Late in the book we meet Professor Mintz, who believes that books should be judged not on their literary merits but based on their popularity. Instead of teaching Moby-Dick in class, his students read an 1880s novel about cannibals that he deems superior to Melville’s classic because it was more popular in its time. Is there an intellectual case to be made in support of Mintz’s literary approach, or is it absurd?
Monday, December 7, 2009
What is “good” writing?
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Great question, Kevin. Popular, zeitgeist-y pieces of writing don't often hold up very well over the years, but isn't temporality part of the truth, too?
ReplyDeleteCertainly there have been writers who've had it both ways (Dickens leaps to mind), but more often than not you've got to choose your own adventure as a writer: acclaim or popularity. Going after one almost always comes at the cost of the other.
Cormac McCarty languished away at impossibly dense and impossibly rewarding books (Blood Meridian, anyone?) for forever before stripping down his language and focusing on storytelling (No Country... and The Road). Enter Oprah, and now he's rich.
Every writer's gotta feel these tugs in these opposite directions. Except Janet Evanovich.
At first blush, my answer to your question is No. That would be absurd. The sad truth of the matter is that most folks have suspicious taste levels, and if anyone other than me were brave enough to read The Shack then you would quickly understand why we can never, ever let bestsellers become classics. (By reading The Shack you would also understand that God is a woman who closely resembles Aunt Jamima, but that's neither here nor there.)
ReplyDeleteHowever, it would be interesting from an anthropological stance to read the best sellers from any given time in history. Have we always had awesomely bad taste? Is it getting worse? I could see how a professor can make a legitimate historical argument for only teaching bestsellers, so long as she does it to better understand pop culture in that time. Just, you know, let's not pretend it was ever any good.
I think the use of the novel, Peking by Bill Lattimore, applies here and illustrates at least Hely/Tarslaw's opinion on the matter. It's probably in a lot of ways meant as the symbolic literary backbone of HIBAFN and Lattimore serves as the REAL Preston Brooks, the representation of Pete's actual literary foil. Peking is what makes Pete's friend/editor Lucy lose faith in the publishing industry. She knew it was Good Writing, yet it utterly failed. It's mentioned on pg 125 and then virtually forgotten about until Pete sees the author reading at the Book Expo. Lattimore is talking about going on actual digs and doing research and Pete says "I made a note to tell Lucy to tell Bill Lattimore to stop knocking himself out 'excavating' and just crank out a book with murder and some Christmas stuff" (190). Finally, it is THE book that 'changes' (I suppose that is the word) Pete at the end of HIBAFN and one of the two he reads while writing his 'memoir.' "When I finished reading Peking, I felt I needed to fling the book across the room, to get it away from me, like it was radioactive. That's how powerful it was. It might be my special curse that I could tel just how good it was.... I can't even describe it right and I won't bother exercpting it here. Go find it. I wish I had written something that good" (320-322). I know this is more reference than analysis here, but it's something I really didn't notice while it was happening. At the very least, an interesting way for Hely to wrap things up.
ReplyDeleteThere is a decided difference, often times, in what what I consider to be a work of art, and another book that tells a story that most people can read for the story to escape. A lot of books that are popular are because someone uses them to escape, but not because they are good writing. I think that Preston Brooks (Nicholas Sparks?) writes books that people can relate to, but not necessarily brilliant, or art. They are just something that people can relate to.
ReplyDeleteBeing the snob that I am, I would much rather read a book that is art, rather than a book that I can read quickly as an escape. That being said, although I have tackled Crime and Punishment, I am reluctant to read the Brothers Karamazov; simply because I know that I do not have that much quiet time to sit down and figure out who the charactors are.
I may also be more likely to pick up a young adult novel, say Artemis Fowl, but not be real excited to pick up another one because I don't feel that it was really that great. Some people would read every book in the series just because they are there and don't have to think about exploring new titles that much. Since they have devoted an awful lot of time, they will go around telling other people that the book was better than it really was, thus creating book sales.
Nah, Preston Brooks isn't Nicholas Sparks; he's Jodi Picoult.
ReplyDeleteOh, and I think that Mintz's theory is crap. We snobs all know that everything popular is inherently drivel.
ReplyDelete