Literature has no more value than Mills & Boon

[Drkshadow03]

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?

H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, Frederick Pohl's Man Plus, Heinlein's Double Star, Baker's "The Empress of Mars," Robinson's Red Mars and Blue Mars. I think I might have covered one more, but I don't remember what right now.

I also read some books that didn't make it into the paper because they were either horribly bad. One was a Larry Niven book I read that was just plain silly and boring.

[JBI]

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

It makes no difference. Genre is an abstraction, and in the contemporary sense, a rather new one. That is possibly the reason why examples are hard to find, because quite frankly, literature is an ongoing process, and it takes a while for books to be recognized. No one can read every book, therefore it is almost a given that there are good genre books, and bad "literary books". But the problem is, however, how we classify. For instance, we look at similar trends, such as wizards and dragons, or space ships and military suits, or an old fashion girl finally marrying the seemingly uninterested (though helplessly in love) good looking, rich man. But what if we, for instance, were to put all books with other traits into genres, like many academics do. So we could have the Bildungsroman shelf in the library, beside the Hisotriographic metafiction shelf, beside the family saga books. What would be the point of such division - none absolutely, since it doesn't help to sell books, which is the sole purpose of genrization as we see it in bookstores.

There are few good books written on the whole. Petrarch's Love can better attest to the history of mediocre books being written, as I am sure she has seen more historic examples than I have.

The question of genre verses literary is a marketing ploy. Literary emerged as a sub-genre of all the genres, and not limited by genre. There is no connecting device between literary novels in the way there are between genre novels. It is basically just a way for people looking for something unknown to them (I.E. they don't know what to expect on first reading the book) to get what they want.

[Etienne]

Really I must have missed all that discussion on plot, structure, and character development.

You, in fact, did miss it. Read the title of the topic, the discussion was at first on such "concrete" elements, but then apologists came and said that "at least it made people read" which drove the discussion to other planes.

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

I have read some in the past, when I was younger. I have read the complete Dune series, I thought this one was pretty good.

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.

Well when exactly does the amount of books read stop so that one can judge a "genre"? The simple fact that it is classified in a genre (with possible exceptions) is a symptom that a work does not have the "strength" to be a "standalone" work of literature (which doesn't mean that every book not in the genre section is "good"). That means that the books would most probably be uninteresting by someone who is not interested in the particular genre.

Say I like literature, but I have no particular interest for fantasy. I like Calvino and Rabelais, but not because they write fantasy but because of their literary merits. Could someone, honestly, be interested in R.A Salvatore, for example, for his literary merits? Meaning that if he wrote some book which has nothing to do with fantasy or genre in general, you would still appreciate him as much? Good literature transcends it's subject matter for this very reason.

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.

Yes, I can agree with that, but read what you wrote again, "they generally focus on the work with real sociological value and interesting themes", which might be present, there is no doubt, but rarely will the aesthetic merits of the work, or it's contribution to literature as whole come into consideration.

Aristotle would tell you: there is the matter and the form. Great literature is both about matter and form.

[mortalterror]

JBI, the flaw in your reasoning is this, you classify books by transient and constantly metamorphosing states or by who reads them when and what their motivations are. It's so convoluted as to be unmanageable. Setting books into categories based on stable plot points is much easier and more reliable. Drkshadow03 is a librarian; so I'm sure he's more qualified to tell you about classifying literature than I am.

On a slightly personal note, I read Lucian's True Story the other day, an ancient text about a trip to the moon and a voyage through the afterlife. The book was very Gulliver's Travels, but funnier. It most certainly belongs in the sci-fi/fantasy section. I think if it were there, more people would read it. More's the pity.

[Etienne]

JBI, the flaw in your reasoning is this, you classify books by transient and constantly metamorphosing states or by who reads them when and what their motivations are. It's so convoluted as to be unmanageable. Setting books into categories based on stable plot points is much easier and more reliable. Drkshadow03 is a librarian; so I'm sure he's more qualified to tell you about classifying literature than I am.

But such categorization is not made for academic or intellectual purposes, but for marketing purposes. So it's not about it being manageable or not. If we want to categorize them by stable plot points, and make Gargantua and Pantagruel be fantasy beside the Forgotten Realms, then of course, we cannot discuss about genres anymore in the topic at hand, and the discussion because all the more convoluted, don't you think?

That's a matter of semantics, and even if one does not have clear points of classification, I am pretty sure that anyone can understand what is meant by genres in the current discussion (which is also the common use of those genres). I think the point was already made, besides.

[JBI]

No I think you didn't get my point - the point is, genre has no bearing on value or experience, and therefore is pointless when discussing the works, and only serves the purpose of easing sales and minimally when discussing context.

[LitNetIsGreat]

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.

I wonder if you could just (or someone) define what you are saying at little. Are you saying that all books are of equal value or just that all books are worth reading regardless of value? So are you really saying Mills and Boon are as good as Shakespeare, in terms of value and worth, or is it just that all books have value in some way?

For example I have just read a chapter of Bethany the Ballet Fairy to my daughter, it served its purpose, she enjoyed it therefore it has merit in that regard, but I would like to see the paper that placed its literary value over that of King Lear.

[SleepyWitch]

I couldn't say that reading has done much towards improving my mind, broadening my horizon, teaching me morals& ethics, understanding life better, making me think or whatever it is they say reading "classics" will do for you.
Granted, maybe that's because I'm stupid, but seeing as I got lots of A's in Literature even at university level and am an A student in general , I don't think that's the reason.
I used to read all kinds of books, classics, middle-brow as well as 'pulp' (e.g. some popular crime fiction), but I must admit that being forced to read more classics at univ has put me off reading 'pulp', not because an elitist attitude was hammered into me, but because those 'pulp' books have such predictable plots and their characters are so clichéd (sp?) that I just can't seem to enjoy them anymore (I'm not talking about science fiction here, which I do love to read, but about the kind of books that top the best seller lists where I live).
On the other hand, I tend to read classics or contemporary literature (in the narrow, elitist sense of the word) for pure entertainment and don't think too much while reading them. I do think about stuff like gender, narrative perspective etc. while reading (because that's what we're taught to do at univ). But no matter how much I enjoy a book, I've never been able to extract any "lesson" etc from any of them.
Maybe the effect reading has had on me is less tangible and more difficult to pin down. For example, I tend to listen very closely to people and draw up a psychological profile of them. And I expect people to remember what they said to whom and expect that what they said made sense and was supposed to convey some message. Unfortunately, most people do not seem to listen to themselves (let alone to others) or use language to convey any meaningful messages. So they do not behave like people in a book.
Maybe the reason why I find it hard to learn anything from reading books is that I tend to accept characters the way they are. So even if a book has got some moral or whatever lesson to teach, I'm not impressed because I tend to see characters as just that: characters in books FULLSTOP.
One could probably argue that this ability to accept all kinds of characters, views, etc is a good thing, but then I'm not sure I developed this as a result of reading. I might have always been tolerant/ not prissy and reading has nothing to do with it?

Anyway, I hope I didn't ramble too much.
Could you guys give concrete examples of how a particular book has changed your outlook on life, your opinion about some issue or imparted some wisdom to you that you could not have learned in another way

[Etienne]

Anyway, I hope I didn't ramble too much.
Could you guys give concrete examples of how a particular book has changed your outlook on life, your opinion about some issue or imparted some wisdom to you that you could not have learn in another way

It's not really about one book changing your outlook on life. Think of reading good literature is for the mind like eating healthy food is for the body.

[Taliesin]

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.

Are you trying to suggest that masturbation and fornication don't give people cognition and experience?





Anyhow...

about the teaching and enjoying part - it seems that the teaching, or the experience, the cognition doesn't come directly, but more as a subliminal message.
Our director told us once that nowadays, in a play, you can't tell people things because people are so damn smart now that they know everything already and when you tell people things, they are not interested. But people want something that they feel intuitively, something about what they can't exactly say what they like, that more stress should be put on the intuitive rather than rational understanding.
I don't know how to differentiate exactly between the "teach" and "enjoy" because some things that we enjoy also teach us things at an intuitive level.
Then, on the other hand, I study mathematics (and yes, get enjoyment from reading mathematical texts) and don't have a degree in Literature so perhaps I missed something.

[mayneverhave]

When entering a bookstore and walking down the alphabetized aisles, you will find no Joyce, Faulkner, Shakespeare, Milton, but rather you must enter the stores specialized "Literature" section. If you call my personal opinion that literary fiction is greater than genre fiction "elitism", the very marketing and media hubs themselves (book stores) lay down those distinctions themselves and are just as guilty of "elitism".

As for genre works becoming "literary". There are numerous examples in film: Kubrick's 2001: A space Odyssey is a science fiction film that utterly destroys the genre and goes above and beyond to become just a "film". Scorsese's Raging Bull, as well, can be considered a sports film, as the main plot of the film deals with boxing, but is so much more.

Fiction, then, must similarly do the same to escape from a genre. Hamlet is most certainly a revenge tragedy - but yet a good portion of the play deals with everything but revenge. In order for a writer to go beyond the genre context (and there is nothing wrong with using a stereo-typical genre as merely a context for a greater work) they must do so by writing in a less cliched, more impressive language (that draws the focus away from the plot - which is the driving point of all genre work), and the creation of characters who avoid becoming the archetypical everyman and develop into real, compelling humans.

[JBI]

Glad you mentioned Hamlet, it is so convenient that you brought it up. We must not forget the players scene, when Hamlet offers us a rich interlude into Shakespeare's idea of literary criticism. If you know what I am talking about, Shakespeare himself even gives us a view of genre in his day, and its limitations, and goes on to destroy the boundaries.

[Niamh]

I've been in plenty of bookstores where they are with the general a-z fiction

[JBI]

Meh, most book stores around me simply have classics and genre fiction. Poetry is virtually unseen besides a few volumes of well known poets. Literary novels are also scarce, and international works are somewhat hard to come by as well. I generally go to niched book stores, second hand charity booksales, and my university book store, not to mention the library, for my browsing. The big box book stores don't seem to have much of what I am looking for, which is a shame, but luckily, I know where to look.

Though I think my biggest quibble with bookstores around me is most don't stock Canadian writers and Canadian fiction, and merely just stock the big American names. I find that problematic, and so I avoid those stores.

[Niamh]

Poetry and drama is separate. we have general fiction a-z. Irish fiction a-z. Crime, Sci-fi fantasy, kids and young adult, then loads of non fiction ones. I suppose we all do things differently in different countries.
bit strange not getting canadian fiction in a canadian bookshop....