Literature has no more value than Mills & Boon

[The Atheist]

This thread has been spawned by my Harry Potter thread which has been derailed to the unrecognisable, although an interesting point has been made which I wish to follow up on.

The theme seems to be:

Some novels are "worth" inherently more than others and we should not value reading unless something of "value" is being read."

I think this is a load of bunkum, myself.

I think any attempt to say otherwise is pure elitism and the exact equivalent of an art critic saying that one piece of art is inherently more valuable than my six-year old's scribbles.

Let's see if JBI wants to play!

[Etienne]

The term worth has an artistic and intellectual meaning. If by worth you only think building rockets, making millions or getting big muscles, then no, that's not the worth referred to.

[Drkshadow03]

Most of these Responses are from Posts in the Harry Potter thread:

Except it's perfectly possible to enjoy reading "classical"/literary works and genre fiction just as it's possible to eat a $100 succulent juicy Kobe steak perfecty marinated and cooked, and still consider your local $2 greasy pizza joint a great meal too.

But is this an apt analogy? I am enamored of Bach, Beethoven, Wagner, Schubert... but I still listen to the Rolling Stones, Johnny Cash, and the Louvin Brothers. I can't listen, however, to Madonna or Britney Spears. My taste has become such that I can enjoy the best of genres that are quite different... but there are still standards. It seems that everyone who suggests that the Harry Potter novels are so much schlock are being branded as elitist snobs. Now while I will heartily admit to being an elitist, my taste in the arts is fairly broad. One may reject the Harry Potter novels as being mediocre (at best) and grossly overrated... and still read and admire more than just the "classics". One may even enjoy the best of certain literary genres.

As mayneverhave put it, "after encountering the works of Shakespeare, Dante and the like, it is impossible to go back to the level of Harry Potter and Robert Jordan - it would bore me to death. It's not even an issue of a "classic" being more challenging to the reader, but it lies in the simple fact that I can draw a far greater enjoyment out of quality literature than I can popular literature." This says it all. After one's taste evolves to a certain level with the experience of having read a good number of great books it is difficult to appreciate mediocre popular fiction. The clichés are too obvious. The language offers nothing special. The characters are not well-developed. Most importantly, I draw a far greater degree of pleasure from the better books.

Oh, no the analogy is apt. If you look at my response in context it was talking about ALL genre fiction, not just Potter. So what I was saying is that I enjoy the best of a variety of literary genres. Unfortunately a lot of such works don’t get “Canonical” status, except as I’ve argued before they are part of a de facto sub-Canon anyway. Also, the “best” doesn’t always correlate with quality/originality of the writing itself.

Funny I’ve read Shakespeare and Dante, and really appreciate their work, yet I don’t feel at all like you guys that I can no longer appreciate works that aren’t quite as good, which was precisely my point in my response to mayneverhave.

Oh come on, the critic of genre fictin is based first and foremost on concrete argument, and the fact that they haven't read much of it does not mean that they haven't read any of it. And do you honestly believe that one absolutely has to read a couple of Forgotten Realm books to know that they have no literary value? No, they could even not read a single one and still be right. What genre fiction exactly do you claim have such literary value as to be worth being studied by a university teacher, other than perhaps some general theme.

For example, your subject was Mars in science-fiction. This is a theme. Is it, first, a rich subject in analysis? I doubt it. Then could you honestly make a thesis based on, say the narrative technique in some genre fiction? Etc.

No, most criticisms of genre fiction are based first and foremost on abstract arguments. Just look at the Harry Potter thread. How many times did we hear lines that reading "good" books you gives you benefits, while reading Harry Potter doesn't without the slightest shred of evidence to support these views, never defining exactly how good books benefit us and so-called bad books don't, but simply ASSERTING this to be the case rather than DEMONSTRATING it.

Oh, it’s true that not having read much doesn’t mean they haven’t read any at all. However, if you were to base an opinion on an entire genre having only read one or two works, you’d probably be committing the logical fallacy of confusing the parts with the whole. It only took me asking them about a few key names to ascertain they haven’t read much or own self-admissions (I never read that junk). It’s been my experience having now attended three universities over the course of my academic career (actually four technically, but that’s a story for another time) that the professors who look down on genre haven’t read much of it. And when they happen to like a “genre” work it’s “not actually genre.” Yeah . . .

I already linked to some genre fiction that has some merit in my previous post within the Harry Potter Thread. Go back to it and click on the links if you want some examples, along with some critical analysis. You may actually learn something! Also, genre fiction is in fact studied by university professors. So I am not even sure what you’re asking?

Actually Mars in Science Fiction was a very rich subject of analysis. I found that Mars symbolized a second Earth, a new possibility for restarting society and attempting to cut ourselves off from the problems of Old, it acted as fertile grounds for Utopian/Dystopian literary experiments. So it was interesting to see how different authors utilized Mars as a symbol for second earth and exploring the possibilities of restarting society anew on this new earth. The books were extremely political. I’m always much more interested in content that I am in say narrative technique, aesthetics, or writing style. It’s no that I don’t appreciate those things, but I find them way too subjective and taste-oriented to have serious discussions about. I am generally only interested in those things as they relate to meaning and content. So obviously my paper didn’t delve too much into that.

When a book begins to be viewed as a great work of fiction, generally it stops being considered genre. For instance, Italo Calvino is not read as a fantasy novelist, though by convention if we were to genrize him, many of his works would fall into fantasy or science fiction. By romantic genre definition, any book that has a couple getting married at the end is a romance, yet we wouldn't call every book with a marriage at the end a romance. It would be absurd.

Either way though, the titles of genre verses literary are set up abstractly by publishers, and then writers who seek to meet a publisher's desire. In terms of criticism, such genrization has no real purpose, and one can feel free to say Terry Goodkind is a bad novelist, and not a bad fantasy novelist.

Good books are reappropriated by their best suited audience. Angela Carter can be seen as a writer of fantasy, but who would stick her on a fantasy shelf? no one, we simply call her stuff by some other term, and stick it on the literary shelf, since fantasy readers probably aren't going to buy as many of her books as literary readers. The genre therefore is undercut, and the book is no longer genre fiction, but literary fiction. By that same notion, one could cut almost any good genre book, and deem it literary, and thereby one could consider the bulk of genre fiction mediocre, or unsuited for the literary reader, or unsuited for the reader looking outside of the genre.

Can you name one example of a book that was originally shelved in the fantasy/sci-fi section in bookstores world-wide and then was later moved to the “literature” section?

[djy78usa]

I agree with you 100%. Of course there are some widely-accepted beliefs of what makes "great" literature, but it ultimately comes down to personal preference. Who's to say I'm wrong if I think The Da Vinci Code is a better book than The Great Gatsby? As long as people are reading, and enjoying what they read, who can complain?

By the way, I don't really think The Da Vinci Code is better than The Great Gatsby.

[Niamh]

Can you name one example of a book that was originally shelved in the fantasy/sci-fi section in bookstores world-wide and then was later moved to the “literature” section?

Brave new World.

[Drkshadow03]

Brave new World.

Really? Heh. You learn something new everyday.

[Niamh]

Really? Heh. You learn something new everyday.

Surprise!
Dont forget h.g.wells and Orwell.
Except back then science fiction was called the Scientific romances.

[JBI]

Yeah, I remember reading an essay somewhere on a reaction of Orwell's to having Animal Farm shelved on a children's shelf. Not to mention Lewis Carrol being reappropriated as an adult work, or The Left Hand of Darkness as a literary work. I would think it is more common in sci-fi than fantasy, though I think the reason for it is too many popular fantasy writers emulate Tolkien, or some variant on Tolkien, whereas sci-fi is a more developed genre.

But it isn't just those two genres, Morley Callaghan now is considered a great worker of modernism, rather than a genre Crime Fiction novelist.

But this trend goes back further - Elizabeth Gaskell seems to have been reappropriated from mediocre Gothic novelist, who only writes for silly women, to an important literary novelist.

[Etienne]

No, most criticisms of genre fiction are based first and foremost on abstract arguments. Just look at this thread. QED.

Plot, structure, richness of vocabulary, character development, etc. are not abstract.

Oh, it’s true that not having read much doesn’t mean they haven’t read any at all. However, if you were to base an opinion on an entire genre having only read one or two works, you’d probably be committing the logical fallacy of confusing the parts with the whole.

Oh, come on, that is absolutely false. Genre fiction is mostly all the same thing but with a different story. If one or a few works really surpasses the narrow "barriers" of what generally characterizes this genre, then it is the exception and it is it, that cannot be used to generalize the whole, and it also generally considered to be outside this genre.

It only took me asking them about a few key names to ascertain they haven’t read much or own self-admissions (I never read that junk). It’s been my experience having now attended three universities over the course of my academic career (actually four technically, but that’s a story for another time) that the professors who look down on genre haven’t read much of it. And when they happen to like a “genre” work it’s “not actually genre.” Yeah .

You're losing yourself into sophism. As to what is genre and what is not, read JBI's post.

[Niamh]

Yeah, I remember reading an essay somewhere on a reaction of Orwell's to having Animal Farm shelved on a children's shelf.

And it still gets shelved there from time to time. but more young adult.

[Etienne]

I already linked to some genre fiction that has some merit in my previous post within the Harry Potter Thread. Go back to it and click on the links if you want some examples, along with some critical analysis. You may actually learn something! Also, genre fiction is in fact studied by university professors. So I am not even sure what you’re asking?

I see you've listed Hitchhikers' Guide to the the Galaxy? I've read it. I enjoyed it because it made me laugh, but beside this? Beside the laugh?

[JBI]

To the original topic, and to other responses, of course, everything is somewhat out of context, but I will try to explain.

What we get out of reading is not only enjoyment. If enjoyment is the only reason to read a book, then there is no justification for anyone calling reading better than any other form of entertainment, be that video games, television, masturbation or fornication.

If however, we can accept that people get something else out of reading, such as knowledge, wisdom, experience, cognition, etc. Then we must distinguish between which works give more, and which give less. I would think the more challenging (note, I do not mean more difficult books to understand), and more intelligent books give more to readers than the mediocre.

But beyond that, there is even the question of aesthetic development. One could argue, as they have done on the other thread, that Potter increases people's reading capabilities, by getting them when they are young. But the question remains, to what extent are the reader's aesthetic views developed? To what extent are they able to perceive literature after and before - what sort of development in terms of understand of the world around them, of themselves, or even other texts is gained by reading such a work.

This brings us back, of course, to Sidney's defense of Poetry (note, prose fiction didn't really exist in the sense we know it today then, so I think his assertions can be carried over to prose as well today), where he argues, splendidly, that poetry both teaches and delights, and the two are unseparable - it delights because it teaches, and it teaches because it delights. Critics generally focus on one or the other, but the two must both be there for the work to be great.

If something only is meant to teach, it won't, because it will simply bore the reader, and therefore isn't really worthwhile. If something is only there to entertain, it fails again, because it doesn't teach anything, and therefore only wastes time, of which the person could have been doing other things.

I have nothing wrong with anyone reading books that only contain one of these two elements. Bad fiction only delights, and most text-books of the mathematic and other kind usually only teach, unless in the rare case, the reader has a great interest in them, in which case they may delight to a certain extent also. But the problem remains when things are praised even though they fit only one, or none of these categories.

Also, we must look at to what level they teach or delight. If they teach very little, and delight very little, they simply aren't worth while. But if they do both at a high level, such as George Eliot's Middlemarch, or Adunis's poetry, then the work is superb.

To read one book is to not read another. To read anything is to not do something else. Reading must therefore be worthwhile, and it is fair to say we can deem certain things more worthwhile than others. The same way we can say a tin of spam is less worthwhile than an 11 course meal.

Of course, the analogy was chosen smartly, what if someone doesn't know such a thing exists? What if someone thinks the world only contains spam, and has never heard of good food. Then how are they to judge the spam? To them it is all the same, and therefore they eat it without thinking about what they are missing. Their aesthetic taste is not developed, and therefore they aren't fit to judge what is before them.

I don't think we can really call Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy science fiction, in the sense that we can't call the Dunciad an epic. Mock-sci-fi or satire is a far better definition.

But also, think of other science fiction writers who were appropriated by the literary community. The one who first comes to mind is Kurt Vonnegut Jr, who was at first viewed as a mediocre sci-fi writer, than as a black humorist, then as a post-modernist.

[mortalterror]

Actually Mars in Science Fiction was a very rich subject of analysis. I found that Mars symbolized a second Earth, a new possibility for restarting society and attempting to cut ourselves off from the problems of Old, it acted as fertile grounds for Utopian/Dystopian literary experiments. So it was interesting to see how different authors utilized Mars as a symbol for second earth and exploring the possibilities of restarting society anew on this new earth. The books were extremely political. I’m always much more interested in content that I am in say narrative technique, aesthetics, or writing style. It’s no that I don’t appreciate those things, but I find them way too subjective and taste-oriented to have serious discussions about. I am generally only interested in those things as they relate to meaning and content. So obviously my paper didn’t delve too much into that.

That sounds pretty cool. I remember I had to write a paper somewhat like that, only mine was on Shakespearean cinema. It was agonizing work. I didn't even like A Midsummer Night's Dream that much when I started, but by the end... Off the top of my head though, I can only think of three Mars novels: Stranger in a Strange Land, Podkayne of Mars, and Red Mars. What books did you eventually wind up using?

[Drkshadow03]

[QUOTE=Etienne;633349]Plot, structure, richness of vocabulary, character development, etc. are not abstract.

Really I must have missed all that discussion on plot, structure, and character development. It seems to me the majority of the discussion was pretty much repeating the same assertion that "Harry Potter is not good." It isn't beneficial to read Harry Potter, while it is beneficial to read "good books." Without any actual evidence to support these positions. I wouldn't exactly call that a concrete argument; I can't find one post that got into the nitty-gritty of the text.

Oh, come on, that is absolutely false. Genre fiction is mostly all the same thing but with a different story. If one or a few works really surpasses the narrow "barriers" of what generally characterizes this genre, then it is the exception and it is it, that cannot be used to generalize the whole, and it also generally considered to be outside this genre.

"I think, therefore it must be." Declaring my point false does NOT make it so. I find a lot of diversity within genre fiction actually. Reading Philip K. Dick is not like reading Isaac Asimov, which is not like reading Tolkien, which is not like reading China Mieville, which is not like reading Sturgeon. All these writers have very different themes, plot, interests, and styles.

Also, how do you know exactly what characterizes the genre? Do you read a lot of it yourself?

You're losing yourself into sophism. As to what is genre and what is not, read JBI's post.

Sophism? What do you mean? I'm not the one playing language games, if anything its professors who pull the "oh, that's not really genre" comments that are engaging in sophistry.

Works like "The Left Hand of the Darkness" by Ursula LeGuin, which is one work where I've seen this comment made quite clearly fits into genre, its main audience are genre readers, and it still is usually found within the genre section of the bookstore. Likewise, a professor who derided horror fiction was enamored with Kelly Link's work (probably because she managed to get one story published in the Best American Short Story). However, Kelly Link's main audience I believe are still genre readers. And you'll see both of these authors attending Sci-fi conventions frequently.

So JBI's example has its limitations. Even though, I think he himself points out in his post that the labels in bookstores can sometimes be misleading.

Then of course it becomes an issue of whose critical opinion. These are usually professors who dislike genre fiction. Professors that do like genre fiction and write about as a part of their scholarly pursuits still have critical judgements and can tell the bad from the good. It's not like they are writing about any old space opera adventure with tons of purple aliens being shot up by cowboys in space. They generally focus on the work with real sociological value and interesting themes, which happens to be a higher percentage of genre work than you seem to think.

[Niamh]

I don't think we can really call Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy science fiction, in the sense that we can't call the Dunciad an epic. Mock-sci-fi or satire is a far better definition.

But also, think of other science fiction writers who were appropriated by the literary community. The one who first comes to mind is Kurt Vonnegut Jr, who was at first viewed as a mediocre sci-fi writer, than as a black humorist, then as a post-modernist.

But surely Mock sci-fi would be a sub section of science fiction? as would satirical sci-fi?