xie_xie_xie (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
xie_xie_xie) wrote2007-09-04 10:38 am
xie_xie_xie) wrote2007-09-04 10:38 am
OMG I am trash!
In a discussion at rebeccama's LJ of my favorite book ever, The Mists of Avalon, it was revealed to me that some people think it's not great literature. They see it as escapist romantic beach reading at best, mental junk food at worst.
I would cry and sob and kick my heels on the ground about that if I didn't agree.
Well, I don't agree it's mental junk food, and to be fair no one said it was. It does make you visualize places and people very vividly. It gives your imagination a workout, even if it doesn't make you a better person or smarter, or fill you with the wisdom of the ages. But escapist pleasure!fic? Oh yeah.
rebeccama's LJ of my favorite book ever, The Mists of Avalon, it was revealed to me that some people think it's not great literature. They see it as escapist romantic beach reading at best, mental junk food at worst.I would cry and sob and kick my heels on the ground about that if I didn't agree.
Well, I don't agree it's mental junk food, and to be fair no one said it was. It does make you visualize places and people very vividly. It gives your imagination a workout, even if it doesn't make you a better person or smarter, or fill you with the wisdom of the ages. But escapist pleasure!fic? Oh yeah.
Because I confess to you now: When it comes to fiction, that's what I like. And yes, I'm aware that I recently ranted that readers need be more critical thinkers just, er... I don't know, two days ago.
But I do think critically about my taste in fiction, and I have no problem with liking what I like: Fiction that tells me a story, that's not mean-spirited or ugly in any way, that takes me to a place or a world that feels vivid and real to me, and that, in short, fills me with the sense of being immersed in the author's world, and glad to be there.
I like well-written dog and cozy mysteries. I like historical fiction (but not historical romances). I like a very limited number of fantasy authors: the Pern books by Anne McCaffery, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series, Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books. I don't even like those same authors' other series, just those. I like gay or lesbian detective novels as long as they're not dark or noir -- Katherine Forrest, Michael Nava, Claire McNab.
What I don't enjoy are "serious" works of literary fiction. Oprah book club kind of books make me want to gouge out my eyes.
I feel the same way about TV shows and films. It's probably why I see so few of either. Of shows currently on television, there is exactly one that I enjoy: Battlestar Galactica. I used to enjoy ER, although I got bored with it in the last couple of years. Other than a few sitcoms, the only shows I've ever really loved or even liked are Xena, Star Trek TOS, TNG, and Voyager, Queer as Folk, West Wing, Cagney and Lacey, Law and Order and Law and Order SVU (although I no longer watch them), NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, Upstairs, Downstairs, Rosemary and Thyme, Six Wives of Henry VIII, Elizabeth R, and Lillie, and that's about it. In an entire lifetime of television watching, those are the only shows I can remember liking, although probably I've forgotten a few.
In films, I rarely see a drama or comedy that I like. Mostly they irritate me or bore me, or upset me. Similarly to how I want to meep and wail about people who hate Mists, I know I've upset or bewildered many of my friends with how I feel about Brokeback Mountain. While I can tell it's a "good movie," I didn't enjoy it at all, because it was just so grim. It didn't make me happy or feel moved, it angsted the crap out of me in a bad way, and filled me with unpleasant anxiety. That's not why I go to the movies, watch TV, or read books.
Fiction, at least. When I want to think or challenge my mind, which is pretty much every day, I read non-fiction. I also have a very high tolerance for artsy-fartsiness, pretentiousness, seriousness, and even grim topics in documentaries and non-fiction books, although I tend to steer clear of biographies and memoirs, and what I guess you'd call "spirituality" and "self-help" books, with few exceptions.
Which isn't to say I haven't read actual literature; I have. Kind of ironically, the only subject I almost had enough credits in to have been my major (other than my actual major) was Comparative Literature. But sit me down with two books by Virginia Woolf, one her fiction and the other her essays, and I'll take the essays every time. I've read Three Guineas and A Room of One's Own a hundred times each; you couldn't pay me to ever read Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse again.
Serious fiction makes me feel manipulated. However genuine the emotional experience the author is seeking to evoke, no matter how good her intentions, my instinctive reaction is resitance and even resentment. I have trust issues. I don't want my emotions handled, guided or directed. I don't want to open myself up to their stories because I don't freaking know them or what they want or where they'll take me. I don't want to be scared or moved or angsted, and I don't want to feel transcendent joy, just because an author wrote me there deliberately. I want it to happen because life made it happen, or not at all.
Do I miss a lot of great stories that way? Probably. Just as I'm sure there some very "good" fan fics out there amongs the death!fics and breakup!fics and reunion!fics and the endless list of fics I won't read in this fandom. But since I've never actually run out of good books to read, and don't think it's actually possible to read everything wonderful, interesting, enlightening, pleasurable, and compelling that's ever been or will be written, I don't feel any motivation to remedy that.
And to all this I'll attach my universal disclaimer: This is about me. It's description, not prescription, and meant only to give context for what it's likely to mean when I recommend or admire a novel or any work of fiction.
But I do think critically about my taste in fiction, and I have no problem with liking what I like: Fiction that tells me a story, that's not mean-spirited or ugly in any way, that takes me to a place or a world that feels vivid and real to me, and that, in short, fills me with the sense of being immersed in the author's world, and glad to be there.
I like well-written dog and cozy mysteries. I like historical fiction (but not historical romances). I like a very limited number of fantasy authors: the Pern books by Anne McCaffery, Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series, Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books. I don't even like those same authors' other series, just those. I like gay or lesbian detective novels as long as they're not dark or noir -- Katherine Forrest, Michael Nava, Claire McNab.
What I don't enjoy are "serious" works of literary fiction. Oprah book club kind of books make me want to gouge out my eyes.
I feel the same way about TV shows and films. It's probably why I see so few of either. Of shows currently on television, there is exactly one that I enjoy: Battlestar Galactica. I used to enjoy ER, although I got bored with it in the last couple of years. Other than a few sitcoms, the only shows I've ever really loved or even liked are Xena, Star Trek TOS, TNG, and Voyager, Queer as Folk, West Wing, Cagney and Lacey, Law and Order and Law and Order SVU (although I no longer watch them), NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, Upstairs, Downstairs, Rosemary and Thyme, Six Wives of Henry VIII, Elizabeth R, and Lillie, and that's about it. In an entire lifetime of television watching, those are the only shows I can remember liking, although probably I've forgotten a few.
In films, I rarely see a drama or comedy that I like. Mostly they irritate me or bore me, or upset me. Similarly to how I want to meep and wail about people who hate Mists, I know I've upset or bewildered many of my friends with how I feel about Brokeback Mountain. While I can tell it's a "good movie," I didn't enjoy it at all, because it was just so grim. It didn't make me happy or feel moved, it angsted the crap out of me in a bad way, and filled me with unpleasant anxiety. That's not why I go to the movies, watch TV, or read books.
Fiction, at least. When I want to think or challenge my mind, which is pretty much every day, I read non-fiction. I also have a very high tolerance for artsy-fartsiness, pretentiousness, seriousness, and even grim topics in documentaries and non-fiction books, although I tend to steer clear of biographies and memoirs, and what I guess you'd call "spirituality" and "self-help" books, with few exceptions.
Which isn't to say I haven't read actual literature; I have. Kind of ironically, the only subject I almost had enough credits in to have been my major (other than my actual major) was Comparative Literature. But sit me down with two books by Virginia Woolf, one her fiction and the other her essays, and I'll take the essays every time. I've read Three Guineas and A Room of One's Own a hundred times each; you couldn't pay me to ever read Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse again.
Serious fiction makes me feel manipulated. However genuine the emotional experience the author is seeking to evoke, no matter how good her intentions, my instinctive reaction is resitance and even resentment. I have trust issues. I don't want my emotions handled, guided or directed. I don't want to open myself up to their stories because I don't freaking know them or what they want or where they'll take me. I don't want to be scared or moved or angsted, and I don't want to feel transcendent joy, just because an author wrote me there deliberately. I want it to happen because life made it happen, or not at all.
Do I miss a lot of great stories that way? Probably. Just as I'm sure there some very "good" fan fics out there amongs the death!fics and breakup!fics and reunion!fics and the endless list of fics I won't read in this fandom. But since I've never actually run out of good books to read, and don't think it's actually possible to read everything wonderful, interesting, enlightening, pleasurable, and compelling that's ever been or will be written, I don't feel any motivation to remedy that.
And to all this I'll attach my universal disclaimer: This is about me. It's description, not prescription, and meant only to give context for what it's likely to mean when I recommend or admire a novel or any work of fiction.
no subject
I'm not sure what you mean by this exactly (i.e. I think a lot Oprah's book club choices can hardly be considered "high" literature), but in very broad and general terms I must say I do. Not only because that' my day job: I remember enjoying reading complex and "deep" novels ever since I was teenager. The same with arthouse movies, experimental music, avant-garde art. It's not affectation or pretentiousness: it's sincere appreciation for complexity and innovation, and for language/music/images that force me to rethink and reassess my ideas. That push me out of my comfort zone.
Having said that, I also enjoy all kinds of popular culture, including truly trashy products, such as some television shows. Only, I enjoy them differently.
But of course there is a lot I don't like, whether it's "high" or popular. I apply a critical perspective to everything, that is truly something I cannot help. Sitting down and letting the story "take me"? Whether it's a modernist interior monologue or fanfiction fluff, that's not me :)
One more thing, then I'll shut up: I believe all fiction operates some degree of manipulation, whether it's a story that tries to pull your strong emotional/intellectual chains, or one that tries to re-create the calm flow of the real world as the author perceives it. Avoiding cliff-hangers, death scenes or big angsty moments is meant to elicit an emotional response from readers as much as putting those moments there. Only, they are emotions of a different kind. What really matters to my reading experience is whether the writers' attempts to make me believe in their world and its emotions works or not, but that's a different issue altogether.
no subject
We don't use the term "high" for literature in English, at least not in American English, but I understand the distinction you're making.
I consider "literary fiction" to be fiction written to be more than "just" a story, written with serious artistic pretense or intent, but definitely not literature. I reserve it for Oprah book club type books. I basically agree with what Wikipedia has to say on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_fiction
I'll be frank (no idea why, it usually bites me in the ass when I do that publicly, LOL), I'm aware that my aversion to certain types of emotionally evocative fiction is a pathology.
The truth is, I believe that writing that is meant to be read by anyone other than the author is manipulative, and that seeking to manipulate emotions or thoughts with words is what writers do. I'm doing it now.
It's more that a certain type of experience triggers my personal alarms, and when those alarms go off during what is essentially a voluntary leisure activity, entertainment if you will, it's simply not worth it to me.