We have this Canon. It is in every AP Senior Lit class. There are books. And then there are Great Books. The Great Books are written by Great Authors like Dickens, Hemingway, and Joyce.
The other day I read in The Believer an articel by Tom Bissell about a lot of things. But his big point is that pop culture has to be taken seriously as reality. Reality is what you percieve it to be. The real is formed by our interraction with media. This is a three sentence summary of a 16 page article, so take it for what it is. Unfortunately the Bissell piece is not accessible from the web site.
So I googled Tom Bissell. I found this great article at Salon from over a year ago entitled I'd Prefer Not To. It's about the Great Books that Bissell doesn't like. Bissell is an editor for some hoitey toitey publisher, so his inability to read Faulkner and Austen is great.
What's even better are the letters to the editor. They are brutal. People call Bissell a lot of names. A few letters were happy with Bissell's honesty, but they were fewer and farther between. What I found especially interesting was that at it's heart, people's problem with Bissell's attitude is that Bissell unapoligetically looks at reading as a consumptive enterprise. We read to consume. Consumptive reading is irreverent and irreconcialable with any "higher" view of reading literature as an objective art form. Literature is only useful insofar and it helps you..
I find this idea interesting. Can we do otherwise than "merely" consume literature?
That's interesting. I think the idea of literature being an objective art form (or even the whole idea of "great" books) is a 19th c notion deeply imbedded into our psyche. I've been reading some prose by Richard Wagner (the 19th c German composer who was also a great writer). He speaks of the poet/the write as being priest to the gods! With this in mind, the notion of consumptive reading is veritable sacrilege. Yet, I think it's more honest. How many times do we think "oh, I ought to read that book" when we are really saying "oh, I need to consume more knowledge"? The times we read a passage ONLY for the sheer enjoyment of how the words are put together is much rarer (though not impossible).
Posted by: Jeannette at June 21, 2003 11:13 AMYa, sure, you could talk about literature as this great thing "objectively," but any reason why its great objectively ultimately is reduced to why it was so great subjectively i.e. it really captured theme here, or that culturely there, or that persons feeling here, and so on and so on. Why something is objectively great is because they nailed something on the subjective level.
So hmmm...it is true that Bissel is approaching it a bit from a "consumerist" standpoint, but I think it's important to note that he isn't saying those "great" books aren't great; he just doesn't like to read them himself. I'll be honest, Auden pisses me off and so does Dickens (my friends tell me I'll like Dickens more as I get into middle age). I still think they're great.
But hell, books I think are really great, are books that show insight into you (Matt), my other friends, and myself. I know that's such an egocentric take on things, but I'm not negating the greatness of the greats, I'm simply talking about relevance, or applicability, or something.
It's like, when you and Mesh come tell me that Kavalier and Klay is this great book that you just loved, hell, that's all the justification I need to a. read it and b. think it's great. Maybe I lack sophistication in my theory of literary criticism, but it certainly feels a little more real (that is, more interpersonal).
Posted by: JosiahQ at June 21, 2003 4:56 PM