• Welcome to BookAndReader!

    We LOVE books and hope you'll join us in sharing your favorites and experiences along with your love of reading with our community. Registering for our site is free and easy, just CLICK HERE!

    Already a member and forgot your password? Click here.

Death of the book snobs; good riddance?

SFG75

SFG75

Well-Known Member
I read this article and I knew it would make for one heck of a good conversation starter on this board. Here is a good synopsis of the argument.

What is noteworthy to me is that the best literature is in reality popular literature as well. For too long, the literary have accepted the fallacy that popular fiction equals bad fiction (and that popular fiction tends to sell better than literary fiction). This is simply not the case any longer. Junot Diaz's brilliant The Extraordinary Life of Oscar Wao was a massive bestseller. This year's winner for fiction, Paul Harding's Tinkers, now has over 100,000 copies in print despite being published by the tiny Bellevue Literary Press. What's wonderful about this changing book landscape is that, in the time it took Bellevue Literary Press to go back to press when Tinkers went out of stock, readers could immediately download it to their Kindles and Nooks. This summer's most talked-about book, The Passage, is a Stephen King-esque apocalyptic vampire novel...written by a Justin Cronin, a PEN/Hemingway award-winning author.

The vast majority of mainstream newspapers and magazines simply do not review genre fiction. In fact, the only true 'genre' book to receive any type of widespread coverage this summer (other than The Passage) has been Glenn Beck's thriller The Overton Window. Needless to say the book is not receiving coverage because of its entertainment value, but because of the media platform of its author. Can you imagine a movie magazine that ignored any films not directed by Ken Burns or Jim Jarmusch? This is essentially what most book sections have become. They have operated under the mantra of "popular=bad" for so long that readers and critics are even more disconnected than your average AT&T cell phone call.
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone could argue that there is a difference between popular and classical literature. I'm not certain how to explain the difference, but I know that Stephen King is not Steinbeck, nor would I even mention him in the same breaht as say Ernest Hemingway. However, I do believe he is within a stone's throw to Saul Bellow.

So, does "popular=bad" as the old saying goes?

Is the idea that popular literature outsells classical literature a myth as the authors states?

Are recent works really that bad, or are recent critics just that out of touch?
 
Death of the book snobs? I happen to have it on good authority that many of BAR's book snobs are alive and well, thank you very much.
 
Does Popular = bad? I don't think so necessarily. I just read that Dan Brown's the lost symbol was the number one seller in 2009.... So maybe most popular = bad :whistling:
 
*checks pulse*
*takes temperature*
*holds a mirror close to see if she's breathing*

Nope--not dead yet.


"...the fallacy...that popular fiction tends to sell better than literary fiction...."

He's out of his mind. He uses an example of a literary novel selling 100,000 copies. Omigod--six digits! Hasn't he seen the sales statistics for Twilight?
 
SFG75 said:
I don't think anyone could argue that there is a difference between popular and classical literature. I'm not certain how to explain the difference, but I know that Stephen King is not Steinbeck, nor would I even mention him in the same breaht as say Ernest Hemingway. However, I do believe he is within a stone's throw to Saul Bellow.
Click to expand...

20 or 30 years from now or when Stephen King passes away, will his work then be considered classical literature? The Stand is over 20 years old. If it were a car it would be considered a "classic". I don't know nor to I really care to much what the different kinds of fiction really mean. There is literary fiction, genre fiction, historical fiction, popular fiction, etc. To me it's fiction. Something that has been written out or stated that is not factual or not completely factual. That being said here are my opinions (not answers) on the questions


So, does "popular=bad" as the old saying goes?

yes some popular fiction was bad in my opinion. The Twilight series for example.

Is the idea that popular literature outsells classical literature a myth as the authors states?

In some cases this is probably true. Keep in mind though, a book is like most products. If it is marketed and heavily advertised it will sell. When was last time you saw marketing on books like Animal Farm and The Adventures of Huck Fin?

Are recent works really that bad, or are recent critics just that out of touch?

Some recent books are bad to some people but are great to others. Again I refer to the Twilight series. I didn't care for them but others love them.

I don't knowingly subscribe to professional book or literary critics. I may read reviews on forums and get suggestions from friends or families on what to read. These are the only critical avenues that might influence my decision to read something.
 
Great comments brk, especially about the marketing aspect that classics don't have. You have definitely provided some good food for thought on that side of it. The one thing that I find hard to swallow is that Glenn Beck's book is "good" by any measurable standard. I haven't read it, I have only seen it on the stands at Wal-Mart. I already know what the book is about. I can surmise that it is about a person or a few people in an oppressive society who struggle for their freedom in an Ayn Rand way. I honestly doubt there is anything in it that would not be surprising to me or any one else who knows Beck's thinking....or is it melodramatic ranting and whining?:whistling:
 
I do not think all popular fiction is bad. Every classic book was new once. What makes them classic is that people want to read them even after a long time. Some books that are called popular now will be classics someday. Apparently not these twilight books, which I have not read, though the movie is playing tonight on tv.
 
chiangmaifalcon said:
...Some books that are called popular now will be classics someday...
Click to expand...

It's a challenge to try to guess which one's will be on the bookstore shelves 50 years from now.

Assuming there are bookstores. Assuming there are shelves. Assuming there are books. Etc etc. But, electronically, they might all live forever. What a ghastly thought that is. /aargh/ :eek:
 
Popularity is an odd beast.

In college, I was constantly bombarded with French, Spanish, and English classes where we studed "literature." Not surprisingly, often these works were not big sellers in their day. Most of the popular french 19th century fiction, for example, is totally ignored today.

In my own lifetime, popular sci-fi/fantasy has gone from shorter novels by masters of the pulps to a kind of cookie-cutter (with some notable exceptions, of course) vampires/elves/werewolves "urban" morass.

Heinlein, Laumer, and Norton are still on the shelves but with nothing like the dominance they had then.

Another example is the works of Edger Rice Burroughs. These books, including all of his Tarzan novels and other series, including some very obscure ones, were all republished and very popular in the 1970's, even though they had been written, for the most part, before 1950 and a great many of them in the teens, twenties, and thirties, when the language of common usage and social and literary attitudes were radically different.

It seems to me that popular fiction is, for many people, like fast food. Its cheap and you get the little benefit of it right away and you don't regret it till later.:)
 
By definition popular doesn't have to equal bad. The problem however, lies in the majority appetites of the day. We are programing ourselves for mediocrity. If a book requires effort, many people just can't/won't fit it into their lives. We are dumbing ourselves down in so many areas. Literature is no exception. We want the effortless slapstick, romance, horror, what-have-you, that is fed in easy to follow bites.

I've enjoyed many a "popular" book that I knew was bad, but still enjoyable. That's fine, an occasional guilty pleasure. My life would be so much emptier though if I hadn't read Dostoevsky, Bronte, Irving, Hardy, Calvino, etc...

I'm not a book snob, though I do think they exist. I just believe not all literature is created equal.
 
Abecedarius said:
By definition popular doesn't have to equal bad. The problem however, lies in the majority appetites of the day. We are programing ourselves for mediocrity. If a book requires effort, many people just can't/won't fit it into their lives. We are dumbing ourselves down in so many areas. Literature is no exception. We want the effortless slapstick, romance, horror, what-have-you, that is fed in easy to follow bites.

I've enjoyed many a "popular" book that I knew was bad, but still enjoyable. That's fine, an occasional guilty pleasure. My life would be so much emptier though if I hadn't read Dostoevsky, Bronte, Irving, Hardy, Calvino, etc...

I'm not a book snob, though I do think they exist. I just believe not all literature is created equal.
Click to expand...

I think you're spot on. We want everything fast and easy.

I like to read good literature, too, but I have my guilty pleasures too.
 
I read everything. I love the classics, but I think there is a place for all literature. When I'm talking to an adolescent who says they don't read because its all "boring" I'll start them wherever I can. Comic book, harlequin, whatever.
 
I think the phrase mean different things to different people. I wouldn't describe myself as a book snob because I mostly read genre fiction (horror, fantasy, etc). Most of the works run from great to enjoyable, but worthy of the literary canon? Not so sure about that one. Since I tend to avoid other genres (romance, thriller) people tend to call me snobby. Not really; I just have a strong idea of what I like/dislike.

Although . . . I will judge people who read Tucker Max or Stephenie Meyer. So maybe those people are right after all ;).
 
As I’ve recently said in another thread, it’s all relative. And please don’t let other people tell you what’s good and bad, read it and make up your own mind.

I wouldn’t say ‘The Lost symbol’ was bad writing. It isn’t going to change my life or anything, but it was an interesting yarn while it lasted, no more, no less.

I love the Diskworld series, many self-appointed ‘book-snobs’ have berated it, but I personally do think a lot of the writing is ‘well-written’ in the literary since in this series. As opposed to the Twilight series, I personally think the technical-writing is quite bad to atrocious in them. Snobbery? No, absolutely not, just personal taste, there is a very big difference.

I do like some things that are considered ‘classics’ I like the story as well as the technical-writing in some cases, in others I don’t like one or the other, or both. It’s all subjective; just don’t let other people dictate what is good and bad.

This is all only my personal view-point though, and I’m allowed it. Other people are allowed theirs, and they are allowed to disagree.
Having said that, book-snobbery is definitely, absolutely, and certainly not dead!
It is, unfortunately, still very much alive and moaning!
 
Anamnesis said:
Although . . . I will judge people who read Tucker Max or Stephenie Meyer. So maybe those people are right after all ;).
Click to expand...

You made me snort my coffee! That hurts! I read all the Twilight books, and they were a pleasant diversion, but as you say, hardly literature. I'm definitely on the Harry Potter side of the debate (MLIA).
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top