I'm not sure the popularity of such authors as Rowling means much of anything for society. The same debate over Stephen King has been raging for years- are his books really art? Japan has had the same debate over whether the emerging dominance of manga is an indication of a decline in their society.
If people read to take a load off their minds, what does that indicate? That they're tired of thinking, or that their jobs are already demanding a lot of their brain power? And is this phenomenon of popular but not stellar writers really new? When novels first emerged, they were treated as "low art", inferior to poetry. Then some great writing came out, but pulp-style novels are still with us.
As far as appreciation of art in general society- a lot of people will always be rather immune to it, education or no. There will always be a segment of humanity that questions and observes the world around itself and creates art, though the mode changes and isn't always appreciated at the time.
I look down the Westerns aisle at our local store and it's still dominated by L'Amour, Zane Grey and Max Brand, the latter two are long dead and weren't considered great art in their time, nor now, and yet they hang on and still sell.
...Writers of fluff do not get studied in academia year in year out; writers of fluff are not still in print 100 years later.
Define fluff.
Some of it
is still in print, and it was considered fluff then. Was the general estimation wrong? And academia studies
everything, constantly questioning its own understanding. Tolkien was largely considered fluff not worthy of study at a university level, and yet I've seen classes offered since the movies came out. It's an ambiguous area where lessons are drawn out and references to other great works are brought in. Tolkien then becomes a springboard for more philosophical discussion. Almost all writing, given sufficient popularity, could become fodder for the mill of the mind. I suppose you could even use Eragon as a university course, given the right teachers. Is the book an end of itself or a means to an end?
Some slots of greatness are filled with great works, and many more are filled with stories that happened to be in the right place at the right time. Because it was of value to you, you introduce others to it. Would another story have done the job? Probably, but it so happens you were introduced to one, rather than the other, and passed it along. So in a way popularity does matter. There's a sense of nostalgia and enjoyment that wants to be shared, and it's dependent upon what's available or popular at the time.
Was Sherlock Holmes considered art in his own time? And is there art in what's out there now, and we're just missing it? I'm of the opinion that there is a lot of potential in most novels (though there is some unsalvagable garbage out there), and that the other factors of popularity determine which rise to art and which are forgotten.
One common thing all books with a long shelf-life have is a good original story. How many times have Shakespeare's plays and Dicken's novels been re-interpreted. Romeo and Juliet as West Side Story, The Tempest as Forbidden Planet, for example. You cannot do that with Harry Potter.
Well, they weren't original stories. They were GOOD stories, rehashed ad nauseum, and these were the best versions. That's one thing Shakespeare didn't do- create his own storylines.
There is something in the "spirit of the age" that both lets us see something in older works, but also a certain blindness to greatness about us, or even greatness in the past- that's why authors come and go. Even discerning people go through phases of appreciation and understanding, in which they may denigrate works that they later have to re-evaluate.
And some lowbrow books are loved because they are lowbrow- people love the pulpy quality of them, and if people have all read the same pulp author, it builds common ground between them.
Sorry for the rant i am a little annoyed by people that don't care to return the books.
Perfect time of life to discover the "classics"- every thrift store has nearly a complete set (see conversation on books bought but never read), and they sell them for dirt cheap, and I mean dirt cheap. Get some of those classics in while your mind is still young and fresh and exploring the world!
(Yes, I know many find they don't understand them until much later, but I still think it's a good idea.)
Many agents will now tell you to throw away the first few chapters of your book and start with the action, then work your way back. That is instant gratification in the book market without a doubt!
It comes and it goes. They've been cutting straight to the chase for the better part of a hundred years now. But being that books are being read by working people now and not aristocracy with lots of free time, I guess it makes a difference.
