form of the art. At its worst it turns the work into a ham-fisted propaganda peice (see Atlas Shrugged. Brad Bird is a far superior artist to Ayn Rand, at least, simply for making the same message far more subtle in The Incredibles.) However, to say art is not art, that it's somehow less valid or less artistic because it lacks an underlying message, is a ridiculous statement. Just because the artist has forgone attempting to brainwash you and instead merely wants to make you feel by telling you their story does not invalidate their work; instead it's actually a bonus in their favor. This isn't to say their work is automatically superior, because there's still the quality of the writing and storytelling to judge, but the inclusion or lack of an underlying message is not itself part of the quality of the work of art.

[LCR]

On a related note, the Nobel Prize committee obviously thinks that Herta Müller (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/books/09nobel.html?_r=1&hp) is the best living novelist right now.
You can say what you want, but those Nobel guys surprise me everytime by picking someone I've never heard of. Last year, it was some obscure Spanish guy and now it's Herta Müller, someone who I didn't know existed. And I'm German and quite well read.
When will Philip Roth finally win this? He's a great writer and so old that he will have to win soon or else it'll be too late.

[pita]

Brilliant stuff that I agree with
This is my counter to everything Catch said. Let it be known: Talya has said exactly what I think without me having to bother writing it down and thus mangle it by having it filtered through my head. Thank you.
George R. R. Martin's works make me feel, in a way that's more powerful than any author can, and that's why in my opinion he's the best living novelist. This term, is, of course, so completely and utterly subjective that I can't disagree with anybody else's choices here. Except for R.A. Salvatore, who writes fun books, but in my opinion, is a poor man's Tracy Hickman/Margaret Weiss, or a really poor man's Steven Brust.

[TheBST]

the architect is no less an artist than the sculptor

Yes he is. Scuplture is for decorative purposes, buildings are for practical ones.



Art may include a moral or an underlying message, but this is a corruption; even at its best when it can be worked in unobtrusively and tastefully, it is still the incorporation of indoctrination into the pure form of the art.


Again: name a piece of art that doesn't do this.

[warty goblin]

Yes he is. Scuplture is for decorative purposes, buildings are for practical ones.


So art has to be useless? This strikes me as stupid, and exclusionary of an aweful lot of skillful human endeavor, indeed arguably things that take more skill than 'pure' art.

For one example, consider the difference in craftsmenship between an iron age sword or axe made for a wealthy client, and the piles of scrap metal that pass for modern scupture in an aweful lot of parks. The first is going to have a lot of decoration and care in its construction. It may be ground to highlight the pattern welded steel, it may be etched with runes in a different color of metal that only show up when the blade catches the light, the crossguard and pommel may be engraved with animals and heroes of myth. It can, in short, have a lot of careful thought and design to it, but at the end of the day it's still a usable weapon you can go and split heads with.

The second doesn't do anything, and is basically a large pile of metal. Sure there was skill in it's design and execution, but it wasn't constrained by any need for functionality. Even if you find such things attractive, I would argue there is more care needed to marry a beautiful design to the needs of a functional object than simply doing whatever crosses your mind.

I would also argue that there is a lot of joy to be had in using a tool made with care and thought towards both form and function, far more than I have ever taken from looking at a picture or a sculpture.

Yet you would apparently deem the first not 'art.' Why?

[TheBST]

So art has to be useless?

No, but it's primary purpose should be creative entertainment.



It can, in short, have a lot of careful thought and design to it, but at the end of the day it's still a usable weapon you can go and split heads with.


That's all it is at the end of the day. It doesn't matter how many intricate carvings are in it- it's still a tool. All the decoration does is allow th weilder to say 'hey, look how swanky my new head-splitter is'. You might as well say that cookery and dressmaking are artforms. They aren't. They're practical crafts (for nutrition and protection from the elements) where the craftsman has put in a bit more effort to make them different. But the practical elements always come first.



I would also argue that there is a lot of joy to be had in using a tool made with care and thought towards both form and function, far more than I have ever taken from looking at a picture or a sculpture.

Cool. But it's still craft, not art. It's just catergorisation, not a judgement call on what's more interesting.

[chiasaur11]

Art itself is the form: the telling of a story, the creation of an image (be it a painting or sculpture) or music. There are other less recognized arts too; the architect is no less an artist than the sculptor, though there are great differences in their art. The movie director is an artist, and though his art involves more combining of other artistic elements than the creation of his own, the combinations themselves are unique and require great artistic skill. The same goes for other performing arts -- the actor brings storytelling to life, etc.

The purpose of art, in all its forms, is to make the person who experiences the art feel. Art is about emotion. The specific emotion is irrelevant, what matters is that the art evokes it. When the artist can make other people feel what they want them to feel when viewing the work, it was successful.

Art may include a moral or an underlying message, but this is a corruption; even at its best when it can be worked in unobtrusively and tastefully, it is still the incorporation of indoctrination into the pure form of the art. At its worst it turns the work into a ham-fisted propaganda peice (see Atlas Shrugged. Brad Bird is a far superior artist to Ayn Rand, at least, simply for making the same message far more subtle in The Incredibles.) However, to say art is not art, that it's somehow less valid or less artistic because it lacks an underlying message, is a ridiculous statement. Just because the artist has forgone attempting to brainwash you and instead merely wants to make you feel by telling you their story does not invalidate their work; instead it's actually a bonus in their favor. This isn't to say their work is automatically superior, because there's still the quality of the writing and storytelling to judge, but the inclusion or lack of an underlying message is not itself part of the quality of the work of art.

I tyhink Lewis would disagree on the moral message being a corruption, but he said a similar thing in general on writing, especially as it regarded Narnia. The moral concerns were actually added later. The whole thing started with a mental picture of a girl and a fawn in the snow.

[warty goblin]

No, but it's primary purpose should be creative entertainment.

I'm not an art historian, but I think that this view is at odds with the history of most everything made ever. Statues and suchlike weren't made as entertainment, they were made as symbols of wealth and power.



That's all it is at the end of the day. It doesn't matter how many intricate carvings are in it- it's still a tool. All the decoration does is allow th weilder to say 'hey, look how swanky my new head-splitter is'.
So if you took the same techniques, designs and materials, but applied them to something completely devoid of practical application it would be art, but if they were applied to an object with a purpose, they aren't?


You might as well say that cookery and dressmaking are artforms. They aren't. They're practical crafts (for nutrition and protection from the elements) where the craftsman has put in a bit more effort to make them different. But the practical elements always come first.
I flatly disagree with everyting contained in this statement. The differentiation between art as 'creative entertainment' and craft as 'extra carefully made practical item' is meaningless, intruduces pointless debate, and reveals nothing beyond the blindingly obvious about either catagory. Thus it is purposeless semantics.

Nor, on reflection, is it neccessarily even consistant semantics. All a painting is is something to put on a wall to make it look a little bit different. It is therefore indistinguisable from a craft dedicated to making more interesting looking walls. A statue is generally used to make a space more interesting, therefore it is a craft.



Cool. But it's still craft, not art. It's just catergorisation, not a judgement call on what's more interesting.
Catagorize away, but please do so consistantly and in ways that actually reveal something about that which is catagorized.

[Talya]

Architects are artists because featureless, windowless boxes would serve the same "primary purpose" as their work...architects are needed because people don't want to live in a featureless box. Anything that requires an aesthetic appeal requires an artist to make it work.


I tyhink Lewis would disagree on the moral message being a corruption, but he said a similar thing in general on writing, especially as it regarded Narnia. The moral concerns were actually added later. The whole thing started with a mental picture of a girl and a fawn in the snow.


Exactly. And perhaps my "corruption" comment comes on a bit too strong. It is, however an additive, an "impurity." It's something beyond the art itself. The message added is not the art itself, its existence of lack thereof does not make the art that contains it any more or less valid, except to the extent it detracts from it.

[warty goblin]

Architects are artists because featureless, windowless boxes would serve the same "primary purpose" as their work...architects are needed because people don't want to live in a featureless box. Anything that requires an aesthetic appeal requires an artist to make it work.

I also don't want to wear uncured animal hide. Doesn't that make the people who make my clothes artists?

[Catch]

This is my counter to everything Catch said. Let it be known: Talya has said exactly what I think without me having to bother writing it down and thus mangle it by having it filtered through my head. Thank you. George R. R. Martin's works make me feel, in a way that's more powerful than any author can, and that's why in my opinion he's the best living novelist.

All you've said (or paraphrased) is that you value your feelings over a writer's ability. Waxing ecstatic about the emotive evocations of art drifts entirely over the importance of form, which is what I've been talking about for two pages. You may feel enraptured by a Harlequin romance novel, but that has no bearing on the writer's ability.


Except for R.A. Salvatore, who writes fun books, but in my opinion, is a poor man's Tracy Hickman/Margaret Weiss, or a really poor man's Steven Brust.

And, you just contradicted your borrowed point. If you're going to get uppity about people judging your favored authors, perhaps a bit of restraint might be prudent.

EDIT: Didn't give a proper response to warty goblin.


Sure, standards can be agreed upon. I never denied that. The point that I feel I need to emphasize is that agreement is all that can be done about standards. There's not really a way to prove or disprove them in a satisfying manner.

One can of course attack the logical consistancy of a set of standards, benchmarks or what-have-you, and thus rule out the clearly flawed such as, to indulge in a particularly pithy example "always use second person" and "never use second person." Where this ceases to function is how one judges between differing sets of consistant quality metrics.

Right. Quality is highly subjective, which is why I learn from writers instead of critics. Kind of like studying painting from someone who's never put brush to canvas. Half the study of literature on the constructional level is figuring out just why certain approaches work and don't, to further explain the standard in the first place. It's often one of those feelings where the author didn't quite get the scene across, and then you hunker down to understand what was missing or misplaced.



This is where I begin to have questions. Improvement is a relative term, it needs to be measured in comparison to something else, be it another work, an earlier draft of the same work, or as I suspect (and please do correct me if I am incorrect) some standard set.

How then do you judge whether to hold a given piece of work up against a standard that says "avoid second person" versus a different one that might encourage the use of second person? After all, both may be logically consistant systems of thought that yield dramatically different results.

Not quite what I getting at. It's about improving your work, based on previous examples, and the inclusion and development of necessary characteristics. The work of accomplished authors provides pseudo-standards, but more practically, they're instructional as examples.

Let me try an analogy:

I've noticed a lot of beginning writers default to describing a person's eyes or smile as their significant features or gestures. Unfortunately, we read this sort of thing all the time, and it doesn't really give the lay of a person's appearance or reactions, as human beings have a massive variety of physically emotive expressions.

An instructor last semester had us reading Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina, and we hunkered down a bit on physical description as it relates to the revelation of character. Daddy Glen, the abusive step-father in the book, who is the runt of his own family attempts to dominate and sequester his new family. Allison describes him as having tiny feet, yet large, restless hands, which is significant in that Bone, the main character, is sporadically beaten when her step-father's temper flares. Here, hands are a map to a character's personality, and internal conflict, which is far more telling than the standard eyes-smile combination.


Now granted, I'm way outside of my chosen field of mathematics, limited as it is, so judgements of quality are not really my strong point. About all my language allows me to do is to tear stuff apart to a microscopic level to find out exactly what can and cannot be truthfully said given one's starting assumptions. If I am missing something huge here, please do enlighten me.

See, I find combination of math and art to be fascinating. Why is it that a proportional human arm is almost exactly 3.14 times the length of its connected hand? Or why is the golden ratio the most aesthetically pleasing?

More related to writing, why is it that three events, words or acts is the most effective progression?



Also, I hope you do not feel as if I'm singling out your specific area of expertise and interest as unworthy or anything of that nature, as this is by no means my intent. I merely seek understanding, and one perhaps unfortunate side effect of taking Analysis classes is the habit of questioning absolutely everything in exhaustive detail. I suspect we actually have more than a few standards in common when it comes to literature, although you are probably more aware of yours than I am of mine.

I don't mind. This sort of debate helps me better articulate my views and experiences, and challenges me to reinforce why I believe and write as I do.

[Talya]

I also don't want to wear uncured animal hide. Doesn't that make the people who make my clothes artists?

Absolutely. I would call fashion design an art.


All you've said (or paraphrased) is that you value your feelings over a writer's ability.

Not at all.

See the quote he paraphrased:


there's still the quality of the writing and storytelling to judge, but the inclusion or lack of an underlying message is not itself part of the quality of the work of art.

[warty goblin]

Absolutely. I would call fashion design an art.

So what sort of thing would you not consider art? I'm curious here, because it seems to me that this logic could be extended to apply to nearly anything.

Also, design but not execution? I find that curious.

[Mr. Scaly]

All you've said (or paraphrased) is that you value your feelings over a writer's ability. Waxing ecstatic about the emotive evocations of art drifts entirely over the importance of form, which is what I've been talking about for two pages. You may feel enraptured by a Harlequin romance novel, but that has no bearing on the writer's ability.

I think it does, if the writer of a Harlequin novel can actually make the reader feel enraptured int he first place.

[chiasaur11]

So what sort of thing would you not consider art? I'm curious here, because it seems to me that this logic could be extended to apply to nearly anything.

Also, design but not execution? I find that curious.

Well, McCloud said that art was anything other than eating, sleeping and reproducing, IE anything that goes beyond the basic requirements of survival (including on occasion the aforementioned activities if done with gusto). Seems a fair enough definition.

[GoufCustom]

The more absolute problem that we have here is that art itself has no set definition. Everyone has a different definition of what constitutes art.

Personally, I think that art is not something you set out to make. You set out to make something that achieves its purpose, be that entertainment, or a specific function, or whatever. And occassionally you make it with such mastery of your craft that it achieves art.

If you set out with your intent to make art, I believe you instead end up with pompous crap.

[Talya]

So what sort of thing would you not consider art? I'm curious here, because it seems to me that this logic could be extended to apply to nearly anything.

My work is not artistic in the slightest, but i do believe art encompasses far more than we generally give people credit for. I generally go by this definition (not that I rely on Wiki, but it sums it up nicely for me):

"Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions."

More here:


The most common usage of the word "art," which rose to prominence after 1750, is understood to denote skill used to produce an aesthetic result. Britannica Online defines it as "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others." By any of these definitions of the word, artistic works have existed for almost as long as humankind: from early pre-historic art to contemporary art; however, some theories restrict the concept to modern Western societies. Much has been written about the concept of "art". Where Adorno said in 1970 "It is now taken for granted that nothing which concerns art can be taken for granted any more[...]," The first and broadest sense of art is the one that has remained closest to the older Latin meaning, which roughly translates to "skill" or "craft," and also from an Indo-European root meaning "arrangement" or "to arrange". In this sense, art is whatever is described as having undergone a deliberate process of arrangement by an agent. A few examples where this meaning proves very broad include artifact, artificial, artifice, artillery, medical arts, and military arts. However, there are many other colloquial uses of the word, all with some relation to its etymology.

The second and more recent sense of the word art is as an abbreviation for creative art or fine art. Fine art means that a skill is being used to express the artist’s creativity, or to engage the audience’s aesthetic sensibilities, or to draw the audience towards consideration of the finer things. Often, if the skill is being used in a common or practical way, people will consider it a craft instead of art. Likewise, if the skill is being used in a commercial or industrial way, it will be considered Commercial art instead of fine art. On the other hand, crafts and design are sometimes considered applied art. Some art followers have argued that the difference between fine art and applied art has more to do with value judgments made about the art than any clear definitional difference. However, even fine art often has goals beyond pure creativity and self-expression. The purpose of works of art may be to communicate ideas, such as in politically-, spiritually-, or philosophically-motivated art; to create a sense of beauty (see aesthetics); to explore the nature of perception; for pleasure; or to generate strong emotions. The purpose may also be seemingly nonexistent.

Art can describe several things: a study of creative skill, a process of using the creative skill, a product of the creative skill, or the audience’s experience with the creative skill. The creative arts (art as discipline) are a collection of disciplines (arts) that produce artworks (art as objects) that are compelled by a personal drive (art as activity) and echo or reflect a message, mood, or symbolism for the viewer to interpret (art as experience). Artworks can be defined by purposeful, creative interpretations of limitless concepts or ideas in order to communicate something to another person. Artworks can be explicitly made for this purpose or interpreted based on images or objects. Art is something that stimulates an individual's thoughts, emotions, beliefs, or ideas through the senses. It is also an expression of an idea and it can take many different forms and serve many different purposes. Although the application of scientific theories to derive a new scientific theory involves skill and results in the "creation" of something new, this represents science only and is not categorized as art.



Also, design but not execution? I find that curious.

In some cases, execution requires artistic skill on its own. The actor or the musician, for example, because the execution is subjective and requires them to create just as much as the writer does. (If you doubt a musician has to do this just because they have the sheet music in front of them, put the same score into a computerized music program and let it play it for you, then compare to the feeling of the accomplished musician playing the same work.)

In the case of clothing or buildings, the factory worker or construction worker is generally just doggedly following precise instructions. There is no real room for creativity on their part.


Well, McCloud said that art was anything other than eating, sleeping and reproducing,

I would argue that the act used to reproduce can be quite the art for some people. :)

[Catch]

I think it does, if the writer of a Harlequin novel can actually make the reader feel enraptured int he first place.

If you get whimsical over one-dimensional characters, predictable plots and unrealistic language, you're unable to see past the story, perhaps even allowing yourself to be manipulated. That's myopia on the reader's part, paired with laziness or inability on the writer's part.


Not at all.

See the quote he paraphrased:

There's still the quality of the writing and storytelling to judge, but the inclusion or lack of an underlying message is not itself part of the quality of the work of art.

And that's where we part ideologically. Quality of work is quality of art. If you enjoy poorly-constructed art and don't understand or appreciate well-produced art, I'll fault your perceptions, not the work.

[Talya]

Quality of work is quality of art.


I don't disagree with that. You misunderstand my statement -- I'm arguing that the lack of an included "message," does not negate the quality of the art. The novel can still be well constructed and produced, without requiring the writer to have some "moral of the story" to tell the reader. You may even agree with me on this, I don't know. I am arguing with JonesTheSpy who said that "Being entertaining without having anything worthwhile to say is just junk food for the brain." (And who defines what messages are "worthwhile" anyway?)

To clarify, I very much enjoy many of Salvatore's stories. I also cringe at the construction of every other sentence (although he's gotten much better with recent books.) I would never call him a great novelist. Using language appropriately is important.

[Catch]

I don't disagree with that. You misunderstand my statement -- I'm arguing that the lack of an included "message," does not negate the quality of the art. The novel can still be well constructed and produced, without requiring the writer to have some "moral of the story" to tell the reader. You may even agree with me on this, I don't know. I am arguing with JonesTheSpy who said that "Being entertaining without having anything worthwhile to say is just junk food for the brain." (And who defines what messages are "worthwhile" anyway?)

Ah, I won't be stepping into the ring on that particular subject. Well-crafted art always speaks to and of the human condition and our natures, so if there's nothing you can learn from a story, it's either not worth reading or you're not looking hard enough. Erotica and explosions are entertaining in their own right, but ought to be paired with strong storytelling to earn respect as art. Both heighten drama, so why not?

My bias is obviously literary, but the art of the story transcends the page. Photography, sculpture, paintings - I can't speak on those, apart from ascetic appeal, so don't extrapolate my judgments to cover all art.

[Talya]

Ah, I won't be stepping into the ring on that particular subject. Well-crafted art always speaks to and of the human condition and our natures, so if there's nothing you can learn from a story, it's either not worth reading or you're not looking hard enough. Erotica and explosions are entertaining in their own right, but ought to be paired with strong storytelling to earn respect as art. Both heighten drama, so why not?


I agree completely. I would add, however, that there is just as much to learn (perhaps even more so) about the human condition and our nature, by the terribly-crafted "art" that gains popular hysterical fandom (*coughtwilightcough*), than the well-crafted art that does not get noticed.

That's the inner-pessimist-who-hates-people inside of me talking, though, so take it with a grain of salt.

[Catch]

I would add, however, that there is just as much to learn (perhaps even more so) about the human condition and our nature, by the terribly-crafted art that gains popular hysterical fandom, than the well-crafted art that does not get noticed.

That's the inner-pessimist-who-hates-people inside of me talking, though, so take it with a grain of salt.

It's an interesting bit of study, for sure. The Popular Fiction workshop in my department dissects books like the Harry Potter and Twilight series for that reason. "If these books aren't the best-constructed, but sell fantastically, what do they contain that people enjoy, and how can we extract that to create artistic and popular books?"

Or: "What washed out of the gene pool that made people stop reading?" :smallannoyed:

[Talya]

It's an interesting bit of study, for sure. The Popular Fiction workshop in my department dissects books like the Harry Potter and Twilight series for that reason. "If these books aren't the best-constructed, but sell fantastically, what do they contain that people enjoy, and how can we extract that to create artistic and popular books?"

Or: "What washed out of the gene pool that made people stop reading?" :smallannoyed:

I don't understand the fanatical appeal of Harry Potter among adults, at all. I enjoyed the stories, mildly, but they weren't spectacular. However, I wouldn't call them "poorly constructed;" they were, rather, excellent children's stories, written for readers the same age as the protagonists.* I am not entirely sure how to judge the quality of a children's book, but the Potter stories do seem to be fairly well constructed from that perspective.

The big question about them is, "How did books written for children aged 11 (The Philosopher's Stone) to 17 (The Deathly Hallows) end up becoming widely popular among adults?"


*-This is the most innovative aspect of the series, by the way: releasing seven children's novels over a span of seven years that scale with the age of the protagonists, the stories take place also over a span of 7 years, and the writing matures with both the characters and the readers.

[warty goblin]

I don't understand the fanatical appeal of Harry Potter among adults, at all. I enjoyed the stories, mildly, but they weren't spectacular. However, I wouldn't call them "poorly constructed;" they were, rather, excellent children's stories, written for readers the same age as the protagonists. I am not entirely sure how to judge the quality of a children's book, but the Potter stories do seem to be fairly well constructed from that perspective.

The big question about them is, "How did books written for children aged 10 (The Philosopher's Stone) to 17 (The Deathly Hallows) end up becoming widely popular among adults?"

My theory is that a bunch of parents read them along with their ten year olds, realized they weren't the complete mindnumbing waste that is most literature for ten year olds, and fell in love with them on the spot. They then kept going along with their spawn through the rest of the series.

[pita]

All you've said (or paraphrased) is that you value your feelings over a writer's ability. Waxing ecstatic about the emotive evocations of art drifts entirely over the importance of form, which is what I've been talking about for two pages. You may feel enraptured by a Harlequin romance novel, but that has no bearing on the writer's ability.

I value a writer's ability by how he makes me feel. Form has no importance other than the improvement of the rest of the work. The Old Man And The Sea is a great novel because of the prose, but in my opinion it could have been better with a better plot and better characters. I read books firstly for the emotions they strike, secondly for the plot and characterization, and finally, for the prose. If the prose is bad it may turn me off a novel, but I may continue reading (as was the case with Salvatore. I didn't like the prose, but I enjoyed the plot and characterization, and it was a fun read). If the novel is great in plot and characterization and prose, but makes me feel absolutely nothing (Like 1984. It bored me to no end), I will dismiss that book as a bad book.
And yes, if a Harlequin romance novel is well written, well plotted, well characterized, and strikes an emotional chord, I see no reason why not to like it. I, unlike you, do not give much importance to labels (Although I do love dragons).


And, you just contradicted your borrowed point. If you're going to get uppity about people judging your favored authors, perhaps a bit of restraint might be prudent.

And of course, I could never be kidding, this is a serious debate with no room for silliness. We should all stop being silly. Or at least I should, since noone else has joined me in silliness...

If you get whimsical over one-dimensional characters, predictable plots and unrealistic language, you're unable to see past the story, perhaps even allowing yourself to be manipulated. That's myopia on the reader's part, paired with laziness or inability on the writer's part.
If the characters are one dimensional, the plots predictable, and the language unrealistic, I'd dislike the book. Those things ruin the feeling I get from the book. But I'm not judging a book just because of the publishers and the genre.

Or: "What washed out of the gene pool that made people stop reading?" :smallannoyed:
I think it's more of "What washed into the gene pool that made people stop reading?", and that's attitudes like yours. People don't like reading because it's an intellectual thing. Art can be art without a message, and that's what, in my opinion, needs to be re-learned. I don't know if it ever was learned in the first place, but it's definitely being figured out. Some books can have no message. Look to the left side of your screen, you'll see two of them, as well as a short story with no message. But The Duke's Wolf was an entertaining story, and Order of the Stick made me feel. If more stories could be entertaining at the very least, I think people would go back to reading. Look at what gets read. The Da Vinci Code is action packed excitement for people. Twilight is a Harlequin Romance novel masqueraded as vampire porn. And Harry Potter is a growing up story for kids growing up, even though I was two years younger than the characters and I had the distinct feeling that Harry hit his head four too many times. Those books sell because they don't try to force anything on the reader. They let the reader enjoy the ride. Let me also mention that I hate all three of those books. Gosh darn Mary Sue. Why can't 10 year olds like good 10 year old fiction, like The Graveyard Book or Animorphs or Perry Bible Fellowship or something?

[Closet_Skeleton]

The purpose of art, in all its forms, is to make the person who experiences the art feel. Art is about emotion.

Art may include a moral or an underlying message, but this is a corruption; even at its best when it can be worked in unobtrusively and tastefully, it is still the incorporation of indoctrination into the pure form of the art

I'm going to incredibly disagree here.

Art is about communication through a media (threatre, film, painting, photography, sculpture). To create theatre you need three things, an artist, something to be communicated and an audience. The same thing applies to all forms of art. To limit art to communicating emotions rather than thoughts, politics and ideals is rediculous. Emotion is just one possible message to be communicated, with no more value, importance or primacy than any other.

Emotion may be primal and the simplist part of how the brain works, but art does not reflect that. Art is not primal or simple, it is not animal, it is completely absent from most animals and possibly the only thing that makes humans unique among animals (the usually stated answer of warfare existing in some form in insects and chimpanzees, while even neandathals who had begun to develop religion were unable to create art).

The simplist form of art is communicating a message. Emotion may be the simplist form of message, but that's irrelevant to defining art.


I am not entirely sure how to judge the quality of a children's book, but the Potter stories do seem to be fairly well constructed from that perspective.

By the same standards as adult fiction, but even harsher.


Yes he is. Scuplture is for decorative purposes, buildings are for practical ones.

A pointless generalisation. Many buildings are purely decorative.


No, but it's primary purpose should be creative entertainment.

More pointless limitation. There's more to life than entertainment and hedonism is the most destructive of all philosophies. Art is general and broad, to limit it to entertainment is to shoot oneself in the foot.


But the practical elements always come first.

Nonsense. Otherwise you wouldn't get confectionary or sweets, which are the result of cooking but their practical value (restoring energy by providing a source of glucose) is utterly secondary to their enjoyment factor.


Cool. But it's still craft, not art. It's just catergorisation, not a judgement call on what's more interesting.

Craft is art and art is craft

Any attempt to differentiate them is unnecessary and elitist.


Personally, I think that art is not something you set out to make. You set out to make something that achieves its purpose, be that entertainment, or a specific function, or whatever. And occassionally you make it with such mastery of your craft that it achieves art.

Not setting out to be artistic may be a good mind set but saying something is only art if it reaches a certain quality by accident is stupid. Something doesn't need to be "good" to be art, there can be bad art and good art. A bad piece of music is still music, a terrible painting is still a painting if it is made up of paint and was constructed by a painter.


If you set out with your intent to make art, I believe you instead end up with pompous crap.

Nah, you only end up with pompous crap if you're in love with your own abilities to create art. A good artist needs to hate their work and want to tear it apart so they can replace it with something better.


See, I find combination of math and art to be fascinating. Why is it that a proportional human arm is almost exactly 3.14 times the length of its connected hand?

That's a nice rule for constructing an image of a person without a model, but it's an idealisation based off an average that has no real meaning. To call an arm that isn't 3.14 times the lenght of the connected hand "monsterous" or ugly because of some mathematical value is silly.


Or why is the golden ratio the most aesthetically pleasing?

Is it? I always considered that to be Greek nonsense.

[Catch]

I value a writer's ability by how he makes me feel. Form has no importance other than the improvement of the rest of the work. The Old Man And The Sea is a great novel because of the prose, but in my opinion it could have been better with a better plot and better characters. I read books firstly for the emotions they strike, secondly for the plot and characterization, and finally, for the prose.

And that's where I discard your opinion. Better writers and critics than you or me have dug deeply into The Old Man and the Sea and found gold in both Santiago and the plot. What you're missing is the value of expertise in the judging of literature. Here:

I carry around a copy of On Becoming a Novelist, by the late John Gardner. In the foreword, Raymond Carver describes his former teacher:

"In class he was always referring to writers whose names I was not familiar with. Or if I knew the names, I'd never read the work. Conrad. Céline. Katherine Anne Porter. Isaac Babel. Walter van Tilburg Clark. Chekhov. Hortense Calisher. Curt Harnack. Robert Penn Warren. (We read a story of Warren's called 'Blackberry Winter.' For one reason or another, I didn't care for it and I said so to Gardner. 'You'd better read it again,' he said, and he was not joking.)"


And yes, if a Harlequin romance novel is well written, well plotted, well characterized, and strikes an emotional chord, I see no reason why not to like it. I, unlike you, do not give much importance to labels (Although I do love dragons).

If the characters are one dimensional, the plots predictable, and the language unrealistic, I'd dislike the book. Those things ruin the feeling I get from the book. But I'm not judging a book just because of the publishers and the genre.

It's not about labels. You can say I'm persecuting fantasy, but that's your cross to bear, as I've moved on. My point was that if you can't see through a flawed book, your perceptions are flawed. Paperback formulaic romances are a decent litmus test in that respect. (There was a woman at my last job who read them during her break and recommended to all the women laughably-boorish stories like "The Billionaire's Concubine" and "My Cowboy Baby." She also happened to be a schoolteacher, and recently divorced.) So if a book has weak characters, an uninspiring plot or an ugly use of language, you should be able to tell. If not, your opinion doesn't matter.


I think it's more of "What washed into the gene pool that made people stop reading?", and that's attitudes like yours. People don't like reading because it's an intellectual thing. Art can be art without a message, and that's what, in my opinion, needs to be re-learned. I don't know if it ever was learned in the first place, but it's definitely being figured out.

You're indignant about having to think? Go watch television. And, though you may choose not to believe me, all entertainment contains messages. Even an episode of Deal or No Deal shows just how easily people's emotions can be manipulated by the contingency of a prize.


Why can't 10 year olds like good 10 year old fiction, like The Graveyard Book or Animorphs or Perry Bible Fellowship or something?

My argument has never been that you can't like certain fiction. You're welcome to that. However, you shouldn't say that it's better because you liked it.


That's a nice rule for constructing an image of a person without a model, but it's an idealisation based off an average that has no real meaning. To call an arm that isn't 3.14 times the lenght of the connected hand "monsterous" or ugly because of some mathematical value is silly.

I don't study mathematics, so I goofed. The ratio of your hand to your forearm is phi, not pi. Here's (http://goldennumber.net/hand.htm) a better explanation than I could give. The point about math + art is that certain ratios have been lifted from nature, of things we naturally find aesthetically pleasing, to better understand the relationship.


Is it? I always considered that to be Greek nonsense.

No, it's pretty (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio) darn (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VzlbCmDzMc8) legit (http://goldennumber.net/).

[Helanna]

And that's where I discard your opinion. Better writers and critics than you or me have dug deeply into The Old Man and the Sea and found gold in both Santiago and the plot. What you're missing is the value of expertise in the judging of literature.

But what's better: A book that is very good and very enjoyable and accessible, or a book that's completely awesome but you have to be an expert in literature to understand?

If I have to be an expert in order to enjoy a book, I'm going to label it as, if not bad, then at least not as good as a good book that people can enjoy without having to freakin' study literature first. If it's not clear to an ordinary person, then it needs to be better written.

[Catch]

But what's better: A book that is very good and very enjoyable and accessible, or a book that's completely awesome but you have to be an expert in literature to understand?

If I have to be an expert in order to enjoy a book, I'm going to label it as, if not bad, then at least not as good as a good book that people can enjoy without having to freakin' study literature.

So would you label older literature as "bad" because it was written in a different vernacular? Or a novel as inferior to a graphic novel because one has more pictures? It may come off as patronizing, but I honestly encounter this all the time.

Anyway, some elements aren't immediately discernible to the untrained eye. That doesn't mean the book is inaccessible, just that you haven't thought about it. For example, I can pick out in a page of prose a model telling or a story-within-a-story, and you might not know what that means, but could tell that in only a page, an author has given you a character's history and the normal routine of his life.

You don't need to understand the Hero's Journey to appreciate Star Wars, but it might help you respect it more.

[Kneenibble]

Mr. Catch, I just wanted to say that I've been lurking over the discussion in this thread with great pleasure, and that I'm really resonating with your position and how well you've defended it. Cheers. Aesthetics is my favourite branch of philosophy -- I've never read anything specifically devoted to literary aesthetics (besides Plato and his censorship :smallmad:) but the broad concepts of taste and content that are more often geared to the plastic arts mostly apply.


Not setting out to be artistic may be a good mind set but saying something is only art if it reaches a certain quality by accident is stupid. Something doesn't need to be "good" to be art, there can be bad art and good art. A bad piece of music is still music, a terrible painting is still a painting if it is made up of paint and was constructed by a painter.
That inclusive theory of art is not an axiom, my friend, and you talk in a circle in its defence. A bad piece of music is obviously music, but is it art? That's the question about literature going on here.

[GoufCustom]

Not setting out to be artistic may be a good mind set but saying something is only art if it reaches a certain quality by accident is stupid. Something doesn't need to be "good" to be art, there can be bad art and good art. A bad piece of music is still music, a terrible painting is still a painting if it is made up of paint and was constructed by a painter.

This is just a miscommunication, I believe. There are really two definitions to art, the kinda vague one, and then art such as painting, drawing, etc. I'm referring to the first kind of art, that encompasses pretty much anything and everything, such as drawing, music, theater, architecture, etc.

I still describe painters and whatnot as artists, because that's just what our language and/or society refers to them as. They make art, but that doesn't mean they make ART. Make sense?

[zyphyr]

So would you label older literature as "bad" because it was written in a different vernacular?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I am perfectly willing to judge a book by the standards of the time in which it was written.

If a book written 100 years ago would have been entertaining to the people of that time, then it succeeds on the 'entertainment' factor regardless of whether or not I personally enjoy it. At a minimum I can figure out something about the mindset of people in that era by reading it, even if I get nothing else.

If a book written today isn't entertaining to modern audiences, then it is a failure regardless of any important ideas it may contain.

The audience has to want to continue reading if the writer is to deliver any sort of message.

[Mr. Scaly]

If you get whimsical over one-dimensional characters, predictable plots and unrealistic language, you're unable to see past the story, perhaps even allowing yourself to be manipulated. That's myopia on the reader's part, paired with laziness or inability on the writer's part.

But people do get into one dimensional characters, predictable plots and unrealistic language. People do get excited about writers like Meyer, Paolini, Eddings, Turtledove and Salvatore. Is that a failing of everybody who has read their books then? Or is there something about them that's actually worth reading for some people? See, no novel is going to speak to every kind of person but saying that type A is less worthy of being considered good literature than type B is just a personal preference and hasn't got any real criteria to back it up.

[Catch]

Mr. Catch, I just wanted to say that I've been lurking over the discussion in this thread with great pleasure, and that I'm really resonating with your position and how well you've defended it. Cheers.

Why thank you. :smallredface: Approaching the subject of literature, discussions tend to default to books that rock/suck or 10th-grade-Lit debates on theme, and that's flat-out insulting to the art of a novel. Expression is nice, but more attention should be paid to the methods and techniques an author chooses to convey his message or story, because that is exactly what differentiates art that is effective from art that is forgettable.

"What" is a very boring question. "Why" is interesting, but "how" allows us to learn and reproduce. Literature professors, I've found, do not write many novels.


Aesthetics is my favourite branch of philosophy -- I've never read anything specifically devoted to literary aesthetics (besides Plato and his censorship :smallmad:) but the broad concepts of taste and content that are more often geared to the plastic arts mostly apply.

Apart from a good English text like Strunk and White (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_elements_of_style), I can't immediately think of one. Books on literary form come close, but poetry is a better medium for fine wordcraft. In that vein, music is interestingly related.

In Gardner's On Becoming a Novelist (sorry for name-dropping again), there's a section talking about authority, loosely defined as the sense that the author is someone who knows what he's doing. The comparison given is between the opening lines of two of Melville's works. (This example works best if you read it aloud.)

The first, from Omoo, falls naturally into 4/4 time. (In the book, Gardner actually places musical notes under the syllables and accents stressed syllables, to better illustrate the structure, but without scanning my copy, I can't represent that on the forum. Try to imagine.)


It was in the middle of a bright tropical afternoon that we made our good escape from the bay. The vessel we sought lay with her main-topsail aback about a league from the land, and was the only object that broke the the broad expanse of the ocean.

Nothing bad here, but we get no sense of the author's character. It's a dull sort of cadence, which doesn't grate or inspire.

Now, from Moby ****.


Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely --having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.

The structure here is complex; the lines lift and roll, pause, gather, and roll again, and that friends, is authority. Melville found his voice, which in turn assures the reader on a sub-textual level that this is, in fact, not his first journey out to sea.

Nifty, no?


If a book written today isn't entertaining to modern audiences, then it is a failure regardless of any important ideas it may contain.

The audience has to want to continue reading if the writer is to deliver any sort of message.

You've said something very important here. One of the questions that should always be present in a writer's mind is "what's at stake for the reader?" Why are they turning the page? What questions are unanswered in his mind, and are they intriguing enough to pull them deeper into the story?

This is a basic skill for any writer who hopes to be read. To be an author worthy of note, however, you must do more with your story than simply keep the reader engaged.


But people do get into one dimensional characters, predictable plots and unrealistic language. People do get excited about writers like Meyer, Paolini, Eddings, Turtledove and Salvatore. Is that a failing of everybody who has read their books then? Or is there something about them that's actually worth reading for some people? See, no novel is going to speak to every kind of person but saying that type A is less worthy of being considered good literature than type B is just a personal preference and hasn't got any real criteria to back it up.

Let's use food as an analogy.

Recently, I've had an acquaintance who, much to my disgust (I was raised by a chef of 25 years), required a liberal application of ketchup on all his meals. Many people eat this way--his girlfriend did the same with barbecue sauce. If we went for Chinese take out, he'd slather the Heinz over his meal before taking a single bite. Rice takes on a peculiar color when drowned in ketchup, a sort of orange-red, a bit like good masago. Anyway, his normal dinner at home consisted of frozen popcorn shrimp, with ketchup, between two pieces of bread, and a side of Doritos. (Parents, expose your children to real food!)

Now, let's consider your argument, applied to my acquaintance's unfortunate diet. Are certain well-seasoned, expertly-prepared foods inferior because they don't contain ketchup? Would you say that soggy breaded shrimp are "better" than a lobster bisque or carbonara because they contain what this person likes? If this gentleman sits down to a plate of saffron risotto and dislikes the dish because it's not what he normally eats, which is at fault? The dish or his palate?

[Closet_Skeleton]

That inclusive theory of art is not an axiom, my friend, and you talk in a circle in its defence.

Nothing in this thread is an axiom, I'm just stating an opinion.


A bad piece of music is obviously music, but is it art?

Yes, it's just bad art. Otherwise "art" is just a measure of quality, synonymous with "good".

A bad piece of music is not music to anyone, just look at numerous critics of the next big thing in popular music (eg rap but it's predessors as well).


They make art, but that doesn't mean they make ART. Make sense?

Not at all.

Why split art into two differant things, one you can define and one you can't?

You're just trying to make a concept out of nothing.

[Quincunx]

I'll split art and craft, though, into product and process. I can look at a photograph quilt (a quilt made with tiny squares of particular hues to form one image, like pixels) and split "the color selection and piecing would have taken ages, but isn't using a long-arm machine to do the actual quilting somewhat cheating that effort?" into thoughts about the craft and "why is the central face in true-to-life colors while the other two are blurred into impressionism with those excess gray and brown squares?" into thoughts about art.

[EDIT: Now, allow me to bring this in line with the topic. When I read a good page-turning book, I can appreciate the craft of building tension by having an ignorant main character slowly learn about the world in which he participates (see again Patriot Games and the photo-reconnaissance incident), but there is no art to admire in revelations for the reader. When I read a dull book, I can catch a glimpse of the intended art but wince at the clumsy craft (the stream-of-consciousness paragraphs telling you of Jack Ryan's thoughts, ibid. Remember that 'show, don't tell' catchphrase drilled into your head by every writing instructor? It was just violated.).

Another thought--how many of you who know what the photo-reconnaissance incident is would describe what happens as Jack Ryan "touching the web"? You do so because of the union of art and craft that is the deceptively simple "The Fly (http://www.portablepoetry.com/poems/william_blake/the_fly.html)". The art lies in the message that every act has its consequence and that the poet does not care--nor do you--and the craft in not bludgeoning you over the head with that statement a la Clancy. The photo-reconnaissance incident, widely read, was not art enough to inspire us to make it our idiom.]

[Manicotti]

I'd read the entire thread if i hadn't just gotten back from work, but I'll pop in and say "Tad Williams" and leave it at that.

[Lioness]

A bad piece of music is not music to anyone, just look at numerous critics of the next big thing in popular music (eg rap but it's predessors as well).


I haven't read the whole thread, but I'd like to point out that bad is relative.

many teenagers would call classical music 'bad', because it's boring, outdated, etc.
However, other people would consider it 'good', because it is calming, and generally shows more intelligence in composition than rap or pop.

[Closet_Skeleton]

I haven't read the whole thread, but I'd like to point out that bad is relative.

That's the sort of thing that I usually assume is too obvious to bother explaining.

[Mr. Scaly]

Let's use food as an analogy.

Recently, I've had an acquaintance who, much to my disgust (I was raised by a chef of 25 years), required a liberal application of ketchup on all his meals. Many people eat this way--his girlfriend did the same with barbecue sauce. If we went for Chinese take out, he'd slather the Heinz over his meal before taking a single bite. Rice takes on a peculiar color when drowned in ketchup, a sort of orange-red, a bit like good masago. Anyway, his normal dinner at home consisted of frozen popcorn shrimp, with ketchup, between two pieces of bread, and a side of Doritos. (Parents, expose your children to real food!)

Now, let's consider your argument, applied to my acquaintance's unfortunate diet. Are certain well-seasoned, expertly-prepared foods inferior because they don't contain ketchup? Would you say that soggy breaded shrimp are "better" than a lobster bisque or carbonara because they contain what this person likes? If this gentleman sits down to a plate of saffron risotto and dislikes the dish because it's not what he normally eats, which is at fault? The dish or his palate?

Believe me, I'm sympathetic because I hate ketchup. I had a similar acquaintance who I would hang out with every week in a group of friends and I couldn't bring myself to watch him eat because I couldn't see his weekly French fries for the ketchup he'd put on them. But neither the dish nor the diner's palate is at fault. My sister thinks I'm gross because I eat sandwiches with liverwurst, cheese and pickles. It's just a personal taste as different things appeal to different people.

[Catch]

But neither the dish nor the diner's palate is at fault. It's just a personal taste as different things appeal to different people.

So we're understanding each other. The corollary to understanding personal taste is that it has no bearing on the quality of a work. I've never said you're not allowed to like something, only that enjoying something is not a reliable measure of its craftsmanship.

Some people drink boxed wine and enjoy it, but that doesn't have any bearing on the quality of another winemaker's lambrusco. We even have an expression for it - "There's no accounting for taste."

[Cyrion]

Catch-

I'd be interested in hearing why you find Madame Bovary a worthwhile read. I think it is one of the worst books I have ever read based on structure and construction. I cheered out loud when Emma finally managed to poison herself and put everyone out of her misery.

If you like books that force you to look at things from different perspectives (going back to your points about describing eyes and so on), you might enjoy Perfume by Patrick Susskind. The protagonist has poor senses except for his sense of smell, so all descriptions in the book are based around that.

Avoid the movie like the plague. Wretched, wretched, wretched...

[Mr. Scaly]

So we're understanding each other. The corollary to understanding personal taste is that it has no bearing on the quality of a work. I've never said you're not allowed to like something, only that enjoying something is not a reliable measure of its craftsmanship.

Some people drink boxed wine and enjoy it, but that doesn't have any bearing on the quality of another winemaker's lambrusco. We even have an expression for it - "There's no accounting for taste."

Well then, what would you say is a reliable measure of a book's craftsmanship? I'm curious about that, because while there's no accounting for taste it I don't think you can consider an author with perfect sentence structure and deeper meanings to be "good" if maybe 4% of all people like their work.

[Anung Un Rama]

First of all, stop trying to define quality in literature, as it is almost purely subjective. Sure, you can deride someone's use of grammar or other linguistic elements in a novel, but that alone cannot be used to judge its worth, as each individual who reads it will form his own conclusions anyway.

Also; Mark Z. Danielewski because House of Leaves is the single greatest book i have ever read

[averagejoe]

The thing about popular fiction is, it's very replaceable. People talk about however many millions of people read The DaVinci Code or Twilight, but they never really account for time. I would bet that The Old Man And The Sea has sold more copies than any popular fiction, or at least it will because it will still be in print when the others are forgotten. The reason for this isn't anything like literary elitism (although that probably helps in some cases) or anything like that, but precisely those elements that popular fiction enthusiasts keep espousing. Here's a secret (note: it isn't really a secret): people who read literature (for the most part, and whether they admit it or not) enjoy excitement, interesting characters, and action much more than they enjoy figuring out that some old guy's nose represents communism or whatever.

The thing is that popular fiction does tend to be simplistic and formulaic, even the better ones, and so people who tire of such fare seek things out that have more subtlety and greater complexity. Everyone goes through this process to some degree; that's why we stop reading to books like Green Eggs and Ham or Goodnight Moon, and why songs like Frère Jacques (or Are You Sleeping, if you're in certain parts of the world.) They were entertaining once, but we grow board of such things. We enjoy, fundamentally, the same sorts of elements as we once did, but with greater depth and complexity. We go from, "I do not like green eggs and ham, so I will not eat them," to "My aunt and uncle mistreat me, and always have, out of fear and jealousy, and so I'm going to avoid living with them when possible, and also stand up for myself a bit more when I come into power." Fundamentally it's the same sort of conflict, but one has more nuance and complexity. Such it is when going from popular fiction to literature (although this isn't an entirely satisfactory statement since they aren't mutually exclusive categories. I hope my meaning is nonetheless understood.) However, with that depth and complexity also comes a certain amount of inaccessibility; a five year old (or suitably young, I don't know children) will probably be bored or confused by Harry Potter and will almost certainly call Green Eggs and Ham the better book. It's a similar dichotomy when comparing Dan Brown to Earnest Hemingway. There are some who find The Old Man and the Sea to be as much a page turner as some people find The DaVinci Code, but to see it as such takes more thought and energy than most people spend reading, and once this is achieved a book like the Code seems trite and boring. This doesn't mean that, fundamentally, the enjoyment from reading either book is different. The Sea undoubtedly has more elements that are worth thinking about, so it is considered more "heady," but ultimately it does have to entertain.

Which is not to devalue popular fiction. I wouldn't call popular fiction bad, at least not in the way most people mean. What makes it different is that it is replaceable. (And thus the relatively small shelf life it has when compared to literary fiction.) Take The DaVinci Code. Telling it straight, I do not like the book. (I haven't recently read much popular fiction, or really much fiction at all lately. This is a rather poor example, but the only other thing that comes to mind is Harry Potter and I'm not really ready to argue that those books are definitely not literature. Again, I beg your indulgence.) The reason I did not like the Code is that the style stood out as distinctly Writing 101, I couldn't unsee these qualities, and this kept yanking me out of the narrative. However, despite this, it still made me want to turn the page. I knew exactly the tricks it was using, the whole thing was laughably easy to dissect, so much so that I couldn't help it, but I still wanted to turn the page to find out what happened. So I enjoyed that book in a sense. However, it's the same kind of enjoyment that I got from Harry Potter, The Stand, or even The Old Man and the Sea. Even if one likes Dan Brown (and it's cool if you do, don't get me wrong) he is easily replaceable. He is just now being replaced. Just a few years ago his very name would spark impassioned debates. Now he's old news, all but a footnote, and people who enjoyed his books are moving onto other things which they enjoy just as much. However, it's been many, many more years, and people are still reading The Old Man and the Sea. (I don't know how this got to be the big literature example. Oh well, I'll just roll with it.) Again, this isn't just literary snobbery. (Although some of that too.) It isn't because regular joes like the book. The book is, in the end, irreplaceable. You can get things from The Old Man and the Sea that you can't get from any other book. And that is the difference.

An attempt to stay somewhat on topic: My experience with contemporary authors is admittedly limited, but I'm gonna have to say Tim O'Brien. In some ways I hate dropping the name because books about war are "fashionable" in some circles, but he really is a great prose artist. One of the most powerful authors I've read from any time period. Even when he isn't writing about war.

[WalkingTarget]

The book is, in the end, irreplaceable. You can get things from The Old Man and the Sea that you can't get from any other book. And that is the difference.

Dang it, joe. I've spent the last few hours trying to articulate a point properly and then I check for recent posts and you've pretty much killed it right here.

Otherwise, you mention not being able to help dissecting Dan Brown's work while reading it. My biggest worry about getting to the point where I know how to do that dissection is whether I'd be able to turn that off and just enjoy a story as it's being told. I mean, I'm a narrative junkie and enjoy reading all sorts of stuff (quite a lot of which I'm sure wouldn't stand up to that type of scrutiny, then again, it's generally not really meant to - see the page I linked a few posts ago about Neal Stephenson, I think he summed it up well) and I'm hesitant to add that ability to my skill set as it might cut down the number of things I can enjoy.

[Catch]

Catch-

I'd be interested in hearing why you find Madame Bovary a worthwhile read. I think it is one of the worst books I have ever read based on structure and construction. I cheered out loud when Emma finally managed to poison herself and put everyone out of her misery.

Oh, I friggin' hated Emma from the beginning. So did Flaubert, incidentally. He despised all of the characters in the novel and characterized them with ugly flaws, but truly human accuracy. Charles is a dull, clumsy oaf, but he's a simple man who loves his wife fully and wishes her happiness, no matter the cost. Emma is never satisfied, manipulative and selfish, but she's trapped living in a facsimile of the life she'd always imagined, with a husband she can't love and no way of escape. After thinking about it, I realized that I felt a certain pathos for both her and Charles, even though I didn't like them as people.

As a peer of mine titled one of her paper on the novel, "Emma Bovary is a Ho-Bag Bitch."

Structurally, you have to consider the time when Flaubert wrote, and the kinds of books that were popular. He was the first author to use an objective voice for the narrator, in a time where all stories were told from the novelist to the audience. "Dear reader, allow me to tell you a tale...." In his notes and letters to acquaintances, Flaubert commented on how difficult it was to keep himself out of the novel, and the writing clearly shows his intent, even if it's pretty sloppy by today's standards, so think of Madame Bovary as a prototype.

Additionally, his structure is a bit better than you might have noticed. Consider the movement of story - we begin with Charles Bovary as a boy and cover his schooling as a doctor, first marriage and courtship of Emma, despite the fact that the book is nominally about her, not him. This is done quickly, but with skill and significance to understanding the whole of the story. Madame Bovary covers their life at Tostes, which establishes Emma's disillusionment (the ball held by the Marquis d'Andervilliers is crucial as a turning point), leading to the family moving to Yonville, setting up for Emma's infidelity, excessive spending and eventual downfall. The conflict between Emma's wants and Charles' stupid contentment can burgeon here, all of the patterns laid down in the fist two parts conflagrate, and when Emma dies it's a mixture of comeuppance and pitiful suicide. We've seen the entire scope of Charles' life too, which is why his death is so compelling, sad and sweet.

Compared to refined modern novels, the book seems a bit clunky, but it's still extremely effective in the way Flaubert intended. Linguistically, he should also be commended for always searching for the right word (le mot juste).

Hope that helps a little. There's only so far I can go with a forum post.


If you like books that force you to look at things from different perspectives (going back to your points about describing eyes and so on), you might enjoy Perfume by Patrick Susskind. The protagonist has poor senses except for his sense of smell, so all descriptions in the book are based around that.

See, that sounds like a neat approach, but I bet it's far harder than it looks, especially when establishing place. I might look into it.


Avoid the movie like the plague. Wretched, wretched, wretched...

What, did they try to make a Scent of a Woman knockoff? "HOO-ah!"

It can't be worse that Sofia Coppola's adaptation of The Virgin Suicides. For turning a disturbing, complex and compelling story into a pretty little movie, she has earned my enmity forever.


Well then, what would you say is a reliable measure of a book's craftsmanship? I'm curious about that, because while there's no accounting for taste it I don't think you can consider an author with perfect sentence structure and deeper meanings to be "good" if maybe 4% of all people like their work.

Let me give a stab at it, from a story-structure standard of quality.

The fundamental elements of story must be present, utilized deftly, and in a way unique to the writer. An authoritative voice, strong sense of place, a keen eye for character details (gestures, expressions, revealing traits) telling dialogue, a powerful grasp of building and releasing tension (rising-action / falling-action), and clear, effective imagery.

John Gardner, however, said it better than me:


Good fiction sets off, as I said earlier, a vivid and continuous dream in the reader's mind. It is "generous" in the sense that it is complete and self-contained: it answers, either explicitly or by implication, every reasonable question the reader could ask. It does not leave us hanging, unless the narrative itself justifies its inconclusiveness. It does not play pointlessly subtle games in which storytelling is confused with puzzle-making. It does not "test" the reader by demanding that he bring with him some special knowledge about which the events make no sense. In short, it seeks, without pandering, to satisfy and to please. It is intellectually and emotionally significant. It is elegant and efficient; that is, it does not use more scenes, characters, physical details and technical devices than it needs to do its job. It has design. It gives that special pleasure we get from watching, with appreciative and impressed eyes, a performance. In other words, noticing what the writer has brought off, we fell well-served: "How easy he makes it look!" we say, conscious of difficulties splendidly overcome. And finally, an aesthetically successful story will contain a sense of life's strangeness, however humdrum its makings.

So there you have it, from the opinion of a writer and teacher of writing.


First of all, stop trying to define quality in literature, as it is almost purely subjective. Sure, you can deride someone's use of grammar or other linguistic elements in a novel, but that alone cannot be used to judge its worth, as each individual who reads it will form his own conclusions anyway.

Quality is less subjective if you specify what you're seeking, and the bulk of my argument has been about story structure, not linguistic elements. They are certainly important, but attention to voice is important. Last Exit to Brooklyn wouldn't have the same stream-of consciousness flow if it was properly punctuated, but that was an intentional choice on the author's part, not poor form.

Additionally, I've been reinforcing the point that uneducated personal conclusions don't matter as much as expert ones. I wouldn't ask my grandfather (who reads dollar-store pulp westerns) to critique a draft of mine, just as he wouldn't ask me to fix his truck. Both of us could poke around and get a general idea of what's working and not, but it takes a trained eye to exactly what, and how to repair any problems.


Also; Mark Z. Danielewski because House of Leaves is the single greatest book i have ever read

Qualify why it's the greatest, and you'll understand my position.



@ Joe: Yes. To basically everything you said. Kudos.


My biggest worry about getting to the point where I know how to do that dissection is whether I'd be able to turn that off and just enjoy a story as it's being told. I mean, I'm a narrative junkie and enjoy reading all sorts of stuff (quite a lot of which I'm sure wouldn't stand up to that type of scrutiny, then again, it's generally not really meant to - see the page I linked a few posts ago about Neal Stephenson, I think he summed it up well) and I'm hesitant to add that ability to my skill set as it might cut down the number of things I can enjoy.

It's a bit like reading TV Tropes. You start to spot structural elements on-sight, and while it does allow you to see through a lot of bad writing, it helps you better appreciate good writing by noticing good story-building and skillful use of narrative techniques.

[Mr. Scaly]

Let me give a stab at it, from a story-structure standard of quality.

The fundamental elements of story must be present, utilized deftly, and in a way unique to the writer. An authoritative voice, strong sense of place, a keen eye for character details (gestures, expressions, revealing traits) telling dialogue, a powerful grasp of building and releasing tension (rising-action / falling-action), and clear, effective imagery.

John Gardner, however, said it better than me:


Good fiction sets off, as I said earlier, a vivid and continuous dream in the reader's mind. It is "generous" in the sense that it is complete and self-contained: it answers, either explicitly or by implication, every reasonable question the reader could ask. It does not leave us hanging, unless the narrative itself justifies its inconclusiveness. It does not play pointlessly subtle games in which storytelling is confused with puzzle-making. It does not "test" the reader by demanding that he bring with him some special knowledge about which the events make no sense. In short, it seeks, without pandering, to satisfy and to please. It is intellectually and emotionally significant. It is elegant and efficient; that is, it does not use more scenes, characters, physical details and technical devices than it needs to do its job. It has design. It gives that special pleasure we get from watching, with appreciative and impressed eyes, a performance. In other words, noticing what the writer has brought off, we fell well-served: "How easy he makes it look!" we say, conscious of difficulties splendidly overcome. And finally, an aesthetically successful story will contain a sense of life's strangeness, however humdrum its makings.

So there you have it, from the opinion of a writer and teacher of writing.

It may just be the history student in me, but it sounds like you just said that 'being a good story is what makes a good story.' :smallwink:

I see what you're getting at though. Pacing, effective characters, the rising/falling action, interesting world, easy to understand etc and so on. But I would argue that books from all genres can have these, not just those that are perceived as classics. For every 'Don Quixote' there's a 'Dragons of Autumn Twilight.' Plus older classics aren't necessarily all golden either.

[averagejoe]

Dang it, joe. I've spent the last few hours trying to articulate a point properly and then I check for recent posts and you've pretty much killed it right here.

Otherwise, you mention not being able to help dissecting Dan Brown's work while reading it. My biggest worry about getting to the point where I know how to do that dissection is whether I'd be able to turn that off and just enjoy a story as it's being told. I mean, I'm a narrative junkie and enjoy reading all sorts of stuff (quite a lot of which I'm sure wouldn't stand up to that type of scrutiny, then again, it's generally not really meant to - see the page I linked a few posts ago about Neal Stephenson, I think he summed it up well) and I'm hesitant to add that ability to my skill set as it might cut down the number of things I can enjoy.

Why, thank you. It is something I've only recently been able to articulate with any accuracy. :smallsmile:

Don't get me wrong, I can enjoy pretty stupid stuff. It's just that none of it recently has been books. But there is plenty of good popular fiction out there (though I guess not all of it is necessarily popular. I really have been liberal with my use of words today.) that does stand up to scrutiny. It's not necessarily deep, but what it does it does well.

I also find that the ability to dissect a work heightens my enjoyment of things that do stand up to scrutiny, popular or literary, and it's also essential to being a writer, because without the ability to tell whether one's own work is good then it's blind chance, or you need a spectacular editor. The danger, I find, is taking too many of the pretensions of conventional literary wisdom, and creating what I think of as literary popular fiction, i.e. fiction that has all the dressings of literary writing, but isn't actually very good.

[WalkingTarget]

I guess my hangup on this kind of analysis is due to my experiences with a different medium, but one I see parallels with. Computer graphics.

I've seen computer graphics improve from the Atari 2600 and Tron of my youth to modern gaming machines and Pixar/any film that makes heavy use of "realistic" digital images and the transition was gradual for the most part but I had a lot of good times along the way.

Then I took a computer graphics course.

Now pretty much anything with 3D modeling generally becomes a distraction for me as my brain starts picking apart how things were done or looking for tell-tale cheats. Scenes generated by ray tracing can get by a lot of the time if they're using good enough optical rules, but that's very resource-intensive and hard to generate in real-time (like for a game) or if they're still expected to interact with real objects (like in a movie that's not entirely CG). Shadows (and to some extent lighting, I'm looking at you, lightsabers) in particular distract me to the point where, for games, if there's an option to adjust the settings, I tend to turn them "down" to the point where I can ignore them (example: In World of Warcraft, highly detailed shadows conform to the size and shape of the model casting it, but this type of thing is precisely what gets me so I turn them all the way down to a generalized oval since that's stylized/simple enough for me to ignore).

The same thing happens with movies. In the Star Wars prequels, looking at the nifty stuff happening in the background is fine, (flying cars in the background of Coruscant scenes for example) but when the CG environment has to interact with the characters things fall apart for me (watch the sand after Padme falls out of the troop transport and a clone runs over to her in episode II).

My problem is, I just took that one course for the hell of it because I needed one more 300-level CS course for my degree and I thought it would be interesting (which it was, in and of itself). I had no plans on making a career out of computer graphics, nor is it even a hobby of mine (creatively at least; I'm an end-user obviously), but the knowledge I got out of it has detracted from my ability to enjoy things that make use of it, even if it's done well, because that analysis distracts me from whatever it is that I'm otherwise supposed to be doing (playing a game, watching the film, etc). I dunno, maybe I'm just being pessimistic.

[Telonius]

It can be hard to do both. After I'd read Joseph Campbell and Carl Jung, it was a good six months before I could actually enjoy any plotline. It's possible to do it, though. You just have to shut off that analytical part of your brain while you're reading it. Just go into it and trust the author, go where he takes you. It's almost meditative. Then when you've enjoyed it - or not - go back and read it again for the technical aspects. It's kind of like copyediting. You can't pay too close attention to the plot if you're looking for punctuation mistakes.

Example: I love Lord of the Rings. Love the characters, love the story, love the plot and setting. When I read it for enjoyment, it's absolutely divine. But when I read it for style ... if I see Frodo and Sam going up and down another $%^& hill I want to scream. (I know, he's drawing from his own experiences in the army, etc. - but you can let the audience know it in another way). It's two totally different ways of looking at the book. The technical aspects really don't affect people who are reading for enjoyment unless there's some really glaring error, or a style convention that just doesn't work.

[Berserk Monk]

Alan Moore

[Talya]

Alan Moore

Wow...I despise him!

The Killing Joke ruined Batgirl. Die, Moore!

The Watchmen was awful. (I'm not even referring to the movie.) What a drab, depressing, awful book. The only one with the moral fortitude to do what was right was the biggest jerk of all and ended up a radioactive smudge on the ground.

I thought I'd like V for Vendetta, since the movie was so great, but the book lacked everything i loved in the movie.

[Douglas]

The only one with the moral fortitude to do what was right
You're saying it's unambiguously right to simultaneously bring a mass murderer to justice and sabotage world peace and unity? Ozymandius's means were incredibly atrocious, certainly, but his end goal was quite noble. Given that his means have already been done and his goal already accomplished, I do not think sacrificing his accomplishment to punish his means is unquestionably the right thing to do.

Note that I have only seen the movie, but I believe it is fairly accurate to the original.

[WalkingTarget]

Yeah, the ambiguity of the situation is present there too and is sort of the point. Rorschach's black-and-white philosophy against Ozy's amoral pragmatism. It was also one of a number of game-changing events as far as comics go, it's incredibly important for that if nothing else.

V... coming from the other direction (fan of book, went to see the movie) I thought the movie removed much of what was interesting about the comic in the first place (Evey's "prison" experience was intact, which is something at least).

As for The Killing Joke, I can't say I was a big fan of Batgirl in the first place, so that might skew my opinion there somewhat. I can't say that I'd even read a comic with her before I read this, but it is (at least in my opinion) the Joker story. Even if I wasn't emotionally involved with her character, the way the Joker treats her to make a point gets me.

Of course, the man doesn't write novels, so I'm not sure how he fits in the discussion this thread is for. He'd probably be one of the first to tell you how novels and his comics aren't the same thing.

[Talya]

You're saying it's unambiguously right to simultaneously bring a mass murderer to justice and sabotage world peace and unity?

Yes, because they also had the power to bring world peace and unity, and frankly, the world didn't need them to, anyway. Humans had been closer to WW3 in real life than they ever were in Watchmen, and we were smart enough not to start it up. I did not find the premise realistic, it was a false dillemma presented by Moore as some kind of deep moral play. But there was nothing deep about it. People talk about Watchmen trying to show the world in shades of gray rather than black & white, but all the while it presented only the two black and white options, but just to mix things up, it put the positive option with the morally negative choice, and vice versa. This doesn't make it deep. It makes it dumb.

[Mr. Scaly]

Moral fortitude?! Rorschach was the single most unsympathetic protagonist I have ever read about. The most positive emotion I could muster for him was a vague sense of pity since he and his beliefs were so out of touch with everything that he would always be hated and outcast by the world.

[Talya]

Moral fortitude?! Rorschach was the single most unsympathetic protagonist I have ever read about. The most positive emotion I could muster for him was a vague sense of pity since he and his beliefs were so out of touch with everything that he would always be hated and outcast by the world.

I agree. Yet still, he was the only one who was going to do what needed to be done in the end, if he didn't get killed.


V... coming from the other direction (fan of book, went to see the movie) I thought the movie removed much of what was interesting about the comic in the first place (Evey's "prison" experience was intact, which is something at least).


What I dislike about the novel is that everyone is a "bad guy." I much prefer the Wachowski's interpretation of V as the heroic anti-authority type of character vs. the completely unsympathetic totalitarian government, rather than Moore's original "completely unsympathetic anarchist terrorist vs. completely unsympathetic totalitarian government." I can handle feeling sympathetic the antagonist in a story, conflicted even. But if I can't handle hating everyone in a story, it loses me at that point.

[Mr. Scaly]

I agree. Yet still, he was the only one who was going to do what needed to be done in the end, if he didn't get killed.

But in the end if he'd actually done what he intended then, assuming that anybody believed him, things would have gone right back to the way they'd been. Which were not good.

EDIT: Speaking of V it occurs to me that I got that a while ago and still haven't gotten around to reading it...it sounds a lot like the Watchmen.

[Talya]

But in the end if he'd actually done what he intended then, assuming that anybody believed him, things would have gone right back to the way they'd been. Which were not good.

Yeah, lots of times things have not been good. We make do. As I said above...


Humans had been closer to WW3 in real life than they ever were in Watchmen, and we were smart enough not to start it up. I did not find the premise realistic, it was a false dillemma presented by Moore as some kind of deep moral play. But there was nothing deep about it. People talk about Watchmen trying to show the world in shades of gray rather than black & white, but all the while it presented only the two black and white options, but just to mix things up, it put the positive option with the morally negative choice, and vice versa. This doesn't make it deep. It makes it dumb.

[Mr. Scaly]

Yeah, lots of times things have not been good. We make do. As I said above...

True. Very true. Heck, WWIII has almost started because people mistook a flock of birds on radar for nuclear missiles, and that's setting aside the actual crises that weren't due to human stupidity. Real life has been rough. But the way Moore was portraying the world in the Watchmen it was heading right for brink.

[Talya]

But the way Moore was portraying the world in the Watchmen it was heading right for brink.

That's my complaint. He set up a false-dillemma: "We either destroy the world, or let a mass-murderer get away without consequences!" Then everyone cheers him for creating a book with some kind of "deep" morality rather than the simple black & white of typical comic book fiction. They don't even notice that moore just pulled a bait-and-switch on them, making it appear to be morally deep, but instead offering a substitute of the same black & white morality in the other comics they decry, but with the actions and consequences reversed from the norm.

[Mr. Scaly]

That's my complaint. He set up a false-dillemma: "We either destroy the world, or let a mass-murderer get away without consequences!" Then everyone cheers him for creating a book with some kind of "deep" morality rather than the simple black & white of typical comic book fiction. They don't even notice that moore just pulled a bait-and-switch on them, making it appear to be morally deep, but instead offering a substitute of the same thing, with the actions and consequences reversed from the norm.

Well I wouldn't know about typical black and white comic morality (I don't read too many comics) but for me it was the really cynical portrayal of the whole superhero genre that made it interesting. Guys like Rorschach and the Comedian are exactly why we have anti-vigilante laws in real life after all. But hey, if the dilemma is pretty much the same as every other comic book then why curse it overly?

[averagejoe]

Well I wouldn't know about typical black and white comic morality (I don't read too many comics) but for me it was the really cynical portrayal of the whole superhero genre that made it interesting. Guys like Rorschach and the Comedian are exactly why we have anti-vigilante laws in real life after all. But hey, if the dilemma is pretty much the same as every other comic book then why curse it overly?

More or less this, if I take your meaning correctly. People do tend to laud the whole, "Moral grays," thing of Watchmen, but that wasn't the main appeal of the book. The main thing the book did is make very real, very compelling characters, exploring somewhat the question, "What kind of person would actually put on a mask to fight crime?" I think, Talya, you're taking it as purely a superhero story when it's actually a deconstruction of superhero stories.

On V for Vendetta: I didn't find the situations painted in either the book or the movie to be particularly more interesting or deep than the other. However, in the movie V had a lot more style than he did in the book, so I liked that. Style counts for a lot.

[HamHam]

I agree that Watchmen is terrible and not nearly as brilliant as people like to think.

I like V for Vendetta though, even the comic version. Reap what you sow crazy psychopaths killing peoples is cool.

Other stuff:

It most certainly is possible to objectively measure the quality of a novel.

If a novel is not accessible, this is a flaw. For example, understanding the symbolism used should not be necessary to enjoy a novel, it should be something extra that makes you enjoy it even more if you do.

[Quincunx]

Yes, HamHam, but I also have to wonder how old/influenced-by-real-events your reading skills have to be before writing off a dense novel. There's some books I derided as too inaccessible on the first pass, then tried them again five or ten years later and loved 'em. Last year, rubakhin successfully defended A Separate Peace, in the face of great disbelief in any merit in that book, by saying that it was very insightful to uncertain, silent, sexually conflicted student readers. What did most of us know about the closeted horrors of boarding school life? I remember other 'great' young adults' novels falling down flat because none of us single-family-home rugrats understood the flirtations and power plays of living with peers day in, day out. The revelation didn't wholly rescue A Separate Peace, but the entire subset of 'social tensions in single-sex boarding schools' got a lot more interesting once we all were made aware of that tension.

[Catch]

That's my complaint. He set up a false-dillemma: "We either destroy the world, or let a mass-murderer get away without consequences!" Then everyone cheers him for creating a book with some kind of "deep" morality rather than the simple black & white of typical comic book fiction. They don't even notice that moore just pulled a bait-and-switch on them, making it appear to be morally deep, but instead offering a substitute of the same black & white morality in the other comics they decry, but with the actions and consequences reversed from the norm.

That's not a false dilemma, that's a difficult choice. The either-or fallacy is based on presenting only two options when there are, in fact, alternatives. As a matter of fact the entire point was extrapolating the rigid, black-and-white of superhero morality until it snaps. Rorschach held true, but lacked foresight. Jon's mind is purely scientific - not immoral, but amoral. Laurie and Daniel buckled in the end, but it was only Eddie that understood the real nature of the world, and embraced it - he was the grey. And Ozzy, was he really evil or good? How do you value horrible things done for a good cause? Neither black, nor white.

That's a 30 second analysis, but I haven't finished my coffee so you'll forgive me. Sometimes I wonder if people actually dislike a work on solid grounds or if they're just being iconoclastic because it's posh.

@V: I think your sig quote applies here, LoR.

[Lord of Rapture]

Everybody who hates Watchmen, I hereby revoke your nerd status. Turn in your badges.

[Stormthorn]

Neil Gaiman or Ray Bradbury

[Talya]

That's not a false dilemma, that's a difficult choice. The either-or fallacy is based on presenting only two options when there are, in fact, alternatives.

There were plenty of alternatives. Ozymandius did not save the world, Rorshach set free would not have destroyed it. Moore tried to make it look like "Hey, the only way the heroes can save the world is to do the wrong thing!" That's not only a false dillemma, because there are always alternatives, but it was STUPID.

[JonestheSpy]

There were plenty of alternatives. Ozymandius did not save the world, Rorshach set free would not have destroyed it. Moore tried to make it look like "Hey, the only way the heroes can save the world is to do the wrong thing!" That's not only a false dillemma, because there are always alternatives, but it was STUPID.

You know, I can't help thinking that there's a connection between Tayla's insistence that art should have nothing to say, and Tayla's dislike for moral ambiguity, but I couldn't say what that is off the top of my head.

And really, in real life, sometimes morally distasteful choices are the ones that result in the greater good. Unfortunate but true - and what makes Moore a great writer is his brilliance in illustrating that often-denied fact.

As for whether Moore qualifies for this thread, I kinda think not. Writing for graphic novels is not the same as writing prose novels, just like writing films is not the same as writing plays. It is just an unfortunate societal prejudice that one is given more respect than the other.

[Talya]

You know, I can't help thinking that there's a connection between Tayla's insistence that art should have nothing to say, and Tayla's dislike for moral ambiguity, but I couldn't say what that is off the top of my head.


Perhaps, but as a point of order: You are the one insisting that art must have something to say, or else it isn't art. I'm the one saying that the art already exists before anyone chooses (if they even do) to add "something to say." The "something to say" part is irrelevant to the art itself, and saying you need to be teaching a moral lesson in order to be considered anything but "junk food for the brain" is doing a great disservice to the majority of great art.

In any event, I disagree about morally wrong choices ever resulting in the greater good. That's black & white thinking. There are always an near-infinite number of choices and possibilities, there is always another way.

[Catch]

There were plenty of alternatives. Ozymandius did not save the world, Rorshach set free would not have destroyed it. Moore tried to make it look like "Hey, the only way the heroes can save the world is to do the wrong thing!" That's not only a false dillemma, because there are always alternatives, but it was STUPID.

Prove your case. Killing Adrian would violate the superhero code. Taking him in quietly meant a) assuming his trial would never reach the media b)eliminating one the people best equipped to dismantle the current crisis. Rorschach was hell-bent on spreading the truth, come what may, and it was made apparent that prison was only an inconvenience to him. The gradient of options at the south pole was reduced to two shades: Punish evil regardless of the consequences or permit great evil to prevent greater. Not every dichotomy is a logical fallacy.

Watchmen is about reevaluating what concepts like right and wrong mean, because every member of the Watchmen felt their judgments were right, and from a certain point of view, they were. Jon was right in that humanity is insignificant to the universe. Rorschach was right in that a hero never compromises his morals. Adrian was right in that great strife brings great unity. Laurie and Daniel were right in that sometimes a person has to accept what they believe is wrong because the alternative is worse. And Eddie, he was right that in the end, good and evil are just words, and the man with the gun makes his own rules.

That's not black-and-white morality, it's the whole spectrum.


In any event, I disagree about morally wrong choices ever resulting in the greater good. That's black & white thinking. There are always an near-infinite number of choices and possibilities, there is always another way.

Now you're the one with a narrow scope. If a "morally wrong" choice results in a greater good, was it truly wrong? Is it sometimes true and sometimes not? If it's "wrong" to allow Veidt to destroy half of New York in the name of world peace, is it "wrong" to allow Rorschach to torture known criminals for information? Or is it "wrong" to kill him if he was absolutely certain to jeopardize the tentatively-formed national unification?

"Black and white" thinking means that major choices are always right or wrong, that are never morally neutral decisions or an instance where a choice is both right and wrong.

[warty goblin]

Perhaps, but as a point of order: You are the one insisting that art must have something to say, or else it isn't art. I'm the one saying that the art already exists before anyone chooses (if they even do) to add "something to say." The "something to say" part is irrelevant to the art itself, and saying you need to be teaching a moral lesson in order to be considered anything but "junk food for the brain" is doing a great disservice to the majority of great art.

I agree with this, mostly. I think some stories are definitely improved by having a central design or moral thesis- some are ruined by it as well, but that just means that sometimes the idea is poorly implimented. I don't think there should be anything surprising about that.

A lot of art, going by Talya's earlier definition, however simply doesn't need or benefit from a message. Fashion design, archtechture, probably most design oriented craft I don't think benefits from having a message of this sort.

[Talya]

Prove your case.

Stop Ozymandius, make it public, and stop the world from blowing itself up, make them get along. There would be countless, infinite ways to do this.



Now you're the one with a narrow scope. If a "morally wrong" choice results in a greater good, was it truly wrong? Is it sometimes true and sometimes not? If it's "wrong" to allow Veidt to destroy half of New York in the name of world peace, is it "wrong" to allow Rorschach to torture known criminals for information? Or is it "wrong" to kill him if he was absolutely certain to jeopardize the tentatively-formed national unification?

"Black and white" thinking means that major choices are always right or wrong, that are never morally neutral decisions or an instance where a choice is both right and wrong.

The ends can justify the means? Never. Utilitarian ethics are how we ended up with monsters like Hitler. The means are the primary source of good--make sure they are right first, and the end will follow.

[pita]

In any event, I disagree about morally wrong choices ever resulting in the greater good. That's black & white thinking. There are always an near-infinite number of choices and possibilities, there is always another way.
That seems too optimistic for a forum full of nerds. Nerds are pessimist sons of peaches, haven't you gotten the memo?
I don't think there's a connection between the thinking art doesn't have to have a message and black-and-white morality. I'm absolutely convinced that morality is ambiguous (although I hold some standards for good and evil), and that there isn't always a better option, and I've been agreeing with Talya.
However, it's obvious that there are infinite choices and probabilities. When a guy's pointing a gun at my head, I can jump at him, do nothing, punch him, try to disarm him, or just start humming a ditty. But, realistically, jumping at him would cause him to shoot me, doing nothing won't improve the situation, punching him would also cause him to shoot me, trying to disarm him may lead to the same situation (unless I'm very good at it, or if I'm The Punisher), and humming a ditty might cause him to shoot me if he doesn't like the ditty. There may be infinite choices, but most of the time, all but one or two will suck. It's the basis for all of the world's problems, and it's what was presented by Watchmen. Sure, Manhattan could have decided to destroy Russia, or just murder all of Russian High Command (which actually makes some sense now, more than Ozzie's plan did), or he could have created a huge effing impenetrable bubble around the US, or Russia. Ozzie could have done what was implied in the movie, and just created infinite supplies for everyone so they wouldn't have to argue with nukes. And Rorschach could have just tried to assassinate Nixon or something. They had their options. But the world is complicated. For anyone to understand it requires a lot of simplification. And that leads to a narrow point of view. It's why we have governments instead of one guy, or the UN instead of a centralized government for the world.
Wait... why am I still in this thread? I was convinced I left. G'bye guys. And girls. And those who are neither. AND PUPPIES!
Ooh, I'd like to add something! If you insist that art has to have a message, in my opinion you're more likely to insist that there's a black and white morality. Because the type of person who does something is the type of person who continues to do that something. Like serial killers who get more creative every time, but less extreme. Serial insisters. Ancestral insisters who insist on incest. I know, somewhat self indulgent, that last sentence was. So was that one just now. I should stop this.
EDIT- 3 posts while I posted my one. Gosh darn ninjas. Ahh, whatever. Enjoy your ninja lies, you ninja people. My post only refers to the post I quoted and the ones immediately before that.

[Catch]

Stop Ozymandius, make it public, and stop the world from blowing itself up, make them get along. There would be countless, infinite ways to do this.

Saying that it's possible doesn't prove that it is. The writer could certainly force this outcome, but would it be logically ingenuous or a fiat of the narrator?


The ends can justify the means? Never. Utilitarian ethics are how we ended up with monsters like Hitler. The means are the primary source of good--make sure they are right first, and the end will follow.

Oh. So you believe in moral absolutes. That's awfully... black and white? :smallamused:

[JonestheSpy]

Perhaps, but as a point of order: You are the one insisting that art must have something to say, or else it isn't art.

Correction, and I'm saying that for a peice of art to be great, it has to communicating something important and true.


I'm the one saying that the art already exists before anyone chooses (if they even do) to add "something to say." The "something to say" part is irrelevant to the art itself

Wow, I'm trying to imagine what Beethoven would say if you told him that "tacked on message" of the Ode to Joy was irrelevant to the 9th Symphony, or if you informed Shakespeare that the musings on morality and mortality in Hamlet had nothing to do with its artistic merit.


In any event, I disagree about morally wrong choices ever resulting in the greater good. That's black & white thinking.

Ow, that makes my brain hurt. Do you realize how you're contradicting yourself? The idea that morally difficult choices sometimes have to be made for the greater good is the opposite of black-and white thinking.


There are always an near-infinite number of choices and possibilities, there is always another way.

Um, I really hate to break this to you, but while in theory any situation presents a near-infinite number of responses, the actual number of choices that are at all feasible is often quite small. If I want to get out of jury duty, I could paint my house black and hope the postman can't find it, but really it probably won't help all that much.

My, we're getting awfully far afield, aren't we? Funny how that can happen in a discussion with one person with an extreme viewpoint...Anyway, I think that John Crowley needs to be added to the list of greatest living novelists - Little, Big is an amazing book, definitely my vote for best fantasy set in the present day, and his other work is quite impressive too, especially Aegypt and its companion book. And the guy uses language like Rembrandt used a paintbrush.

[Stormthorn]

Killing Adrian would violate the superhero code


Now you're the one with a narrow scope. If a "morally wrong" choice results in a greater good, was it truly wrong?

And thus breaking the code would be acceptable.
By your logic.

Although first you have to establish what the greater good is.


Um, I really hate to break this to you, but while in theory any situation presents a near-infinite number of responses, the actual number of choices that are at all feasible is often quite small. If I want to get out of jury duty, I could paint my house black and hope the postman can't find it, but really it probably won't help all that much.
Thats a really stupid example since their are hundreds of easy and exceptable ways to get out of jury duty simply by showing up the first time they call you in and telling the lawyers exactly what they dont want to hear.
Their are probably way more than a hundred things you could say that would make them release you in favor of someone else.
You could also not have a post adress.
Flee to another country.
Commit a crime.
And so on and so forth.



But yea. Neil and Ray.

[JonestheSpy]

Thats a really stupid example since their are hundreds of easy and exceptable ways to get out of jury duty simply by showing up the first time they call you in and telling the lawyers exactly what they dont want to hear.
Their are probably way more than a hundred things you could say that would make them release you in favor of someone else.
You could also not have a post adress.
Flee to another country.
Commit a crime.
And so on and so forth.



You know, I'm feeling a bit guilty for continuing to steer this thread so far off topic, but that post was so annyingly condescending and yet wrong that I do feel compelled to respond.

Yes, maybe the bit about painting the house black was 'stupid', but it was a joke, son. And your own post demonstrates that despite Tayla's assertion that there are uncountable options in responding to situations, you could in fact only think of one that was feasible - trying to figure out something to tell the lawyers that would cause them not to pick you. All the rest had such negatives that no reasonable person would ever think of them as options for avoiding jury duty.

Taking us closer to topic, I'd say that this does relate to good writing, in that for a story to be any good, you have to believe the characters would actually take the actions they do in their circumstances and not just do some out there thing because the writer thinks it would be nifty. Rorshach might give up his mailbox and become a fugitive to avoid jury duty, but Dan Dreiberg wouldn't.

[Catch]

And thus breaking the code would be acceptable.
By your logic.

Only you have concluded so. I was asking an honest question, because it relates to the alleged black-and-white morality. If a "morally wrong" choice results in a greater good, was it truly wrong? Is it partially wrong or partially acceptable? Watchmen asks us to consider this, and the implications of each choice.


Although first you have to establish what the greater good is.

Right. Is punishing evil the greater good? Or ending strife? Rorschach's morals versus Adrian's.

[HamHam]

Yes, HamHam, but I also have to wonder how old/influenced-by-real-events your reading skills have to be before writing off a dense novel. There's some books I derided as too inaccessible on the first pass, then tried them again five or ten years later and loved 'em. Last year, rubakhin successfully defended A Separate Peace, in the face of great disbelief in any merit in that book, by saying that it was very insightful to uncertain, silent, sexually conflicted student readers. What did most of us know about the closeted horrors of boarding school life? I remember other 'great' young adults' novels falling down flat because none of us single-family-home rugrats understood the flirtations and power plays of living with peers day in, day out. The revelation didn't wholly rescue A Separate Peace, but the entire subset of 'social tensions in single-sex boarding schools' got a lot more interesting once we all were made aware of that tension.

If it is meaningful only to a small subset of people who already have the experience necessary to understand it, it is by definition a niche work which I think is a failing. It can still be good, but it can't be great. A great novel should speak to everyone or (more realistically) almost everyone, even if it doesn't say the same thing to everyone. It should make you feel what you need to feel to understand it, not depend on you having already felt it.

Good novels can be about the times, or a specific experience of life in a given place and time, or a specific struggle for a certain group of people, or whatever. Great novels have to be about the transcendent truths that unite all human existence.

EDIT: And I am not necessarily talking about the plot of the novel. A specific setting and narrative can be used to cast light on a deeper truth. For example: you can have a book about growing up in a small rural town (to pick a random example) and the difference is between being only about growing up in a small rural town and being about humanity as seen through the lens of growing up in a small rural town.

[averagejoe]

Neil Gaiman or Ray Bradbury

Gaiman, while pretty good, isn't really even a contender for best living novelist, not by a long shot. In fact, I'd consider Gaiman more of a comic writer than a novelist, since Sandman was by far better written than anything else he has produced (that I've read.) He's not a terrible novelist, but his prose does tend to be pretty trite.

[Quincunx]

I'll accept that, HamHam. On the other hand, it implies I can't absolve those people who have been presented with great works and passed them over in favor of well-crafted but narrow fantasy novels.

In an essay reviewing a translation of War and Peace, William Golding had written, "War and Peace has this in common with the works of Shakespeare and Homer. You can go on discussing them for the rest of your life. This may not be an official measuring rod in criticism, but it is a very real one." I've found it good both for cutting out books with no deeper revelations, no message or meaning (discussions of the book's world and plot itself last for years, but not for a lifetime) and for excising books with meaning but no enjoyment (discussions die out of disinterest).

*****

Watchmen's great innovation was to dump the several black-and-white modi operandi of comic book heroes into competition in a situation where could be, at maximum, one winner, and more likely none. However, innovation alone isn't enough to make something the best. Of the 'required reading' novels that garner the most complaints, a disproportionate number are innovations of their genre, unpolished and blatant with their messages.

*****

Talya, it's nature that can exist for itself without a message and fulfill the requirement that you can go on discussing it for the rest of your life. Art, with the human touch, must have the human meaning as well, or be just a poor imitation of nature. Consider the tulip in the field versus the still life painting of tulips versus the painting in the book overlooking all the important human events in its gallery.

[averagejoe]

Watchmen's great innovation was to dump the several black-and-white modi operandi of comic book heroes into competition in a situation where could be, at maximum, one winner, and more likely none. However, innovation alone isn't enough to make something the best. Of the 'required reading' novels that garner the most complaints, a disproportionate number are innovations of their genre, unpolished and blatant with their messages.

Of course, more-or-less everyone who came after just imitated the "grim and gritty," so in many ways it still stands out as THE superhero innovator. You know, I love comics as a medium. In many ways I'm able to better appreciate artful comics than artful novels. Sometimes I really hate them, though.

Edit: To be clear, though, I'm not at all nominating Moore for best writer in any sense. As a comics writer he's still much weaker than, say, Niel Gaiman, Bill Watterson or even Ryan North, forget being stacked up against novelists.

[snoopy13a]

Judy Blume :smallbiggrin:

[Mr. Scaly]

Edit: To be clear, though, I'm not at all nominating Moore for best writer in any sense. As a comics writer he's still much weaker than, say, Niel Gaiman, Bill Watterson or even Ryan North, forget being stacked up against novelists.

My personal favourite comic writer of all time. The man could take borderline stick figures and create a magical world of depth and beauty.

[pita]

Gaiman, while pretty good, isn't really even a contender for best living novelist, not by a long shot. In fact, I'd consider Gaiman more of a comic writer than a novelist, since Sandman was by far better written than anything else he has produced (that I've read.) He's not a terrible novelist, but his prose does tend to be pretty trite.

Neil Gaiman's best work may be his comics, but his second best work is pretty close, and that's his short stories. Try picking up Smoke & Mirrors. If you've read it, then nevermind.
I thought I was out of this thread :(
My top 3 favorite comicists are Gaiman, then Moore, then Ennis. The others I have very little like or dislike of, except for certain webcomic authors. I don't like Ryan North for some reason. I understand it's considered wrong to dislike Dinosaur Comics, but I just don't find them funny.

[pita]

Something discussing this very issue. NSFW for language (http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?showtopic=39353)
Try reading it, especially Catch. Sorry for the double post, but I think the time limit passed and I want to make sure people read that thread.

[Stormthorn]

trying to figure out something to tell the lawyers that would cause them not to pick you.
But that isnt one option. That is one catagory of options with a while lot of different things you can say within it.

Also, not every human is rational. ouy could argue that every superhero is a delusional psychotic.

So every choice outside of the raitonal one is still valid, if somewhat extreme.

[Catch]

Something discussing this very issue. NSFW for language (http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?showtopic=39353)
Try reading it, especially Catch. Sorry for the double post, but I think the time limit passed and I want to make sure people read that thread.

Can't let it go, eh? I see you've linked me to a Song of Ice and Fire forum for an objective approach to the value of genre fiction. Interesting. :smallconfused:

Okay, let's see what you have here. A handful of posters dismissing "literature" as a boorish, snobby and pretentious stereotype, but won't pick up a book that doesn't have the trappings of swords and magic, replete with a dictionary of made-up words in the back. Handshakes and nods all around, patting an indignant grad student on the head because a professor chided her for not turning in more stories with wide appeal. I can agree that some professionals are ruder than others.

But, there's some arguments in this thread worthy of note. Consider the following:


Do you people honestly think that most genre literature is as good as "serious" literature? Tolkien is perhaps the only fantasy author I've read that could even approach the level of thematic depth and engaging prose that the "classic" authors have. Nothing else even comes close to the mark.

There is a reason that the classics are perpetuated by academics. Partially it is due to arrogance and pretentiousness, yes. But stuff like "War and Peace", "The Magic Mountain", "The Grapes of Wrath", Shakespeare's plays...they don't just have an interesting plot and engaging characters, like ASoIaF does. They have honest to goodness themes, the text itself is a true exploration of the human condition, warts and all. I don't think works like ASoIaF are appropriate for university-level study in a literature course, because I don't think there's enough content in there to merit it. Great literature, truly great literature, gives us something to ponder and wrestle with even hundreds of years later, and leaves us with questions we didn't know we had. It plants intellectual seeds in our minds. I'm not going to put up with this bull---- that "GRRM is just as good as Joyce" because, well, he's not.

If we're talking about literature as an art (which I think is the only way to approach literature in a college setting), and a way to cope with our own existence, the classic authors win hands down. Fantasy and genre lit is fun to read to find out what happens next, plot-wise, but I can't even pretend that it has the sort of coherent thematic unity and depth that "serious" literature does. I have no problem with the Western canon, and I even think reading the classics does a student some good. People think these classics are boring? F--- these people. They can go watch a Michael Bay flick. I've found that the most rewarding books to read are the ones that don't click right away, the ones that you need to read slowly and grapple with and maybe even start over a few times before you "get" it. These are the books that stay with you.


DudeGuy goes on to say that genre writing has a place, and that it's valuable in its own right, a point where I more or less agree, as long as you're not comparing it vis-a-vis to traditional literature.

[Mr. Scaly]

Yeah, well in my humble opinion there's no such thing as "genre fiction" because everything fits into a genre. Furthermore, the term "serious" or "classic" literature has no purpose but to make an artificial barrier.

[averagejoe]

Neil Gaiman's best work may be his comics, but his second best work is pretty close, and that's his short stories.

You know, I completely brain-farted on those. I've only read a few, but his short stories are pretty neat.

I don't really care about people not liking Dinosaur Comics, but North is definitely one of the best comics writers I've seen. He has a very good command of language.

Also, whenever someone says, "I know I'm supposed to like/not like this," or something similar, it always comes up as overhype backlash. Not saying it's the case this time, it's just always what comes to mind.


Something discussing this very issue. NSFW for language (http://asoiaf.westeros.org/index.php?showtopic=39353)
Try reading it, especially Catch. Sorry for the double post, but I think the time limit passed and I want to make sure people read that thread.

Literature profs tend to be pretentious snobs: no one is denying this. (Or, if they are, then they're wrong. :smalltongue:) However, that doesn't invalidate the points that have been made for literature (whatever that means) being better than other stuff.

I mean, there are problems on both sides. People who speak against genre fiction conveniently forget writers like Orwell, Poe, and Shakespeare, and people for genre fiction conveniently forget that a lot of what they read is embarrassingly bad. That, however, is a problem of labels. Simply because the labels are placed incorrectly doesn't mean that the ideal is wrong.

[Melayl]

To me, the best living novelsits are the ones I actually like to read. To that end:

Mercedes Lackey

Steven Brust

Jim Butcher

Patricia Briggs

just to name a few.

In the end, this is a completely subjective discussion. As I said, the best is measured by the reader, and by no other standard.

[pita]

Can't let it go, eh? I see you've linked me to a Song of Ice and Fire forum for an objective approach to the value of genre fiction. Interesting. :smallconfused:

I can never let anything go, especially not the concept that any type of art is better than the others objectively, since art is so subjective. Well, that and the Holocaust.
Considering we're on a forum dedicated to a fantasy webcomic, specifically D&D (root of all bad fantasy authors, and some of the good ones), I don't think it's odd that I'd link to another thread discussing the same thing in a different series that's definitely less fantasy that OotS. Also, I only read two forums, since I'm not exactly in the Edgar Allen Poe Fanclub.

[JonestheSpy]

Mercedes Lackey



Ow. Ow ow ow.

[Melayl]

Ow. Ow ow ow.

I'm afraid I don't understand...

[pita]

I'm afraid I don't understand...

The idea being that Jones thinks that Mercedes Lackey is bad. Having not read her books, I can not comment.

[Lord of Rapture]

My personal favourite comic writer of all time. The man could take borderline stick figures and create a magical world of depth and beauty.

*thinks of Calvin and Hobbes*

*thinks of this (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/9876/raccoon1.html) comic*

*and this (http://www.joeydevilla.com/2008/01/08/calvin-and-hobbes-now-with-ritalin/)*

*cries*

[WalkingTarget]

*thinks of Calvin and Hobbes*

*thinks of this (http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Theater/9876/raccoon1.html) comic*

*and this (http://www.joeydevilla.com/2008/01/08/calvin-and-hobbes-now-with-ritalin/)*

*cries*

Just so's you know, that second one wasn't by Watterson.


Yeah, well in my humble opinion there's no such thing as "genre fiction" because everything fits into a genre. Furthermore, the term "serious" or "classic" literature has no purpose but to make an artificial barrier.

I posted a link (http://interviews.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/20/1518217) to this several pages ago, but I figured I'd post the actual text of it again as I feel that it fits into this kind of point and I like the way Stephenson describes things.
This is a response to the question "Science Fiction is normally relegated to the specialist publications rather than having reviews in the main stream press. Seen as "fringe" and a bit sad its seldom reviewed with anything more than condescension by the "quality" press.

Does it bother you that people like Jeffery Archer or Jackie Collins seem to get more respect for their writing than you ?"


OUCH!

(removes mirrorshades, wipes tears, blows nose, composes self)

Let me just come at this one from sort of a big picture point of view.

(the sound of a million Slashdot readers hitting the "back" button...)

First of all, I don't think that the condescending "quality" press look too kindly on Jackie Collins and Jeffrey Archer. So I disagree with the premise of the last sentence of this question and I'm not going to address it. Instead I'm going to answer what I think MosesJones is really getting at, which is why SF and other genre and popular writers don't seem to get a lot of respect from the literary world.

To set it up, a brief anecdote: a while back, I went to a writers' conference. I was making chitchat with another writer, a critically acclaimed literary novelist who taught at a university. She had never heard of me. After we'd exchanged a bit of of small talk, she asked me "And where do you teach?" just as naturally as one Slashdotter would ask another "And which distro do you use?"

I was taken aback. "I don't teach anywhere," I said.

Her turn to be taken aback. "Then what do you do?"

"I'm...a writer," I said. Which admittedly was a stupid thing to say, since she already knew that.

"Yes, but what do you do?"

I couldn't think of how to answer the question---I'd already answered it!

"You can't make a living out of being a writer, so how do you make money?" she tried.

"From...being a writer," I stammered.

At this point she finally got it, and her whole affect changed. She wasn't snobbish about it. But it was obvious that, in her mind, the sort of writer who actually made a living from it was an entirely different creature from the sort she generally associated with.

And once I got over the excruciating awkwardness of this conversation, I began to think she was right in thinking so. One way to classify artists is by to whom they are accountable.

The great artists of the Italian Renaissance were accountable to wealthy entities who became their patrons or gave them commissions. In many cases there was no other way to arrange it. There is only one Sistine Chapel. Not just anyone could walk in and start daubing paint on the ceiling. Someone had to be the gatekeeper---to hire an artist and give him a set of more or less restrictive limits within which he was allowed to be creative. So the artist was, in the end, accountable to the Church. The Church's goal was to build a magnificent structure that would stand there forever and provide inspiration to the Christians who walked into it, and they had to make sure that Michelangelo would carry out his work accordingly.

Similar arrangements were made by writers. After Dante was banished from Florence he found a patron in the Prince of Verona, for example. And if you look at many old books of the Baroque period you find the opening pages filled with florid expressions of gratitude from the authors to their patrons. It's the same as in a modern book when it says "this work was supported by a grant from the XYZ Foundation."

Nowadays we have different ways of supporting artists. Some painters, for example, make a living selling their work to wealthy collectors. In other cases, musicians or artists will find appointments at universities or other cultural institutions. But in both such cases there is a kind of accountability at work.

A wealthy art collector who pays a lot of money for a painting does not like to see his money evaporate. He wants to feel some confidence that if he or an heir decides to sell the painting later, they'll be able to get an amount of money that is at least in the same ballpark. But that price is going to be set by the market---it depends on the perceived value of the painting in the art world. And that in turn is a function of how the artist is esteemed by critics and by other collectors. So art criticism does two things at once: it's culture, but it's also economics.

There is also a kind of accountability in the case of, say, a composer who has a faculty job at a university. The trustees of the university have got a fiduciary responsibility not to throw away money. It's not the same as hiring a laborer in factory, whose output can be easily reduced to dollars and cents. Rather, the trustees have to justify the composer's salary by pointing to intangibles. And one of those intangibles is the degree of respect accorded that composer by critics, musicians, and other experts in the field: how often his works are performed by symphony orchestras, for example.

Accountability in the writing profession has been bifurcated for many centuries. I already mentioned that Dante and other writers were supported by patrons at least as far back as the Renaissance. But I doubt that Beowulf was written on commission. Probably there was a collection of legends and tales that had been passed along in an oral tradition---which is just a fancy way of saying that lots of people liked those stories and wanted to hear them told. And at some point perhaps there was an especially well-liked storyteller who pulled a few such tales together and fashioned them into the what we now know as Beowulf. Maybe there was a king or other wealthy patron who then caused the tale to be written down by a scribe. But I doubt it was created at the behest of a king. It was created at the behest of lots and lots of intoxicated Frisians sitting around the fire wanting to hear a yarn. And there was no grand purpose behind its creation, as there was with the painting of the Sistine Chapel.

The novel is a very new form of art. It was unthinkable until the invention of printing and impractical until a significant fraction of the population became literate. But when the conditions were right, it suddenly became huge. The great serialized novelists of the 19th Century were like rock stars or movie stars. The printing press and the apparatus of publishing had given these creators a means to bypass traditional arbiters and gatekeepers of culture and connect directly to a mass audience. And the economics worked out such that they didn't need to land a commission or find a patron in order to put bread on the table. The creators of those novels were therefore able to have a connection with a mass audience and a livelihood fundamentally different from other types of artists.

Nowadays, rock stars and movie stars are making all the money. But the publishing industry still works for some lucky novelists who find a way to establish a connection with a readership sufficiently large to put bread on their tables. It's conventional to refer to these as "commercial" novelists, but I hate that term, so I'm going to call them Beowulf writers.

But this is not true for a great many other writers who are every bit as talented and worthy of finding readers. And so, in addition, we have got an alternate system that makes it possible for those writers to pursue their careers and make their voices heard. Just as Renaissance princes supported writers like Dante because they felt it was the right thing to do, there are many affluent persons in modern society who, by making donations to cultural institutions like universities, support all sorts of artists, including writers. Usually they are called "literary" as opposed to "commercial" but I hate that term too, so I'm going to call them Dante writers. And this is what I mean when I speak of a bifurcated system.

Like all tricks for dividing people into two groups, this is simplistic, and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. But there is a cultural difference between these two types of writers, rooted in to whom they are accountable, and it explains what MosesJones is complaining about. Beowulf writers and Dante writers appear to have the same job, but in fact there is a quite radical difference between them---hence the odd conversation that I had with my fellow author at the writer's conference. Because she'd never heard of me, she made the quite reasonable assumption that I was a Dante writer---one so new or obscure that she'd never seen me mentioned in a journal of literary criticism, and never bumped into me at a conference. Therefore, I couldn't be making any money at it. Therefore, I was most likely teaching somewhere. All perfectly logical. In order to set her straight, I had to let her know that the reason she'd never heard of me was because I was famous.

All of this places someone like me in critical limbo. As everyone knows, there are literary critics, and journals that publish their work, and I imagine they have the same dual role as art critics. That is, they are engaging in intellectual discourse for its own sake. But they are also performing an economic function by making judgments. These judgments, taken collectively, eventually determine who's deemed worthy of receiving fellowships, teaching appointments, etc.

The relationship between that critical apparatus and Beowulf writers is famously awkward and leads to all sorts of peculiar misunderstandings. Occasionally I'll take a hit from a critic for being somehow arrogant or egomaniacal, which is difficult to understand from my point of view sitting here and just trying to write about whatever I find interesting. To begin with, it's not clear why they think I'm any more arrogant than anyone else who writes a book and actually expects that someone's going to read it. Secondly, I don't understand why they think that this is relevant enough to rate mention in a review. After all, if I'm going to eat at a restaurant, I don't care about the chef's personality flaws---I just want to eat good food. I was slagged for entitling my latest book "The System of the World" by one critic who found that title arrogant. That criticism is simply wrong; the critic has completely misunderstood why I chose that title. Why on earth would anyone think it was arrogant? Well, on the Dante side of the bifurcation it's implicit that authority comes from the top down, and you need to get in the habit of deferring to people who are older and grander than you. In that world, apparently one must never select a grand-sounding title for one's book until one has reached Nobel Prize status. But on my side, if I'm trying to write a book about a bunch of historical figures who were consciously trying to understand and invent the System of the World, then this is an obvious choice for the title of the book. The same argument, I believe, explains why the accusation of having a big ego is considered relevant for inclusion in a book review. Considering the economic function of these reviews (explained above) it is worth pointing out which writers are and are not suited for participating in the somewhat hierarchical and political community of Dante writers. Egomaniacs would only create trouble.

Mind you, much of the authority and seniority in that world is benevolent, or at least well-intentioned. If you are trying to become a writer by taking expensive classes in that subject, you want your teacher to know more about it than you and to behave like a teacher. And so you might hear advice along the lines of "I don't think you're ready to tackle Y yet, you need to spend a few more years honing your skills with X" and the like. All perfectly reasonable. But people on the Beowulf side may never have taken a writing class in their life. They just tend to lunge at whatever looks interesting to them, write whatever they please, and let the chips fall where they may. So we may seem not merely arrogant, but completely unhinged. It reminds me somewhat of the split between Christians and Faeries depicted in Susannah Clarke's wonderful book "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell." The faeries do whatever they want and strike the Christians (humans) as ludicrously irresponsible and "barely sane." They don't seem to deserve or appreciate their freedom.

Later at the writer's conference, I introduced myself to someone who was responsible for organizing it, and she looked at me keenly and said, "Ah, yes, you're the one who's going to bring in our males 18-32." And sure enough, when we got to the venue, there were the males 18-32, looking quite out of place compared to the baseline lit-festival crowd. They stood at long lines at the microphones and asked me one question after another while ignoring the Dante writers sitting at the table with me. Some of the males 18-32 were so out of place that they seemed to have warped in from the Land of Faerie, and had the organizers wondering whether they should summon the police. But in the end they were more or less reasonable people who just wanted to talk about books and were as mystified by the literary people as the literary people were by them.

In the same vein, I just got back from the National Book Festival on the Capitol Mall in D.C., where I crossed paths for a few minutes with Neil Gaiman. This was another event in which Beowulf writers and Dante writers were all mixed together. The organizers had queues set up in front of signing tables. Neil had mentioned on his blog that he was going to be there, and so hundreds, maybe thousands of his readers had showed up there as early as 5:30 a.m. to get stuff signed. The organizers simply had not anticipated this and so---very much to their credit---they had to make all sorts of last-minute rearrangements to accomodate the crowd. Neil spent many hours signing. As he says on his blog

http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp

the Washington Post later said he did this because he was a "savvy businessman." Of course Neil was actually doing it to be polite; but even simple politeness to one's fans can seem grasping and cynical when viewed from the other side.

Because of such reactions, I know that certain people are going to read this screed as further evidence that I have a big head. But let me make at least a token effort to deflect this by stipulating that the system I am describing here IS NOT FAIR and that IT MAKES NO SENSE and that I don't deserve to have the freedom that is accorded a Beowulf writer when many talented and excellent writers---some of them good friends of mine---end up selling small numbers of books and having to cultivate grants, fellowships, faculty appointments, etc.

Anyway, most Beowulf writing is ignored by the critical apparatus or lightly made fun of when it's noticed at all. Literary critics know perfectly well that nothing they say is likely to have much effect on sales. Let's face it, when Neil Gaiman publishes Anansi Boys, all of his readers are going to know about it through his site and most of them are going to buy it and none of them is likely to see a review in the New York Review of Books, or care what that review says.

So what of MosesJones's original question, which was entitled "The lack of respect?" My answer is that I don't pay that much notice to these things because I am aware at some level that I am on one side of the bifurcation and most literary critics are on the other, and we simply are not that relevant to each other's lives and careers.

What is most interesting to me is when people make efforts to "route around" the apparatus of literary criticism and publish their thoughts about books in place where you wouldn't normally look for book reviews. For example, a year ago there was a piece by Edward Rothstein in the New York Times about Quicksilver that appears to have been a sort of wildcat review. He just got interested in the book and decided to write about it, independent of the New York Times's normal book-reviewing apparatus. It is not the first time such a thing has happened with one of my books.

It has happened many times in history that new systems will come along and, instead of obliterating the old, will surround and encapsulate them and work in symbiosis with them but otherwise pretty much leave them alone (think mitochondria) and sometimes I get the feeling that something similar is happening with these two literary worlds. The fact that we are having a discussion like this one on a forum such as Slashdot is Exhibit A.

This paragraph in particular.


Like all tricks for dividing people into two groups, this is simplistic, and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. But there is a cultural difference between these two types of writers, rooted in to whom they are accountable, and it explains what [the person who asked the initial question] is complaining about. Beowulf writers and Dante writers appear to have the same job, but in fact there is a quite radical difference between them---hence the odd conversation that I had with my fellow author at the writer's conference. Because she'd never heard of me, she made the quite reasonable assumption that I was a Dante writer---one so new or obscure that she'd never seen me mentioned in a journal of literary criticism, and never bumped into me at a conference. Therefore, I couldn't be making any money at it. Therefore, I was most likely teaching somewhere. All perfectly logical. In order to set her straight, I had to let her know that the reason she'd never heard of me was because I was famous.

[Lord of Rapture]

Doesn't make it any less sad.

[Helanna]

But, there's some arguments in this thread worthy of note. Consider the following:

Partially it is due to arrogance and pretentiousness, yes. But stuff like "War and Peace", "The Magic Mountain", "The Grapes of Wrath", Shakespeare's plays...they don't just have an interesting plot and engaging characters, like ASoIaF does. They have honest to goodness themes, the text itself is a true exploration of the human condition, warts and all. I don't think works like ASoIaF are appropriate for university-level study in a literature course, because I don't think there's enough content in there to merit it.


One could argue that the point of literature is to have engaging characters and an interesting plot. If a book doesn't have either of those, but it "makes a great statement on humanity, really!" then to me at least, it doesn't have much in the way of literature. It becomes a lecture, not a book. Why try to write a book to illustrate a point if you can't actually write a good book? Write an essay or thesis instead. A book can have good characters and plot AND make a statement on humanity. If they can't be both a good lecture and a good book, then I don't really count that as good literature, seeing as the study of literature includes studying characters and plots.

[Holocron Coder]

I'm surprised it's taken this long.

The best living novelist?

There isn't one.

[Mr. Scaly]

Just so's you know, that second one wasn't by Watterson.

Whoever did write it has a special place in Hell reserved for him, frozen in the ice and gnawing on the brains of all the other treacherous b******* in Dante's Divine Comedy.



This paragraph in particular.

I see his point though I'm not sure where that's applicable with what I said.

[WalkingTarget]

I see his point though I'm not sure where that's applicable with what I said.

You're talking about a distinction between "genre" and "literary" stuff and how you think that's an illusion (as it's difficult to write something you can't categorize in some way, I assume).

My point is that this is possibly drawing the line in the wrong place; it's not a question of subject matter, its a question of who the author is writing for/is accountable to (a general audience or the literary establishment) which might be a more useful way of thinking about it.

[Mr. Scaly]

You're talking about a distinction between "genre" and "literary" stuff and how you think that's an illusion (as it's difficult to write something you can't categorize in some way, I assume).

My point is that this is possibly drawing the line in the wrong place; it's not a question of subject matter, its a question of who the author is writing for/is accountable to (a general audience or the literary establishment) which might be a more useful way of thinking about it.

I imagine that this kind of distinction used to be a lot more common than it is now though, when there were wealthy patrons keeping writers on the payroll to just...write things.

[WalkingTarget]

I imagine that this kind of distinction used to be a lot more common than it is now though, when there were wealthy patrons keeping writers on the payroll to just...write things.

Which is what quite a lot of that piece by Stephenson was talking about - his discussions/observations of the fact that "literary" writers and "commercial" writers operate in entirely separate worlds right now. Not to say that a "literary" book can't be a commercial success as well, it's just that the literary people might be a professor somewhere and the book they write is a credential to remain on the faculty instead of a means of direct support via patronage. Writing a popular novel without "artistic merit" or whatever doesn't work in that context.

[The Big Dice]

All this discussion of the relative artistic merits of various things, lots of names thrown out there and all that stuff takes me back. I studied English Lit at college, and I was repeatedly told that "because I like it" isn't a good enough answer for why something is good. But that's all been covered by other people and far more eloquently than I could manage.

However, there is one living author I can think of that gets a remarkable amount of credibility from both the literary and genre sides of the fence: Iain M Banks.

[HamHam]

Instead of just name dropping we should really try and make cases for why certain people are or not great novelists. I'll start with two of my choices:

Neal Stephenson. In my educated opinion, he is one of the most skilled writers from a technical perspective. By which I mean, simply in the construction of sentences and passages and how things flow his prose is beautiful and simply a joy to read. Add to that a great deal of wit and the ability to present a setting and really get you to understand it. His characters are adequate to good I would say. The only huge flaw is the endings. The books kind of just end. It wraps up the major story lines and then... ends.

Orson Scott Card: He's a bigot and a prick and a lot of his books are trash, but Speaker for the Dead is a goddamn masterpiece. I'm honestly astounded that he somehow wrote it but there it is. Speaker (and Xenocide and Children) is one of if not the most insightful examinations of human nature and the human condition and all that jazz I have read. And it is also the most hopeful. It firmly challenges the idea in a lot of "serious" literature that humans can;t understand each other and so forth. It is also simply well written, effectively juggling a lot of characters and events without losing focus.

[Mr. Scaly]

Which is what quite a lot of that piece by Stephenson was talking about - his discussions/observations of the fact that "literary" writers and "commercial" writers operate in entirely separate worlds right now. Not to say that a "literary" book can't be a commercial success as well, it's just that the literary people might be a professor somewhere and the book they write is a credential to remain on the faculty instead of a means of direct support via patronage. Writing a popular novel without "artistic merit" or whatever doesn't work in that context.

Ouch. There's something profoundly depressing about that.

[WalkingTarget]

Ouch. There's something profoundly depressing about that.

Well, I simplified a bit, but there's the bit where he had an awkward conversation with a "literary" person.


To set it up, a brief anecdote: a while back, I went to a writers' conference. I was making chitchat with another writer, a critically acclaimed literary novelist who taught at a university. She had never heard of me. After we'd exchanged a bit of of small talk, she asked me "And where do you teach?" just as naturally as one Slashdotter would ask another "And which distro do you use?"

I was taken aback. "I don't teach anywhere," I said.

Her turn to be taken aback. "Then what do you do?"

"I'm...a writer," I said. Which admittedly was a stupid thing to say, since she already knew that.

"Yes, but what do you do?"

I couldn't think of how to answer the question---I'd already answered it!

"You can't make a living out of being a writer, so how do you make money?" she tried.

"From...being a writer," I stammered.

At this point she finally got it, and her whole affect changed. She wasn't snobbish about it. But it was obvious that, in her mind, the sort of writer who actually made a living from it was an entirely different creature from the sort she generally associated with....

...hence the odd conversation that I had with my fellow author at the writer's conference. Because she'd never heard of me, she made the quite reasonable assumption that I was a Dante writer---one so new or obscure that she'd never seen me mentioned in a journal of literary criticism, and never bumped into me at a conference. Therefore, I couldn't be making any money at it. Therefore, I was most likely teaching somewhere. All perfectly logical. In order to set her straight, I had to let her know that the reason she'd never heard of me was because I was famous.

[Mr. Scaly]

Well, I simplified a bit, but there's the bit where he had an awkward conversation with a "literary" person.

It's just that a book is a book. That's what I've always believed anyway. Sure, some are older than others and some are better written, but...there's no particular type or theme of books that are better just by the themes they have written. You'd think the people who write them would think that, but...

Ah well. People will be like that.

[Catch]

One could argue that the point of literature is to have engaging characters and an interesting plot.

No, that's the point of a story. Literature is held to a higher standard.

Anyway, it's the way you're reading the quote that's the problem. The italics didn't carry over when I posted it, which lends to confusion (I had to read it twice the first time.)

Here, sans forced formatting:

"Stuff like "War and Peace", "The Magic Mountain", "The Grapes of Wrath", Shakespeare's plays...they don't just have an interesting plot and engaging characters, like ASoIaF does. They have honest to goodness themes, the text itself is a true exploration of the human condition, warts and all. I don't think works like ASoIaF are appropriate for university-level study in a literature course, because I don't think there's enough content in there to merit it."

The point wasn't that works of Tolstoy and Steinbeck have theme instead of character, but they have powerful subtext in addition to being great stories, which is what we should expect of literature. Hop on Pop is a fun book, but it doesn't speak to human struggles in a rich or gripping way. I suppose what I'm trying to say here is that all writing has a place, and ought to be valued for what it is. It's when books are taken out of their proper context that issues arise.

Setting George R. R. Martin to the table next to Tolkien, Nabokov or Melville is like filing See Spot Run under Adult Fiction at the library. It's not a bad book, it just doesn't belong (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0WhuikFY1Pg).

[averagejoe]

It should be noted that ASoFaI is interesting as a reactionary piece to mainstream fantasy. Maybe it's just because I hate most modern fantasy, but there's something supremely satisfying about a man riding a horse into a hall to receive his appointment of office, only to have the horse **** on the floor, forcing the king to step around it.

[Jorkens]

My point is that this is possibly drawing the line in the wrong place; it's not a question of subject matter, its a question of who the author is writing for/is accountable to (a general audience or the literary establishment) which might be a more useful way of thinking about it.
I'm not sure that "the literary establisment" is the best way of putting it, though. It seems unneccessarily belittling. I think the divide in audience is really between people for whom an interesting setting, an exciting story and the odd bit of Awesome are more important and people for whom subtle characterization, social or psychological realism, having 'something to say', and a writing style that doesn't start to feel laboured if you have the sort of mind that picks up on stylistic tics are more important.

It's kind of noticeable that there are a bunch of people writing stuff that involves classic fantasy or science fiction elements who are definitely considered literary authors - Italo Calvino, David Mitchell, Alasdair Gray, JG Ballard... and it's not just that the literary establishment accepts them, the science fiction and fantasy audience just isn't that interested.

And I think there are people who cross the boundary - John Le Carre is a modern thriller writer who's becoming increasingly accepted as sort-of-almost literary because he can do style and character and a bit of social realism on the back of what is essentially an exciting (if understated) spy story. And there's a bit of a tendancy for some popular authors to become more accepted as time goes by - Raymond Chandler, for instance.

[HamHam]

I'm not sure that "the literary establisment" is the best way of putting it, though. It seems unneccessarily belittling. I think the divide in audience is really between people for whom an interesting setting, an exciting story and the odd bit of Awesome are more important and people for whom subtle characterization, social or psychological realism, having 'something to say', and a writing style that doesn't start to feel laboured if you have the sort of mind that picks up on stylistic tics are more important.

Nope. There is a definite divide between literary academia and the rest of the world. The example I am most familiar with is that of Lord of the Rings.

[Jorkens]

Nope. There is a definite divide between literary academia and the rest of the world. The example I am most familiar with is that of Lord of the Rings.
Which was written by an Oxford professor of Old English?

[Jorkens]

But my basic point is that I know a lot of people who aren't in 'literary academia' who just plain prefer Joyce or Rushdie to 'genre' fantasy.

[HamHam]

Which was written by an Oxford professor of Old English?

And "serious literary critics" hated it because normal people liked it.


But my basic point is that I know a lot of people who aren't in 'literary academia' who just plain prefer Joyce or Rushdie to 'genre' fantasy.

But the academia hates anything that anyone else likes because it's "vulgar" (in the old sense of the world, aka common).

[Mr. Scaly]

The whole idea of a divide is dumb anyway. Like I said, books are books.

[Helanna]

The whole idea of a divide is dumb anyway. Like I said, books are books.

I think this is what I was trying to get at earlier. I replied to the thread when someone said that they thought anyone naming a fantasy author had probably never read "real" literature. I found it rather offensive for two reasons: One, it belittled the opinion of anyone naming a fantasy author, and two, it implied that fantasy can never, ever be considered "real" literature, which is basically what the conversation is about now.


No, that's the point of a story. Literature is held to a higher standard.

I'll say that having a real plot and real characters is a pretty high standard. I'm not saying that it's the *only* standard - something with good plots and characters but no deeper meaning certainly isn't going to be as good as something that has all three. But literature, in its most basic form, is a story, and if it can't be a good story as well as have a good message, then I wouldn't classify it as being better than any other book out there.


Setting George R. R. Martin to the table next to Tolkien, Nabokov or Melville is like filing See Spot Run under Adult Fiction at the library. It's not a bad book, it just doesn't belong.

But it's really not like that at all. Now I haven't read Nabokov or Melville, but I'm going to say that a complex piece of literature like ASoIaF, that does have deeper themes and meanings - as well as good, well-developed characters and plots, of course - is simply not comparable to "See Spot Run". I certainly wouldn't say it's better than Tolkien, but I've heard it may just be better than Melville.

Like I said, I haven't read Moby **** (and yes, I do plan to do so so that I don't have to rely on second-hand knowledge), but I've heard that not only is it rather dry and documentary-like for the most part (which is generally bad in literature, because anyone who wanted to read a documentary would have read one), but it's also pretty inaccurate (and screwing up the entire subject of your book is inexcusable).

So why does having some deep, meaningful moral about human nature make a book "real" literature anyway? Especially since half of them have the same exact message anyway?

[warty goblin]

My thoughts on whether or A Song of Ice and Fire is literature or not. I've read a fair amount of canon stuff- Melville, Poe, Hawthorne, Dickens, Shakespeare and so on. None of them has ever made me cry. A Game of Thrones did. I was eating lunch in the college cafeteria at the time. Weirdly it was one of the Dany sections, after Drogo dies. It was about the eighth time I'd read the book, and I'd never really liked her sections that much before, but something about them just got under my skin that time.

In fact the only other works that have caused that sort of reaction in me is poetry by WWI soldiers.

You can talk to the end of time about style, analysis, and what makes an effective narrative. I say that if it can reduce me to tears in the middle of a room packed with strangers because I empathize with a character's suffering that much, it's doing something right.

[Catch]

I'll say that having a real plot and real characters is a pretty high standard. I'm not saying that it's the *only* standard - something with good plots and characters but no deeper meaning certainly isn't going to be as good as something that has all three. But literature, in its most basic form, is a story, and if it can't be a good story as well as have a good message, then I wouldn't classify it as being better than any other book out there.

You seem to be hung up on the idea that what's considered "literature" may lack a proper story, eschewing strong narrative for moral rumination and thematic noodling. This is why we don't read Ayn Rand.

Almost universally, that's not the case. Literature has earned its status because it possesses strong story structure, which resounds in a profound, meaningful way. The best stories do this naturally, without any injected depth. Maybe it's the moniker of "literature" that incites objection from certain people, as if unwarranted importance is part and parcel.


But it's really not like that at all. Now I haven't read Nabokov or Melville, but I'm going to say that a complex piece of literature like ASoIaF, that does have deeper themes and meanings - as well as good, well-developed characters and plots, of course - is simply not comparable to "See Spot Run". I certainly wouldn't say it's better than Tolkien, but I've heard it may just be better than Melville.

That's not the comparison I was trying to make. Decent genre fiction doesn't belong among universally-academically-acclaimed literature because it's out of it's league. Suggesting that George R. R. Martin can be reasonably compared to Flaubert, Faulkner or Fitzgerald betrays a misunderstanding of what sort of beast literature really is. Just as you wouldn't claim See Spot Run is an adult novel, standard genre fare shouldn't be valued as literature.

I don't mean this condescendingly, but reading accredited literary works might help you judge them more accurately. I've certainly read my share of fantasy, so try to branch out a little more.


Like I said, I haven't read Moby **** (and yes, I do plan to do so so that I don't have to rely on second-hand knowledge), but I've heard that not only is it rather dry and documentary-like for the most part (which is generally bad in literature, because anyone who wanted to read a documentary would have read one), but it's also pretty inaccurate (and screwing up the entire subject of your book is inexcusable).

Nice to see you're approaching the novel without any preconceived notions. :smalltongue:

Remember as you read Moby **** that Melville was not taking himself entirely seriously, and that Ishmael's narration is often very tongue-in-cheek. The language is dated, but if you slow down and really let the author's voice sink in, any perceived "dryness" will be lost to the ocean.


So why does having some deep, meaningful moral about human nature make a book "real" literature anyway? Especially since half of them have the same exact message anyway?

It means that the author, in creating their narrative, chose characters and events so powerful and universal that people around the world, generations later, can still relate to the story, read the closing lines, and say to themselves, "Damn...."

[Mr. Scaly]

You seem to be hung up on the idea that what's considered "literature" may lack a proper story, eschewing strong narrative for moral rumination and thematic noodling. This is why we don't read Ayn Rand.

Almost universally, that's not the case. Literature has earned its status because it possesses strong story structure, which resounds in a profound, meaningful way. The best stories do this naturally, without any injected depth. Maybe it's the moniker of "literature" that incites objection from certain people, as if unwarranted importance is part and parcel.

So literature basically possesses all the trappings of any other novel. Right. No argument here.


That's not the comparison I was trying to make. Decent genre fiction doesn't belong among universally-academically-acclaimed literature because it's out of it's league. Suggesting that George R. R. Martin can be reasonably compared to Flaubert, Faulkner or Fitzgerald betrays a misunderstanding of what sort of beast literature really is. Just as you wouldn't claim See Spot Run is an adult novel, standard genre fare shouldn't be valued as literature.

I don't mean this condescendingly, but reading accredited literary works might help you judge them more accurately. I've certainly read my share of fantasy, so try to branch out a little more.

This is where the trouble lies. (You didn't mean it, but that really did sound condescending by the way :smalltongue:)

I've read a fair amount of older materials. I that Hamlet and Othello were some of Shakespeare's better plays (as opposed to the Merchant of Venice and The Taming of the Shrew). I thought that Moby **** weaved back and forth between gripping and monotonous. Faust by Goethe and Dr. Faust by Marlowe. Dante's Divine Comedy. Lord of the Rings, like everybody else. Don Quixote. Crime and Punishment. But I've also read Martin. Weis. Mercedes Lackey. Timothy Zahn. Richard Knaak. Eddings. Stephen King. Turtledove. And I would not rate classical literature any differently from present day literature.




It means that the author, in creating their narrative, chose characters and events so powerful and universal that people around the world, generations later, can still relate to the story, read the closing lines, and say to themselves, "Damn...."

Generations from now we'll see what they have to say about more recent novels. Until then, books written centuries ago have a distinct advantage in that they've had generations to be studied. :smallwink:

[averagejoe]

So why does having some deep, meaningful moral about human nature make a book "real" literature anyway? Especially since half of them have the same exact message anyway?

You keep getting hooked on this literature=meaning idea, and this simply isn't the case. I already touched on this fairly thoroughly in my long post, and I don't feel inclined to do so again, but basically this is a wrong idea about what literature is and why people read literature.

That said, any properly good book will have... well, not morals, because that implies something that the author was attempting to transmit. However, it will resonate strongly enough that it will give you something that you can take away, simply because 1) the experiences in that book emulate real life experiences so closely and 2) you will strongly empathize with one or more characters, enough so that it will be like having those experiences. Given this, it's hard not to take away something that might be construed as a "message." However, this is a very personal thing, something that resonates with the reader, and typically doesn't have a lot to do with the author's intent.

[HamHam]

And I would not rate classical literature any differently from present day literature.

Wait. I don't think anyone has said that classical literature is better than modern literature. What people have said is that classical literature is better than modern day... pop novels is the best term I can think off. It's also better than the trashy romance novels (or whatever) from a century ago.

The point of the thread is in fact to suggest and discuss modern authors of a caliber equal to the big historical names. It's just that random fantasy writer X whom you like is not in that league and apparently some people have a hard time accepting that.


You keep getting hooked on this literature=meaning idea, and this simply isn't the case. I already touched on this fairly thoroughly in my long post, and I don't feel inclined to do so again, but basically this is a wrong idea about what literature is and why people read literature.

That said, any properly good book will have... well, not morals, because that implies something that the author was attempting to transmit. However, it will resonate strongly enough that it will give you something that you can take away, simply because 1) the experiences in that book emulate real life experiences so closely and 2) you will strongly empathize with one or more characters, enough so that it will be like having those experiences. Given this, it's hard not to take away something that might be construed as a "message." However, this is a very personal thing, something that resonates with the reader, and typically doesn't have a lot to do with the author's intent.

I firmly disagree. A well written novel will present a coherent picture of the author's opinion on his subject, if not an entire debate on that subject.

[Ozymandias]

I think everyone's dancing around the fact that not only is the distinction between literature and entertainment one hundred percent semantic, but so is any definition of either term.

I'm also seeing a lot of anti-elitism in this thread, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's sort of dangerous to just dismiss the literary establishment, which is, when you get down to it, something a whole lot of very, very smart people devote their lives to, as snobbery. Speaking as a member (and a bit of a closet snob), I can say that most people who actually write literary criticism are fairly well-rounded; all of the professors in the Eng. department at my college are huge Pratchett fans, for example.

E.g.

(Nested quote)And "serious literary critics" hated it because normal people liked it.

But the academia hates anything that anyone else likes because it's "vulgar" (in the old sense of the world, aka common).

This is unfair. Firstly, LotR did not receive universal critical disdain or was loved by everyone else; even many of Tolkein's friends were ambivalent of even negative about it. Secondly, it didn't really deserve universal critical praise, honestly. What the critics say are right on the mark - characters in general lack psychological depth, it's very dry (consider that Lolita was published at around the same time), and in general it's sort of pedantic and long-winded without being manic or witty like Nabokov. Consider also that its tremendous influence - not, fundamentally, as a standalone novel (in three parts), but as a necessary formative factor in the tradition that would be built around it - could not be measured at the time.

Conversely, however, it's not really fair to dismiss genre fiction as necessarily lacking subtext; fundamentally, nearly any story with human characters is going to have human themes, and it's the depth and skill with which these themes are explored that separate (in my opinion) more "serious" books from more "entertainment". The two labels are not necessarily exclusive, of course, because entertaining books can be serious and vice-versa. Michael Chabon wrote an essay on this but I can't remember exactly where or if it's available online.

I see it more as a question of focus; is this book written to make people feel satisfied, or to provoke some epiphany? In this lens The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is less "entertaining" than, say, Dragonlance, although it's obviously rather better in readability as well as emotional and philosophical impact. On the other hand, The Fountainhead is more "serious" than, ASoIaF, say, even though its themes are ridiculous and nonsensical compared to the other works.

[thorgrim29]

He was probably mentioned already, but still, I consider Neil Gaiman one of the best authors I've ever read, especially in American Gods. That books is arguably the best fantasy (in the original sense, the supernatural intrudes in an otherwise normal life) book I've read, and one of the best books period. It's deep, funny, engaging and riveting at the same time

[HamHam]

This is unfair. Firstly, LotR did not receive universal critical disdain or was loved by everyone else; even many of Tolkein's friends were ambivalent of even negative about it. Secondly, it didn't really deserve universal critical praise, honestly. What the critics say are right on the mark - characters in general lack psychological depth, it's very dry (consider that Lolita was published at around the same time), and in general it's sort of pedantic and long-winded without being manic or witty like Nabokov. Consider also that its tremendous influence - not, fundamentally, as a standalone novel (in three parts), but as a necessary formative factor in the tradition that would be built around it - could not be measured at the time.

I think Tom Shippey makes a convincing case in both The Road to Middle-Earth and Author of the Century that the contrast between the response of the literati and the popularity of the book in general is telling, especially about the attitude of the literary establishment. Obviously neither response is universal but to suggest that the narrative of best selling book hated by the establishment has no merit at all is clearly wrong.

On to your actual points, you are mostly just wrong.

The only characters who "lack psychological depth" are the romantic and mythic characters like Gandalf and Aragorn, but that's because that's how romantic and mythic characters are. They are above the mental and moral foibles of normal men. The book is also rarely introspective, you don't get internal narration and so forth, which means you have to actually work for it to get at the character's inner lives. However, the hobbits, Boromir, Faramir, Denethor, many of the elves, and so forth all have plenty of psychological depth.

I don't see how you could possibly describe LotR as dry. It has amazing descriptive text, a great deal of wit and humor, a superb understanding of the rhythm of speech and the emotive effects of words, etc.

It's long-winded only in that there is a lot of travelogue. But it's very well done travelogue so it's cool.

[Mr. Scaly]

Wait. I don't think anyone has said that classical literature is better than modern literature. What people have said is that classical literature is better than modern day... pop novels is the best term I can think off. It's also better than the trashy romance novels (or whatever) from a century ago.

The point of the thread is in fact to suggest and discuss modern authors of a caliber equal to the big historical names. It's just that random fantasy writer X whom you like is not in that league and apparently some people have a hard time accepting that.

It's been said by at least one person here that "genre fiction" simply cannot compare to "classical literature", which I object to because for one, ALL fiction falls into a genre, and two classical literature is not golden and untouchable and can be matched or surpassed by novels of today.

[Harr]

George R. R. Martin

Robin Hobb

Neil Gaiman


Suggesting that George R. R. Martin can be reasonably compared to Flaubert, Faulkner or Fitzgerald betrays a misunderstanding of what sort of beast literature really is. Just as you wouldn't claim See Spot Run is an adult novel, standard genre fare shouldn't be valued as literature.

I entirely and flatly disagree.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, though.

[Ozymandias]

I think Tom Shippey makes a convincing case in both The Road to Middle-Earth and Author of the Century that the contrast between the response of the literati and the popularity of the book in general is telling, especially about the attitude of the literary establishment. Obviously neither response is universal but to suggest that the narrative of best selling book hated by the establishment has no merit at all is clearly wrong.

I will concede that it is clear that you are more familiar with this subject and that I am probably speaking in ignorance. That being said, it's a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy to make the assertion that the critical reaction of the academics vis-a-vis the hoi polloi is due to the "attitude of the literary establishment" unless there is somewhat more argument in the books you cited. If there is, I'm probably just wrong and the mid-twentieth century academia may have really been as elitist as is generally portrayed.



On to your actual points, you are mostly just wrong.

I suppose we just disagree, then.


The only characters who "lack psychological depth" are the romantic and mythic characters like Gandalf and Aragorn, but that's because that's how romantic and mythic characters are. They are above the mental and moral foibles of normal men. The book is also rarely introspective, you don't get internal narration and so forth, which means you have to actually work for it to get at the character's inner lives. However, the hobbits, Boromir, Faramir, Denethor, many of the elves, and so forth all have plenty of psychological depth.

I disagree that being mythic or romantic exempts a character from humanity and in fact find the view vaguely insulting. All the best myths are about characters who are human, or at least between humanity and divinity - e.g. the Iliad is about the wrath of Achilles, not about his strength or valor. Similarly, all of the most common Greek legends are fundamentally about hamartia, not triumph.

You can argue that Tolkien is grounded more fundamentally in Celtic and Germanic legends, which is true, but keep in mind that Malory wrote about the Death of Arthur, and the bulk of the matter of Britain leads up to the schism between him and Lancelot; the archetypal (although I will concede that it's much more complex than that, but remember that Norse myth is based on the inexorable mortality of Gods anyway).


I don't see how you could possibly describe LotR as dry. It has amazing descriptive text, a great deal of wit and humor, a superb understanding of the rhythm of speech and the emotive effects of words, etc.

It's long-winded only in that there is a lot of travelogue. But it's very well done travelogue so it's cool.

I guess this is a matter of opinion. It's been a while since I've read the books, but I remember in the first especially there were times when it dragged on excessively, and the hobbits in particular were dreadfully boring to me, especially since all but five of them basically disappeared from the narrative after a few chapters, rendering all the Brandybuck and Took nonsense superfluous. No doubt you read it as important world-building and mise-en-scène for the development of the hobbits and the shift from the pastoral and idyllic to the eventual scouring etc but I thought it was just tedious.

[HamHam]

It's been said by at least one person here that "genre fiction" simply cannot compare to "classical literature", which I object to because for one, ALL fiction falls into a genre, and two classical literature is not golden and untouchable and can be matched or surpassed by novels of today.

Well then you are just being pointlessly pedantic about terminology. "Genre fiction" doesn't mean "fiction that is in a genre" it means "fiction that is written to the expectations and probably strictly follows the formulas of a genre", so "formulaic fiction" might be a term more to your liking. Regardless, you are arguing against something you only imagined people have said.

Also, there is a matter between a book written to be commercially successful and a book written as a pure expression of art, whatever that means.

The important thing about classical literature is that it is a small fraction of what was published at the time. The dross has already been tossed away. This is not true of modern literature, so you have to figure out what is good and what is bad yourself.


I entirely and flatly disagree.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, though.

That's great and all, but could you actually present an argument as to why (and if you already have earlier in the thread link to it)?


I will concede that it is clear that you are more familiar with this subject and that I am probably speaking in ignorance. That being said, it's a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy to make the assertion that the critical reaction of the academics vis-a-vis the hoi polloi is due to the "attitude of the literary establishment" unless there is somewhat more argument in the books you cited. If there is, I'm probably just wrong and the mid-twentieth century academia may have really been as elitist as is generally portrayed.

Well I can't really condense a chapter's worth of examples and argument to one post. However, one is a comparison to Joyce, and that a "real writer" was expected to be supported by patrons and not be popularly successful. Another is that the subject matter, ie elves and dragons and what not, was considered to be "childish".


I disagree that being mythic or romantic exempts a character from humanity and in fact find the view vaguely insulting. All the best myths are about characters who are human, or at least between humanity and divinity - e.g. the Iliad is about the wrath of Achilles, not about his strength or valor. Similarly, all of the most common Greek legends are fundamentally about hamartia, not triumph.

You can argue that Tolkien is grounded more fundamentally in Celtic and Germanic legends, which is true, but keep in mind that Malory wrote about the Death of Arthur, and the bulk of the matter of Britain leads up to the schism between him and Lancelot; the archetypal (although I will concede that it's much more complex than that, but remember that Norse myth is based on the inexorable mortality of Gods anyway).

What does mortality have to do with anything? The point is that they are 'superior in kind (or simply degree for romantic characters) both to other men and to the environment of other men'. This includes being above psychological weaknesses. Bad things happen to them, and they can be overcome with grief and things like that, but they don't have self-esteem issues, they don't need to work through their issues, they just do what they are expected and meant to do.


I guess this is a matter of opinion. It's been a while since I've read the books, but I remember in the first especially there were times when it dragged on excessively, and the hobbits in particular were dreadfully boring to me, especially since all but five of them basically disappeared from the narrative after a few chapters, rendering all the Brandybuck and Took nonsense superfluous. No doubt you read it as important world-building and mise-en-scène for the development of the hobbits and the shift from the pastoral and idyllic to the eventual scouring etc but I thought it was just tedious.

It's funny because Hobbits are silly and have silly names. Also, they are very proper and don't abide silly Took nonsense. :smalltongue:

[Ozymandias]

Well I can't really condense a chapter's worth of examples and argument to one post. However, one is a comparison to Joyce, and that a "real writer" was expected to be supported by patrons and not be popularly successful. Another is that the subject matter, ie elves and dragons and what not, was considered to be "childish".

Okay, you seem to know what you're talking about. Fie on them, then, I say.


What does mortality have to do with anything? The point is that they are 'superior in kind (or simply degree for romantic characters) both to other men and to the environment of other men'. This includes being above psychological weaknesses. Bad things happen to them, and they can be overcome with grief and things like that, but they don't have self-esteem issues, they don't need to work through their issues, they just do what they are expected and meant to do.

I guess I was mislead by the "They are above the mental and moral foibles of normal men." Maybe I just don't really like this style of character, then. My favorite King Arthur is T.H. White's, who is completely crippled by psychological indecision, for example.



It's funny because Hobbits are silly and have silly names. Also, they are very proper and don't abide silly Took nonsense. :smalltongue:

I'll take your word for it. I've never really liked or understood "silliness".

I just hate admitting it because people always assume you're a sort of atavistic stuffed-shirt Victorian patriarch, which is only sort of true in my case.:smallannoyed:

[Mr. Scaly]

Well then you are just being pointlessly pedantic about terminology. "Genre fiction" doesn't mean "fiction that is in a genre" it means "fiction that is written to the expectations and probably strictly follows the formulas of a genre", so "formulaic fiction" might be a term more to your liking. Regardless, you are arguing against something you only imagined people have said.



That's not the comparison I was trying to make. Decent genre fiction doesn't belong among universally-academically-acclaimed literature because it's out of it's league. Suggesting that George R. R. Martin can be reasonably compared to Flaubert, Faulkner or Fitzgerald betrays a misunderstanding of what sort of beast literature really is. Just as you wouldn't claim See Spot Run is an adult novel, standard genre fare shouldn't be valued as literature.

So I was imaging that, was I?



Also, there is a matter between a book written to be commercially successful and a book written as a pure expression of art, whatever that means.

See, that's something that bugs me. Suppose we brought Shakespeare or Herman Melville or Cervantes back to life through some scientific means. How many of them would be surprised to hear they hadn't written their works to be commercially successful?


The important thing about classical literature is that it is a small fraction of what was published at the time. The dross has already been tossed away. This is not true of modern literature, so you have to figure out what is good and what is bad yourself.


So basically the only different between classical literature and what's written today is that the former has been sifted through and the latter hasn't then?

[HamHam]

So I was imaging that, was I?

Yes, because you are completely missing the point that Catch is expressly talking about "genre fiction" by which he means something like "fiction that follows the conventions of a genre" which is a problem right there. Following tropes is easy and stable but it's not "literature". If the work experiments, subverts, and generally does it's own thing enough to reach the level of "literature" it would no longer be "genre fiction".

You can argue that a given author is one or the other but you can't argue that there is not any difference between the two doesn't exist.


See, that's something that bugs me. Suppose we brought Shakespeare or Herman Melville or Cervantes back to life through some scientific means. How many of them would be surprised to hear they hadn't written their works to be commercially successful?

Which is an excellent point that shows that commercially successful artists can also be really good. Still, if all you care about is making money you won't produce great art. If you care about money and love art for arts sake (or whatever) you can though.


So basically the only different between classical literature and what's written today is that the former has been sifted through and the latter hasn't then?

Yes.


I'll take your word for it. I've never really liked or understood "silliness".

I just hate admitting it because people always assume you're a sort of atavistic stuffed-shirt Victorian patriarch, which is only sort of true in my case.:smallannoyed:

Since I have a bit more time now, let me try to expand on my point:

First of all you have a good bit of humor in the description of the hobbits and the Shire. For example: "in the matter of 'roots', especially potatoes, the Gaffer was recognized as the leading authority by all in the neighborhood (including himself)." There is also a lot of philological nerd jokes such as the whole Proudfoots/Proudfeet thing and all kinds of other things. You would really need to be an English professor or read a paper/book detailing all of it to get those though.

Secondly, you have a growing suspense. First about the Party and then about the Ring. You can feel that things are building up to something.

Finally, you are getting to know Frodo and the other hobbits and their interactions and character here at the beginning of the story are important for reflecting how they will have changed by the end of the book.

[Mr. Scaly]

Yes, because you are completely missing the point that Catch is expressly talking about "genre fiction" by which he means something like "fiction that follows the conventions of a genre" which is a problem right there. Following tropes is easy and stable but it's not "literature". If the work experiments, subverts, and generally does it's own thing enough to reach the level of "literature" it would no longer be "genre fiction".

You can argue that a given author is one or the other but you can't argue that there is not any difference between the two doesn't exist.

Yes I can though. To quote TVtropes, "Good writers understand tropes and use them as tools, using them to control audience expectations (either by using them straight or by subverting them) and to convey things to the audience quickly without saying them." All literature follows them to some degree, for hundreds of years. And yes there are bad authors who write like they're filling out a check list, but good authors can make them interesting and unique.


Which is an excellent point that shows that commercially successful artists can also be really good. Still, if all you care about is making money you won't produce great art. If you care about money and love art for arts sake (or whatever) you can though.

That's something that I can agree with though with more charity. Some authors I'm sure are in it to create art. They're just...bad at it though.


Yes.


Slight change in topic then, but I'm curious. What more recently written books would you call literature?

[warty goblin]

Yes, because you are completely missing the point that Catch is expressly talking about "genre fiction" by which he means something like "fiction that follows the conventions of a genre" which is a problem right there. Following tropes is easy and stable but it's not "literature". If the work experiments, subverts, and generally does it's own thing enough to reach the level of "literature" it would no longer be "genre fiction".

You can argue that a given author is one or the other but you can't argue that there is not any difference between the two doesn't exist.

I think the operative question is what is what sets the standards to which literature is held apart from the standards to which genre fiction is held? This is a hard question to phrase right, so allow me a more detailed explanation.

Literature is held to one set of standards. Fantasy to another. Horror to a third, harliquin romance to a fourth and so on. If you compare the standards of one of the last three items on the list to the standards of another, they are quite different. They are all considered genre fiction. Literature's standards are also different from all of the others. It is not considered genre fiction. The question you then have to ask is what makes literature's standards sufficiniently quantitatively different to be considered completely differen beast.

Now one could argue that literature is a grab-bag of many genres, and thus does not conform to the standards of any one genre. To dip into mathematics, the other three may be non-isomorphic groups and literature is a set that contains elements of all three, but does not have a common operator, and so is itself not a group. This is consistant, but it's also not particularly interesting, since at the end of the day you've got a set of books without anything substantial in common. I also think most people would deny that this is the case.

But that returns me to my original querry. What makes the standards of literature quantitatively different from the standards of a genre of fiction?

[Helanna]

*stuff about literature needing good characters and plots as much as a deep meaning*No, that's the point of a story. Literature is held to a higher standard.


You seem to be hung up on the idea that what's considered "literature" may lack a proper story, eschewing strong narrative for moral rumination and thematic noodling. This is why we don't read Ayn Rand.

You're the one that implied that literature's point is not to tell a story, and said that apparently classic literature has some mysterious higher standard than any other book, which I don't believe. All books should be judged exactly the same. If the intent was not to write a story at all but solely to impart some deep wisdom, then a book was not the proper format. I know that this doesn't apply to most of classic literature, but there are books out there that exist solely to prove the author's point and they're still considered a classic by many, i.e. Ayn Rand and Chinua Achebe.

And Ayn Rand is considered a classic writer by many of the English teacher's I've met. I've had to read her books before, and I know that she's a suggested author to read in order to prepare for the AP English Exam. Whose point are you proving here?



So why does having some deep, meaningful moral about human nature make a book "real" literature anyway? Especially since half of them have the same exact message anyway?

You keep getting hooked on this literature=meaning idea, and this simply isn't the case. I already touched on this fairly thoroughly in my long post, and I don't feel inclined to do so again, but basically this is a wrong idea about what literature is and why people read literature.

You misunderstand me, I meant "Why do so many people believe that a novel has to be "deep" in order to be literature?"


That's not the comparison I was trying to make. Decent genre fiction doesn't belong among universally-academically-acclaimed literature because it's out of it's league. Suggesting that George R. R. Martin can be reasonably compared to Flaubert, Faulkner or Fitzgerald betrays a misunderstanding of what sort of beast literature really is. Just as you wouldn't claim See Spot Run is an adult novel, standard genre fare shouldn't be valued as literature.

I don't mean this condescendingly, but reading accredited literary works might help you judge them more accurately. I've certainly read my share of fantasy, so try to branch out a little more.

This does indeed come off as rather condescending. For one thing, I've already said that I do read classic literature. Not as much as I would like to, but I have no time and even less money (and no real public library) so I don't have easy access to them. To paint me as some ignorant idiot who only ever reads fantasy and is trying to claim that fantasy is the best genre ever is unfair to me. I don't believe that all fantasy is even remotely good, and I don't believe that the majority of classic literature is bad in any way.

You seem to be saying "There is absolutely no way that fantasy could ever be compared to what classic literature. It is juvenile [your comparison to See Spot Run] and is incapable of having any underlying themes or any other value than entertainment. The very best of fantasy is inherently inferior to the very worst "classic" literature."

This is my understanding of what you said, please correct me where I misunderstood you. I just don't agree that fantasy is inherently inferior to classic works, and I believe that there are some fantasy books that could become a classic work in time.

[HamHam]

Yes I can though. To quote TVtropes, "Good writers understand tropes and use them as tools, using them to control audience expectations (either by using them straight or by subverting them) and to convey things to the audience quickly without saying them." All literature follows them to some degree, for hundreds of years. And yes there are bad authors who write like they're filling out a check list, but good authors can make them interesting and unique.

Which is well and good but the important thing is to move beyond formula into a genuine engagement with the reader.


I think the operative question is what is what sets the standards to which literature is held apart from the standards to which genre fiction is held? This is a hard question to phrase right, so allow me a more detailed explanation.

Literature is held to one set of standards. Fantasy to another. Horror to a third, harliquin romance to a fourth and so on. If you compare the standards of one of the last three items on the list to the standards of another, they are quite different. They are all considered genre fiction. Literature's standards are also different from all of the others. It is not considered genre fiction. The question you then have to ask is what makes literature's standards sufficiniently quantitatively different to be considered completely differen beast.

Now one could argue that literature is a grab-bag of many genres, and thus does not conform to the standards of any one genre. To dip into mathematics, the other three may be non-isomorphic groups and literature is a set that contains elements of all three, but does not have a common operator, and so is itself not a group. This is consistant, but it's also not particularly interesting, since at the end of the day you've got a set of books without anything substantial in common. I also think most people would deny that this is the case.

But that returns me to my original querry. What makes the standards of literature quantitatively different from the standards of a genre of fiction?

There are many answers to this, and plenty of them have been suggested already in this thread.

1) Insight into universal truths
2) Skill with the language itself
3) Genuine engagement with the audience
4) Possessed of an obsessive vision

And so forth.

[warty goblin]

There are many answers to this, and plenty of them have been suggested already in this thread.

1) Insight into universal truths
2) Skill with the language itself
3) Genuine engagement with the audience
4) Possessed of an obsessive vision

And so forth.

1) Presupposes the existance of universal truths, and further assumes them to be knowable. All fine and good, both are reasonable things. Here's where it starts to lose the thread of reason though.

A) It advances that this particular toolset can access them. In order to establish this, given the existance of universal truths, you must first find one using these tools.

B) In order to be a distinguishing feature, it must be demonstrated to not be possessed by genre fiction. Thus you must show that no book belonging to genre fiction but not literature has ever obtained insight into a unversal truth. I very much doubt such a proof is possible.

2) Skill measured how? It's certainly not in terms of grammatical correctness, I've read Faulkner and good grammer The Bear is not. Nor is it clarity of communication, since a lot of literature is a damn hard read. Nor is it volume of communication, as noted previously a lot of literature is rather unpopular.

It further supposes that whatever this mysterious skill is, genre fiction does not possess it. Without proof or statistical sampling based on an objective, consistant, verifiable set of criterion, this is somewhere between axiomatic and unproved hypothesis being used as true without evidence or support. So basically an axiom nobody has the guts to call an axiom.

3) Again, measured how? Twilight fans certainly seem to be engaged by those books, yet I suspect nobody here would consider that series to be literature. I know I've spent more time thinking seriously about A Game of Thrones than I have any literary text save the Iliad, some Shakespeare, a bit of Poe and probably Moby Dichk.

4) I'm pretty sure the guy in his basement writing Kirk Picard slash fiction has a vision best described as obsessive. Or possibly horrifying.

[averagejoe]

You misunderstand me, I meant "Why do so many people believe that a novel has to be "deep" in order to be literature?"

I dunno, maybe a mishandling of the material in school? As I said before, once a novel is well written enough (whatever that means) one almost certainly can't avoid elements that can be considered "deep." Such novels also invite one to look for such things (which I believe to be much more important; what a book means personally to someone is always going to supersede whatever the author intended.) So, a certain amount of depth is to be expected with a well written book. One can even see this with genre literature. People dissect the work and create plot theories and predictions and such (which is also a telling difference. In genre fiction the goal tends to be to keep a person reading by whatever means, so people who like it tend to focus on things like the plot. Literature is rarely serialized, and character/setting tends to play a larger role.) These are all just indicators, though. The problem comes when people confuse trends and indicators for absolute facts.

Heck, as far as universal truths (or whatever) go, I've probably learned as much from watching Batman as from reading Shakespeare. As a youth I was touched by the idealism of Superman, Ruroni Kenshin, and The Chronicles of Narnia, for example. On the other hand, I like Hamlet more than all of the above. However, I like it because the language is clever, and the characters have much more depth, there's much more nuance and subtlety. However, any lessons that come from it come mostly as a by-product of the creation of very real, very deep characters. If the only litmus test for literature was the revelation of deep truths, I'd have to pick most of the things I'd read as a child over Shakespeare. Maybe that's just me, though.


But that returns me to my original querry. What makes the standards of literature quantitatively different from the standards of a genre of fiction?

I already addressed this somewhat here. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7087016&postcount=144) I will also say that, in light of this, the only way to really tell if something is literature is to see if it stands the test of time, because that is more-or-less what literature is by definition (I see this as equivalent to being "irreplaceable.")

Now, that said, it's been my experience that literary opponents take this and say things like, "Oh, well that means there's no way to tell and that means any contemporary stuff might be literature. (I don't like, "literary opponents," by the way, but I didn't know what else to use.) They are correct to a degree, but there are tells that those more experienced can use to give very good guesses as to what things do have longevity. Those things are a discussion in and of themselves, and I'm hardly an expert, and am probably to some degree in disagreement with those who are experts on this sort of thing.

[thorgrim29]

Alright then..... a question for the literature buffs/snobs/nerds/however you define yourselves.

Lets take a book, that book has won a quantity of awards (not that that's a gauge of quality, made that mistake once, ended up with a bloody doorstopper of a book about a gay nazi officer who recycles into textile after the war, boring as all hell). Furthermore, that book is recent, and is defined as fantasy (in that classical sense, like in a Maupassant novella).

The book in question is American Gods by Mr Neil Gaiman. It's a oneshot book, relatively short at around 400 pages if memory serves, and very character driven. It explores the nature of divinity, the struggle between the values of the past and the advances of the modern world, and the very soul of the United States. It is, at times, funny, deep, insightful, touching, sad, scary plus many other things. That it is good is not the question here, you like it or you do not I guess, but it was a commercial and critical success.

Can it be considered literature, despite being sold on the same, apparently shameful shelves then RR Martin, Jordan, Adams, and all the sci-fy/fantasy crew and being less then half a century, and indeed less then ten years old?

[HamHam]

Slight change in topic then, but I'm curious. What more recently written books would you call literature?

Well in terms of modern books I pretty much just read scif-fi and fantasy myself but of that what I think would merit serious consideration would be:

As I said earlier, Neal Stephenson. He has a great command of the language and real talent for making people and places and times come to life. Also biting satire of society in the past, present, and future. :smalltongue:

Speaker for the Dead (and it's sequels but mostly Speaker) though Card is still a huge jackass.

Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons. Cantebury Tales in space is not only a great idea, but he executes it quite masterfully and the final product is evocative and provocative.

I don't think LotR counts as modern anymore.

And that's about it.

[Catch]

I entirely and flatly disagree.

You are of course entitled to your opinion, though.

Prove your case.

You cite three fantasy authors as the best living novelists, so already you're at a biased disadvantage.


Yes I can though. To quote TVtropes, "Good writers understand tropes and use them as tools, using them to control audience expectations (either by using them straight or by subverting them) and to convey things to the audience quickly without saying them." All literature follows them to some degree, for hundreds of years. And yes there are bad authors who write like they're filling out a check list, but good authors can make them interesting and unique.

Good writers do understand story forms, and do utilize them to create an effective narrative. Great writers do more, use more, and exemplify the skills of the author's craft, to the point where others are following in their footsteps. Knowing how to write a good story is not enough to be classified as literature.


Slight change in topic then, but I'm curious. What more recently written books would you call literature?

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon, Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, off the top of my head. Stay away from recent Toni Morrison books; she's writing for Oprah's book club now, not literary merit. In ten or twenty years, I'd like to see how the works of contemporary authors have lasted. That's the true measure of literature.


You're the one that implied that literature's point is not to tell a story, and said that apparently classic literature has some mysterious higher standard than any other book, which I don't believe.

I said literature does more than tell a story. In fact, I've been repeatedly saying so, but every response you give comes back to your conclusion that literature only pretends to tell a story. It does, and it must.


All books should be judged exactly the same.

Are you sure? Cast into the crucible reserved for literature, the stalwartly-defended fantasy novels upheld in this thread are sloughed off as dross. A waste of the reader's time, when there are better characters, better stories, and better books. Not even worth reading.

But perhaps they have their own value, weighed for what they are, rather than what they ought to be.


If the intent was not to write a story at all but solely to impart some deep wisdom, then a book was not the proper format. I know that this doesn't apply to most of classic literature, but there are books out there that exist solely to prove the author's point and they're still considered a classic by many, i.e. Ayn Rand and Chinua Achebe

And Ayn Rand is considered a classic writer by many of the English teacher's I've met. I've had to read her books before, and I know that she's a suggested author to read in order to prepare for the AP English Exam. Whose point are you proving here?

Well, that explains your preoccupation with messages - Ayn Rand novels are not literature, they're self-indulgent propaganda dressed in prose and paraded as fiction. For a woman so focused on artistic integrity, she couldn't even tell a good story. I'm sorry you've had to slog through her sermons, and disappointed that English professors are favoring high concepts with all the finesse of a Horatio Alger novella. That's exactly what writing should not do - that is, nourish a story's theme at the expense of the narrative.

Honestly, English teachers don't know the first plot point about writing well, so they dissect themes and motifs, which is why so many students are disillusioned to the idea of literature by the time they reach college. To understand quality writing, educators need reduce their focus on what the author has said and examine how it was done.


This does indeed come off as rather condescending. For one thing, I've already said that I do read classic literature. Not as much as I would like to, but I have no time and even less money (and no real public library) so I don't have easy access to them. To paint me as some ignorant idiot who only ever reads fantasy and is trying to claim that fantasy is the best genre ever is unfair to me. I don't believe that all fantasy is even remotely good, and I don't believe that the majority of classic literature is bad in any way.

It's not my intention to offend. But, experience has shown me that misunderstanding the value and quality of good writing is rooted in not having read enough or not having read closely. Some of what is considered literature is quite lacking in certain areas, but is so masterful in others that it cannot be completely discarded. Finnegans Wake by James Joyce is an example, in that the book is highly experimental in language and structure, but at points it abandons plot and character entirely. I wouldn't read it for a greater understanding of the narrative form, but there's value in the aesthetic. I suppose it does come across that I'm placing literature on an unassailable pedestal, but my point is that a book is considered to have literary merit because it's succeed masterfully in several areas, placing it above novels that are just good. Every author is superior in certain areas and lags in others, always. Literature is much the same, but collectively, the novels we call literary have done everything better than their peers.


You seem to be saying "There is absolutely no way that fantasy could ever be compared to what classic literature. It is juvenile [your comparison to See Spot Run] and is incapable of having any underlying themes or any other value than entertainment. The very best of fantasy is inherently inferior to the very worst "classic" literature."

This is my understanding of what you said, please correct me where I misunderstood you. I just don't agree that fantasy is inherently inferior to classic works, and I believe that there are some fantasy books that could become a classic work in time.

I'm saying that standard genre fare is inferior to the exemplars of literature because it's standard. Average. Well-crafted, but unremarkable. Good, but not good enough. There are fantasy works that are valued as literature, and many, many that are not, both on merit of writing quality, not genre. What seems to be hanging people up is the suggestion that certain subject matter is inferior, which I don't believe is true. Only that many genre books walk in the larger footsteps of their predecessors and don't radically innovate or excel. Writing a mediocre novel will have you forgotten rather quickly, but authors of genre fiction are lent a certain longevity, because the subject matter of their novels is what initially attracts readers, not the quality of the work.


Lets take a book, that book has won a quantity of awards....American Gods by Mr Neil Gaiman.

Can it be considered literature?

It's an impressive work, I agree. And time will tell if it joins the ranks of literary canon, because that definition is measured by both quality and endurance.

[Mr. Scaly]

Which is well and good but the important thing is to move beyond formula into a genuine engagement with the reader.

There are many answers to this, and plenty of them have been suggested already in this thread.

1) Insight into universal truths
2) Skill with the language itself
3) Genuine engagement with the audience
4) Possessed of an obsessive vision

And so forth.

But novels do have that if they're good enough.

EDITS: Ack, the internet cut out when I was literally in mid edit. I was saying that there are plenty of novels today that possess all of that and that I would consider on par with older works.


Change, that seems a little like describing the difference between two different kinds of apples to me.

I did read The Colour Purple. It was one of those novels that I personally hate but can't put it down for whatever reason. For myself, I finally managed to get a copy of Watership Down. A very good good imo.

[Talya]

I will also say that, in light of this, the only way to really tell if something is literature is to see if it stands the test of time, because that is more-or-less what literature is by definition (I see this as equivalent to being "irreplaceable.")



This generally appears to be true. Note, however, that much of what today is considered great literature, and has withstood the test of time, as you say, was considered pulp-trash in its day. (See Arthur Conan Doyle.)

The scary part of that, is in two hundred years, it could be stuff that we today consider utter pop-crap that people consider great literature.

[Quincunx]

Alright then..... a question for the literature buffs/snobs/nerds/however you define yourselves.

Lets take a book, that book has won a quantity of awards (not that that's a gauge of quality, made that mistake once, ended up with a bloody doorstopper of a book about a gay nazi officer who recycles into textile after the war, boring as all hell). Furthermore, that book is recent, and is defined as fantasy (in that classical sense, like in a Maupassant novella).

The book in question is American Gods by Mr Neil Gaiman. It's a oneshot book, relatively short at around 400 pages if memory serves, and very character driven. It explores the nature of divinity, the struggle between the values of the past and the advances of the modern world, and the very soul of the United States. It is, at times, funny, deep, insightful, touching, sad, scary plus many other things. That it is good is not the question here, you like it or you do not I guess, but it was a commercial and critical success.

Can it be considered literature, despite being sold on the same, apparently shameful shelves then RR Martin, Jordan, Adams, and all the sci-fy/fantasy crew and being less then half a century, and indeed less then ten years old?

Afraid not. I'd thought about that when Gaiman was first put forward as 'best living novelist' but dismissed it, and the mention of Smoke and Mirrors cemented it by showing the distance between what he's best at (swift and sympathetic characterization--see the story about the photographer, name forgotten, and its protagonist) and what he's worst at (setting otherworldly moods--the missing quality in the girl in the photo shoot). In a metaphor, literature should walk with me along the road to its revelation; Gaiman just points in the direction I should walk, and I don't trust his knowledge of the path. Why, after the collaboration with Pratchett showed him that godly figures were more real and more divine by contrast when real people were trying to communicate with them, did he pick a protagonist who had no such urge? What's worse, he's aware of this shortcoming yet seems powerless to fix it. The novel gains focus in fits and starts. Several pages after Wednesday snaps at Shadow for displaying that lack of focus in the book, a fine bit of characterization on both parts, the text has descended back into muddiness in parts which have nothing to do with Shadow-granted-an-excuse-for-muddiness. However, since it is both widely-read and aspires to more (without achieving it), I won't be surprised when it turns up on a required reading list as an example of '00s literature.

*****

A great author, literature or not, leaves me dazzled and saying, "I would never have thought to write like that!" After reading the good author, I think, "I would like to be able to write like that." Hurling the bad author's work away, I shout, "Hell, I can write better than this crap!" (and go do so).

[averagejoe]

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Quincunx. Something about American Gods always fell short, but I could never properly express it.

A Song of Fire and Ice, as I've said before, is interesting as a reactionary piece to post-Tolkien fantasy, as well as something that is, at the least, better written and more innovative than most of the pulp fantasy that has come out of late. Someone grouped Martin and Jordan together, but the gulf between them is certainly vast, even if ASoFaI is just the fantasy nerds' equivalent of The DaVinci Code. I don't know if it will survive after it has ceased to be relevant, but it does have a lot of points in its favor. At the very least, it might signal a shift in the way pulp fantasy is written for the near future. I suppose it's also bad form to talk about a series that isn't done yet.

Speaker for the Dead was basically a lot of people analyzing each other psychologically without end. As is often said, "They tell you in writing 101, 'Show, don't tell.'" The characterization also tended to be rather shallow. As a whole it was much less interesting and well written than its predecessor, even if that one did have more plot holes.

Hyperion was quite a fascinating read in its own right. In the end, though, I think it suffers too much from obviously trying to be literary, and that tends to be as great a sin as an over reliance on cliffhangers to keep your audience interested, or one-word characterization. Literary allusions are not a bad thing, but this, "Look at me, I'm making literary allusions," attitude tends to be pretentious and annoying. Plus he made the mistake of writing a sequel which 1) was inferior, 2) messed with things we thought were true from the were true from its predecessors, and 3) that planet with only two species was thermodynamically impossible, and not interesting enough to justify such a construct anyways. The last one is rather petty, but it bugs me.

[Hida Reju]

David Weber for the Honor Harrington series of Military Sci Fi.

[Ozymandias]

Speaker for the Dead was basically a lot of people analyzing each other psychologically without end. As is often said, "They tell you in writing 101, 'Show, don't tell.'" The characterization also tended to be rather shallow. As a whole it was much less interesting and well written than its predecessor, even if that one did have more plot holes.

While I would hesitate to defend Speaker for the Dead as a work of literature, I feel obligated to point out that my favorite book consists largely of characters psychoanalyzing other characters and themselves. That book is actually The Brothers Karamazov, which is considered among the greatest books ever written by more or less everybody, with a few exceptions (Nabokov, for one, who, in addition to being a peerless stylistic genius was an insufferable jackass). Russians in general and Dostoevsky in particular do a lot of "telling", as you put it, and it isn't necessarily ineffective, although I agree that what they teach you in writing 101 (hearsay; I never took it) is true in general.

Also I'd like to reinforce the sentiment that American Gods lacked focus and not how it is also sort of pointlessly disgusting at parts.