It's relevence in this forum is Paul's (and Dennis') contention that we should trust our own eyes and trust our inborn ability to distinguish beautiful from ugly.

I am continually surprised by the lack of aesthetical standards by most (not all) members on this forum. Sure, everyone has an opinion about "literature" and "popular fiction," but for most of you, I don't believe it's your own opinion, but, rather, a poor recitation of Orson Scott Card's opinion. That's fine, so long as your take everything OSC says into account. Even though he exhorts the young writer not to major in English (which is contrary to Stephen King's advise, by the way), he does exhort the young writer to read the standard pieces of literature taught in English departments: Homer, Virgil, Dante, Milton, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Dickens, Austen, Twain, Faulkner, etc. It's not that literature itself is bad, but the arrogant pontificating of contemporary English professors. OSC encourages the young writer to form his own opinions about literature, not blindly accept the status quo of the university professors.

This is the only way to develop a good aesthetical standard. The reason why these people are read in good English programs is because they have passed the one and only requirement that makes a book a Great Book -- they transcended their own age and speak to the ages. If a epic poet such as Homer is able to last through the ages, don't you think he's worth reading? And if you don't understand him, don't you think he's worth rereading? Or do you think your little mind is powerful enough to dismiss him? Perhaps, but your writing will be shallow and worthless if you do.

When people talk about cultivating their taste in literature, that is what they mean. They don't mean (I hope, I hope) that they sit at the feet of professors like Stanley Fish and listen to his relativistic nonsense. What they mean (I hope, I hope) is that they force themselves to be molded by the Great Literature that has transcended its age. This is the only way to develop a sound sense of beauty and a grasp of what is good fiction. If you can't see this, can you see anything at all?

Rant noted.

My own views come through frustrating experience. The time I spent as a committed English major was interesting because during the same year I won my college's "Best Writing About Literature" award I also discovered that I hate - hate, mind you - what passes for literary criticism. OSC's points about "controlled" vs. "wild" literature were well received by me, but only long after I had figured out on my own that there is little worth taking seriously in serious literary criticism. Well, that's pithy, but here's what I mean, summed in two experiences.

[1] I was reading a criticism of, hell, I can't even remember the title - that story about the family going on vacation, meeting hitchhikers who turn out to be escaped criminals and the family gets murdered - you know, that happy story that professors like to use to show that life is meaningless, existential agony and we can't escape our "box"? You know - that one. SO I'm reading a collection of criticisms about this story, and one author does a very good job of citing everything that the author of the story had to say about what the story "meant." But after bringing out all these interesting quotes, he goes on to say, "Of course, that's not what she meant," and then went on to give a b.s. interpretation of what HE KNEW her story meant even if she didn't, and he took as much space to do it as the author did to tell her story. That, my friend, is insanity. There but for the fact that I like "subculture" literature go I, I thought, but that wasn't the clincher.

[2] I'm in the UCLA bookstore, browsing the Literary Criticism" shelves, and it suddenly occurs to me - in that damned blinding flash of the obvious - that what I'm looking at is hundreds of books, each one positing some complicated philosophy of interpretation, and none of which (at least the ones I checked) being so generous as to allow that maybe a story is just a story instead of a revelation of [insert psychological manifestation here].

Sigh. My problem is that I learned to love reading entirely outside of the University-English Lit tradition. I grew up reading (but not doing homework - go figure) and devoured books at a ravenous pace, but didn't touch a University Approved Work Of Classic Literature until I was well out of high school, and long before I began going to college.

So, if I'm baggin' on the professors, it's not because I'm an OSC fan. It's because I jumped in the trenches when I was already a grown man and was equipped with a working BS detector. Didn't take me too long to figure that the brown stuff on my pants leg didn't come from me.

It came from one reading too many of frickin' Maya Angelou.

By the way, that Soap Box isn't for sale.

CCWBASS (what exactly does that stand for?). I agree with you. Modern criticism is a load of crap. Two stories, both about Flannery O'Connor, you might find interesting. During a Q&A session of a lecture to creative writing students, one student asked Ms. O'Connor what the meaning of the Misfit's black hat is in her story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find." O'Connor scratches her chin and says, "Well, I suppose to cover his head." At another Q&A session, a person asks, "Do you see Hazel Motes [the hero of her novel, Wise Blood] as a modern-day existential hero?" Again, a puzzled Flannery pauses before she answers in her thick Southern accent, "Nome, he's just an idiot." When critics are arrogant enough to claim to possess the "real meaning" of a story, something is amiss.

The only point I'd disagree with is your phrase, "University Approved Work Of Classic Literature." Great Books -- books that transcend the ages -- are on university reading lists because they're Great Books, not because they've received the Ivory Tower's Stamp of Approval.

And this, really, is my whole point. Yes, we all have our own "tastes" (as TruHero pointed out), and though I am willing to admit that the relative merits of our individual tastes, I refuse to assent to the relativism of individual tastes -- that is to say, there is good art and that is bad art. The only way one can learn the difference is to read those authors who have been universally acclaimed as Great Artists. And the only way one can earn the title of Great Artist is by passing one test -- the test of time.

And so this gets back to TruHero's rather myopic comments. What exactly are all those yummy ingredients you put into your creative soup that will make your writing so magnanimous if not humanity's great works of fiction?

You said:

"Great Books -- books that transcend the ages -- are on university reading lists because they're Great Books, not because they've received the Ivory Tower's Stamp of Approval."

It's as a good a way to put it as any, but it actually stakes out a relative position, and not an absolute one. Nobody yet, as far as I know, has been able to offer definite parameters for "great" that works even in the abstract, let alone as an objective reality.

Not being able to find a definition for "great" (or a similar word) that won't change, usually drastically, from person to person, and, I assume, from age to age, it makes the presumption of transcendence, um, rather presumptuous.

But that's just my point of view.

Which also happens to be my point - what really gets people uptight is not being given a list of Great
Books to read, but being told that said list is THE list, and if one doesn't like the books on that list than it must also mean that one is, you know, defective, by choice or by genetics.

In other words, guys like me don't mind being told that Dickens wrote some wonderful books; we hate being told that we'd *better* like them because someone else thinks they're Great Books.

Personally, I think we're ALL objective absolutists, in our own little spheres of experience, which is why these arguments can get so darned fun; my objective reality ain't yours, and vice versa.

Still, when all is said and done, these debates about what merits the title of Good or Great or Classic are good for me, if nor for anyone else. Nothing like someone else's objective reality to provide my with a different way of examining my own.

BTW - not accusing YOU of the crime of making lists, but am once again hammering on the professors, and the kids who emulate them.

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By art I mean three things: useful art, concerned with survival; fine art, concerned with beauty; and fashion art, concerned with conformity to social rules.

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From an except of Art: A New History, by Paul Johnson

Interesting… I see the same divisions we often apply to writing. Not so surprising, seeing as fiction can easily be seen as art. I could be curious to see where he takes it -- a review I found said Johnson went make some strong statements about modern art. It also said he didn’t give much space to van Gogh or do a proper bibliography of his plates and supporting documentation (which I would like to see for the "the first art was body art" statement in the except), which seems very strange for a truly historical treatment.

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Which also happens to be my point - what really gets people uptight is not being given a list of Great
Books to read, but being told that said list is THE list, and if one doesn't like the books on that list than it must also mean that one is, you know, defective, by choice or by genetics.
In other words, guys like me don't mind being told that Dickens wrote some wonderful books; we hate being told that we'd *better* like them because someone else thinks they're Great Books.

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"And it is arrogant to condescend others for not understanding what YOU believe to be the truth, just like those poor professors that you slander who will - because of your own obscurity - never hear your ignorant words"

Yikes! Irony plucks upon irony. That IS pretty harsh, ya know.

Now, I really am a relativist when it comes to making my own determinations of which books have been worth my time to read, and which ones have wasted precious hours I'll never see again and may the author be charboiling in hellfire because of it.

In Balthasar's defense, though, I'd like to add a caveat:

By and large, lists of classic literature, great literature, transcendent literature, whatever we feel like calling them, really are mostly trustworthy guides to literature that is worth a person's time to read. Dickens got paid by the word, yes, but, man, what wonderful words. And his literature was loved in his day. And I mean loved in the way folks today love watching Reality TV. That today's Great Literature is being interpreted through the truly weird lens of the universities does not devalue them in the least.

What sets me off about these lists - and I think I'm speaking for quite a few sci-fi/fantasy fans here - is that the lists represent not so much the INclusion of Great Literature as the EXclusion of other Great Literature that the universities don't know how to handle (for whatever reason, though OSC makes a very good case about "wild" vs. "tame" literature).

For every James Joyce that occupies space on a Must Read list we know we should be seeing something by Gene Wolfe. And, oh, the list we could prepare would just be endless, wouldn't it?

And it's not just that the stuff we like isn't there, like there was no room, or maybe someone just forgot. It's the presumed reasons for the exclusions. It's that the works of our sci-fi/fantasy geniuses are proudly ignored by the Harold Blooms making the Great Literature lists because of their strange wordview that popular = crap. Thus, OUR literature is frankly, brutally dismissed without even having had a fairminded peek by smart people who should know better. And it really burns us because OUR literature is where some of the most beautiful word-play is to be found, and on and on.

I would never argue for the abolishment of a Great Literature list; but I do wish that one day the list expands to include the stuff geeks like us have already discovered.

Oh, by the way, "OUR" is an INcusive "our" - everyone who's ever been wowed by a subculture "classic" is in.

I'd spend some time arguing, but I think that has already been done. I do have a question though. If the "classics" are important for learning how to write, and reading them is supposed to help teach the way the "greats" do it...then how come I could never get away with some of the things they did? Name of the Rose had a three page description on a carving over a doorway, on the doorway, one of the two. Now other than the fact that there was reference to another carving in an older section of the abby, the description did not seem to serve any other purpose. Unless there was some religious aspect I didn't understand.

What I learned from Kipling's "Jungle Book" is that growing up is inevitable. What I learned from his "Captains Courageous" is that accepting responsibility is also inevitable, but really not all that bad in the end.

What I learned from "Hamlet" is, as one professor put it so bluntly, that a sick soul cannot heal. What I learned from "King Lear" is that chaos is utterly incapable of effecting (or creating, if you will) order.

I learned from "The Three Muskateers" that friendship, loyalty, bravery, and being foolish in love (um, in love to the point of goofy) are wonderful things worth fighting for, if one is willing to be constant and honest.

And etc., and etc., ad infinitum.

Not sayin' these works are the only places I learned these things, but I am saying that these works, by virtue of the way the story was presented, act as easily remembered reinforcements of the the thousands of little lessons learned just by trying to be a human being every day.

Of course, I've had similar reading experiences with books that will never, ever be considered classic (in ANY sense of the term), which is why I tend to sniff my nose nose-sniffing book snobs.

I'm a book slob, and proud of it, but I'll embrace enobling literature wherever I find it. Most chronic readers are like this, I think.

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I think that Anthony Burgesse's nearly obsolete "A ClockWork Orange" speaks more about the human condition than any of them

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I haven't even read Clockwork, but I loved the movie, heheheh.....

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I'd spend some time arguing, but I think that has already been done. I do have a question though. If the "classics" are important for learning how to write, and reading them is supposed to help teach the way the "greats" do it...then how come I could never get away with some of the things they did?

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Fair question.

Do you not think we should make a distinction between storytelling and storywriting? By storytelling, I must the story itself, in whatever form it takes, wheather novel, play, movie, song. By storywriting, I mean materials used for telling a story: words, sentences, paragraphs, viewpoint, description, etc. Of course, there is a very close connection between the two, but it seems to me that I can tell story of Ender's Game without without using the same materials as Card did. In fact, this is exactly what is happening as they write the movie -- the are telling the story in a differnt way.

What you learn from the classics (and I wouldn't put Eco in that category) is storytelling, not storywriting. The classics teach you want a beautiful story is, but you're not going to learn how to actually write it by reading them.

Look at it this way. Let's say you want to build a house, but you're not really sure what you want. So you go looking at different house to get some ideas. You might like the way the kitchen and breakfast nook connect in house-A but not in house-B. But when all is said and done and you know what house you want, you still have to learn how to build it. The way a house was built in 1850 is very differnt than the way a house is built today.

The analogy fails on several level, but I hope my point is clear. You can't learn how to write a great novel by imitating Dickens, but you can learn what makes a great story by reading Dickens.

PS -- Rereading this, I'm not sure my point is very clear, so you'll have to fill in some of the blanks yourself. That being said, I'm sure someone will wrongly infer something and completely misinterpret what I've said.

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What you learn from the classics (and I wouldn't put Eco in that category) is storytelling, not storywriting. The classics teach you [what] a beautiful story is, but you're not going to learn how to actually write it by reading them.

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"What you learn from the classics . . . is storytelling, not storywriting. The classics teach you want a beautiful story is, but you're not going to learn how to actually write it by reading them."

Hm. Now, I've seen exquisitely beautiful prose in the service of ugly, soul-destroying stories, and I've seen less beautiful prose in the service of exalting stories, but the words are made exquisite because they are in the service of a beautiful story. I don't think it's possible to argue that storytelling and storywriting (I'm making assumptions since you supply no definitions) can be seperated; however, if a gun were held to my head and I were forced to choose, give me a good story over a nifty phrase any day of the week.

"Look at it this way. Let's say you want to build a house, but you're not really sure what you want. So you go looking at different house to get some ideas. You might like the way the kitchen and breakfast nook connect in house-A but not in house-B. But when all is said and done and you know what house you want, you still have to learn how to build it. The way a house was built in 1850 is very differnt than the way a house is built today. The analogy fails on several level, but I hope my point is clear. You can't learn how to write a great novel by imitating Dickens, but you can learn what makes a great story by reading Dickens."

My mistake - you do supply a definition, in the form of an analogy, and one you admit is shaky. It's a pity you name one specific author because it obfuscates your more general contention which is, unless I'm mistaken, that the Classics have nothing to teach a person about writing STYLE. Well, in a lot of cases, that may be true, but, once again, if I'm reading you correctly, your argument is several universes removed from the notion that the classics have nothing to teach a person about how to write a great novel.

"Rereading this, I'm not sure my point is very clear, so you'll have to fill in some of the blanks yourself. That being said, I'm sure someone will wrongly infer something and completely misinterpret what I've said."

Good golly, son, if you knew it was a bad analogy you shouldn't have posted it - it leaves you vulnerable to, you know, responses like this one.

Going back to that analogy: To me it suggests that your approach to storytelling is back-asswards. You appear to be arguing that a good story is actually the result of having found the right combination of styles, as if the story is secondary. You found enough of the highest quality beams, bolts, and shingles; you checked the plumbing, seeded the lawn, installed the curtains, and, my gosh, that is one [ugly/dull/garish/pointless/confused] house you got there, say your neighbors, who then amble off to their old-fashioned homes where toilets and ovens and water heaters are where they're supposed to be, doing what they're supposed to be doing.

Great - now I'M offering confused analogies. I should quit while I'm behind.

[sheepishly] How are you guys doing that nifty trick of citing things between straight lines?

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[sheepishly] How are you guys doing that nifty trick of citing things between straight lines?

Seriously, I wanna know.

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How do you put quotes in brackets? Next time you're writing your response, look to the left and you'll see this: UBB Code is ON. Click on that and it will show you a bunch of nifty things you can do.

TRUHERO -- I am NOT telling anyone what true art is. What I am saying is that when readers throughout the ages respond to a particular story, that story earns the title Great Book. I am merely saying that a writer ought to read the Great Books, becasue by the fact that they've endured the ages means the speak of the human condition in a most sublime way.

Look, 99.999999999999% of the stories writen in the 20th century will be forgotten. And I daresay the vast, vast majorities of stories have been forgotten. So, as a storyteller, do you not think it would be wise to read the stories that lasted? They've lasted for a reason.

By the way, reading the Cliff Notes only is as bad as only listening to the professors. Who do you think writes those things?

One more thing, TruHero -- perhaps you don't give yourself enough credit. Of course humility means recognizing your limits, but it also means making a true estimation of one's talents and abilities and living according to your potentials.

Regarding Dickens, I think the serialization is a non-issue. Even though he was published piecemeal, the man knew how to structure a novel-sized story, and there is a lot to learn from that.

Heaven help us all, if this be the case!!!

Can we make a bet on that, and return back here in 60+ years to see who wins?!

The Classics are Classics because they inspire GREATNESS. Because we are changed when we read them. Because they change societies for generations.

I wonder what would have happened to Shakespeare if he had decided ancient myths and stories were "outdated." Wait... Shakespeare-who?

(Sorry; you just touched a nerve there...)

I mean, we don't need to count on social tradition to determine what lasts through the ages - thanks to technology, EVERYTHING that is accessible today - good, bad, or indifferent - will be just as accessible to our distant progeny (please, no "if we survive" lectures, folks). Societies need time to distill a generation's literature down to the stuff most worth keeping, but now, my goodness, everyone has their own virtual printing press, and everything is saved somewhere for immediate access. No distillation process is possible anymore.

EVERYTHING is preserved anymore, and not by monolithic institutions like the church (early music) and the universities (classics, shakespeare). Hey - I have a writeable CD-ROM, and I can preserve everything myself: the crap, the genius, the pointless.

So, we can't really count on time anymore to be a determining factor in guaging something's value.

Now we have to be smarter, or at least wiser, but at the same time we're getting all the wrong kind of education in our schools.

Very frustrating.

ANyway, please forgive my unfocused rambling.

It'll be interesting to see if you can still ask the same question about OSC in the relatively near future. "Ender's Game" is already extremely popular not just among dedicated sci-fi geeks but among teachers (and their students) who have found that book very useful in the classroom.

Likewise, I believe the book is being studied in at least one branch of the military because of the way OSC presents the training of the cadets.

Even better, there will, at some point, be a movie out. If it is a good, entertaining movie, expect OSC's popular/culture stock to rise dramatically. Or maybe it won't. I dunno. We can use OSC a test case in the next three or four years.

Personally, I think we're in cultural overload. It used to be "time will tell," then it became "s**t rises to the top", and now there's just so much stuff being produced that everything is starting to blend into this yucky goulash. Frankly, I think your two movie lists won't be artistically distinguishable from each other in the next generation. It'll all just be more noise.

Did I just write that? Crap, man. Good thing it's Friday - I need to recharge.

[This message has been edited by ccwbass (edited January 16, 2004).]

ccwbass,

I don't think you were rambling in the least! I believe you brought up some very good points. If I may, I'd like to discuss some of them with you.

"I mean, we don't need to count on social tradition to determine what lasts through the ages"

But that's just it, isn't it? Society WILL determine what's worth saving, simply because that's how we, as humans work. For example: An intelligent woman walks into a Wal-Mart and see a cookie jar that roars when she opens it. It makes her jump, and causes her to laugh. She thinks about how much her husband would jump, too. She buys it. So how long will that cookie jar stay in her home? Will she pass it down to her grandchildren? Why not? Didn't Wal-Mart sell millions and millions of those cookies jars during the Christmas season? Can you find that same cookie jar lying on the shelves of a Salvation Army thrift store a year or two later? (or sooner) Probably several; take your pick! Yet they sit there. And then they end up in the trash.

"- thanks to technology, EVERYTHING that is accessible today - good, bad, or indifferent - will be just as accessible to our distant progeny (please, no "if we survive" lectures, folks)."

Yes, but who would want it? And so who will keep it close to their hearts? And yes, we as human beings, will probably survive time and disaster, but the technology will change, whether it improves or disappears. Those things that are not worth saving tend to melt away sooner than maybe we realize.

"EVERYTHING is preserved anymore, and not by monolithic institutions like the church (early music) and the universities (classics, shakespeare). Hey - I have a writeable CD-ROM, and I can preserve everything myself: the crap, the genius, the pointless."

That's only half true. Organizations aren't the only ones who have ever preserved things; PEOPLE have. WE KNOW Greatness when we see it. We all do. History proves it over and over again.

Here's an analogy I like: How would you describe something that is salty to someone who has never tasted anything "salty?" I'm sure we could all think of some wonderful similies, but unless that person has experienced "salty," there's no way in the world to describe it and have them understand accurately.

So, describe "Greatness." I bet you have an opinion of who and what is truly great. It doesn't matter what one's beliefs may be-- each person can tell if something is actually worth preserving. All else decays away like so much garbage. But can you pinpoint WHAT it is that makes something great? Yet, we can sense its quality.

"Now we have to be smarter, or at least wiser, but at the same time we're getting all the wrong kind of education in our schools."

This is such a true statement, which is why Classics are so needed! Yet look at how they are neglected in our schools and universities. One rarely gets to actually study the classic in it's raw, uncontaminated form. Instead, students are fed a thinned, dumbed-down interpretation by someone with extra letters behind their surname.

I won't believe that Classics are too complicated or "out-dated" for our society to continue studying them. My children-- who are nice children, but not geniuses, either-- can understand Treasure Island and Shakespeare and Scott when I read out loud to them. They may have a few questions, but overall, the messages are all translated to their little worlds, and it changes them. They can recognize that they have the same weaknesses, and strengths in themselves. And there are Classics for every subject-- literature is not alone, of course. Only two to three hundred years ago, any farmer could read the Federalist Papers with complete understanding. And any high school-age boy (For example, Abraham Lincoln) knew his Euchlid and Newton without hesitation.

You can call me old-fashioned, or prudish, or...? But the fact of the matter is, things survive and are emulated when they are truly great. We can look to the past to be better in the future. I believe it's about time we did! I know it's something I'm trying to incorporate into my own, never-ending self-education.

What I wrote in the last post or two or three is not long-standing belief. These were thoughts that came up in response to the other remarks in this thread. I'll be putting my initial reactions through my personal sifter to see anything's worth keeping. I may totally change my mind in a week after I've thought about it.

I WAS thinking, during the drive home from work, that the trouble with the title "Classic" as applied to anything other than truly ancient literature is that the novels we're calling classic simply havn't been around long enough to merit the distinction. This stuff we like to read - this is all relatively modern invention, the product of only, what, two or three hundred years?

Worse, the very term "classic" has too much baggage, but so do other words like "great." It makes for fun, but ultimately pointless, debates.

It occurs to me that all I've done the last couple of days is find 1001 different way of saying "I don't know much, but I know what I like."

That being said, I do believe there is good literature and bad literature, and I think it's safe to say that the state of literature is relatively healthy as opposed to the state of music. Wait - that was not a non sequiter. Let me put it this way:

The case has been made by Wynton Marsalis that the trouble with music today is that it is ubiquitous. If you can hear, you can't escape music. Which wouldn't be so bad if all one heard were good music, but so very, very much of it is crap, and you hear the crap all day, in elevators, on commercials, on radio and TV - it really does inure one to being able to distinguish good music from noise. Our senses get blunted, and respond poorly.

Personally, I think the literature market is heading that way, even if things still look good right now.

Too much bad, not enough good, and no more education willing to tell kids how to distinguish good from bad unless the terms are couched in politics. Simple craft be damned; these days books are nothing more than social studies texts. "Oh, you LIKED Huckleberry Finn? You racist bastard!"

It's all a mess.

Me? I need a taco. Right now. I don't know much about food, but I know what I like.

If we define a Classic as a piece of literature that changed the lives of those who read it then for some people that might be something like Dickens' David Copperfield while for others it might be episode 27 of the Spiderman comics. Sounds ludicrous but if the Spiderman fan really has read that comic and it has changed his perspective on life for what he believes to be the better then for that person it is a Classic. This obviously sounds ludicrous to the Dickens fan but it cuts both ways and no amount of arguing on either of their parts is likely to bring the other round to their way of thinking because the books they are arguing for obviously haven't touched the other person in the way required to make them think of it as a Classic.

As for the reading lists, these are books that are generally agreed to have been Classics, the books that have touched and changed the lives of the largest number of people. The reason these books stand the test of time is pretty logical. If you enjoyed a book so much that it made you look again at the way you lived you life you would probably recommend it to your family and friends. The next time they buy a book it has a greater chance of being the one you recommended because they trust your judgement (hopefully) and so the book reaches more readers. Because these books changed the lives of a greater number of people to begin with it stands to reason that they will influence even larger numbers as the years pass by rather than books, that although really good, weren't particularly life changing.

UPDATE: Boy, was I wrong. This thread ain't dyin'.

The classics are of course a rather hot topic on any fantasy, science fiction board. This is of course because of what they represent to us. On one hand we have the critics, English teachers, and art-snobs, telling us that the genre of SF/F can never attain the status of classic. On the other hand, the classics represent longevity of fame and readership that any writer would want. Now god help me, for the first time in my life, I am sticking up for the classics.

Let me first say that I have never read "Name of the Rose," and that, either because I haven't wanted to, or simply because I have not gotten around to it yet, this is true of many of the 'classics.' So it could be said that I have very little knowledge on the topic, and should keep my mouth shut, but I have never been very good at that.

Honestly the cynic (not to mention writer) in me, can't see much purpose for a "three page description on a carving over a doorway," either. But if I was reading the book, I would, be looking for the appeal found by a reader of the writer's own time. Still this is often quite hard.

Sometimes old books are still easy to identify with. Take for example, Notes From The Underground, one of my faves. Weird, unsettling, neurotic, but for me the story contains one of the most sympathetic main characters ever. I can identify with that guy, sure there are differences between my world and the character's, but these were just setting-type details the story did not revolve around, and the story never felt dated. This is because Dosteovsky (spelling?) wrote about feelings many of us have felt before, in a straightforward and interesting way. Loneliness and his (self-perpetuated) ostracizing are things that will always be experienced by some, and this is why NFTU succeeds as a reading experience for me, where many of the classics fail.

This is essentially why classics are classics; they struck a deep cord with readers originally, and because they deal with basic human issues, they have continued to be significant to later generations. This ability for a book to touch the heart of reader even a hundred of years after a story is writen, is an ideal for us all to strive for.

Books are period pieces. Just as science fiction, from as little as ten years ago, often just feels different: old stuff, I mean real old stuff, was written for a completely different audience with different standards. Hence, if over-description, or stiff-feeling dialog, or any other oddness is present, it is likely because the author was simply conforming to a different aesthetic ideal than your own. I think the best thing we can learn from this is a certain vigilance towards having a a clear stlye.

Simply put, there are many things that can induce the modern reader to lose interest in a 'classic'; dated stylistics, major differences in world-view from narrator or writer, often times a setting of a foreign (or since changed) society or government can become a similar obstacle to enjoyment. Any of these can help lose a readers interest, but reading examples of this should help us write our alien-civilizations in a manner meant to be read by everyone.

So I think it is natural that people will always feel more personal connection to contemporary works. But as writers, as well as fantasists and Science Factionalists, we are concerned with where society and the humankind are going - and while it is not new to say so, for this, it helps to study where we have been, this means a study of history in general, as well as a history of literature.

Still though it seems to me that many supporters of the classics must remember, every writer, is one man or woman with only their own set of opinions, and no answers. Even the Nobel Prize winner of yesterday can't say what will capture the interest of the public tomorrow.

I believe the most important step, as a writer, is to capture your readers' attention through the personal discoveries, views, and perspectives contained in your own writing. Though this task may be aided in small ways by a complete classical education; it is most important is to connect to your readers personally, and the fact is, not all of them have had a classical education. So the best way to do this is not to overload on literary allusions and fancy writer's tricks, but rather good old-fashioned emotions, clear insight, and sincerity. A writer must be able to communicate in terms every one can understand, and that is one only learned by doing.

So reading classics = good. OK, sure, as long as we aren't being exclusive here. Read everything, and find out what you like for yourself. And express yourself not some dead writer.

-PE Sharp.

oops edited to remove unintended rambles on the end of the page.

It's like engineering. The laws of engineering aren't determined by some abstract algorithm, but by what works in the real world. Which buildings stand, which fall. The academicians of engineering have been wrong more than a few times about whether a novel design would work...and the real world test is what proved them wrong.

All Art is the same, it is presented to a real audience. Even those of us that write only for ourselves (though I don't like to claim this distinction since it is falsely claimed by so many who clearly desire to be approved by others...I think that I'll treat this issue somewhere else) must contend with the real audience to whom we present our work. And the reaction of that real audience--composed of real, individual, personal entities (or just one entity, as the case may be)--is the standard by which our art must be judged.

And the classics are no different. This is why I say (or have said, in any case) that a work can have historical greatness as a result of how it affected an audience that may no longer be extant--or perhaps is no longer affected.

I have a better analogy than houses though. Music is one of my other little hobbies I mess with. In music the greats would be Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and others. But they wrote music for the aristocracy, the upper class, people with money. Other forms of music were arround and were popular in the lower classes. So while today we acknowledge the "greats" in classical, the music of the common people lives on through style and concept, if not name.

I do enjoy some of the greats in classical, but I enjoy many other various forms of music also. Are the great classical peices fo music better than the rest of the music produced today? Depends on your opinion. I say no, some will say yes, but I enjoy other music more. Would studing Beethoven help me understand music better? If I was going to try and write classical music, maybe. If I was going to write blues or jazz, no.

Style in art takes many forms. Even though some people do not get the recognition for the work they do, it does not mean they had no impact on the world. So for me, I will waste my time reading, listening, and writing what I enjoy. I'll leave the "greats" to the people who feel they know more than me. I don't have to read all of the old classics to learn to write for the modern, non-upperclass people. So if my name never makes it to the list of "greats" will it bother me? No. If my name makes it on the bookshelf for other people to read and enjoy...that will make me very happy.

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Would studing Beethoven help me understand music better? If I was going to try and write classical music, maybe. If I was going to write blues or jazz, no.

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Funny you should mention this. This thread reminded me of one of the best lectures I ever heard about classical music. Leonard Bernstein gave it during one of his famous "Concerts for Young People."

The theme of that particular concert was "What does music mean?"

"The secret to classical music," said the Maestro, "is that there is no secret to classical music." I'll paraphrase the rest: Whatever you're thinking of when you hear music is what that music means. End of story. But, he went on, a caveat:

He explained that even a little education about musical form can deepen one's appreciation for the stuff, and then it can appreciated on two or more levels, much in the same way that understanding how, for example, a sonnet is constructed helps one enjoy more than the rhyme scheme. An understanding of form can, in many cases, supply depth of meaning to a piece for the listener where perhaps it was lacking before.

For that matter - and this is me talking - getting one's hands dirty with music can attach even greater depths of feeling. I thought that Rachmaninoff's Vespers was merely a pretty piece of music, until I sang it with a particularly good choir for a Greek Orthodox congregation, and now I can't listen to some movements without remembering the emotion of the performance.

But now I'm getting a little carried away. Back to the point. My point is that you picked an example to back up your point about literature that is problematic, that doesn't entirely apply.

I'm a bass player - have been for 20+ years. There are guys who merely play jazz, and there are guys who both play and teach. Of the great player/teachers, such as Ray Brown and Ron Carter (just to name two), they all have the same attitude to classical music: Study it, learn it, play it. Unless you're Ornette Coleman and think that jazz means moving your fingers randomly, jazz music, from a technical standpoint, isn't any different from classical music; the demands of classical music facilitate jazz, and learning classical music can actually go a very long way in helping you tell the difference between jazz that has something going for it and crap that never will.

For the blues, well, you may have a point. Funny joke about that, at the end of this finger-waiving lecture.

I'll try to tie this in to "classic", or "great", literature. My experience with Shakespeare is that, just as with classical music, a little education can go along way to uncovering heretofore hidden depths of meaning. Thus, if the only the difference between Shakespeare and Dickens being relevant or irrelevant is a couple of hours' worth of education about history and language, I'd say that dedicated lovers of words and stories should feel absolutely obliged to get that education instead of saying, as has been said in various of the above posts, that much of what comprises "classic literature" lists can be ignored because it is not immediately accessible to we jaded 21st century readers. Aesthetics are important for selling manuscripts today, but should not be the deciding factor for reading stuff that sold well 150 years (or more) ago.

For example, Shakespeare's best stuff approaches the audience on several levels. One doesn't need even an introduction to Shakespeare's times and language to read a play and fit the appropriate emotions in one's mind. Such is the use of language that we know something important's going on even if we're not sure of some particulars, and we can certainly tell when someone is happy, angry, etc. Get an education in iambic pentameter, and it gets more interesting from an artistic standpoint. Give one's self a little education about the vocabulary, and one gets a better understanding not just of plot, but of how absolutely filthy Shakespeare's puns were (they were powerful, too; sometimes that filthiness was written because it served the same purpose as an angry "f**k you!" does today). But then if one gets an education in the church doctrine and popular philosophy of the Elizabethan age, oh my, it's like finally seeing a Van Gogh in color instead of black and white.

Furthermore, . . . um, where was I? Oh, yeah - poor example. Classical music and Jazz music are soul brothers, man. Facility and knowledge of both magnify both for listener and player.

Anyways, my little bass joke:

One week, a guy tells his friend: "Yup. My kid took his first bass lesson yesterday."

"What did he learn," asked the friend.

"He learned the first five notes on the E string."

The next week, the guy tells his friend, "Things are moving along. My kid learned those first five notes on the E string, and then yesterday he had another lesson."

"What did he learn yesterday," asked the friend.

"The first five notes on the A string."

The next week the guy and his friend are talking, and the friend asks, "So, did your kid have another lesson yesterday?"

"Nah. My kid blew it off - he's done with lessons."

"Oh," said the friend. "Gave up, huh?"

"Nope. Once he got that second lesson he was able to start getting blues gigs." [rim shot]

More often than not, a true story, dang it.

Cameron

Very few people here lived back in the age where reading was almost a reservation for the wealthy. Shakespeare may have been one of the best writers of his time, but when the competition is low, I would guess hundreds at most, he has little problem being the best. Today, I have to compete with all the people here, plus hundreds of thousands (maybe more). Where is the fun works from those old time periods, the ones that were written for entertainment, more than intellectual satisfaction? Most of them disappeared, or were never even printed because they did not have what the upper crust of society wanted. If the common person could not read or write, who were the writers writing for? Those people who could read.

My example of music was to point out that even though classical is the most well known type of music, it is not topping any charts or sales records. The blues is a common people type of music, it has some roots that originate in (if I remember correctly) England or Ireland. And if you believe it is all about playing a few notes in order, then you missed the expressiveness of it. Jazz is technical, blues expression...just like in writing you have the intellectual style writing and the entertainment style of writing. Art is very diverse in so many ways, but why is only certain items considered great? If you ignore society for the answer then you miss out on the reason. I have read many books that will never hit the great list, but still teach about human nature. All the things listed that are found in the classics can be found elsewhere, and often in a more enjoyable story.

Must all of us study what the upper class deemed appropriate for them when it will not teach us the one important thing we need to know? We have to write for people today, for the readers that might buy our work. If it is dry and boring it has little chance of being published, at least in fiction. So if these classics will not move me to be a better writer, why would I need to read them to be a better writer?

OSC doesn't need to be on a great list to get my money, nor do many other authors I enjoy reading. Does this mean I am less intelligent because I enjoy a readable book? By not wanting to pour over a book that requires me to force myself through it, does this make me an idiot? I ask because, so far, all I have been given is that because someone, in the past, has made it a point to add these "greats" to a list of required reading in colleges. So are they remember because a majority of the people today enjoyed them, or because someone gave them an assignment to read it?

Before you fly off the handle, I just want someone to give me a valid, solid reason for me to waist my reading time on something that, although may be interesting, comes close to being work to read. The excuse that they teach you important things just don’t get it, I can learn important things in many places. If they cannot teach me to write a better story that will help my stories to be more enjoyable, and publishable, what is the point?

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Before you fly off the handle, I just want someone to give me a valid, solid reason for me to waist my reading time on something that, although may be interesting, comes close to being work to read. The excuse that they teach you important things just don’t get it, I can learn important things in many places. If they cannot teach me to write a better story that will help my stories to be more enjoyable, and publishable, what is the point?

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[initial rude reaction deleted]

I believe that all novels that are well-loved - not, mind you, necessarily financially successful (you've picked an iffy genre for financial success) - share this in common: they say true things about life.

Well, so what? We don't no need novels to learn about life. We learn that just getting out of bed every day.

Right?

Sure - but that's not why people read fiction. A novel is not a 100% accurate presentation of real life with all its long periods of sheer mundanity. The only thing that comes close is, I think, Ulysses, which is unreadable precisely because it tries to mimic the moment-to-moment stream of consciousness that passes as thought for us most of the time. Blech.

Nope - if we've learned to love reading novels it's because we've developed a taste for the entertaining/thoughful/etc way that the books present true *aspects* of life. Name an emotion, the good authors find ways to explain it truthfully, and this is as true in science fiction and fantasy as in ELizabethan plays and Dickensian novels.

Myself, I don't like Lord of the Rings just because it has some long, interesting "history," but primarily because it is about people doing things that are truthfully human in extreme circumstances, not comic book humans doing silly things in extreme situations. Now, the popularity of Anthony's Xanth novels shows there is a market for comic book literature, obviously, but I can't honestly think of a geek, nerd, or dorkwad I personally know who has ever been content to limit his reading to comic book literature, or even to sci-fi and fantasy generally. We want human depth in our books, and not just some of the time, but most of the time.

We want true human literature, regardless of the genre in which it is presented.

I believe that's the case, anyway - I may be totally wrong.

That said, one reason to approach the classics is because they have a vastly larger readership than sci-fi/fantasy, and it ain't solely because of academic hegemony. It's because there are lots and lots of bright, wise people - including most of your favorite sci-fi/fantasy authors, actually - who find in these books and plays that human truth has been presented in emotionally and intellectually and philosophically satisfying ways.

In fact, there is a LOT to learn from them that will help you become more publishable because your books, instead of being the kind of monochrome exercises in generic genre lit that mark the submissions offered by people who've never read anything else, will have the same touches that color and make more brilliant the works of our best authors. Because, ultimately, in the best novels, truthful presentations trump stylish ones (um, so long as the truthful presentation is still written well and coherently).

SHORT VERSION: Dude, if you gotta walk an axtra couple of steps to get to the chocolate ice cream, it's worth it: you can't eat just vanilla all your life, can you?

Cameron

[This message has been edited by ccwbass (edited January 20, 2004).]

P.S. I'm enjoying this conversation, by the way. In fact, this entire thread has obliged me to change one of my opinions and I've had to scrape off the fuzziness of the rest of them and put them under a microscope. That's good to do, now and again.

Some people have the misconception that the writing books teach you how to write, when really they show you new ways to think. If I wanted to learn how to program in a new language I am not going to go scouring through other peoples code hoping I'll get it, I buy a book that explains it too me. If I want to learn to cook (which I don't do very well), I can buy a book to teach me that also. So when there are books which explain the concepts to you without having to try and decipher it from someone else’s work, what is wrong with that?

If I did try and learn to cook, must I go eat at every fancy restaurant around? And if I do must I like it even if I don't? And if I don't like it would I be wrong not learning to cook something I didn't like?

So if I only learn to cook things I like, and only serve people who like what I do...does that make me a failure? I never had a vision of being a writer and making it rich. With the odd exception of J K Rowling, most sci fi/fantasy writers are not wealthy. I know some do quite well, but the point is that is not my goal to get rich. My goal is to write my stories, in a way that is enjoyable to normal people who like the same style of books I do, where is the problem? Must I read standard fiction to write fantasy? Or sci fi?

Let me pose a question to those that believe the classics are the be all and end all of literature. What are you doing here? If sci fi and fantasy are so "sub standard" to the classics, why are you here looking at writing what you seem to think little of?

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If I wanted to learn how to program in a new language I am not going to go scouring through other peoples code hoping I'll get it, I buy a book that explains it too me. If I want to learn to cook (which I don't do very well), I can buy a book to teach me that also. So when there are books which explain the concepts to you without having to try and decipher it from someone else’s work, what is wrong with that?

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I don't think you should force yourself to read every book on some list of classic books all the way through. I certainly haven't done so. But I think it's a good idea to read some of them, and given the variety of classic books, there must be some that appeal to just about every taste.

Why is it a good idea? Because there is something about those works that over the years has led a lot of people to consider them important.

Dude. Really.

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Let me pose a question to those that believe the classics are the be all and end all of literature. What are you doing here? If sci fi and fantasy are so "sub standard" to the classics, why are you here looking at writing what you seem to think little of?

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I see the problem, now. You appear to have been basing your arguments on some very incorrect assumptions, at least about the members of this forum who have been arguing on the behalf of classic literature.

[1] I don't think ANYONE who has contributed to this and similar threads has EVER argued that classic literature is "the be all and end all of literature." Who in this forum has ever used the label "sub standard" when describing science fiction and fantasy literature? I don't think I ever have, and if I have given that impression please chalk it up to poor argument on my part. I'll try to do better in the future to avoid this kind of misunderstanding.

[2] I'm not sure of you're responding to what you believe MY attitude is, but if you are, I'd like to direct your attention to my earlier posts (above) wherein I state that, well, tell you what: I'll save you a search.

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By and large, lists of classic literature, great literature, transcendent literature, whatever we feel like calling them, really are mostly trustworthy guides to literature that is worth a person's time to read. Dickens got paid by the word, yes, but, man, what wonderful words. And his literature was loved in his day. And I mean loved in the way folks today love watching Reality TV. That today's Great Literature is being interpreted through the truly weird lens of the universities does not devalue them in the least.

What sets me off about these lists - and I think I'm speaking for quite a few sci-fi/fantasy fans here - is that the lists represent not so much the INclusion of Great Literature as the EXclusion of other Great Literature that the universities don't know how to handle (for whatever reason, though OSC makes a very good case about "wild" vs. "tame" literature).

For every James Joyce that occupies space on a Must Read list we know we should be seeing something by Gene Wolfe. And, oh, the list we could prepare would just be endless, wouldn't it?

And it's not just that the stuff we like isn't there, like there was no room, or maybe someone just forgot. It's the presumed reasons for the exclusions. It's that the works of our sci-fi/fantasy geniuses are proudly ignored by the Harold Blooms making the Great Literature lists because of their strange wordview that popular = crap. Thus, OUR literature is frankly, brutally dismissed without even having had a fairminded peek by smart people who should know better. And it really burns us because OUR literature is where some of the most beautiful word-play is to be found, and on and on.

I would never argue for the abolishment of a Great Literature list; but I do wish that one day the list expands to include the stuff geeks like us have already discovered.

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When I say that you shouldn't ignore classic literature I am NOT saying it's because it is somehow inherently better than sci-fi/fantasy. It isn't. A good read is a good read is a good read.

Good golly, man, I LOVE novels about spaceships and magic and all that geek crap, and so does everyone here who argues that attention also be paid to Sophocles and Shakespeare and Dickens and Hemingway and [continue list here].

I repeat that I love a lot of classical literature, and I find in it wonderful things, but at the same time I argue that the term "classic" has too much of all the wrong kind of baggage. The term itself is exclusionary, and necessarily has created the ghettos in which "genre" literature - including our beloved speculative fiction - is obliged to exist, at least in a cultural sense.

[3]So, to recap:

I love classical literature (most of what I've read, anyway)

I love science-fiction and fantasy and I actually believe that it is in THIS genre that the mantle of great literature is currently alive and thriving. It isn't merely just as valid as other forms of fiction; it IS the classic fiction of our time.

Thus, I despise the makers of "Great Literature" lists because they patently ignore speculative fiction; in fact, they have never bothered to give it a chance. It is a remarkably foolish position for smart people to take. I blame the academics, and, to a certain extent, modern-day market philosophy.

AND - and here is where you seem to be misreading me - I believe sci-fi/fantasy fans who eschew classic literature are being no less foolish and lazy as the nose-sniffers who assume that books about robots and elves can be appreciated only by the congenitally retarded portion of humanity.

[Heh. It just occurred to me that I sound like an ex-smoker trying to get his friend to quit. Sorry for the overweening passion, but, you know . . . ]

Science-fiction/fantasy is only partially a modern invention, at least when it comes to robots; the genre is primarily the inheritor of a long tradition, probably having more to do with the real Classics of the ancient Greeks and Romans than anything else that came out of the last 100 years.

I can only insist, with all possible passion, that it is worth at least a peek backwards to examine the structure on which our wonderful nerd literature is built.

Cameron

Just occurred to me that I never got around to answering your question, which is, unless I'm mistaken, "Why should anyone read classic literature?"

I've decided that the question can't really be answered, at least not to any degree that will persuade you on a logical level. It's a little like trying to describe religious conversion to an atheist - the atheist has not felt or thought what the converted has felt or thought, so even though they may use the same words, the language is not remotely the same.

Read, or don't. I can only tell you that it is my belief that if you don't ever make at least an honest effort to ingest one or two "classics" you will always be making your arguments from the not very laudable position of ignorance. It may very well be true that you're not missing anything, but how, really, do you know?

Hey - I didn't think I was missing anything by ignoring "Speaker for the Dead," at least until I caved in to popular pressure and read it. Very powerful themes in that book, very skillfully and emotionally presented. Hadn't had an intellectual experience like that since King Lear.

C'mon. Just take one hit. You won't get hooked. You can always quit. Trust me, kid.

Just don't tell your parents.

If I were to write with as much detail and slow motion movement in the first half of a novel, there would be no chance any editor would get past the first chapter.

Intrigue can be good, but I had more enjoyment from the Amber novels, which had enough sub plots to keep you off track of the real bad guy till the end of the 5th book.

My whole point is that I would rather read the "greats" of my time. They are here right now, writing interesting, exciting, and enjoyable novels for me to read.

As for relying only on how to books to learn something...well, lets say I learned to program from books, and make a pretty good living off the result. The how to's just give you the needed information to get started, and help guide a person to improving. It is the practical application of what is read in them that gets you to the end result.

So.

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It's a good idea to read the how-to books. But, with a possible exception for rare prodigies, I wouldn't want to listen to music composed by someone who had learned everything he knew about music by reading music textbooks.

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