The other kind of classic novel

[burntpunk]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/dec/08/classic-novel-new-york-review

I find this article relevant to our literary world. We live in a postmodern world where the power and influence of the internet has enabled us to judge and have opinions on matters we have little experience with. I'm considered a literary buff in comparison to the average citizen in society, and the truth is that I barely read anything, instead, I read about these great works. It’s a poor representation of society. After all, everyone has mad complicated lives, so in our minute allocated reading time do we grab the nearest Dan Brown novel and absorb, or do we commit suicide? Brown may not be ideal, but reading is reading, and that is progress. Reading Tolstoy may be greater for the individual and society, but who does read Tolstoy? I am sure that a fraction of people will trump up and say they do, and only a fraction of those read the novels cover-to-cover, and only a fraction of what remains, has understood and absorbed the literary merits of the novels.

I recently made a literary list of novels that I wanted to read, the novels that are universally canonised as the crème-de-la-crème, by everyone. I strolled into the cathedral-sized Waterstones in Birmingham with that list, and spent the day there, flicking through the opening pages of each novel, seeing what genuinely excites me, what genuinely stimulates me, what genuinely provokes me. I am looking for the novel that has literary merits that I can appreciate, the common educated but not academic reader.

I pick up Wuthering Heights with disdain, I've read about Wuthering Heights, I understand why it qualifies for the canon and why it's one of the greatest novels ever, but if reading the novel is an effort, then it’s an antique and not worth my time. The canon is vast, we can afford to be picky, we can afford to wait for that novel that combines literary merit in the academic and critical eye.

This is a world of Twitter and Facebook, our concentration levels have diminished. Sneer at Twilight all you want, but people choose to read Twilight for pure hedonistic pleasure, not out of some false need to conform to what others value as literary merit. As a nation, we are so poorly-read that we cannot establish our own values, thus, we rely upon sales, recommendations, reviews and lists, we can never truly find what we want. In such a vast world, my flawed method of trial and error, sifting through the canon, led me to certain novelists that combine what I love, and it’s ignited my passion for literature once more. {edit}

The canon is excellent as a map, but if you follow the map too much, you’ll kill the adventure. My trial and error is a flawed method, but in an overwhelming world of literature, it’s the only method for me. The English Language is becoming more reductionist to fit in with our time-fascist world, antiquity is no longer valued, our next decade will hinge upon a new sort of novel, that however between being philosophical and slender.

[mal4mac]

You can always increase your reading time if you want to, no one is forcing you to have a minute allocated reading time. Reading Tolstoy *is* a much greater experience for me than reading Dan Brown.

Many people read Tolstoy! Otherwise the major paperback publishers wouldn't have so many translations on the shelves. How do you know only a fraction of people read Tolstoy cover to cover? I find it difficult to imagine anyone doing anything else once they have started reading them. What better way is there to spend your time? I'm sure I haven't understood and absorbed all the literary merits of Tolstoy's novels, but I find then a great pleasure, isn't that enough?

I'm a common educated but not academic reader. Reading a few pages in a bookshop is not giving Tolstoy a chance. Why not buy a cheap copy of War & Peace (preferably the Maude translation!) and try a hundred or so pages, making a bit of effort to get through any difficult bits .. the effort is worth it! Now see if you can stop reading...

I read Tolstoy mainly for pure hedonistic pleasure, but he gives a lot more than that. I don't feel a need to conform to what others value as literary merit. It's just every time I descend to reading writers like Brown or King I can't wait to get back to Tolstoy.

[Drkshadow03]

You can always increase your reading time if you want to, no one is forcing you to have a minute allocated reading time.

Well, there are those pesky things called jobs, family responsibilities, chores, etc. that eat into reading time.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Yes, just because society seems to think that we have to live in the constant, constant, doesn't mean that we really have to. I just don't get one bit of your post's arguments at all. Just relax a little and enjoy.

[Jozanny]

The point isn't whether or not you can get by on summaries. You can try, and succeed or fail accordingly, and you can certainly fool people into thinking you are more than you actually are. There is an English film called the Pretender or The Great Pretender, and the soundtrack is in fact the popular romantic song, about an ambulance driver who fakes getting his medical license. He not only kills patients by accident, but kills the few people who find him out. It is not a great film, but I found it a chilling tale of how fraud creates its own amorality.

If you are hostile to literature why should I care? What is the point of your hostility if you yourself don't want to put any effort into it?

[prendrelemick]

Yours is an interesting theory burntpunk, I would have agreed with you about twenty years ago, when I was intmidated by just the thought of reading Tolstoy or Homer. Nowadays I am constantly suprised just how readable the "Great Classics" are, when you take time to open them. I believe a book that is too difficult or too academic cannot be called Great Literature.
The Classics, by default, have stood the test of time and been enjoyed by millions. They have done this by being entertaining, accessible and readable, in fact just like Tolstoy is.

[sixsmith]

Burnt,

I agree that ours is by and large an age of consumption and superficial gratification. But it is not an age of tyranny. People who enjoy reading Tolstoy and Proust will find time to read Tolstoy and Proust. If they enjoy the poetry of Sara Teasdale, then they will find time to read that. Of course, we've all met cultural pecksniffs who read to condescend: very often they become academics. A loser is still a loser. But what do you care. My advice would be to stop worrying so much about what you are reading (and certainly about what others are reading) and just concentrate on actually reading.

[stlukesguild]

...just because society seems to think that we have to live in the constant, constant, doesn't mean that we really have to. I just don't get one bit of your post's arguments at all. Just relax a little and enjoy.

I must say I'm with Neely on this. I just don't get what you are arguing at all. I have read far more than the average person, perhaps... but I'm no academic. I think of myself as a "common reader" (as Virginia Woolf spoke of them)... or a bibliophile... one who loves books and reading. My discipline isn't even in the field of literature. I read for pleasure. I recognize that there are some forms of pleasure that are worth the effort. If they aren't for you, fine... but don't try to justify what might strike many as an inherent laziness by suggesting that if something does not immediately click for you it must be antique and not worth your time... or that your aversion to reading is symptomatic of our time. I doubt that the majority of humanity... at least in the West... has ever had more access to reading and/or more free time in which to indulge in a passion for reading. I've always been of the belief that I am not reading merely to reinforce my own beliefs, values, thoughts... my own biases and even prejudices. I read because such is a means of engaging in a dialog with people of different beliefs, different experiences, different thoughts... different times and places.

The point isn't whether or not you can get by on summaries. You can try, and succeed or fail accordingly, and you can certainly fool people into thinking you are more than you actually are.

It would seem that reading summaries rather than the actual books misses the whole point of reading... which is not the destination, but the experience. It would seem to be like assuming the menu and the meal are one and the same thing... that phone sex or sex on the internet is the same as the real thing.

[JBI]

The problem with these ideas is they take the academies, apply them as standards, and don't realize that the objective of the academy is almost always political, or cultural ends, whereas the objective of readers in general is built upon perhaps other feelings.

The Canon is a map for students of literature more than anything else. What other people read is of no concern for the canon, or for "literature" as a discipline. The fact that Twilight is even mentioned at all is irrelevant given that nobody in their right mind would write a study on it and hope to become a great literary scholar (unless they were beyond lucky and managed to mix it in with another discipline).

Outside of the academy, it doesn't matter. I could accuse most "canon" readers of being ethnically biased, or whatever, but I aught not to bother, given that they as readers only are reading for their own ends. When somebody tries to pull Twilight as discussion-worthy though, that's when I draw the line - until then, it makes no difference. What one reads on their own free time has little baring on anything else.

[Brad Coelho]

Burnt Troll ;) Perhaps gluing his eyes to Anna Karenina w/ an automatic page-flipper is in order? Clockwork Orange style, of course.

[JCamilo]

The problem starts with the article. The only main objective of the article is trying to say that the word "classic" has changed the meaning again. And then implies that this new deffinition somehow challenges the old one while anyone should just consider that this new definition is only true within a new context and not somehow nullify the old, which is not even the first deffinition of classic.
Of course the author of the article also forgets that Classic as the books that belong to the canon, are not an individual defintion, after all it depends of decades of reading by different societies.


Then watever this guys concludes from it. The majority of the population never read the classics. Either they didnt read anything at all or just read several other works who are forgettable. It is not anything new. And it is not the internet that allowed people talk about any subject without knowing an inch about it. They do it since immemorial time - Schopenhauer in the XIX century already complained about it. The speed and ammount of information of Internet, the form, are new. But what allow your opinion to have any merit is something called democracy, and it is the merit of individual freedom.

And if you think something must be bad because the effort...meh, Michael Jordan certainly made a lot of points as if they are easy.

[blazeofglory]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/dec/08/classic-novel-new-york-review

I find this article relevant to our literary world. We live in a postmodern world where the power and influence of the internet has enabled us to judge and have opinions on matters we have little experience with. I'm considered a literary buff in comparison to the average citizen in society, and the truth is that I barely read anything, instead, I read about these great works. It’s a poor representation of society. After all, everyone has mad complicated lives, so in our minute allocated reading time do we grab the nearest Dan Brown novel and absorb, or do we commit suicide? Brown may not be ideal, but reading is reading, and that is progress. Reading Tolstoy may be greater for the individual and society, but who does read Tolstoy? I am sure that a fraction of people will trump up and say they do, and only a fraction of those read the novels cover-to-cover, and only a fraction of what remains, has understood and absorbed the literary merits of the novels.

I recently made a literary list of novels that I wanted to read, the novels that are universally canonised as the crème-de-la-crème, by everyone. I strolled into the cathedral-sized Waterstones in Birmingham with that list, and spent the day there, flicking through the opening pages of each novel, seeing what genuinely excites me, what genuinely stimulates me, what genuinely provokes me. I am looking for the novel that has literary merits that I can appreciate, the common educated but not academic reader.

I pick up Wuthering Heights with disdain, I've read about Wuthering Heights, I understand why it qualifies for the canon and why it's one of the greatest novels ever, but if reading the novel is an effort, then it’s an antique and not worth my time. The canon is vast, we can afford to be picky, we can afford to wait for that novel that combines literary merit in the academic and critical eye.

This is a world of Twitter and Facebook, our concentration levels have diminished. Sneer at Twilight all you want, but people choose to read Twilight for pure hedonistic pleasure, not out of some false need to conform to what others value as literary merit. As a nation, we are so poorly-read that we cannot establish our own values, thus, we rely upon sales, recommendations, reviews and lists, we can never truly find what we want. In such a vast world, my flawed method of trial and error, sifting through the canon, led me to certain novelists that combine what I love, and it’s ignited my passion for literature once more. {edit}

The canon is excellent as a map, but if you follow the map too much, you’ll kill the adventure. My trial and error is a flawed method, but in an overwhelming world of literature, it’s the only method for me. The English Language is becoming more reductionist to fit in with our time-fascist world, antiquity is no longer valued, our next decade will hinge upon a new sort of novel, that however between being philosophical and slender.
I do not agree with you, for reading classic will fascinate us no matter in which age we are in and of course classics traverse ages and spaces and today also we read Shakespeare and Tolstoy. I have recently finished Dostoevsky's the Brothers Karamazov with great passions and of course he was far better than Dan Brown or any other post modern novelists. I am not underestimating post modernists or those who write with genres of magic reality. You cannot judge a writer this way. Your judgments are ostensible, not deep in point of fact.

[kelby_lake]

Classics do have more sophisticated vocabulary and style than your average book. You can't just glance at the first page of a classic and make a decision. It involves work- shock horror- though it's probably better to start young.

The writer of that article is just stupid. He shouldn't celebrate his own ignorance; yes, we should be celebrating worthy new work and the classics that get overshadowed, but without the knowledge of classic literature the argument is weak.

[neilgee]

Many people read Tolstoy! Otherwise the major paperback publishers wouldn't have so many translations on the shelves. How do you know only a fraction of people read Tolstoy cover to cover? I find it difficult to imagine anyone doing anything else once they have started reading them. What better way is there to spend your time? I'm sure I haven't understood and absorbed all the literary merits of Tolstoy's novels, but I find then a great pleasure, isn't that enough?



I must admit [without trying to play devil's advocate here] that I did first read Tolstoy at Uni, but having said that I found him quite readable from the start, and The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a fascinating and absorbing story well worth reading more than once.


Y I believe a book that is too difficult or too academic cannot be called Great Literature.


I think that's correct, prendrelemick. The only book among the "classics" that's unreadable is Beowulf, and as far as I know that's because there was nothing else written at that time.

Dan Brown! - Lord! I read The Davinci Code just to see what all the fuss was about. I still don't know! The man's idea of describing a mood change was to use 3 words "His blood boiled". It's just bad writing.

[stlukesguild]

I believe a book that is too difficult or too academic cannot be called Great Literature.

I think that's correct, prendrelemick. The only book among the "classics" that's unreadable is Beowulf, and as far as I know that's because there was nothing else written at that time.

Too difficult for whom? Are we assuming that the difficulty of a given text for the average high-school student is the measure of literature... or what exactly is the standard for "unreadability"? Personally, I had no problem with Beowulf... unless you are speaking of reading the book in the original Old English/Anglo Saxon... in which case there are any number who are capable of this as well. Little, indeed, has survived from this period outside of a number of shorter poems. I remember one article which noted that the works of Dickens alone was far larger than the whole of extant Anglo-Saxon literature, but how should that affect whether a given work is or is not a classic?

[JBI]

I believe a book that is too difficult or too academic cannot be called Great Literature.

I think that's correct, prendrelemick. The only book among the "classics" that's unreadable is Beowulf, and as far as I know that's because there was nothing else written at that time.

Too difficult for whom? Are we assuming that the difficulty of a given text for the average high-school student is the measure of literature... or what exactly is the standard for "unreadability"? Personally, I had no problem with Beowulf... unless you are speaking of reading the book in the original Old English/Anglo Saxon... in which case there are any number who are capable of this as well. Little, indeed, has survived from this period outside of a number of shorter poems. I remember one article which noted that the works of Dickens alone was far larger than the whole of extant Anglo-Saxon literature, but how should that affect whether a given work is or is not a classic?

Great to who is also a good question - I would think that academics care neither for stylistic difficulty (note, difficulty not simplicity) or for range of readership. The canon also takes neither into consideration. Chaucer is hard to read, but he won't go anywhere, because he is relevant to everybody studying English literature, and particularly important for anybody specializing in English literature before 1800. Whether people like him, or find him easy is beside the point.

In contrast, Twilight has no baring on anything - it is culturally insignificant, stylistically insignificant, perhaps a little politically relevant from a cultural view, but other than that - a useless pile of words.

The study of literature isn't based on aesthetics, it is based on the importance of texts to the tradition, no matter which school of thought one belongs to.

As for general readership, well they aught not to concern themselves with Canons - they aught to read what they want - it's not as if they are Jude the Obscure types hoping to make it into the academy as a genius - the academy itself is dying in the field of English anyway. People don't realize that books, and reading all the good books aren't the goal, and shouldn't be the goal of reading, unless it is a profession.

For me, reading is a perspective profession, so I read English, Italian, French, and Chinese works, and works about them, because those are the areas that I study - outside of that, there is no purpose in reading anything if not to a) challenge oneself, and b) understand culture - but even then...

Seriously, you'll realize that all the people who read all these canonical works for a living also read a great deal of other stuff that is not so good. The stretched thin person clinging to a tradition and trying to absorb it is really wasting their time anyway - better to just read with a road map, and change direction on impulse - you get a lot more nice finds that way.

[prendrelemick]

I believe a book that is too difficult or too academic cannot be called Great Literature.

I think that's correct, prendrelemick. The only book among the "classics" that's unreadable is Beowulf, and as far as I know that's because there was nothing else written at that time.

Too difficult for whom? Are we assuming that the difficulty of a given text for the average high-school student is the measure of literature... or what exactly is the standard for "unreadability"? Personally, I had no problem with Beowulf... unless you are speaking of reading the book in the original Old English/Anglo Saxon... in which case there are any number who are capable of this as well. Little, indeed, has survived from this period outside of a number of shorter poems. I remember one article which noted that the works of Dickens alone was far larger than the whole of extant Anglo-Saxon literature, but how should that affect whether a given work is or is not a classic?

Thinking about what I said. At the time I was contemplating the most basic raison d'etre of "a book", which is to be read. Literature is something more, I'm sure, but I still think it should be readable first and foremost, for most people, otherwise it fails in its first requirement.

But my main point was that, on the whole, Great Literature is readable, and that is an important ingredient of its status.

[mal4mac]

I disagree with a lot in that Guardian article. I don't burn with shame for not having read certain books, I'm just worried I might be missing out on something good. There are a few of Dickens' novels I haven't read and am burning with impatience to get to them (I've made a pledge to read some other writers before finishing the set...)

I also agree with quite a lot in the article! I read The old Man and the Sea several decades ago, and it does sit there in memory as something I should read again. I watched the BBc's production of Patrick Hamilton's Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky and it was wonderful, One of their best costume dramas. The book's now definitely on my list.

The nyrb classics are good buys. I have "The Anatomy of Melancholy" by Richard Burton, with an excellent introduction by William H. Glass. The editorial & paper quality are top notch, for paperbacks.

I've just read an excellent essay by Samuel Johnson (Rambler #4) on what makes a classic novel. I read Johnson because I was told he was "the canonical critic". He's also great fun to read. My "common reading" life has become more enjoyable through trying to read more of "the canon", so JBI is wrong about "the canon" only being for literature students trying to score academic brownie points.

[JCamilo]

Not to mention some of the canonical works achived such status because their influence on everyday language, so we are more adapted to read those works than some of th original readers. So being readable is irrelevant.

[kelby_lake]

Thinking about what I said. At the time I was contemplating the most basic raison d'etre of "a book", which is to be read. Literature is something more, I'm sure, but I still think it should be readable first and foremost, for most people, otherwise it fails in its first requirement.

But my main point was that, on the whole, Great Literature is readable, and that is an important ingredient of its status.

Literature can be Great even if it is elitest. If it is utterly impenetrable, perhaps not.

[neilgee]

Too difficult for whom? Are we assuming that the difficulty of a given text for the average high-school student is the measure of literature... or what exactly is the standard for "unreadability"? Personally, I had no problem with Beowulf...

That's rather insulting to high-school students, but we are obviously getting into a realm of personal tastes here.

You had no problem with Beowulf but JBI cites Chaucer as difficult reading, yet I find Chaucer easier to read than Beowulf.



The nyrb classics are good buys. I have "The Anatomy of Melancholy" by Richard Burton, with an excellent introduction by William H. Glass. The editorial & paper quality are top notch, for paperbacks.



I came across this one at Uni where it was described as one long rant from start to finish. Personally I find rants difficult to read.

[JBI]

That's rather insulting to high-school students, but we are obviously getting into a realm of personal tastes here.

You had no problem with Beowulf but JBI cites Chaucer as difficult reading, yet I find Chaucer easier to read than Beowulf.



I came across this one at Uni where it was described as one long rant from start to finish. Personally I find rants difficult to read.

Well, modernized Chaucer is as easy as Beowulf - real Chaucer is harder than modernized Beowulf, and real Beowulf is harder than real Chaucer, given the removal of language. Still, one must factor in the removal of language.

Either way though, difficulty is irrelevant, as is readership scope. Studying literature is historical if anything, and studying classics is definitely historical. The discourse isn't looking for pop culture hits to study - it is looking for history first and foremost, regardless of difficulty - what kind of history is another matter, but it is doubtful that Twilight will make a splash on the discourse - it may make a splash on the pop culture discourse, but that has nothing to do with literary canons.


The article just seems to discuss American toss novels as relevant reading for the world - the fact that Dickens is perhaps the most readable Victorian novelist is beside the point - the fact that Dickens wrote witty, accessible prose is beside the point - some American publisher wants to make a quick buck, so he creates a new "classic" centered around the American popular novel, and no name one hit New York Fiction that doesn't have much scope, appeal, or substance. It's all business after all, whereas the academies are in a different business.

[JCamilo]

Yeah, if try to read Kafka in german, it will be difficulty. Obviously, it is a non-argument. You only need one reader of Finnegans Wake to prove it is readable.

Anyways, the article indeed try to use the promotional use of classic, books or movies that are realeased and called as classic exactly that sametime. It is obviously impossible, as the classic - which is the one who is status - is related to tradition, tradition requires time, my lifetime is not time enough.

[stlukesguild]

Well, modernized Chaucer is as easy as Beowulf - real Chaucer is harder than modernized Beowulf, and real Beowulf is harder than real Chaucer

And my point certainly was in reply to a translation of Beowulf for I assume that few people outside of specialists are reading Beowulf in Old English... and I took it that the initial comment was in relationship to a translation of Beowulf. Chaucer in the original would certainly be more of a challenge than a translation of Beowulf... and Piers Plowman might be even more difficult.

Yeah, if (you) try to read Kafka in German, it will be difficult... Obviously, it is a non-argument.

Not if you can read German.:D I'm assuming that JBI was pointing out the difficulty of the older forms of English... and certainly the archaic forms and vocabulary of any language presents challenges the further one goes back in time... even for those fluent in the language. With Beowulf the language is so far removed from what we know as English as to be essentially a whole different language.

[JCamilo]

Yup, my point, albeit my copy of Beowulf have the old english version and I try to go reading it and of course is harder. Original Chaucer is not. I had no trouble understanding Trollius and Cresayde or the Tales when I read it. But then, since english is not my language I hardly read translating every word, so, chaucer was not so alien or harder.

[JBI]

Well, modernized Chaucer is as easy as Beowulf - real Chaucer is harder than modernized Beowulf, and real Beowulf is harder than real Chaucer

And my point certainly was in reply to a translation of Beowulf for I assume that few people outside of specialists are reading Beowulf in Old English... and I took it that the initial comment was in relationship to a translation of Beowulf. Chaucer in the original would certainly be more of a challenge than a translation of Beowulf... and Piers Plowman might be even more difficult.

Yeah, if (you) try to read Kafka in German, it will be difficult... Obviously, it is a non-argument.

Not if you can read German.:D I'm assuming that JBI was pointing out the difficulty of the older forms of English... and certainly the archaic forms and vocabulary of any language presents challenges the further one goes back in time... even for those fluent in the language. With Beowulf the language is so far removed from what we know as English as to be essentially a whole different language.

Well that is Joyce to an extent too though - I know of a professor, for instance, who can define almost any Joyce word in Ulysses without notes, and understands most of the references without footnotes or sidenotes - there are specialists trained. Likewise, down the road, the language of any of these other authors will complicate.

Dickens' sales indicate him a very populist author - he was readable, and though a little Victorian in terms of today's standards (the back-dialects he plays with certainly seem to have faded from literary writing, and are absent in American prose) is still an easy read.

Nobody is saying that poetry is just Joyce and Hart Crane. Beowulf itself wasn't a particularly difficult poem in its time - language is always a barrier, but in and of itself is not a justification for ignoring works. Poetry, for instance, is taken at being hard, but any serious reader of poetry doesn't find it, I would wager, particularly difficult to read a poem that is good and get something out of it. They may not get every reference, but it isn't any more challenging than any other form.

The semi-literate just want to seem like they are more authoritative than the academy, or that they determine or should determine what the academy studies. It's all nonsense. The academy is the academy because it doesn't listen to the common people and exists as a discipline outside of the common tastes - Shakespeare was pretty much the most famous dramatist of his time, being paired with Chaucer in Jonson's introductory poem to the First Folio. Does that have a bearing on his career now, perhaps. Then again, Christopher Smart wasn't published until recent times, yet he has a reputation - did the lack of early attention offset him, no.

Really this whole "other canon" is a mere gimmick by some entrepreneurs to sell to a niche market. But even if they become the "new canon," they still will be as "tedious" as the old. The only difference will be that their name is on the spine and not Penguin's.

[mal4mac]

I came across this one at Uni where it was described as one long rant from start to finish. Personally I find rants difficult to read.

Who described Burton's Anatomy that way? Did you read it? I read the whole thing and found it mostly personal, satirical and humorous. As it's very long, and there are detailed digressions on outmoded medicine & many lists, I will not be re-reading the whole thing. But I'll certainly be re-reading the majority of it.

Nicholas Lezard says this about the NYRB paperback: "Paperback not so much of the week as of the year, of the decade - or, I am inclined to say, of all time. And why? Because it's the best book ever written, that's why. It's not a novel, a tract, an epic poem, a history; it is, quite self-consciously, the book to end all books. Made out of all the books that existed in a 17th-century library, it was compiled in order to explain and account for all human emotion and thought... it is not just Burton's thoughts on the subject of melancholy, but the thoughts of everyone who had ever thought about it, or about other things, whether that be goblins, beauty, the geography of America, digestion, the passions, drink, kissing, jealousy, or scholarship. Burton, you suspect, felt the miseries of scholars keenly."

This might be slightly over the top, but only slightly -- there is a paperback version of the RSC Complete Shakespeare.

"he is a rollicking, more-ish writer, from an age that produced the nation's best prose. The Latin is all translated, apart from a bit about the aphrodisiac diet of the Sybarites, as this is a reprint of the 1932 edition. And not only that, but it's useful: it makes you less melancholy. So buy it now."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2001/aug/18/history.philosophy/print

[neilgee]

Who described Burton's Anatomy that way? Did you read it? I read the whole thing and found it mostly personal, satirical and humorous. As it's very long, and there are detailed digressions on outmoded medicine & many lists, I will not be re-reading the whole thing. But I'll certainly be re-reading the majority of it.



It was the Head of English at Manchester Uni, Mal, and he read out this particular passage from How Love Tyrannizeth Over Men to support his opinion:

What breach of vows and oaths, fury, dotage, madness, might I reckon up? Yet this is more tolerable in youth, and such as are still in their hot blood; but for an old fool to dote, to see an old lecher, what more odious, what can be more absurd? and yet what so common? Who so furious? Amare ea ætate si occiperint, multo insaniunt acrius. Some dote then more than ever they did in their youth. How many decrepit, hoary, harsh, writhen, bursten-bellied, crooked, toothless, bald, blear-eyed, impotent, rotten, old men shall you see flickering still in every place? One gets him a young wife, another a courtesan, and when he can scarce lift his leg over a sill, and hath one foot already in Charon's boat, when he hath the trembling in his joints, the gout in his feet, a perpetual rheum in his head, "a continuate cough," his sight fails him, thick of hearing, his breath stinks, all his moisture is dried up and gone, may not spit from him, a very child again, that cannot dress himself, or cut his own meat, yet he will be dreaming of, and honing after wenches, what can be more unseemly? Worse it is in women than in men, when she is ætate declivis, diu vidua, mater olim, parum decore matrimonium sequi videtur, an old widow, a mother so long since ( in Pliny's opinion) , she doth very unseemly seek to marry, yet whilst she is so old a crone, a beldam, she can neither see, nor hear, go nor stand, a mere carcass, a witch, and scarce feel; she caterwauls, and must have a stallion, a champion, she must and will marry again, and betroth herself to some young man, that hates to look on, but for her goods; abhors the sight of her, to the prejudice of her good name, her own undoing, grief of friends, and ruin of her children.

.................................................. ..................................................

To me, that is ranting, and that is why I've supported my old tutor's opinion here, but I've just looked at another section of the book and that is more soberly written so it's obviously an exaggeration to say the whole work was like that. It was all spoken in good humour, he seemed to find it all quite amusing. I should have read more for myself but after that example I didn't think I could face reading it all.

[stlukesguild]

One can always find a section of a work of literature that one may quote to prove virtually any personal thesis. Ironically, Burton himself makes extensive use of quotes, misquotes, and mis-attributed quotes in his great tome. Is it a rant? I couldn't care less as long as it were a brilliantly written one. Arguably, Dante's Comedia is one monster of a rant.

[Koa]

The fact that Twilight is even mentioned at all is irrelevant given that nobody in their right mind would write a study on it and hope to become a great literary scholar (unless they were beyond lucky and managed to mix it in with another discipline).


This sentence made me shiver. I am in academia (and looking forward to getting out of it, but that's another story) and ever so grateful every time I see something low-brow treated with interest. I deal with popular culture myself, and I find it far more interesting to judge why on earth people enjoy Twilight or Harry Potter (yes, to me they are the same cr**, even though HP does enjoy scholarly attention) than going over Andrey's, or whatever his name was, reflections on the sky at Austerlitz (yes I read War and Peace and thoroughly despised it), for the 50th time in the history of literature. Literary academia seeks original reflection, not the perpetuation of a high-brow canon exclusively. In fact, my (I admit, interdisciplinary) research on some popular middle-brow stuff landed me the money to survive for these three years; a much deeper but certainly less original idea on Tolstoy might have not.

And now I forgot about what else the discussion was about. Yes, I have less and less time for reading, because I don't seek it. Yes, my ability for concentration has gone down the drain and reading constantly for more than 5 minutes is these days an achievement for me. Yes, I am no longer as interested in books as I was a long time ago. Maybe this is why I am feeling closer to the low-brow masses than to the pretentiousness of academia. I want to know HOW and WHY people read, why the choose something over something else, not tell them what they should read to have acceptable taste.

[Koa]

The problem starts with the article. The only main objective of the article is trying to say that the word "classic" has changed the meaning again. And then implies that this new deffinition somehow challenges the old one while anyone should just consider that this new definition is only true within a new context and not somehow nullify the old, which is not even the first deffinition of classic.
Of course the author of the article also forgets that Classic as the books that belong to the canon, are not an individual defintion, after all it depends of decades of reading by different societies.


Then watever this guys concludes from it. The majority of the population never read the classics. Either they didnt read anything at all or just read several other works who are forgettable. It is not anything new. And it is not the internet that allowed people talk about any subject without knowing an inch about it. They do it since immemorial time - Schopenhauer in the XIX century already complained about it. The speed and ammount of information of Internet, the form, are new. But what allow your opinion to have any merit is something called democracy, and it is the merit of individual freedom.

And if you think something must be bad because the effort...meh, Michael Jordan certainly made a lot of points as if they are easy.

Loved this post. I might have to quote you one day....

[Koa]

Not to mention some of the canonical works achived such status because their influence on everyday language, so we are more adapted to read those works than some of th original readers. So being readable is irrelevant.



The article just seems to discuss American toss novels as relevant reading for the world - the fact that Dickens is perhaps the most readable Victorian novelist is beside the point - the fact that Dickens wrote witty, accessible prose is beside the point - some American publisher wants to make a quick buck, so he creates a new "classic" centered around the American popular novel, and no name one hit New York Fiction that doesn't have much scope, appeal, or substance. It's all business after all, whereas the academies are in a different business.

Status, eh? And who decided Dickens is a classic, worthy of academic mention? Not his contemporaries, I assume, nor himself. And am I wrong, or was he writing in instalments? If not him, Dostoevsky certainly was, and a lot of French novelists. Wasn't it business for them? The fact that they actually produced something worthwhile depends on their talent and on the fact that people enjoyed reading them and kept enjoying it (whether for fun or for enlightment) for centuries. Maybe this will happen even to, if not Twilight, to some other popular stuff of these days. Or maybe there wil be no classics from these days and in the year 2350 people will still love Dickens, and naively think Dickens was high-brow "oh-I'm-so-cultured" stuff. Wasn't Dickens the popular culture of his era?* (my Dickens memory are blurry from high school but I don't think I'm too wrong).


*maybe not the Twilight of his era as this Twilight is apparently really low quality, but I barely know what it is. But if Dickens had been crap quality, we wouldn't know of him now.

In short, talent and quality, AND popularity with the public, for whatever reason. NOT high-brow-ness.

[Koa]

The academy is the academy because it doesn't listen to the common people and exists as a discipline outside of the common tastes


And that is why I despise it. Even though many seem to think - thankfully - that nowadays academia should make an effort to be more linked to the real world, instead of a high-brow corner of an obscure elitist and most of all pointless intellectual world. Anyway I deeply disagree with your way of thinking :)

[JBI]

Status, eh? And who decided Dickens is a classic, worthy of academic mention? Not his contemporaries, I assume, nor himself. And am I wrong, or was he writing in instalments? If not him, Dostoevsky certainly was, and a lot of French novelists. Wasn't it business for them? The fact that they actually produced something worthwhile depends on their talent and on the fact that people enjoyed reading them and kept enjoying it (whether for fun or for enlightment) for centuries. Maybe this will happen even to, if not Twilight, to some other popular stuff of these days. Or maybe there wil be no classics from these days and in the year 2350 people will still love Dickens, and naively think Dickens was high-brow "oh-I'm-so-cultured" stuff. Wasn't Dickens the popular culture of his era?* (my Dickens memory are blurry from high school but I don't think I'm too wrong).


*maybe not the Twilight of his era as this Twilight is apparently really low quality, but I barely know what it is. But if Dickens had been crap quality, we wouldn't know of him now.

In short, talent and quality, AND popularity with the public, for whatever reason. NOT high-brow-ness.

Everybody back then was writing in installments... I don't see that as argument worthy... I mentioned him to show that he was popular fiction, and that the bias isn't against popular fiction, but against irrelevant fiction.

Seriously, please read my post before kind of bastardizing it on irrelevant tangents, and then pseudo-quasi agreeing with it in vague language.

As I mentioned, I was talking about the discourse of literature, specifically English literature. Did I say nobody would study Twilight or Potter? Perhaps. There are people who still read popular fiction that has since been forgotten from eras long passed - I mentioned literary scholar, not cultural historian. There is a difference.


To be honest, I don't want to sound rude, but your post neither understands what I say (and I personally don't find it a fault of my language) or speaks coherently, or with any sense of empirical-evidence-backed argument. Dismissing the "masses" as illiterate fails to acknowledge the fact that as of now, in the US and other countries, Romance Novels rein supreme as best selling fiction, with self help books I wager as best selling non-fiction, all read by masses. I guess you think the world illiterate, and you somehow populist in that you neglect your studies.



Why don't you read my posts? If anything I was going against the attitude on these boards of telling people off based on what they read. As I mentioned earlier, the academy doesn't care what people outside of it particularly read, as long as it isn't politically offensive (and even then it isn't too adamant) and neither do I.


Perhaps whatever institution you work for may see literary studies as dealing with "low brow stuff" but from my experience, most people who study literature don't approach it based on contemporary class systems and rather focus on areas, genres, or approaches.

You aren't, for instance, going to see a rennaissance specialist writing about themes in Twilight, nor are you going to see a contemporary African Literature specialist writing about bibliographic trends in Chaucer's England. Maybe where you study literary studies are restricted to books published now, but the history of the academy, and even contemporary trends seem to historicize things - given Minerva's Owl's untimely appearance.

Perhaps you may think that all literature written before now is trash - I don't know you, and don't want to judge, but certainly the academy doesn't, hence the mass publishing on topics as different as Shakespeare, Tang China, Medieval Persia, Soviet Russia, and Meiji Japan - and everything in Between.

To be honest, I don't understand how your understanding of Literary studies as able to even begin to accept a debate as ridiculous as the article proposes. The bulk of stuff seems more concerned with theory, history, and bibliography than whether or not some one-hit unknown dead American idiot is worth publishing over Proust or Dickens.



Then again, I met with an instructor from the writing centre from my university who also doubles as a lecturer for teaching how to properly write, and he noted that the problem with people's writing seems to come from an inability to grasp difficult writing styles. He was of the mind that even if one doesn't read Dickens, one aught not to read Twilight if they want to get anywhere, as the sentences lack real stylistic flair - he was specifically speaking to an audience of English-Second-Language learners wanting to improve their English compositional skills. His main advice was - if you want to go anywhere, sooner or later you will need to challenge yourself, and Twilight or Harry Potter can only take one so far.

I know Harry Potter and Twilight - I read a bit of both in French and Italian, as well as a chunk of the Potters in English. There isn't anything there that is going to teach somebody how to persuasively write.

So from an education viewpoint, the books serve no function - if they cannot teach something - and I do not mean that texts need to be difficult - he also recommended works like Hemingway, and E.B. White for beginners keep in mind, but at least something which shows of good style, and can give something structurally useful to a reader.

So, in the end, perhaps only publishing Twilight may shoot people wanting to gain control in the language in the foot - we could have it that a literary language - the language of scholarship - emerges and functions as a medium opposite of the spoken language - we could go back in time like that, and only allow the "elite" to use it, as they are the only ones with a grip of it - that was the system for thousands of years, keep in mind, or perhaps we could move forward and suggest that people not base what they read solely on how simple the diction and repetetive the prose is.

Dan Brown, Twilight, Potter, Grisham, whomever are not bad people, and the people who read their books are not particularly bad or stupid, or uneducated. However, the people who can and only read them are at an automatic disadvantage to those who can read higher, and will ultimately be restricted on the whole into a class mold. It may be easy for people with English as a first language to see this, or for those of us who can read, but ultimately those who can't will never know.


In that sense, we need people who sift through things - we may not need James Joyce, but we most certainly need Dickens, and Austen, as something studied, even if people do not read them, simply because their political implications, and the way their arguments have shaped the way people read, write, and have read and write are still relevant, whereas Twilight's aren't particularly.

[JBI]

And that is why I despise it. Even though many seem to think - thankfully - that nowadays academia should make an effort to be more linked to the real world, instead of a high-brow corner of an obscure elitist and most of all pointless intellectual world. Anyway I deeply disagree with your way of thinking :)

Do you read Classical Chinese? Should I then not be able to study it, and should academies not publish anything about it, or teach anything about it because only a very select few in Canada, or in the US can read it? We can't all be experts in everything, so maybe we should allow for at least some academic freedom to not sit around and feed the pointless banter of mediocre book clubs debating third-rate toss fiction and arriving at dismally irrelevant syntheses.

Seriously, connecting to the "people" is one thing, but reviewing Twilight is another, and there are people who already do that for a living, so the academy need not bother.

[JCamilo]

I think it is irrelevant if the academy studies or not, frankly. However, they do simple because academics must concern with the volume of human knowledge and well, today literature is what, 1% of humankind knowledge?
I am sure there is interest on high-brow literature, after all they discern the reading modern habits. But of course, an study on Dragonlance books from the literary point of view will demand less than a study about Tolkien that will demand less than a study about Yeats, etc.
So, I do found necessary that the academy studies the twilight of life. But I doubt it will generate more than constatations of his impact in reading habits, readers formation, market configuration,etc. And in the end the faulty is not academic. If you go to a medical school they do not spend most of their time studying diseases who are not more dangerous or you already know everything about it.
The usual reason of High-brow literature for sucess is following a efficient formula (which is plot-based, not language based), to know to whom you are writing and what themes would be popular, marketing and simplicity to allow a quick, forgettable reading. It is pleasant, and not new. We can say that Dickens knew it well, that Mark Twain did know, and minor guys like Dumas or Conan Doyle did knew it well. The difference is that they had explored futher, language and theme is much more stilized or developed. Some guys must be as good as that today, but in the ocean of releases they may be hidden.
And it is the industry that threats high brown literature as forgettable, Not academy. Those cicles of works (vampires, magic, spy, detective, etc) come and go. Why? They will get more money if they have new vampire wave of selling than bringing back Anne Rice. They are going to be those who will find a new Twilight.

As those who decide what the canon is, it just happens. Not an effort from one individual or a some group. Voltaire, who was arguably, the most feared opinion of the XVIII century, disliked Dante and a bit of Shakespeare. But all this opinions, witts sayings, influence could not do anything but add more fuel to their durability. So,if for some reason the academics today are wrong about Stephanie Meyer, they will be forgotten too and she will endure.

[spookymulder93]

I didn't read past the original post but I'm pretty sure he got nailed to the cross for not loving the classics.

I mean something can't become classic until it stands the test of time. So does that mean that most of the things written in our time period won't become classic until we're dead?

[JBI]

I didn't read past the original post but I'm pretty sure he got nailed to the cross for not loving the classics.

I mean something can't become classic until it stands the test of time. So does that mean that most of the things written in our time period won't become classic until we're dead?

No, most won't become classics, period. Now that publishing is undergoing reformatting, the concept of classic is harder to contain. What it spells out is a major revolution in the way we see text, and decide what to read.

[spookymulder93]

No, most won't become classics, period. Now that publishing is undergoing reformatting, the concept of classic is harder to contain. What it spells out is a major revolution in the way we see text, and decide what to read.

Could you go into detail on that?

[JZD]

I would suggest comparing this dichotomy to movies. Some cheap thriller on late at night might be a lot more fun than watching Schindler's List or any other extremely long epic and classic movie. But one should at least try, for the most part, to resist this temptation. Any work of art, be it television, music, literature, film, should serve a multitude of purposes. Immediate enjoyment is of course one, but there are many others. Art should also serve to increase intelligence, enrich one's view of life, teach various lessons, learn about the world. Jersey Shore or Stephanie Meyer will not give one the full experience of great art, it will only give one aspect of it, which is cheap and immediate - and rather mindless - satisfaction. So sure, I think everyone should allow themselves the occasional glib novel or trashy movie. But it should certainly be counter-balanced by a healthy dose of fulfilling and enlightening works of art.

[LMK]

I find this article relevant to our literary...etc., etc.

I agree that discussions about literature are relevant to this forum; however, I would caution anyone who reads anything (even textbooks) and takes its content as sola scriptura. I urge those people to dig deeper, research more and form opinions based on their own findings.

Specifically, with regard to reading a thing on-line; just because it appears on one's screen, does not make it fact, in my opinion. Anyone with access to a computer and the internet (anyone with a library card) can post anything on the World Wide Web...for now, at least. I, for one, have no clue what tomorrow will bring.

With regard to reading, literature, experts, and so on, I am not "into" being labeled, and am not concerned with what someone else calls my knowledge or lack thereof.

What is relevant to our literary society, in my opinion, is simply keeping reading alive. Promoting the reading of whatever someone wants to read, which means to keep available, to whatever extent possible all that has been written.

I don't care to compare my knowledge or opinions with anyone else's, though I will enter into discussions and share them. I doubt you will ever see me try to make someone change their opinion to share mine, because that is not what is important to me. My ego does not require such.

P.S.
I’ve never read Cliff’s Notes, Book Summaries, and stay away from inside flaps, back cover blurbs, introductions and reviews almost entirely, if and when I do read the latter two it is only AFTER I’ve read the book. So, I cannot offer any comment to those who do, or I suppose more importantly to those who rely on them.

[hanzklein]

I didn't read past the original post but I'm pretty sure he got nailed to the cross for not loving the classics.

I mean something can't become classic until it stands the test of time. So does that mean that most of the things written in our time period won't become classic until we're dead?

I think we could see what a classic is by the time its written. Take DFW's Infinite Jest for instance, that was published about 15 years ago and will definitely be read for a long time and be considered noteworthy. J.M Coetzee, a Nobel Prize winner will also probably go down as a good writer of the human condition of our generation. Frankly, It's not enough though. Writing has become mediocre recently, whereas before it was a revolutionary and highly respected form of intellectualism. I have no idea why it stopped though, I guess people would rather read and study the books rather than write them.

Output of real classic books, at least in America/Canada/Britain, has been severely slagging ever since the 70's. Unless some nutcase on the scale of William Faulkner or James Joyce is discovered by chance from published obscurity, its safe to say relatively few books will be remembered from our time.