I'm still reading Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, a collection of women writers' responses to fairy tales.
In the introduction, the Kate Bernheimer makes a much-needed defense of writers who work in less-respected genres, like children's literature, young adult literature, fantasy, mystery, and sci-fi. She says that not only "literary" like Margaret Atwood or A. S. Byatt writers deserve respect, but also the likes of Robin McKinley, Jane Yolen, Neil Gaiman...She points out many of the original transcribers of fairy tales were women working in the French courts to collect the derisively named "old wives' tales."
Bernheimer says:
Highbrow readers quick to dismiss these tales because of genre labels might consider that these writers are also following in the footsteps of the salon writers of Paris, working subversively in fields often dismissed by the literary establishment, and staking out territory in books that have wide appeal. These authors often acknowledge their debt to a range of influences from Madame D’Aulnoy to Angela Carter.
I feel that this is an important point to make, because in current literary culture there often a deep divide between "good books" and "good reads." The books that continually win the Booker Prize, the Pulitzer, the Snerdly McSnoggall Prize for Great Literature are often horribly depressing, leaden reads that I occasionally force myself to read out of some misguided sense of virtue. I don't mean to suggest that all Booker Prize-winning books are dead ends, but that there is a culture which suggests that if a book is depressing and written in a certain style, it must be a heartbreaking work of staggering genius.
Meanwhile, it's books like Twilight and Harry Potter which people are apparently dying to read. I know many many people, too, who humbly submit to preferring "escapism" over "literature" - but I can't help feeling that they shouldn't be made to denigrate their own tastes, simply because they enjoy the occasional happy ending or adventurous romp. Perhaps Harry Potter isn't the most well-crafted book (then again, maybe it is, given its addictive qualities), but it shouldn't be automatically dismissed just because of its genre and popularity. And there are certainly other representatives of its genre that are extremely artful, profound, and yes, beautiful.
The question is: Does the gap between quality and pleasure have to exist? My own opinion is ABSOLUTELY NOT, and I will fight to the death to prove it. The immense pleasure and edification I get from Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Gaskell, John Le Carre, Connie Willis, Dorothy Sayers, and Doctor Who tell me that it is possible to be intelligent and fun. Certainly, the writers listed above all contain different mixtures of fun and weight, but the point is that the rip-roaring good yarn can also be excellent, excellent art.
And it's immense fun to trawl through the less exalted genres and find the gems. Much more fun than struggling through The God of Small Things, I guarantee that.
I have been discovering this as well - not just with Twilight and Harry Potter but with other things the world would totally dismiss as a fad and not a wonderful piece of creativity!
ReplyDeleteMy problem lately has been the prospect of doom for a little ABC show called "Pushing Daisies" - a wonderfully sweet, human, MAGICAL experience about a humble piemaker who can bring people back to life with one touch. After only a short time on television, they are trying to axe it. Meanwhile, shows that have zero story quality and exist as smut rather than good innovative art (cough, cough CSI: Miami, Desperate Housewives, etc) thrive.
I wasn't so sure about PD at first. But thanks to a very enthusiastic roommate I learned to love the wacky sweetness. In this case, sometimes I think the world doesn't know what it is missing. Lowbrow or highbrow or something in between, getting wrapped up in an unfolding story on the screen or on the page makes it worthy of praise.
I just wish I didn't have to say goodbye to so many good things because the world is a little too lowbrow.
Okay, I totally spiralled off in another direction, but I had to speak!
Agreed. There's a funny irony that we tend to judge things by genre labels, so that things that defy our assumptions about genre labels get left behind.
ReplyDeleteSo things that actually ARE junky, like CSI, thrive because people like their junk sometimes, while things that seem junky but aren't don't seem to please either the people who thirst for junk or the people who want to be highbrow and don't actually look at the quality of what they consume.
That paragraph is full of blanket statements and snap judgements, I realize...and I'm happy to be dissuaded from any of them. Anyone should feel free to convince me of the intrinsic merit of CSI, or to attack my assumption that there are a lot of people consuming Booker-Prize-winning books for less than pure motives.
But the point, Jillian, is that I know what you mean. :)
This post is really timely for me! I've been trying to sort through highbrow/lowbrow issues of quality lately. Last week I witnessed several girls spend a good amount of time completely trashing Twilight as resembling fan-fiction and "a book for people who don't like to read." Since I haven't actually read it, I felt powerless to protest. It's going to take me a good bit more rumination, but it feels good to move beyond the pleasure/quality divide.
ReplyDeleteAnd thankfully, I've never even watched CSI. ;)
Let's hope you don't actually have to fight to the death to prove it! (Story idea?) Read whatever you like without regard for high- or lowbrow status or what others might say. Please yourself. Interesting historical bit about the subversive salon writers of Paris. Rod Serling got tired of trying to make statements in contemporary teleplays that were censored by advertisers or craven network execs, so he created The Twilight Zone, which allowed him to freely express his points of view because, hey, it's just fantasy and nobody takes that stuff seriously, right? Like you said, subversive.
ReplyDeleteI think Terry Pratchett is right about some peoples problem with fiction and other 'lowbrow work'--"Stories of imagination tend to upset those without one."
ReplyDelete