Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site proper.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!qantel!proper!judith From: judith@proper.UUCP (Judith Abrahms) Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: critics Message-ID: <276@proper.UUCP> Date: Tue, 3-Sep-85 08:57:57 EDT Article-I.D.: proper.276 Posted: Tue Sep 3 08:57:57 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 7-Sep-85 13:21:32 EDT References: <3383@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> <> Reply-To: judith@proper.UUCP (judith) Distribution: net Organization: Proper UNIX, Oakland CA Lines: 106 In article <> brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) writes: >It is my considered (and I do mean considered) opinion (and I do mean >opinion) that to be great art a book must be, first of all, a good >read. If something is sufficiantly inaccessible that it cannot be >read for fun, it fails as art because it will only speak to that >small segment of the population that is already prepared to listen; >its exploration of (if I may) the human condition is wasted on those >who could otherwise get the most out of it.... Do you mean that if a large no. of people can't understand it, it can't be great art? And if you have to work to understand it, ditto? You might argue (as many did when Joyce, Eliot, and Pound first published) that it's perverse and snobbish to pour a great talent into the production of work that's more or less opaque to the average *contemporary* reader. Such work may show a certain lack of social or political concern on the part of the artist, but I don't see why that makes it bad art. Anyway, what about older books? Most of the works of literature -- not all, but most -- from which I've learned most about the human condition and so forth were books I had to read quite a few times before I felt comfortable enough with them that I could say I was having fun. How much fun is Hamlet the first time around? And after you've gone through it many times, and it's begun to occupy a special place in your thinking about the world (if it does), is "fun" really the right word for what you finally get out of it? A great many books that have changed my way of looking at things were lots of fun from the moment I picked them up, but plenty of them repaid a bit of study. Sometimes it was even worth reading the works the author read in order to get a better sense of his/her way of seeing things. >One test of literature that I'm particularly fond of is: how >long is the author remembered? By whom? Homer's work is a hell of a lot of fun once you get into it. So are the Canterbury Tales; so's a lot of Shakespeare, for that matter. How much of this stuff would have survived at all if it hadn't been preserved and taught in the schools? > ... what writer who is remembered >and, more, STILL READ after a hundred years failed to write >stories or books that were fun to read? All these people wrote works that were fun to read, but they didn't STAY fun to read when their languages ceased to be current. At this point, if it's more than a hundred years old, either you do a little studying or you miss a lot. And the further back you go, the less accessible the writing gets, until (as in the case of Shakespeare) you're missing allusions to matters that were as common then as the six o'clock news is now -- like the way cloth is woven, the way a sailing ship works, who all the Greek gods were, and so on. Or (as in the case of Chaucer) all of the above, plus the fact that you're virtually looking at a foreign language. Or (as in the case of Homer), the fact that you ARE looking at a foreign language. > ... I have read >ULYSSES. It fails as great literature. It speaks only >to the inellectual elite. This isn't bad; the intellectual >elite could use some speaking to, but great literature >must be inclusive, not exclusive. > >I wish I were good enough that I could have written ULYSSES. >But I say that the same way one says, "I wish I could afford >an elephant." I don't want the elephant, I just wish I >could afford one. Joyce trained to write ULYSSES by reading a lot of difficult books and studying a few languages. He moved to Europe from Ireland chiefly because the culture he was born into was too provincial to allow him access to the flow of invention and inspiration that was sweeping the Continent at the time. I mention this because many of my favorite science fiction writers have studied relatively inaccessible works (references to Joyce, to Pablo Neruda, to Jung, to dozens of "mainstream" writers, abound in the work of Zelazny, for instance) and the richness and depth of their style, and of their ideas, seem to me to have benefited from the scope of their investigations. >But the point about critics is this: I believe that >good writing must be accessable. But "accessable" >varies from person to person. And varies over time. What was inaccessible to me in sixth grade is easy going now. I once wanted to be able to write ULYSSES too, but at this point -- as you suggested -- I just wish I had a fraction of the capital with which Joyce bought his elephant. I believe the way to save that up is to read books by writers with interesting styles and interesting ideas. Some of them are hard going and others are great fun, but that's no measure of what I get out of them in the long run. I suppose I'm saying that in order to have good writers, you have to have good writers -- not hard writers or easy ones, just good ones. I think if you insist that a work be easy reading and fun (RIGHT AWAY!), you may not be giving it a chance. One of the reasons I enjoy reading the newsgroups is that, just as in more formal publications, people write well here. I just can't believe such good writing has developed without at least some study of our language and literature. I think I know what the work of people who read only "fun stuff" looks like: as an editor, I'm often called on to reorganize their writing for publication. To my knowledge [!!!] I've never seen clear, fluent, interesting writing from someone whose first criterion for choosing a book was that it be accessible. If that's what I'm looking at now, well, it's never too late to learn. Judith Abrahms {ucbvax,ihnp4}!dual!proper!judith ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Poetry is certainly something more than just good sense, but it must be good sense... just as a palace is more than a house, but it must be a house. -- Coleridge ------------------------------------------------------------------------------