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Serious topic #2: Is serious literature being created today?
Posted by Rivy • 6/27/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS] • Report This Topic
Topics: art forms, literature, new art movements
Just as the visual arts went through major shifts in creation and critical acceptance, so did literature. From epic stories to terse short stories. (Tolstoy to Hemingway.) From classical literature style to free-form (Joyce/Faulkner/Kerouac. Robert Frost to Ginsberg.) And so on. Salinger/Mailer/Eudora Wetly/Capote and more became the new generation of literature "giants".
Now there seems to be no one. As Mailer cynically said before his death: "The dream of the Great American novel has died."
What do you think of the status of literature today? Current writers/poets that will receive the notice and applause as in the past? Or is "literature" as a serious art dead?
Any takes on this subject appreciated. Hopefully in detail. Thank you.
User Comments
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How can a person paint such a large topic with a small brush?
Reading seems to be dying. I find fewer and fewer things, that I read, that are really any good. Some one said, "If you want to read the best in science, read the newest; if you want to read the best in literature, read the oldest." I still like the old stuff. Especially Iliad, Odyssey, Republic. It is good on so many levels. My entire mind is working when I read those. When I read today's lit, I find myself drifting or skimming hoping it gets better, but it doesn't.
I am not sure if lit is dead, but it needs good (better) writers to keep it moving forward. Most of the people you site in your question, helped move things forward. I can't say where "forward" is, but it will change. You've seen my McLuhan quote. -
I tend not to read many modern novels because I don't have the patience to sift through all the garbage to find something really good. Reminds me of a bit in Woolf's 'Orlando' where Orlando orders everything from the local bookshop because she hasn't read anything for a century and ends up with a houseful of stuff not worth reading. So much crap is published that you really have to work to find the quality, which is a real shame.-
And why is so much crap published? Because crap sells. The process is a cyclical one, locked in a downward spiral. People are busy and lazy--few want to invest the time and focus in reading that readers once might have, and even those who wish to often suffer from a lack of time. At the same time, daily exposure to marketing text, television soundbites, Internet-formatted writing and the like decreases our attention spans and ability to focus on more in-depth text. More often than not, the publisher who does search for the truly "good" book rather than the marketable one is rewarded with sizeable financial losses.
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@dcarrol and @SiuilARuin.Good replies from you both. Looking forward to more. I will not reply to individual posts from here on. (I want to write my own Great American Novel - smile.) But curious on all takes that might be made.
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I'm not big on fiction. I prefer philosophy, history, political philosophy and the like.
I seldom read any work straight through. I typically look up the topics of which I'm interested in the index... like people used to do before Google
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I seriously doubt if the authors mentioned in the OP thought, at the time they were writing, that they were creating "great literature." In fact, I suspect that writing with that intent will guarantee failure to achieve that goal.
Great literature, I suspect, is better identified in hindsight. And, I further suspect, that it's identification can be highly subjective. My own opinion of Hemingway, for example, does not include such flattering adjectives as "great."-
What about H.P. Lovecraft? -
I enjoyed Lovecraft when I was in that reading phase, but I'm not sure his work can be classified as great literature.
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I think that they thought of themselves as saying something important, as doing more than telling an engaging story that would entertain briefly and generate revenues.
I must disagree with your assessment of Hemingway--I think that The Sun Also Rises is one of the most revealing studies of human nature I've ever read, and laced with subtle symbolism and learning experiences for the reader that are not shared by the characters. The art of conveying the message not through the heavy-handed moment of discovery but by allowing the reader to see what the character does not is arguably a Hemingway creation, as is that stunner of a closing line that forces one to rethink the entire novel just as it ends. Given that it's such a concise and sparely written little book, it continues to amaze me that after 25 year I still learn something new every time I read it.
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It's all a matter of taste and posterity. Who knows what the public and critics will consider "great" a hundred years from now? And does it really matter? What lasts is mostly the critic's choice anyway, not the average reader's. There are plenty of great poets today, writing in all languages. Once again, it's just a matter of taste. Besides, you're measuring great literature in terms of innovation and that's a very modern idea, maybe a hundred years old. There are other criteria. -
Ok Rivy it is 3 in the morning you are are putting my brain cells in a grounded iron platter. Ok the current state of literature...hmmm... I realize that literary writing has to adopt to today's generation. Writings with emphasis on gory stuff tend to attract attention and readership. And well let us face it, today's generation of young people have low attention span(include me in) so it is harder to finish War and Peace or Anna Karenina without whining. You can't also let somebody read Bleak House and finish it off with a big smile. You have to be in a specific frame of mind to enjoy classic literature. -
Absolutely serious literature is being created today. Look at Chabon, Ondaatje, Rushdie and many more.
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Good point there. Yeah !
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I really think it depends on your choice and style of what you want literature to be.
For Example - there ARE some good works in modern writings.
The Shining is a truly Good Horror story - whether you like King or not (and he IS a Master of the Macabre) - you know about him.
Carrie was a prime example. Using Human Nature, King capitalizes on many subjects yet shows how we, as humans fail... Just like previous authors of the past.
Is King "literature"?
In the finest sense of the word?
Well... why the heck not?
Our language is structured these days to be less flowery - to be faster - to be less "eloquent".
Writers of today's genre are not "less" of writers - they are merely writing for their audiences.
Laurel K. Hamilton writes amazing Fantasy...
OK - so now you don't like Fantasy or Horror...
What about Robert A. Heinlein?
Stranger in a Strange Land is a fabulously PRIME example of modern literature - in the Sci-Fi ---- yet not quite Sci-Fi literature.
Oh wait - yet you don't like Science Fiction now either.
Hmmmmm...
OK - let's go to Nobel Prize Winners (from the Nobel.org site a list from 2008 - 1985)
# 2008 - Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio
# 2007 - Doris Lessing
# 2006 - Orhan Pamuk
# 2005 - Harold Pinter
# 2004 - Elfriede Jelinek
# 2003 - J. M. Coetzee
# 2002 - Imre Kertész
# 2001 - V. S. Naipaul
# 2000 - Gao Xingjian
# 1999 - Günter Grass
# 1998 - José Saramago
# 1997 - Dario Fo
# 1996 - Wislawa Szymborska
# 1995 - Seamus Heaney
# 1994 - Kenzaburo Oe
# 1993 - Toni Morrison
# 1992 - Derek Walcott
# 1991 - Nadine Gordimer
# 1990 - Octavio Paz
# 1989 - Camilo José Cela
# 1988 - Naguib Mahfouz
# 1987 - Joseph Brodsky
# 1986 - Wole Soyinka
# 1985 - Claude Simon
The problem isn't that there aren't Masterpieces out there.
The problem is that there are WAY too many options.
There is more money in writing - people purchase books and people CHOOSE what they like.
When a writer writes - a writer often starves unless he hits mainstream. Just like Artists.
But that does NOT mean that they do not create great works of art.
It is your perception - your cognition of the talent - that makes it a literary masterpiece.
Our language today consists of "Hey" - "F*CK" - "wowser" and such words. Today's true literature geniuses will need to use modern words - and a lot of people refuse to see those words in a Literary Monster....
It's perception...
Language...
Money...
and your choices.
There is so much more available...
And yeah - some of it is Trash...
But as someone else said above - great pieces of literature will be shown ---- in the future... as we can only see our past.-
Thanks for pointing out Stephen King's Carrie. I love the book and the movie. Seamus Heaney and Robert Heinlein in your list are also old faves.
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I don't know why books in the horror genre can't be considered great literature...what about Poe?
On the other hand, I don't like King. Haven't read one of his works after The Shining. Or seen any movies. Somewhere he lost the plot...and subtlety...and descended into gratuitous violence that didn't advance the story line and just generally offended my senses. I prefer Poe. -
Stephen King is a good writer, but a modernist he is not. I thoroughly enjoyed all his books as a child, since they were about the only books in our small-town library that appealed to me. By the time I was 10, I was over it. I'm still not quite over IT though.
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I think there are probably good contemporary writers (not big on fiction though), but also a decreasing number of people able to appreciate quality writing (if only for an insufficient mastery of vocabulary).
Further, no doubt that more contemporary writers don't consider their writing as a purely artistic endeavour. Whereas someone like Louis-Ferdinand Céline would rewrite his text 100 times before he was completely satisfied. Céline says the job of a writer is to convey emotions by slightly twisting language. I think true writers are few and far between.-
Most of the great writers in history were writing to pay the rent so I don't know why modern authors are chastised for it.
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I like Milosz a lot. His prose as well as his poetry. Many of the Eastern-European poets are very strong.
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Ummm because now they don't have to rent in order to write? Contemporary writers are spoiled with the facilities and amenities given to them . And oh , they don't have to use a typewriter so they have to work their asses to prove their work
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I didn't understand any of that...
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OK Siuil - in the past - a lot people who wrote masterpieces often went to a WRITER'S alcove rental - and shared flats in New York, etc. With a specific grouping of people.
A lot of them paid to rent these spots at these specific "camps" or boarding houses.
Nowadays, most authors work and write on the side... Unless they are journalists - otherwise - how do they maintain a car, a house and 3 children who must have those special 8 pocket tight, yet baggy jeans and phenom underwear - and drink ROckStars...???
The Typewriter was an amazing invention - yet - to elete half the words in a sentence, required MASSIVE and painstaking effort - not to mention - if it was half way down the page - you probably had to type that entire page over again...
Computers have made the world 100% better and easier for the writer. -
delete --- not elete... sigh..
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ah...I was talking about people like Dickens...I don't read much American literature.
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I assume modern or early 1960's authors in the UK prolly did about the same thing tho. (just in their area).
Kerouac.
For example. -
Have you ever seen the documentary of J.K. Rollins (sp?) Most of her work was long hand, and she literally cut and pasted sections of her first book. Quite incredible.
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I'm not a fan of Harry Potter but they are clearly very good children's books and she wrote them because she had no money and thought it was worth a go trying to make some from writing a book...
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@wagerwitch. Good point there. You actually described in words what I do in seizures LOL.
@SiuilARuin-Dickens-Great Expectation which was made into a movie is probably his only bearable work to non fans.American literature is amazing. Lots of American writers ion the 50's flourished and one of them is Jack Kerouac.-
*sigh*
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O well, to each their own. But personally, I don't think Kerouac can be mentioned in the same breath with Dickens.
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They can be in the same breath - but differing taste buds... LOL!
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* hands you a glass of water* Ok breath up
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well Dickens=Classic
Kerouac=Contemporary.
Of course they are not on the same shelf. But they are/were both great.-
you just said that only one of Dickens' novels was bearable!
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bearable to some but loved to others. i love his works.
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I have to give J.K Rowling credit for writing in longhand. Harry Potter books are not just for kids. Anyway I am not a fan because I am into Tolkien stuff but yes kudos to Rowling for doing what she does best.
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Harry Potter is for kids, it's just that adults choose to read it and justify reading children's books by claiming it's for adults too. It reads like a kids' book, it's written about kids, it was originally marketed at kids, it's a kids' book.
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Never read Harry Potter, but I saw half hour of the "Philosophical stone" during lunch at a freinds house. It was all about Witchcraft. Do you think this could have been written to introduce the occult to a whole generation of kids?
matt-marriott.faithweb.com/mind_control/child/harry_potter_agenda.html -
I am speechless.
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That is so ridiculous. Harry Potter is all about good versus evil and moral values and lessons. It is based on a tradition of fantasy novels such as the Lord of the Rings and the Chronicles of Narnia. Uber conservative Christians have jumped on the anti-Harry Potter bandwagon because they hate everything that doesn't have Jesus in it.
If you want to talk about a book that introduces children to the occult, let's talk about "His Dark Materials" by Philip Pullman. This is a series of three books that are beautifully and brilliantly written where the Catholic church is forcibly separating children from their souls (called daemons in the novel) and a resistance movement is rising up to depose God consisting of fallen angels, witches, animals, humans. Right and wrong is extremely fuzzy in these books.
Honestly, "The Northern Lights" (AKA The Golden Compass)is one of the most brilliant, challenging, and engaging novels I have ever read. The other two, The Amber Spyglass and The Subtle Knife are also just gorgeous and equally morally ambiguous. This is complex, thought provoking literature for children.
Harry Potter is positively saintly in comparison. -
I wouldn't discard this possibility so roundly though. In particular, beyond the religious references, I find the following thoughts rather interesting.
www.newswithviews.com/BeritKjos/kjos48.htm
The effects of these suggestions are far more subtle. They fit into the dialectic process -- conceived by occultist Georg Hegel and embraced by Marx and Lenin and other revolutionaries. This process calls for social change through continual exposure to opposing beliefs and values (thesis versus antithesis). The tension or conflict created by those contradictions prompt traditional thinkers to compromise and conform to an evolving consensus (synthesis). Christians are not immune to this mind-changing process.
The goal of this revolutionary process is to change the way most people think and relate. The contrary suggestions will gradually "free" minds from the old absolute truths and values of the Bible. After a while, people will no longer react negatively to the evils that God abhors. Their conscience is desensitized. Everything becomes tolerable except Biblical truth, which exposes sin and draws a politically incorrect dividing line between what God calls good and evil.
Human nature naturally delights in occult or violent entertainment! In ancient Rome, the thrill-seeking masses flocked into the huge Coliseum to be energized by gory gladiators and Christian martyrs torn by hungry lions. Centuries later, during the anti-Protestant Inquisition, the crowds gathered to watch the bloody spectacles of hanging, burning, beheading and quartering. Only a few decades ago, the evil Darth Vader became the most popular Star Wars character. And today, the public's growing thirst for blood and gore is partly quenched through vicious games and movies. Do you wonder what will satisfy that craving ten years from now? -
You think Harry Potter is conditioning children to blood lust? Have you read the books? The books are hugely anti-violence. The good guys don't kill, they stun. They repel. They defend. The books uphold virtues like honesty, loyalty, friendship, education. They abhor discrimination. The thing they don't do is hold prayers in Jesus name every other page or have thinly veiled Biblical allegory.
I don't think your argument applies if you actually READ the books. If you want to make that argument with violence on television, in movies and video games, I would be inclined to argue that there is definitely desensitization, but that none of these influences matter as heavily as parental and peer influence.
I'm done with this argument. I never should have gotten involved in this in the first place as you never listen anyway. -
So, Harvey, based on seeing half an hour of the movie, and never having read any of the seven books nor interviewed the author, you have come up with this convoluted and twisted analysis of the books AND managed to toss in enough references to known philosophers to make it look, to the uninitiated,like you know what you are talking about.
What a load of crap.
Something that never ceases to royally piss me off is the arrogance of substituting one's own navel gazing for the stated objectives of the person in question, in this case, Rowling. The books are about the basic struggle of good vs. evil, persistence vs. surrender, and the fact that evil is never permanently conquered, simply beaten back. It is an allegory for real life, set in a captivating setting that will capture and hold the imagination long enough for the message of persevering in the pursuit of good, regardless of how tiring, gets through.
Amazingly, the children I know who have read the books (including my own grandchildren) had no difficulty in knowing that witchcraft is imaginary...unlike a certain pseudo-intellectual of whom I know.
Perhaps he should spend less time his head up Socrates' bum and more out in the real world with the rest of us plebes. -
@ST,
It is not my argument, yet, and the article is saying on the contrary that it's not about driving kids to blood lust, the process is much more subtle.
Don't you think you are the one who is being adamant and not listening here? I simply said I wouldn't discard the possibility that Harry Potter was popularized in view of opening a whole generation of kids minds to the occult (out of opposing worldviews would emerge a Hegelian synthesis). Admittedly, only seeing a half hour of a HP movie is a bit limited, hence my original question. Thanks for your input. -
Sorry SweetTT, I'm over my Internet quota, got to disconnect now.
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I agree that one should be careful what mysticism they expose children to... that's why I won't let my kids read Tim LaHaye's stuff.
I mean jeeze, i don't want them ending up like Bristol Palin! -
I think the whole idea is not only ludicrous, it is libellous as well. You want to know if there was such an intent, ask Rowling. Look at her life and tell me that she is an occultist and worships demons, etc., and it using these books to proselytize. She isn't, and there is nothing...absolutely NOTHING...to support that contention.
You are right...I am not listening. I am not listening to wild-eyed, self-serving nutcases who see devils in everything that doesn't come out of a book or two that they have personally deemed worthy. I am not listening to pseudo-intellectuals who cannot hear the words of the accused for the noise of their own voices in their heads.
I am, however, listening to the author who says she has written a series of books to entertain children...and get herself off the dole. -
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Yes but it is no longer JUST for kids because we know adults love it. You said it yourself.
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The fact that adults read it doesn't mean it stops being written for kids.
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I think Rowling was too technical for kids.
I think the Potter series was written for the 18 - 25 age group.
It's too difficult and too long for your average 10 year old. Trust me - I tried to get my 10 year old to read it (when she was 10) - it wasn't until the Twilight series came out ---- and she was 13 and had hormones that she became deeply interested in reading.
An the Twilight series is pretty good... I won't say it's the best writing ever - but it is captivating - which is what I say is good. -
I tried to read the Harry Potter books when I was 14 and the reason I didn't read beyond the first half of the first book is because it was clearly written for young kids. Perhaps your daughter just wasn't interested in the books. People have gotten seriously stupid if Harry Potter is intended for 18-25s.
I don't think there is anything wrong with reading a children's book, but I do think it's ridiculous to pretend it's a book for adults to make yourself feel more intelligent. -
the first book is clearly written for kids.. but as the series progresses, so too does the content and maturity of the books..
the books were released over a span of 10 years.. so a 10 yea old who started with the first book, grew up with the series and the books keep pace with the development of the kid, so at the end, the last books might probably end up in the 16-22 year bracket(moved ww's spectrum a bit)
Rowling has made clever use of mythology from around the world and played around with fables/myths/history/language in a way young kids will definitely not appreciate.. the kids enjoy the stories, while the young adults(who are atleast a bit familiar with mythology) appreciate the nuances
It is basically like Tolkien.. the first few books remind you of The Hobbit which was a children's book but LOTR could hardly be classified as a kids book.. (though Harry Potter isn't quite as mature, you get the drift) -
My daughter read the first few Harry Potter books between the ages of 8 and 9. I made her wait until she was 10 for the later ones because they got a bit darker and more sophisticated and I didn't thnk she was quite ready to fully understand/process them.
My stepson, who was a much later and more reluctant reader than my daughter started them at about age 11 and worked his way through the series before he'd finished 7th grade.
That's my only direct experience, but I know that during the same time period, the vast majority of their friends had also gobbled up the books.
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I wasn't arguing it's written for kids But good point there. My my you gave me some serious thinking today LOL.
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I thought the Twilight Series was uncool-you know Anne Rice rip off. Not until I read the book, because this 14 year old friend was shoving it to me and she said it's wonderful. I was surprised! It was absorbing.
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It is, however, written painfully badly. The story is simplistic and the writing itself is overly florid. What Twilight does really well though is capture it's audience. Most 14 year old girls are having their first experience with the heat of first, intense, obsessional love.
I remember getting flushed reading about Edward Cullen's beauty in the book. It reminded me of how I felt with my first crush, back when I was 14.
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There are some good writters out there, but I havent read anything from a a current author that I can consider life changing, a book that opens your perspective, that makes you see the world in a different way -
And yes Dumbledore is actually gay as revealed in the book. So, there goes your book for kids en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albus_Dumbledore
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it is not revealed in the book that he is Gay.. it is how she thought of the character but no explicit reference is made to his sexuality.. thought I thought he was gay too, before Rowling made that statement
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What's wrong with having gay characters in a young adult book? that's when they're starting to realize they're gay, around puberty. -
nothing wrong.. he was just saying it wasn't a book for "Kids"
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Uh...gay people exist in real life, in case you didn't know. Kids have gay uncles, siblings, parents, neighbours, friends. Some kids know they are gay well before puberty. Why does having a gay character in it make a book NOT suitable for children?
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because not all parents are open minded and wouldn't let their kids read it.. thus damaging sales
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The fact that something might hurt sales doesn't mean that it's not a children's book--simply that it's a children's book with a potentially smaller market.
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Ooops my bad. Yea it was she who revealed it at the press conference.
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Which is such a cheap, meaningless cheat...
rockstories.blogspot.com/2008/08/dumbledore-is-not-gay.html
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Yes it is not OK for parents to know their kids are reading about gay characters. I know that because I learned that big deal. Though I have friends who are open minded that they teach their kids about respect for all kinds. Anyway,moving along, Neil Gaiman's Coraline is a book for kids and young adults. You have to read it because it's horrifying but beautiful.
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Reading about gay people doesn't make you gay.
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Tell that to the conservative parents.
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