What exactly is a "literary" novel? Your ideas

Tagging my catalog this morning, I came across dozens of novels that I thought had literary merit, but may not be viewed as such by literary mavens. That left me wondering, what is "literary" anyway? Oh, and while we're on the subject, what constitutes a "classic?"

Well, maybe a literary novel is one that academics read, and classics are the ones they are still reading.

The novel Hyperion by Dan Simmons is filled with literary allusions, but I am not sure that one would call it literary." Is it on any college's reading list?

I like my closest dictionary's definition of literary. It confirms that all my books are literary. :)

I like that one, fleela :)

I'm so jaded about the word 'literary' that I tune people out when they start using it. Too many people use it to mean 'books that I read that you're* too stupid/unsophisticated/shallow to understand'.

* you, here, meaning whoever the speaker feels like talking down to at the time, often the world in general.

>4 antqueen:

My feelings exactly!

I usually take it as "if you don't read these you are stupid/unsophisticated/shallow."

Yes, it's usually used to denigrate.

Academics are overly impressed by style, imho. I love beautfully written prose as much as the next person, but it's only fashion and window dressing. A simply written story that is profound, funny and/or moving is more impressive to me than lots of verbal pyrotechnics.

I feel the same. When I recommend books I hasten to add that they aren't literary kind of as a warning because I'm afraid the person will wonder why on earth I recommended such a shallow (for want of a better word) book...My recommendations are purely based on my enjoyment of the story.

I think tagging is instinct and hey it's your library do what you want. I've just started tagging my books recently one by one it's fun.

I did a tagmash on literary, fiction -- and these are the five that came at the top of the list.

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
The great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
One hundred years of solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Life of Pi : a novel by Yann Martel
The name of the rose by Umberto Eco

So, whatever these novels share in common, (tongue in cheek) that's what makes them literary. And start some exactitude.

I think the tag "literary fiction" gets applied to most things that are not "genre fiction" - i.e., sci fi, fantasy, romance, detective stories, horror stories. Obviously, there are some exceptions to that and there are "literary" authors who write works of genre fiction - The Handmaid's Tale, The Road, The Plot Against America, etc. - that are well-received simply because of the author's standing.

I think defining "literary fiction" is based more on what the work is not than on any particular characteristics of the work itself.

I had never thought of "literary" fiction as being snobbish fiction so 4, 5, 6 & 7 were interesting perspectives. I always interpreted it to mean that it was a work of fiction which required of the reader a certain level of experience or knowledge beyond the surface level of the story. It might be through references to other writing, or art, or history, or science, or whatever, but if you didn't have this experience, you wouldn't get the metaphors or allegories. It might be that the author drew from his or her own broad (deep?) knowledge to create a work which might have many layers of meaning to it, as opposed to telling a straightforward tale which could be taken at face value. Or, it might be that the author created works within the work which could be deemed literary (like Possession by A.S. Byatt). It would be this kind of thing that I would think of as "literary" fiction...I have no source to support this; this is simply my own interpretation.

That it could be interpreted as having a snob factor is very possible if the author was pompous about how they went about displaying their knowledge...can anyone think of a work which would fit this?

#11: Tiffin, I think your definition is excellent. I never thought of it quite like that, but it makes sense.

As for the term "classic," apparently it's only supposed to be used for something that has stood the test of time. Using that definition, it's impossible to have an "instant classic," despite what marketing hype or over-enthusiastic fans will tell you. (This applies to not just books, but music, cars, movies, and so on).

This thread puts me in mind of an article I found fascinating and dead on. I have little patience with self-consciously show-offy fiction. People think writing that tells nothing and does nothing is brilliant; I think it's the product of a hack. Which is why I have to defend my "genre fiction" as much as i do these days.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200107/myers

I get the idea that "literary" is an individual definition while "classic" has the standard of having passed the test of time. I also think tiffin's approach comes closest to my own interpretation, although I think I'm a little more forgiving with regards to allusions, etc. When characters are more than one dimensional and the author is attempting a somewhat serious theme, and when the book is clearly not genre, I give it a literary rating. Maybe I have to rethink this conclusion.
Thanks to everyone for your input. Other thoughts are always welcome.

>13 Bookmarque: From the linked article...

"At the 1999 National Book Awards ceremony Oprah Winfrey told of calling Toni Morrison to say that she had had to puzzle over many of the latter's sentences. According to Oprah, Morrison's reply was "That, my dear, is called reading." Sorry, my dear Toni, but it's actually called bad writing."

HA! Love it.

>11 tiffin:, tiffin, Your interpretation is certainly more generous than mine! :) Its quite a good definition though!

>15 Morphidae: I don't agree with the bad writing snipe. Morrison is intelligent enough to know what she is doing, the style she chooses for a novel is dependent on what she wants to convey. The reader has the choice of how they read a novel, or if they read a novel. If readers don't want to use their brain then they shouldn't read 'serious' novels.

Bad writing on the other hand is the semi-literate rubbish that packs the bestseller shelves.

A well-written novel with interesting characters can be literary. If it is genre-like, it can't be a slave to the rules of that genre.

I think one can feel a great deal of satisfaction from being stretched by a novel. I remember feeling that way after reading the Raj Quartet (the jewel in the Crown) by Paul Scott.

Readability is a difficult issue. Is James Joyce's Finnegans Wake literary?

>18 vpfluke:

A better question is "is the Wake a novel ?" as it seems so very much more at times (and complete nonsense at others).

More seriously though the readers manifesto in msg 13 raises some intresting points. Literary fiction now seems to be its own self-concious genre and like any other there are some gems and some real utter dross.

#12 and #14 - I know that there cannot be an "instant classic", but what is the cutoff for "having stood the test of time"?

I recently mentioned Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy as a classic science fiction book, but another reader, while agreeing with the general merits of the book, said that he did not feel that it had earnt classic status (but he did say that he felt it will).

As for literary - this always puts me in mind of the Victorian writers... and is generally an immediate switch off for me... and I certainly agree with the "style over substance" point someone made earlier in this thread.

It takes at least a generation (maybe ~30 years), peprhaps two, for a book to be really thought of as a classic.

I looked at Amazon and they have a quartet of books called the "Mars Sequence" : THE MARS SEQUENCE: Book (1) One: Red Mars; Book (2) Two: Green Mars; Book (3) Three: Blue Mars; Book (4) Four: The Martians by Kim Stanley Robinson and Don Dixon. Is the book,"The Martians" not really part of the Mars Trilogy? I think I saw that the Martians came out in 1954, and that makes it pretty close to being a classic if I read the date right., considering that it is still in print. (Obviously, I haven't read it/them).

The type of attitude displayed in #17 (if you don't like it/don't read it, you must not be using your brain - anything that sells well is trash) is a common one about "non-literary" novels that causes the reactions to "literary" novels as in posts 4, 6 (mine), and 7.

>22 Morphidae: I didn't say 'literary' novel, I said 'serious' novel. A literary novel will serious by it's nature but there are serious novelists across the genres. John Crowley & Gene Wolfe are serious novelists in fantasy/sf whose work requires a little more effort than the run-of-the-mill works.
I also didn't say that anything that sells well is trash, there will almost certainly be one 'good' novel in the top 10 bestsellers in any week. That doesn't stop the other 9 being the likes of Danielle Steel and Dan Brown.

vivienbrenda wrote:
Oh, and while we're on the subject, what constitutes a "classic?"

I just read clubbing by Andi Watson and in it wrote "The thing about classics is – why do the women always cop off with the wrong bloke and die?"

#23
I started some threads in a group called "Bestsellers Over the Years". One of the years I looked at, 1940, we were lucky and got two serious books in the same year:

For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

In 2001 (the latest year I've done), we managed at least one:

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. 19 people have actually tagged it as "literary" or "literary fiction".

>John Crowley & Gene Wolfe are serious novelists in fantasy/sf whose work requires a little more effort than the run-of-the-mill works

John Crowley, at least, is extremely well-respected by Harold Bloom. His novels, while grounded in the fantasy genre, are as much about the human capacity for invention, imagination, wonder and storytelling as they are plot-driven page turners.

The concept of "serious" fiction appeals to me. Maybe the term "literary" should just be sacked, as it does imply a snobbishness. I've catagorized dozens of my books as "literary" as I've always considered these to be more grounded in human nature than genre fiction. More thought provoking.

To be fair, I don't think even something as intriguing as "The Corrections," is necessarily "literary" by the standards of same James Joyce --- or maybe I mean dense or for many unreadable.
But "serious"it seems to me, is an attempt to dig deeper into the human psyche and the world around us.

I think I'll go back and remove "literary" tag, and change it to "serious". I doubt I've read many truly "literary" works. I know it's my own catalog, but I don't want to deceive myself into thinking I'm smarter or more enlightened than I really am.

I think people tag things as literary as they feel comfortable with thinking about a piece of fiction that way.

On some of the lesser known works (not Franzen's), I wish more people would put multiple tags on their works, so we who might have some interest can get a better feel for it, before we move on to the reviews (which may not exist either in LT).

I agree with post #6 and #7. I found it ironic and amusing when I looked up one of the dictionary defintions of "literary":

characterized by an excessive or affected display of learning; stilted; pedantic

I love books. I won't hesitate and will read from any genre, so one day I decided to give so-called "literary fiction" a try. Well, I can count on one hand the number of modern literary novels I've read. I had to force myself to plough through each one, very painful to read.LOL. It didn't take me long to figure out how incredibly boring these novels were and I've stopped trying to read modern literary novels, big yawn-fests if you ask me.

I'll stay an unsophisticated peon and stick to my low-class novels with relish, happily reading those summer best-seller books by the likes of Dean Koontz and Nora Roberts.=)

Don't forget Dan Brown! :D

Reverse snobbery is snobbery all the same.

Just sayin'.

Crucify us! Crucify us all!

27> The serious label seems more snobbish to me than the literary one. It suggests that all other books are not serious (although does literary suggest that all other books are not literate?)

>33 jjwilson61: But all novels aren't serious, some are entertainments. Even someone of the stature of
Graham Greene divided his novels between literary efforts and entertainments, i.e., Our Man in Havana was an entertainment, The Power and the Glory was a literary effort.

It's the difference between Philip Roth and Dan Brown. Roth is setting out to make serious points about the nature of society, for example, while Brown wants to tell a story. There is nothing wrong with either approach, they are aiming at different markets. The problem arises when we compare the two, accusations of snobbery and ignorance start flying.

It could be simpler if we expand this debate outside of literature, are Schindler's List and The Phantom Menace equally serious as films? Does one have more merit than the other? If so, why?

I think it's okay if I don't "get" every thought and idea an author writes in a given book the first time I read it. Often, these are the books I will go back to again and again, picking up new things each time.

I might be captivated the first time by beautiful imagery or language or ideas, and when I go back to the book years later, I find that my life experience has caught up to the author's and I better understand his point of view.

If, as sometimes happens, I am unable to grasp everything an author is trying to say, I don't automatically blame it on the poor writing skills of the author. I assume that, as in much human intercourse, the two of us are simply unable to perfectly understand each other.

But, that's just me.

B&B moment - 'huhhh. you said intercourse.'

Ha. Sorry. Had to. I might get older, but I don't think I'll ever mature.

But on a more serious note, I get where you're coming from amancine. This has happeneded to me many times. The young me saw and picked up on some things in a novel, then the middle-aged me found some more and laughed at some of the views the younger me held. I suppose the even older me will laugh at the middle-aged me when I read another favorite again in 20 years. It's how we develop and it can be really, really funny.

You know, I really debated with myself over using that word, Bookmarque, but I thought we were all mature enough to handle it. ;D

Conversely, I have also noticed that books that I totally loved for many years, I am less fond of now. I guess I grew out of them. That always makes me kind of sad.

Yeah, sometimes I'd rather keep the idyll of the memory of a book. I recently attempted to re-read the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony. Note the attempted. I had to stop. They are seriously awful. But in my teens I thought they were deep. Oy vey.

Oh intercourse the penguin!!!

I think what defines a "literary" novel depends on the context and the points-of-view in the discussion. Literary can imply "excessive or affected display of learning; stilted; pedantic" (the definition found by booklover79), and it can also match tiffin's definition in #11. For me, the term "literary" indicates a relative depth in the novel compared to other novels; it expresses some that is not easily put to words. But, it's a strange thing, the more I learn about any single novel or other literature, and all the efforts, decisions and balances the author put into it, the more each work seems to merit a "literary" tag.

Great article link (The Reader's Manifesto).

This discussion brings to mind current production of what could be thought of as tea-towel fiction. Orange Prize judge Katharine Viner described many of the MFA graduates' novels she read as follows:

"They are books with 500 pages dicsussing a subtle but allegedly profound shift within a relationship. They are books where intricate descriptions of a man taking a glass out of the dishwasher, taking a tea-towel off a rail, then delicately drying the glass with the tea-towel, before pouring a drink into the glass, signify that he has just been through a divorce."

It's not that i don't enjoy beautiful books with a love of words. But i find myself growing weary with what i consider to be the use of too much abstraction in a story to explore a character's feelings or psychology.

But that's just a matter of personal taste. At the other end of the spectrum, i find novelists like Michael Connelly equally unreadable.

Occasionally i'll find what i consider to be a great novel that challenges my notions and has the potential to change lives. If it's a historical novel, it cuts through time and space to draw me in and afflict my comfort in the present. It doesn't matter whether the author was appealling to a large-scale audience or, like Milton, an audience of the fit few. In the long run, i hope these great works will find vast readerships.

If I could use a book like "Grapes of Wrath" as an example, my own interpretation has been this is a literary work, in that it reaches deep into the human condition. Yet the story is readable, to me as much a page turner as any Dan Brown novel. But when I think about literary, as I was taught in school, it referred to dense, almost unintelligable writing, the kind of intellectual thinking that should not ever be easily read or understood.
I opened this topic out of curiosity to learn if my conception of "literary" was accurate, or if it had a broader meaning. In other words: was there a "standard" by which publishers, critics, and other high minded (a phrase not meant as superior) people understood the word to be.
I love the dialogue. I am becoming more and more convinced that there is no "standard."

vivenbrenda - I find it somewhat unfortunate that you were taught in school that "literary"
"referred to dense, almost unintelligable writing, the kind of intellectual thinking that should not ever be easily read or understood."

I suspect a lot of people learned that rather than learning that ideas that challenge and enlighten can be found in literary novels, if one looks hard enough.

Edited for clarity, I hope.

#42: But you see, that's my problem. I'm not sure why I should have to look hard enough to understand the author's intent. Referring again to "Grapes of Wrath", is that a literary novel by those standards?

I read for enjoyment and to learn things, not to bang my head against the wall trying to analyze what a "literary" author is attemping to say.

Does that mean that such works are not necessarily "literary", though, if you need to bang your head against the wall figuring out what the author was trying to say?

And what if one actually finds banging one's head against the wall trying to find out what the author was trying to say enjoyable?

I'll have to admit that I'm in agreement on some level, personally. Something like Gravity's Rainbow, where the annotations fill a second book that's equal in length to the referred text starts to seem like a bit too much work for me after a while. Then again, I believe I've seen Pynchon quoted to the effect that he doesn't understand what he was getting at in certain passages on rereading. I gave up after the third reread of the novel.

Here's a question for y'all... At what point do you decide that a text is understood? In another forum I post on, someone had mentioned that upon rereading The Great Gatsby in their thirties, the book had changed entirely. When reading the book in High School, this person had hated the book. Fifteen years later they loved it.

Obviously, the book itself had not changed. The text was exactly the same, but this person's relation to the words on the page was entirely different. So how does one decide that a book is "closed" to oneself? Or does one not even make that decision?

>And what if one actually finds banging one's head against the wall trying to find out what the author was trying to say enjoyable?

Then more power to you! :D

What I get my knickers in a twist about is when someone insinuates that they are somehow better/more intelligent/classier than I am because that is the way they enjoy books.

And as much as it has been denied, it has happened on this thread.

#46
I think Stephen King summed this whole idea of literary snobbery up nicely during an acceptance speech for an award he received at the National Book Awards. What he said in his speech was in response to criticism that he was not worthy of winning a literary award, *gasp*...a popular fiction writer of horror (of all genres in "popular" fiction!).lol.

In his speech he mentioned how he had no patience "for those who make a point of pride in saying they have never read anything by John Grisham, Tom Clancy, or any other popular writer". He scoffed at those who think they get "social academic brownie points for deliberately staying out of touch with your own culture". Bravo for King. I bet all that critism was just envy...I mean, King's a millionaire off the popular fiction he writes they thumb their noses at.LOL.

>popular fiction he writes they thumb their noses at

Or else they have a real ego issue. After all, the mass of people who buy "popular" books must all be dunderheads. So they think they are better than those thousands or millions of people. Uh huh. Try a little humility?

Duh, I'm a dunderhead then.lol. Seriously, I love reading and I haven't solely read popular fiction books, though that's what I prefer to read. To dimiss such books as not being literary does said books a disservice because I think they serve as a stepping point into the world of reading for many people. Which, yes, includes those books that are "serious" or "literary" that those in the upper echelons of academic society heap praise on. I've branched out from my popular reading and dabbled into all genres and I've come out the better for it.

I think it's truly sad to limit oneself to a particular type of book. I can see the merit in all books.

King's award did set off quite an uproar.

How many other literary novels include a haunted car, demonic clown, or literary pseudonym that becomes real and hunts down its creator? But while the vampires, ghosts, sex, and violence may lure readers in, what keeps them coming back may be King's talent in imbuing his horror tales with cultural relevance, realism, and theology that's missing in most other fiction - literary or otherwise.

John Leonard once wrote, "You don't achieve Stephen King's sort of Vulcan mind-meld with America unless you are in intimate touch with the communal fantasies of the whole culture." The King i read brings to life so many of the dark facets of American life written in our stream-of-consciousness, media-drenched way of thinking and talking: serial killers, cell phones, alien abductions, alcoholism, tabloid journalism, political assassinations, cocaine, Vietnam, rape, AIDS, abortion, wife beating, and the endless fears and miseries of childhood just to name a few.

In another group some people were talking about the most evil literary characters and Satan's avatar from The Stand, Randall Flagg, was mentioned. King's description of him is a good example of work in which there's little to figure out and isn't (usually) considered literary. But it is enjoyable, imbued with history, and a great example of King's supernatural realism:

His pockets were stuffed with fifty different kinds of conflicting literature--pamphlets for all seasons, rhetoric for all reasons. When this man handed you a pamphlet you took it no matter what the subject: the dangers of atomic power plants, the role played by the International Jewish Cartel in the overthrow of friendly governments, the CIA-Contra-cocaine connection, the farm workers' unions, the Jehovah's Witnesses (If You Can Answer These Ten Questions "Yes," You Have Been SAVED!), the Blacks for Militant Equality, the Kode of the Klan. He had them all, and more, too. There was a button on each breast of his denim jacket. On the right, a yellow smile-face. On the left, a pig wearing a policeman's cap.

NativeRoses,
Well said post. I agree. I think Stephen King has an uncanny ability to delve into the human pysche and portray it so vividly in his characters.

>50 Morphidae: I don't understand why you keep perceiving rational arguments as slighting. No-one is saying they are better than anyone else, or that people can't read what they want, they are saying some books are better than others.

The argument is simple - if you believe art has any "value" then some art must be better than others. On the other hand, if you accept the post-modernist view, that " artistic value" is meaningless, then all art is valueless - Dan Brown and Charles Dickens, Bob Dylan and Billy Ray Cyrus, Ingmar Bergman and McG, are all equal in their respective fields. Since all art is now equal, what is the point of art?

Stephen King is interesting because he manages to straddle the divide between low and high art. In the UK at least his novels are widely reviewed in the literary pages, the BBC recently aired a 60 face-to-face minute interview with him, etc.

He's also a helluva storyteller. What's wrong with storytelling?

> Considering that Charles Dickens, Bob Dylan and Ingmar Bergman leave me cold and I enjoy Brown, McG and even a Billy Ray Cyrus song now and then, to me the later are "better" than the former. Art, to me, is about connection. I don't connect to Dickens, Dylan or Bergman.

And I don't understand how saying "low and high art" or calling books "rubbish" or saying someone doesn't want to use their brain isn't a putdown. To me, THAT isn't rational.

I'm assuming you're just joking now - no-one likes McG, not even McG after "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle"!

Just because something is 'trash' it doesn't mean it's not enjoyable. I'll watch (and have watched) horror movies instead of an Oscar winner but I know the majority of them are trash. Not in terms of genre but in terms of filmic technique. Occasionally one of these will be a minor classic though, the original "Hitcher" or "Carnival of Souls". However that still won't elevate the "Howling VII" above trash.

What you describe is the personal value of a book or a song - does that mean there is no subjective method to evaluate a piece of art?

citygirl,
That's a good question.

Morphidae,
I agree. I also don't comprehend why books must be categorized by their merit as a literary work to hold true value. It's obvious from this thread that everyone has an opinion as to what makes up a truly valuable book and that's the way it should be. One person's literary book is not another's. One person's idea of low art is another's high art.

55> i'd say nothing's wrong with storytelling. In one of the books i'm reading right now, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, Umberto Eco discusses the pleasures of enjoyable, tight storytelling and his love of Agatha Christie, Scarlett O'Hara, Bond ... James Bond, etc. His point is that there are many ways to enjoy fiction (walk through the woods).

>does that mean there is no subjective method to evaluate a piece of art?

I believe you mean objective and no, I don't believe there is an objective method to evaluate art. That is why it is art. I'm sure there are arguments on different methods - money made, popularity, critique, ground-breaking - but it all comes down to if a person is able to connect with it at an emotional and/or intellectual level.

I have to jump in again to say that I should have realized when I opened this thread that the question is as inane as asking "what is art?" Obviously, art is in the eye of the beholder. If the mavens have created a system for uplifting some art and ignoring others, who am I to argue? If I were an artist, I might care. I do write, but consider my work to be ordinary, certainly not literary...but maybe serious. (My own shading now on a theme). Would I care how it was received? Of course. Would it matter if it pleased the mavens? I honestly don't know. Such is the godworld we all aspire to...fame AND respect.

Nevertheless, as many of you have pointed out, good writing is good writing no matter what the genre and no matter who determines its level of importance. But the fact of the matter is, most of us won't live forever --- there may be one or two of you out there determined to do so --- so we have no choice but to make choices and to read what brings us pleasure. In the end, the reader determines the truth and critics be damned

I had a thought when this thread started and as I've been lurking it only seems to have been reinforced into something of a conviction. My thought is that unless you're in academy or are a book critic for a highbrow publication, the question of whether something is "literature" is rather unimportant. I think there are a lot more interesting considerations regarding a written work besides whether it is literary or not.

My junior year of high school, I had to read both Faulkner and Hemingway, both pretty widely accepted as literature. I thought the former was brilliant and was bored to tears by the latter. I still like loopy language and structure but consider minimalism overrated.

If the value of all art is personal does that mean studying the arts is pointless because there is nothing to learn?

no.

#63 - Well, I imagine the value of studying the arts is largely personal. If someone really believes McG is better than Bergman, they're probably not going to have much interest in film theory. (I am reminded of Chuang Tsu's story of khwan bird.)

My point isn't that there isn't any value in it. But it's something of a commitment to study art, and if someone doesn't feel it'll help them get what they're looking for out of writing/music/movies than I wouldn't really expect them to bother. Personally, I think studying writing/literature is a worthwhile goal, because I find it deepens my enjoyment of written works. But I also think that people look for different things in books, and I don't assume that what I look for in books is somehow better than what others do.

#61 - It's funny, but the question of limited time actually seems to increase my snobbery. I read a Dean Koontz novel a couple months ago and was frustrated with how little was going on in so many pages. If you're going to write a 400+ page book, you should fill up the pages with interesting stuff.

smile - i also just read a Koontz novel, The Taking, and had the same reaction -- airport fiction should at least be engrossing

I'm not going to touch the "art as a subjective medium and the post-modern dialectic" discussions, which I think people will still be tussling with at the end of time. With regard to "literary" works, however, I think everyone has made valid and interesting points.

We read for different reasons at different times. Sometimes I want to be told a romping good tale, just devouring the pages to find out what is going to happen next. That romping good tale might also be profoundly literary to me. Or I might feel like reading something which makes me think and feel stretched. Maybe I would have to work hard to sink my teeth into that particular work and yet it might not feel "literary" to me, just outside of my ken or experience - I'm thinking of something like Dhalgren by Delany here.

So I don't equate dense with literary (sometimes I think I'm what's dense and I certainly don't feel literary when I do). Nor do I think that a popular work can't be literary. I have read characterizations in a best seller which were as complex and multi-layered as anything by Chekhov.

It seems that it's entirely possible that one person's "literary" can be another's "storytelling", given an individual's knowledge, experience, etc. You might see the Golden Mean in Neuromancer while I'm thinking "wow, Zeiss Icon implants!". I might hear Miltonic echoes in Gormenghast while you think "gee, what a weird world".

Which brings the discussion no closer to resolution except to say that I still don't think of "literary" as snobbish. I think if someone is writing like a snob, they're a snob. If someone thinks that you're a doofus if you don't like or get something they like or get, they're a snob too.

>If someone really believes McG is better than Bergman, they're probably not going to have much interest in film theory.

I've actually read a book on film theory and while I found it fascinating what ended up happening is I enjoyed movies LESS for a time. I was so busy analyzing the movies, I didn't get any pleasure out of them.

Everything tiffin said. Seriously.

#69
That's why I hate watching a film with people who nitpick it to shreds. I think to myself, "argggh, just let me enjoy the freakin' movie already!!" LOL.

#69 and #71 - Exactly! I have a bachelor's degree in English lit. and it really killed all the fun in reading for a while. After four years of college I had to re-learn how to read for pleasure instead of trying to pick everything apart.

I think expectation plays a strong part in our reaction to something, often when a book is hyped to a large extent the actual experience of reading is disappointing, simply because it is very difficult to fulfill these expectations. When you have no expectations often the enjoyment is greater because of the freshness of the material, the sense of enjoyment.
This works at any point of the scale - the literary novel you are expected to find great because of the language or ideas, or the bestseller which is going to take you on a rollercoaster ride.

I think studying works both ways, over-analysing a novel can kill some of the pleasure but at the same time it can lead to a greater appreciation of the work.

When we go to the cinema or open a book we all want to be enlightened and/or entertained. Some people may approach works with a closed mind (i.e., it's an Adam Sandler movie - but in that case who can blame them :-P) but most approach in good faith, we put ourselves in the hand of the author or the filmmaker.

> 71 what is nitpicking? Is it pulling a film apart scene by scene or is it pointing out that the end of "Titanic" is so dumb that it grossly insults the intelligence of the average cinema goer?

jargoneer, I find myself leaning more and more towards your arguments. The analogy about film has made me think about my own changing tastes and how today what many consider crowd pleasers, are to me boring and redundant. I have to admit that my reading tastes have grown as well, although I still won't force myself to work through books that put me to sleep, no matter how great they're supposed to be.

But going back to film, I have never been able to tolerate a Bergman film, and won't waste my precious time trying today to understand them; again, there are way too many other films that I still want to see. and most of them would hardly be considered crowd pleasers. If they put me to sleep, I turn them off. But if they grab me in some way or another, I'm in.

So it goes with books. My brain, most likely against its will, grown and stretched longing for something stronger --- as it has with my taste for coffee, wine, food, and experiences.

While I believe art has value, it's still in the eye of the beholder.

#73,

What shinyone said in #72, "trying to pick everything apart"

>Is it pulling a film apart scene by scene or is it pointing out that the end of "Titanic" is so dumb that it grossly insults the intelligence of the average cinema goer?

I just watched the Titanic again a few nights ago and love the ending. While it is perfectly fine to state that YOU think the ending is grossly insulting, making broad generalizations about what other people think based on your opinion is generally considered a bad idea.

Is the ending to Titanic really that bad? I saw it ages ago, thought it was a pretty decent movie, and can't recall what would be so insulting about the ending. I think there's a difference between nitpicking in broad generalizations (the scene of x is stupid) and nitpicking in specifics (y behaves in idiotic ways not motivated by anything else we learn about the character), and I think that's one of the values of criticism/theory. It's not so much about whether you're reading the right books or the wrong books as having some means of communicating what you like or don't like about a work.

The problem with "Titanic" is that the ship sunk in freezing waters. All the scenes of Jack and Rose running around in freezing water just wouldn't have happened - the water was so cold that that their blood would have slowed significantly resulting in their muscles failing - running would have speeded this up. We have all felt this when keeping a hand in cold water for a few minutes. They then would have drowned or died of hypothermia in approximately 15/20 mins. Oddly the way to survive the extreme cold was to get completely smashed at which point the alcohol would act as antifreeze.
There's a difference between altering the facts a little for dramatic effect (Titanic does that throughout the whole movie) and just ignoring them.

#78
Boy, would I hate watching a movie with you jargoneer.LOL.=) When I watch movies, I tend to suspend my disbelief, you know..."That can't or won't happen in real life!!!". There's a lot of movies that take liberty with what would actually occur in real life vs. what we see on screen. I do the same for books. I throw out what happens in reality out the door and settle down for a good escape into a fictional world.

jargoneer, it sounds like you had a problem with one of the basic premises of the movie, not just the ending. Also as far as I know, the usefulness of alcohol's effect as an antifreeze is limited by the fact that alcohol make's a person's blood vessels dilate; they lose body heat faster and become more susceptible to hypothermia.

Not that I don't have sympathy for your complaint. (Chuck Palahniuk loses me early into Choke when he pretends that 30k years of art history don't exist.) Do you hold all movies to a similar standard? Do you eschew all action movies made in the last 20 years?

If the work - book, movie, enables us to suspend our disbelief, it works for me. I bawled at the end of "Titanic". OK, I'm the romantic type, I liked the music, too. Also, have you all ever noticed how, in the middle of an accident or really stressfull situation, everything just seems to slide into slow motion? Maybe that's why it seemed Jack & Rose were running around so much.

I enjoyed the story in Titanic, but what really impressed me was the attention to detail. Over several viewings you can really appreciate James Cameron's monomania. And, booklover79, I agree that suspension of disbelief can lead to a much happier movie experience.

>80 CarlosMcRey: there are very few films that I dismiss out of hand and they are always due to the actors, not the film, i.e., I can't stand Richard Gere, that man can't act, he can only blink; anger - blink harder, sadness - blink slower.

As for action movies - Jackie Chan is a genius, films like Police Story, Project A, Twin Dragons, etc, are among the best action movies made. There is something gratifying about about a star who does his own stunts. I will admit his English language films are disappointing, mainly because he doesn't have control, or they team him with the jackass pair of Chris Tucker and Brett Ratner.

It strikes me that most action films of recent years have decided that scripts are optional - give the public some big stunts are they wont notice there is no coherent stories or decent characters. Too many films seem aimed solely at teenage boys. There have been good action films though - the first two X-Men movies, the first two Spiderman movies (Sam Raimi is always worth watching), etc.

And I think we all realise that the true renaissance men of our times are Steven Seagal, David Hasselhoff and William Shatner - is there no end to their talents?

I was going to stay out of the titanic debate, but

>82 citygirl: that's the whole problem, Cameron bangs on about his attention to detail and historical research and then makes several glaring errors, there is for instance the whole Murdoch controversy and various points about whether Jack & Rose could actually meet, this might be the problem of watching with an (amateur) titanic scholar.

Back to the books though
I can't see any way in which The da-vinci cod ecan be judged to be qualitatively better than say Kim, true they are both adventure, page turners but Kim has a timeless quality about it that isn't brought down by bad writing and a cliff-hanger every other page

#83 - I brought up action movies because I think many good action movies actually take quite a few liberties with the laws of physics and/or physiology. I'm thinking of good John Woo, like The Killer and Hardboiled, where characters do things that are preposterous. (Like shooting accurately while jumping through the air.) Of course, this might just be cause for a debate on what constitutes a good action movie. Agree on Chan's Hong Kong work being great.

#81 - I agree wrt suspension of disbelief. I'm more interested in internal consistency than whether or not it passes a real-world test. Speaking of things slowing down, there's a very interesting passage in Black Elk Speaks where he describes his participation in Little Big Horn and how everything seemed to move in slow motion until a bullet grazed him. It was very reminiscent of the rooftop bullet dodging scene from The Matrix.

#21 - I think you're getting the Ray Bradbury book mixed up with Kim Stanley Robinson's work... KSR's book The Martians does follow the Red/Green/Blue Mars books, but isn't a true part of the series... it reads more like a set of short stories written around the notes that KSR must have made while setting up the whole myth/history of Mars colonisation.

79> I often find that I can tell whether I'm really enjoying watching a film by whether my suspension of disbelief is starting to fail... if my brain is deciding it's more interesting to notice all the logical inconsistencies and BAD SCIENCE (the perils of being a physicist) then it's probably not worth perservering with!