andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2006-04-17 08:18 pm
andrewducker) wrote2006-04-17 08:18 pm
Literature - a vague stab at understanding
One of the eternal free-floating arguments that can be guaranteed to pop up from time to time, along with "What does it all mean?" and "Freedom - how much is too much?" is the question "But is it Literature?" - a question that I've mostly managed to ignore except when it's pejoratively directed towards SF (with the implicit assumption that it is impossible to be both science fiction and literature at the same time).
My main reason for ignoring it has been that I haven't had any internal guide as to what 'Literature' was - as to whether there even _was_ a difference between high and low art, or whether the two terms were merely handy ways for critics to declare that their lofty tastes were implicitly superior to the tastes of the hoi polloi.
And then, in a throw away line at today's panel "Is the Centre of Science Fiction at its Margins?" (How have women's, queer and black voices reshaped our ideas of what science fiction is) Geoff Ryman summed it up perfectly when he said "Entertainment leaves the reader innocent."
And that, to me, was suddenly 'it'. One can read any number of entertaining books (or watch any number of entertaining movies/TV shows) and still be left innocent - you've done nothing more than go "Wheeeee!" for an hour or two, frightened and exhilarated as if you'd just ridden the roller-coaster at Disney-World. But literature goes further than that - it educates and enlightens. It strips away our preconceptions, it illuminates our fantasies, it holds up a mirror and shows us what really look like.
Which isn't to say that there's anything wrong with excitement and adventure and really wild things; sometimes I just want to be entertained. But I get something more from literature - I get a definite something from a book like (for instance) We Need to Talk About Kevin or Air that I don't get (for instance) from any number of other books - a feeling of resonance and of uncovering something about the human condition in general and myself in particular.
My main reason for ignoring it has been that I haven't had any internal guide as to what 'Literature' was - as to whether there even _was_ a difference between high and low art, or whether the two terms were merely handy ways for critics to declare that their lofty tastes were implicitly superior to the tastes of the hoi polloi.
And then, in a throw away line at today's panel "Is the Centre of Science Fiction at its Margins?" (How have women's, queer and black voices reshaped our ideas of what science fiction is) Geoff Ryman summed it up perfectly when he said "Entertainment leaves the reader innocent."
And that, to me, was suddenly 'it'. One can read any number of entertaining books (or watch any number of entertaining movies/TV shows) and still be left innocent - you've done nothing more than go "Wheeeee!" for an hour or two, frightened and exhilarated as if you'd just ridden the roller-coaster at Disney-World. But literature goes further than that - it educates and enlightens. It strips away our preconceptions, it illuminates our fantasies, it holds up a mirror and shows us what really look like.
Which isn't to say that there's anything wrong with excitement and adventure and really wild things; sometimes I just want to be entertained. But I get something more from literature - I get a definite something from a book like (for instance) We Need to Talk About Kevin or Air that I don't get (for instance) from any number of other books - a feeling of resonance and of uncovering something about the human condition in general and myself in particular.
no subject
In the book trade people talk of "literary fiction" (including Umberto Eco, Salman Rushdie et al.), but, like most genres, that seems to be an artificial categorisation that merely aids in the search for books.
I suppose that art could be defined in a similar way - art, to me, is something that makes one feel something (with no particular bias towards the positive or negative), which generally means that something may be "art" to me and not to another person.
no subject
Not sure, to be honest. If something is _pure_ entertainment - a "Jurassic Park" or a Tom Clancy thriller, without even the pretense of unveiling something about the nature of the self, then it's not literature to anyone.
But certainly there are many books that are incredibly meaningful to one person and not at all to another. I learned a lot about myself reading both Illuminatus and The Schroedinger's Cat Trilogy, while others consider them pointless nonsense, or just entertainment. But the _attempt_ is still there, and that makes a difference to me.
no subject
You know where I stand on the Illuminatus trilogy (standing would be taken literally if I owned a copy*). I learned nothing from it. But I accept that you did, and that to you it could be literature - just as I think a lot of modern art (like Tracey Emin's work) is rubbish, but am not at all annoyed at art galleries buying pieces with public money.
I am reminded of a conversation I saw on a friends lj some time ago where two people talked of books as being "Great Books" and/or "Good Reads," which i took as the idea that literature doesn't necessarily need to be enjoyable but also that the two are not mutually exclusive. I'm not sure where I stand on that. I've been mulling that over in my head for quite some time.
* Not true. Books are sort of sacred in my world, and I would find it hard to damage one, even the Da Bloody Vinci Code.
Aaaaand a later addendum
Agreed. "Art is Manipulation" is a quote I rather like - artists try to make people feel something. Great art is something that does more than just cause an emotional response though, it uncovers something within the person that they might not even have known was there.