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Stop it, please!Quote:
If you really want to split hairs we could rephrase the topic of the debate to read, "Is it necessary to read with a greater degree of critical attention and analysis as opposed to a minimal degree of subconcious critical judgement?" rather than "is it necessary to read critically?" That seems a little wordy though.
:lol: OK, I have no problem dropping it. If you're sick of the topic, that's fine. We'll call it a draw and no hard feelings :). I only persisted because I had a feeling we actually weren't disagreeing as much as it might appear on this issue and because I thought it might be useful to define terms if people were going to continue debating this issue. All in good fun.
Fair enough Whif; I was drunk the night I set up my profile. :D What is KTD's excuse for writing the same question three ways, all equally unintelligible? Can you figure them out? If you can I'll buy you a beer in Manhatten. :lol:Quote:
Originally Posted by Whifflingpin
Good point Petrach, I see what you're saying. What bothers me is that the producers of the books I listed don't even have a "standard" to measure up against, besides the one that calculates projected sales figures. I' d be curious to know if Gorboduc was driven by the same ambition. Perhaps the books that withstand the test of time become the Great Books, although Virgil makes a valid point about the so-called "great books" he dislikes. Gotcha. Thanks.Quote:
Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love
ummm..okQuote:
What is KTD's excuse for writing the same question three ways, all equally unintelligible? Can you figure them out?
If you want to dodge the question, thats ok, or just STFU.
I honestly did not and still do not understand the question. I wasn't being sarcastic. You stated the question three ways and I still didn't get it. Is it just me? If you'd like to restate the question, I'll do my best to answer it like I did the first time when I gave you my top ten list. You're not being very nice telling me to STFU, but I forgive you.Quote:
Originally Posted by ktd222
Why is it that I make a reasonable distinction between great books and garbage literature and immediately I'm cast as a snob? I refused and still refuse to defer my judgment of pop literature in the name of tolerance or some relativistic standard of what good Literature is. I respectfully disagree, "pop literature" is not Literature! The works of Shakespeare, Austen, Bronte, Joyce, Conrad, Hemingway, Miller, the list goes on and on, get you to think, they speak to the human condition, they open our eyes to who we are and why we're here in a way the others can't and never will. While these books weren't intended for such - given their all-too-predictable plot lines, endings, and watered-down narrative---it is, to my mind, worth the criticism, especially considering the corrosive effect these books are having on society in terms of "critical" reading habits. I'm just stating my opinion here like everyone else and I shouldn't be called a snob for doing so. Come on.Quote:
Originally Posted by Virgil
When somebody informs me that philosophy is a boring subject I tell them they're missing out on some thought-provoking ideas, ideas that are changing the world as I type, the way we think, the way we see ourselves in the world, notions of life and death, civil rights and liberties, morality, and so on. If everyone thought that way about philosophy, I truly wonder whether the modern world would have ever seen the development of a United Nations Charter, a Universal Declaration of Human Rights, or the International Court of Justice, the International Criminal Court, the European Court, the European Union. I wonder what the basis for the Nuremburg decisions would have been had Euripides not irrevocably carved a distinction between the law of kings and natural law. I also wonder whether private organizations like the Red Cross, GreenPeace, Doctors Without Borders, Habitat for Humanity, Transparency International, and Human Rights Watch, would exist with the same moral and political legitimacy they have promoting world peace and stability. At the same time, I won't call people vulgar for holding such an opinion about philosophy. I will encourage them to read Plato's Apology or Aristotle's Ethics and after they're through ask them if they feel the same way about philosophy and pop literature. :D
Because many people who post here despise intellect. Unfortunately, it really is as simple as that.Quote:
Originally Posted by jon1jt
Oh yes, I for one dislike intellect intensely. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. :D
Jon--Let me start out by saying that I agree with you in as far as the statement that some books are simply more thoughtful and of greater lasting interest than others. There are also definitely books that are one time or even no time reads. I am always hesitant, however, when it comes to making generalizing statements about "pop" literature being universally garbage. It sounds too much like judging a book by its cover, and such judgements, if carried too far, can lead to missing out on the next "great" writer when he/she comes along. After all, Shakespeare was once considered part of the popular culture of his time, and my grandparents, who are now in their eighties make casual references to that popular writer Hemingway. They remember him as the latest bestseller, not necessarily an enshrined genius of literature.
I have no desire to cast you as a snob. I myself have a deep love for "classic" literature and a desire to pass on the intellectual ideas of the past to coming generations. But there also is a place for the one time read. Sometimes it's nice to just have something fun to pass the time without having to be on critical alert. ;) "Lite Lit." also serves the purpose of just getting people reading. I've noticed with students and friends who are not big readers to begin with, but become interested in reading later, that they seldom go from reading next to nothing to reading Tolstoy. Usually someone has started with something that's entertaining and easy to read, and becomes interested in an expanding variety of books (including the classics) from there. The Da Vinci Code may not be immortal prose in and of itself (I haven't actually read it so I can't really give my personal judgement), but it made a friend of mine, who reads very little, ask me for resources on Renaissance Art History, which in turn has led to questions about philosophy... So things may not be as bleak as they appear.
Seems a good time to post a link to Susan Sontag's essay Against Interpretation
- not that it's against criticism, just a shift of emphasis from content to form.
BLP--Thanks for posting the Sontag. I first read that essay shortly before coming to grad. school, and I remember laughing out loud at the line, "the list is endless of those around whom thick encrustations of interpretation have taken hold." It is my goal as a critic to be as little of an encrustation as possible.:) And boy, I'd love to write a final line like that one at the end of one of my papers some day.
It's funny. It's one of the first critical essays I ever read and I'd forgotten lots of it, but I think it's shaped my attitude - even if I felt the need to take issue with it at the time. I love what she says about transparence: 'Transparence means experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are', and, a long time later, went on to love the filmmakers she says embody this quality.
Weirdly though, just after posting that essay, I turned on the TV to find a Freudian critic demonstrating how classic films are structured according to the id, the ego and the superego - exactly what Sontag would have reviled, but it was really interesting!
I'm still somewhat of a newbie and so didn't expect that sort of gratuitous remark to come from somebody here. I'm learning. Unfortunate, yes it is. Thanks Unnamable.Quote:
Originally Posted by The Unnamable
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Originally Posted by Petrarch's Love
I never intended to lump together pop literature books with those rare gems from the same genre that "make it." I consider, for example, The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova to be a terrific book. I'm not so sure, however, that the book and others like it (e.g. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale) will ever reach the "classic" list. I judge each book on its own merit. It's been my experience that the vast majority of popular literature books are garbage, so now I wait for friends whose reading taste I profoundly trust to recommend such books to me. :D I don't call snobbery having a high standard for the books one selects to read, especially considering the limited time people have to read.
Clever--have friends seperate the wheat from the chaff for you. :)Quote:
I wait for friends whose reading taste I profoundly trust to recommend such books to me.
Nor would I. ;)Quote:
I don't call snobbery having a high standard for the books one selects to read
Reading without interpretation is just looking at marks on paper. Interpretation takes the imitation and converts it into an ideal.
I agree with Sontag that "In place of a hermeneutics we need an erotics of art"
I'm not sure I follow this. If you think that reading without interpretation is just looking at marks on paper and you agree that we need to replace hermeneutics with erotics, are you calling for an erotics of marks on paper?Quote:
Originally Posted by PeterL