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Don't give me that; have you seen the amount of sequels coming out these days? Yeah right, like movies haven't gone downhill. I think literature now isn't "dead", good stuff is just hard to find. Now everyone is an aspiring writer, which makes things more difficult for the good writers. It is the publishers that are to blame not the readers. They are there to make money, therefore they publicize what sells. Though, some great authors sell well, many other greats don't.
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How many James Bond films were made throughout the '60s and '70s? How many entries in the Thin Man franchise were produced in the '40s and '50s?Quote:
Originally Posted by JBI
As with artists in any field, I am sure many of the great authors struggled to make a living. Look what happened to Herman Melville after he wrote Moby Dick. There has and always will be drivel clogging up the shelves and hogging all the attention, but the truly timeless works being written will be remembered and celebrated fifty years from now.Quote:
Yeah right, like movies haven't gone downhill. I think literature now isn't "dead", good stuff is just hard to find. Now everyone is an aspiring writer, which makes things more difficult for the good writers.
There is a contradiction here, I think. The readers are not to blame because publishers only publicize what sells. In other words, publishers publish what readers read. Sounds like the root of the problem is the general public after all. But then again, there's no accounting for taste.Quote:
It is the publishers that are to blame not the readers. They are there to make money, therefore they publicize what sells. Though, some great authors sell well, many other greats don't.
Oh, and to the author of the original thread, I have a few names for you:
Cormac McCarthy
Thomas Pynchon
Gene Wolfe
Clive Barker
William Gibson
...Just to name a few.
I remember being shocked to learn in literature class that there was a huge market for 'junk' literature in the 1800's. Apparently there were a lot more newspapers and other types of publications back then. The junk literature was written primarily for bored housewives, and it was sort of like the romance novels of today.
It is interesting to note how human nature can romanticize the past. I think there is a lot of great literature out there today, but I do agree it can be hard to find at times.
Edit: No longer applicable
Not dead - there are some fine contempory writers; Margaret Atwood, J.M. Coatzee, William Gibson, Natsuo Kirino...don't forget that there was a time when all 'novels' were viewed a trashy indulgences. When the novel broke out as an art form, it was quickly established as one of the most profund forms of expression, but even in the 1800s and early 1900s, the 'greats' were always a dime a dozen. It may be a dime a thousand now, with so much published trash, and the market in ruin, but there are still many fine writers floating about, aching for your recognition. Go and read them!
Yep. Literature is dead. Completely, utterly dead.
Literature is more accessible in these times.
The dumming down result can be frustrating. I was watching a news conference for Naomi Campbell's autobiography and one intrepid report asking if writing was cathartic. Needless to say, she had no idea what the word meant, but in true form gave a rude answer to the reporter and even threw in my favourite word - "whatever" - part of the slapdown for asking such a lettered question:brickwall
There is a lot of good literature, but it does not sell as well - Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Zadie Smith, David Foster Wallace....and they do well in the market place.
People don't ask will science literature die. It never will of course, as people are born with a curiosity to figure out how the natural world operates.
It's the same with literary writing: people are born with a curiosity about human behaviour and suggest solutions with imaginative scenarios. A solution usually amounts to nothing more than a nice way of expressing the problem.
A love of stories, a beginning, a middle, and an end, whether it's planet earth and her fellow planets and the great dome she lives under, or if it's just the people running round on the planet.
I think people will always want to read and write.
A non-elitist does not necessarily think there is no good or bad art, but that the seat of judgement must lie in the person appreciating the art. If someone dismisses a work of art too readily, then it would not be elitist to cajole them into trying harder. But if they do try hard, and still don't like the work, then there is nothing to say they are somehow inferior. It's just that they and some particular art form don't get on together.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
What's so great about "true formal originality"? I tend to read realist novels without much formal originality - Simon Raven's "Alms for Oblivion" sequence is my latest discovery here! It's a great example of superior modern writing in the old, realist style. It shows little formal originality, but remains within the formality defined by Dickens and other greats of that ilk. I prefer Raven to Proust, Marquez, Joyce, and other modernists/magical realists.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I agree timeless relevance has to be a factor. But this has nothing to do with 'formal novelty'. Dickens is, surely timeless. Raven might be - several of his novels have the Suez crisis as the centre of interest, which has obvious parallels to the Iraq crisis and surely will always have something to say about how politician get into, and out of, ridiculous, large scale, errors of judgment.Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
Entertainment doesn't have to be "mere". I'm entertained by political machinations about the Suez crisis, and debates about how one can live with failure in one's chosen career. Certainly Raven combines depth and "basic entertainment" when discussing these topics!Quote:
Originally Posted by stlukesguild
I dislike works that try too hard to be different and turn art into some kind of puzzle (Marquez, Joyce...) - just my personal preference. I also think these "puzzle" works don't go any deeper into "big issues" than serious writers in a more transparent genre, like Tolstoy or Raven. Tolstoy is not generally thought to be a lesser writer than Joyce, so unless you like modernist puzzle solving, why bother with Joyce and his ilk?
Or perhaps it doesn't - I picked up Raven, and other recent favourites, on the library "New books just in" shelf. The Victorians didn't need much effort to find Dickens - you would expect great, modern authors to still be selling quite well and fairly easy to find. Although I wish the library would try slightly harder, the "Dan Brown: Simon Raven" ratio is too high...Quote:
Perhaps it merely demands more of an effort upon the part of the audience to seek out the best of contemporary art...
Mac, if you've no time for self-appointed elites, why bother shooting yourself in the foot, after making some good points, by saying why bother with Joyce?
Plenty of intelligent people do bother with Joyce. No argument is strong enough to defeat that fact. It's a reality and reality is to be respected. If you don't agree with it, then disagreeing with it isn't the way to come to terms with. Simple avoidance (of what you don't like) is the way to come to terms with it, spending time with the things you do enjoy.
And you're a lucky man, your cup is full, if you like Tolstoy.
Tolstoy himself is a case in point. He wrote a good essay disparaging Shakespeare's writing ability. Some excellent points. But his essay achieves nothing, and nor should it. Other intelligent people intelligently like Shakespeare and that's stronger than the most insightful argument.
But you're right as well, we have to say what we don't like, just as it was worthwhile for Tolstoy to write his essay.
Our voices of dissent are important, but it's not when we're at our best and a life spent in intellectual dissension is wasted. Though I know you were doing no such thing.
It's like Tolstoy's message of love. We're at our best when we're in the company we love, whether people or, in their absence, books.
I shot myself in the foot and didn't even feel it! Still don't - can you spell out why you think there's a bloody hole in my foot? Maybe I wasn't clear, I'll try and be more clear...Quote:
Originally Posted by nancybella
Why should you bother reading Joyce if you don't like modernist writing? There are enough realist novels for a lifetime's reading. I'm not trying to form a realist elite by suggesting that modernism is inferior - simply that *I* prefer realism, and prefer avoiding modernism.
I admit "plenty of intelligent people do bother with Joyce". Plenty of intelligent people train dogs to perform at dog shows - but I prefer to avoid that activity. I'm certainly not arguing that Joyce and dog-training should be avoided by everyone.
No. Its alive and well.
mal4mac, when you talk to people, I'd say they give a big smile and think 'idiot' and 'here we go' :-)