Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 4.3bsd-beta 6/6/85; site lzwi.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!lzwi!nrh From: nrh@lzwi.UUCP (N.R.HASLOCK) Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers Subject: Re: critics (Long!!) What is art? Message-ID: <270@lzwi.UUCP> Date: Wed, 11-Sep-85 11:42:27 EDT Article-I.D.: lzwi.270 Posted: Wed Sep 11 11:42:27 1985 Date-Received: Thu, 12-Sep-85 11:05:26 EDT References: <3383@topaz.RUTGERS.EDU> <> <276@proper.UUCP> <247@hyper.UUCP> Distribution: net Organization: AT&T Information Systems, Lincroft Lines: 150 In article <247@hyper.UUCP>, brust@hyper.UUCP (Steven Brust) writes: > > 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? > > No and yes. > My contribution to this discussion is a simple ( very difficult ) question. What is art? What is the artistic content of the medium that we(?) are discussing? A work of literature has both structure and style. The structure is the story being told, with all its subplots, twists, turns and final resolution. The style is the way in which the reader is exposed to the structure, or the the way the author hides the structure from the reader. Note: These are my definitions for the purposes of my comments. Feel free to use them if they make sense to you. > > 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. > > There is a clear and present danger that we will soon find > ourselves attempting to define "art." I would enjoy the effort, > but I enjoy futile persuits. However, a work that is opaque to > the average contemporary reader is never, in my opinion, great art. > It is fine if the reader has to work at it; it is flawed if > the reader has insufficant reason to want to. > > > Anyway, what about older books? > > I don't understand. What about them? > What is opaque? Obviously it must be the style, otherwise we would be seeing comments about books with no story. The question is, how much story is left if we take away the style and would it be worth reading? ( I cannot comment here, not having taken the time to read the works in question ). Given that a lots of the 'Classics' have been abridged and otherwise munged into child readable form while most of the specified authors have not, I would suspect that there is not enough story to make it worth the effort. For me, great art should have both style and structure and the two should complement each other. Experiments with style may be fun for the author and interesting for the literate but without a complementing structure, the result is unlikely to be great art. > > > > >One test of literature that I'm particularly fond of is: how > > >long is the author remembered? > > > > By whom?. .... How much of this > > stuff would have survived at all if it hadn't been preserved and taught in > > the schools? > > We have no disagreement here. All of the things you have > just mentioned are things that I consider to be great art. > > Fun, aren't they? > But does this not give us a training in what is supposed to be great art? Do not all of these things have a worthwhile story as well as a unique style? Have not all of these stories been rewritten for children on the basis of the story alone, resulting in non art. > > > ... 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. > > Here we just disagree. I can't think of anything else to say. > I disagree too, look at some translations where the translator has succeeded in applying a currently acceptable style to the work. For example Magnus Magnusson's translations of the Icelandic sagas. > > 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. > > I don't "insist" on that, and I do, in fact, read authors who > force me to work and are not enjoyable. These people are craftsman > in their own way. But I do not call them artists. What they > produce just isn't good enough. And this distinction--what is > and is not art--actually matters to me, for what reasons I'm > not sure. I am sure of opinions on what makes for great art-- > just as I am sure that these opinions will change, perhaps into > their opposite, as I continue to read and think about what I've read. > No one if forced to read a book, ( after leaving school ) and writing books that are difficult to read merely reduces the readership. If the book is an experiment with a new style, then there is no problem. Just remember that style can be display as easily in a short book as in a long book. If the purpose of the book is to familiarise the readership with the style so that the author can later write his masterpiece in his new and difficult style, then the book should be only long enough to do that. Producing a long book in a difficult style that is unfamiliar to the authors readership is pointless unless the book is also fun. It will never be recognised as great unless someone, probably someone else, works exceptionally hard to make that particular style popular. > > > > 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. > > Surely, 'clear, fluent, interesting writing' is 'accessible' because it is clear, fluent and interesting. Maybe I missed something? > > I'm glad I read Moby Dick. There was a lot to it. > But it failed as art. Huckleberry Finn did not. There was > as much going on underneath, but Twain didn't leave the roof off > his house. It had a top level--fun--that was there too. Melville > should have had an editor with a big blue pen. It wasn't fun. > I don't think it will last. I could (always always always) be wrong. > > -- SKZB > > Judith Abrahms There is simply too much written material for me to be able to read it all in the space of this lifetime. If a book is seriously flawed, I will need a very compelling reason to read it. Simplistic style and simplistic plotting may still contain neat concepts that make the 90 minute invested worthwhile. If may favourite reviewers cannot find anything good to say about a difficult book then I will probably not bother to open the cover and I will find something else to call art. -- -- {ihnp4|vax135|allegra}!lznv!nrh Nigel The Mad Englishman or The Madly Maundering Mumbler in the Wildernesses Everything you have read here is a figment of your imagination. Noone else in the universe currently subscribes to these opinions. "Its the rope, you know. You can't get it, you know."