Literature: Now that I seem to have Macinblogging under control (it looks okay on mine at work- is everyone else seeing it correctly?), let me share with you a link I got from Ross who's posting over at Andrew Sullivan's blog.
This delightful piece takes on the current crop of writers and artistes who would use the country's current reading crisis as an excuse for bad writing.
My favorite ironic paragraph is the mock mash-note the fictitious 'bad writer' sends to Oprah:
Dear Oprah,
None of us can prove our books are of genuine worth yet—that would require time, and belief in the reading process, therefore respect for an ordinary readership, and even maybe respect for critics. Instead, we’re impatient. Isn’t everything publicity today? Since we don’t believe literature is worth a lifetime of obscure toil, we’d prefer at least some hope for the kind of fame that the most unworthy TV and diet-book people get. Oh, Oprah, we don’t ask it for ourselves. Think of the children writers!
So I ask the question of you: to what degree should writers being immune from critcism in the name of encouraging 'art'? Or is that even a valid question?
Even more simply: what makes a good book? what makes a bad book? Do you like both?
This delightful piece takes on the current crop of writers and artistes who would use the country's current reading crisis as an excuse for bad writing.
My favorite ironic paragraph is the mock mash-note the fictitious 'bad writer' sends to Oprah:
Dear Oprah,
None of us can prove our books are of genuine worth yet—that would require time, and belief in the reading process, therefore respect for an ordinary readership, and even maybe respect for critics. Instead, we’re impatient. Isn’t everything publicity today? Since we don’t believe literature is worth a lifetime of obscure toil, we’d prefer at least some hope for the kind of fame that the most unworthy TV and diet-book people get. Oh, Oprah, we don’t ask it for ourselves. Think of the children writers!
So I ask the question of you: to what degree should writers being immune from critcism in the name of encouraging 'art'? Or is that even a valid question?
Even more simply: what makes a good book? what makes a bad book? Do you like both?
posted by Joshua @ 4:37 PM
5 Comments:
A bad book writes easily, a twig on the stream, flawlessly finding every eddy and and twisting with every undertow. A good book fights against that current. A good book knows that how much it loves it's characters is directly proportional to how much pain it puts them through. A good book is never worth writing until it coughs it's way across the finish line. A good book writes hard, and I've left you with a lot of mixed metaphors. Alas, I'm too lazy to fix them.
I think a good book is the same as (or at least, a subset of) good art, theater, cinema, or music. It draws you out of yourself.
We can call it "peripetia" and "catharsis" if we want to be fancy, but I think Aristotle is right. Great works have that moment of "DAMN!" when everything turns on its head and art is more true than reality. You don't know it so much as you feel it.
Right on. Bad art (lit. theatre, film, what have you) says "this is what art is ." Good art says, "this is what life is." Great art says, "this is what life is" but in a way that you didn't realize was true. Great art is in the revelation, which is what makes it so beautifully personal, which is also what keeps it from possibly being universally decreed as such.
Ah yes. I love great art as much as the next. There is nothing like the rush of great music. Perfect orchestration. The rise and fall of dynamics and melodic lines. Programmatic or absolute. I sit through the ending credits of movies to hear the music. As an aside, I think cinematic scores are the next big movement in instrumental music, since opera and traditional instrumental music does not resonate as much with current society. I spent the better part of four years studying what makes great music so as part of a Bachelor of Music degree.
However, I must confess to also enjoying "bad" art. I listen to bad music on the radio. I find cheesy ballads as satisfying to the soul as a Brahms sonata. To be fair, there is some "bad" art music, too. Vivaldi and Telemann were notorious for the sheer volume of their compositions, but not so much for the depth.
I also adore bad books. My absolute favorites are what I term "trashy romance novels." In the summertime, I buy them by the bagfuls in the 50-cent bin at the local bookstore (much to my fiance's great annoyance). I know these are bad, junkfood for the brain, to be exact, but I love them all the same. Sometimes I want frivolous tales of beautiful and too-intelligent-for-the-times-or-for-their-own-good heroines falling for dashing-yet-somehow-unavailable heroes.
I really enjoy the "historical romances", which all follow the same formula. Does this stop me from reading them? No. Do I read these because I am lacking in my romantic life? Certainly not. I read them so that my brain can take a little vacation. Of course, as the literacy rates of recent college grads attest, some people's minds are on permanent vacation, but it's better for people to read junk than be fed junk on tv. Maybe just slightly better, but better all the same.
Besides, I believe it takes a certain measure of talent to create "awesomely bad" art. These people have the talent to tap into the needs and desires of the viewing/reading/listening public. They know there will always be a need for a sappy love song. There is always some historical period where we can read about a plucky dame falling in love against her best intentions.
I don't think any amount of criticism would keep this schlock from the public, and I'm happier for it.
But even in those trashy romance novels that your fiance so detests, there's still that element of being taken out of yourself that I think is vital for art to have an effect.
Does this mean that, by those standards, it's good? I guess what I'm asking is, is there any way to establish rules of criticism that aren't entirely subjective?
Again I appeal to my more classically trained (in art, music, and literature) allies to show me the fine line between emotive appeal and 'critical' appeal.
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