What is 'literature' and what SF qualifies?
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Extollager
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Rodders, do you want to banish a useful distinction simply because you might feel that it could make you ashamed of your taste?
That's how your remark sounds to me, whether you intended it to sound that way or not. Don't take offense at me for being honest with you.
It really is legitimate to make a distinction between literature and what is sometimes called subliterature, and this is objective, not simply a matter of purely subjective preference. I believe I can show that what I'm saying is true.
Literature invites, rewards, and sometimes requires sustained attention from readers. Subliterature works best for casual reading. Both may provide enjoyment.
As an example of subliterature, take one of my favorite stories, Conan Doyle's "The Speckled Band." I couldn't tell you how many times I have read this story, always with enjoyment. I'll assume everyone here has read it. If not, please read it before commenting on my comment -- you are in for a fun read!
"The Speckled Band" provides enjoyment, but that enjoyment (except possible enjoyment at its expense) depends on a relaxed, even casual approach, as if often the case with "Gothic" writing. Is there anyone here who has read it who did not enjoy it? I will assume that to have read it is to have enjoyed it. It's really fun to read.
If, however, I pay attention to some pretty obvious details, the story is revealed as seriously flawed. The whole thing depends on the application of pure reason (supplied by Holmes so that the mystery is solved). Yet that same rational faculty reveals the key idea as next to impossible.
We must accept the idea that Roylott has trained a poisonous snake to go through the ventilator in the wall, and to descend into the next room by writhing itself around a dummy bell-pull. It must then slide over the nearby sleeper's pillow and, while she is motionless (offering the reptile no reason to attack), bite her, injecting its fatal venom. (The sleeper must not wake up when the snake first touches her.) The snake must then immediately and rapidly turn around, slide up the dummy bell-pull and slip through the ventilator, and allow itself to be returned to the safe in which it normally lives its life. Moreover, it is necessary that the young woman sleeping in the fatal room must never have noticed that her bed has been bolted to the floor or, if she does notice, she must brush off the mystery as to why such a bizarre thing would have been done or must be satisfied with some absurd "explanation" if she does ask why. She must not ask why the bell-pull is there when it rings no bell, or she must be satisfied with some dubious explanation.
Doyle was, as it were, counting on his reader to read casually and not notice problems such as these. Or perhaps he may have hoped that if any reader did notice these problems, the reader would indulge him, good-naturedly -- but I doubt he thought of it that way.
So subliterature and literature may both offer enjoyment, and some readers never want more than the enjoyment provided by reading, casually, stories that may be read thus.
Other readers may enjoy subliterature but also want to read things, sometimes, that invite a greater degree of attention. This attention may include not only attention to plot details but sensitivity to the sounds and shades of meanings of words, a degree of background knowledge that might not be held by everyone (so as to recognize allusions, etc.), and so on.
Take Hawthorne's story "Rappaccini's Daughter," which I hope everyone has read or will read. The plot reminds me of something Clark Ashton Smith might have written up, placing the story on some weird planet or in Earth's distant past or future. A very intelligent elderly man possesses an unparalleled knowledge of poisonous plants. He has a young daughter (who was the mother?), who has grown up, from infancy, around the plants, breathing the poisonous fragrances they emit and becoming adjusted to them and like them -- gorgeously beautiful, but deadly to be touched. A young man looks into the garden and sees this entrancing female, and he becomes obsessed by her beauty and the desire to get close to her. The housekeeper takes money from the young man and admits him into the garden, where he talks with the young woman, who has never known a young man before and feels her love for him awaken. He is troubled by the way her presence seems to cause death and decides to conduct an experiment that will reveal whether she is a monster or not.
The story would lend itself to straight-out pulp treatment; it could easily have appeared in Weird Tales. But I find that, when I give the story close attention to detail, language, theme, etc., it rewards me more than pulp does. The story is, if you like, an unbelievable fantasy, but it deals with experiences of trust, of infatuation vs. love, of parental protectiveness and the need of children to be allowed to take appropriate risks, the peril of building false assumptions into supposedly fair and objective scientific experiments, and so on. It seems to me both a first-rate weird fantasy and also an expression of wisdom. It's not that I'm supposed to extract some moral from the story and forget the story. Rather the moral element, whether or not I take it with me after reading, is an enhancement of the imaginative experience as I read. I'm rewarded for being alert and thoughtful. This is a real work of literature and I love it.
I hope my argument is clear and convincing as to why a distinction between literature and non-literature is useful and real, and not merely some kind of effort by resented but unnamed "snobs" to make people feel inferior.
An analogy about reading might help, though nothing will help if someone reads this comment with a hostile attitude. Any time you're healthy but hungry and you eat a decent meal you feel enjoyment. Sometimes you are on a road trip and you want to grab some fast food and keep driving. But sometimes you want something that rewards your attention more. You take your spouse out to dinner on your anniversary and that doesn't call for a burger and fries at McDonald's. The food takes a while to prepare and a while to eat and happy conversation is part of the experience, and maybe a little exhilaration from good wine, etc. You both know how to enjoy that good wine as something to be savored and not just to "wash down" a big lump of food in your throats. And 20 years later you and your spouse still remember that meal, and maybe one of you even writes a poem about it. It was a good experience at the time and it's a good memory, one of the innumerable things that has bound you close to your spouse.
The distinction between literature and subliterature is a real one and it's not, in essence, in the least a matter of snobbery.
I would say that, in fact, this distinction may actually work against snobbery, because reading and enjoying literature requires or develops a kind of humility, a willingness to sit still, pay attention, put away our phones, etc. Sometimes we might have to admit that some literary work may be good or might not be, but we're not able to say. I remember that when I first read Hemingway, with his boiled-down prose, I "didn't get much out of it." The problem was more with me than with "The Old Man at the Bridge." I was used to a writer doing more of the work of explaining meaning for me. Whether or not Hemingway becomes a favorite, whether or not I feel qualified to have much of an opinion about his writing now although I have read more of it, is another matter.
Elckerlyc
"Philosophy will clip an angel's wings."
In the Netherlands what is and what is not to be considered literature is large determined by the writers themselves. And yes, there is some snobbism involved.
Literature is largely read by people who belong to the so-called intelligentsia. And yes, there is some snobbism involved.
These days books ought to contain some or a whole lot of autobiographic details to be hailed as literature. Books such as about your upbringing within a religious or cultural cadre which the author experienced as claustrophobic or suffocating. They are high-praised.
But much like Reality TV, I'm not really interested. My own upbringing was strict. But it never bothered me. I knew and understood why some restrictions were in order and that my parents were loving and not uncaring.
The books I had to read at school were mostly (Dutch) literature, a bore to read, contained nothing which made them remotely interesting or gripping. (They can be, though. I was for instance gripped by 'The Color Purple.') But what I mostly learned at school was that 'literature' was to be avoided at all costs. I amended that later on, but you might expect teachers to understand that. (That was ages ago, I believe reading-lists are more free these days.)
Anyway, literature and snobbism doesn't have much to do with classes. Education, your university perhaps.
There is a book by Joris Luyendijk titled "The Seven Ticks," which claims the world (well, at least the Netherlands) is ruled by people who all check on these 7 points:
Male
White
Hetero
Educated (Academy or University)
Educated Parents (likewise)
Lives in 'De Randstad' (the area between Amsterdam - Utrecht - Rotterdam - The Hague)
Speaks ABN (Dutch, free from accents or dialectical influences)
It's not exactly called a Class, but... maybe it is.
Literature is largely read by people who belong to the so-called intelligentsia. And yes, there is some snobbism involved.
These days books ought to contain some or a whole lot of autobiographic details to be hailed as literature. Books such as about your upbringing within a religious or cultural cadre which the author experienced as claustrophobic or suffocating. They are high-praised.
But much like Reality TV, I'm not really interested. My own upbringing was strict. But it never bothered me. I knew and understood why some restrictions were in order and that my parents were loving and not uncaring.
The books I had to read at school were mostly (Dutch) literature, a bore to read, contained nothing which made them remotely interesting or gripping. (They can be, though. I was for instance gripped by 'The Color Purple.') But what I mostly learned at school was that 'literature' was to be avoided at all costs. I amended that later on, but you might expect teachers to understand that. (That was ages ago, I believe reading-lists are more free these days.)
Anyway, literature and snobbism doesn't have much to do with classes. Education, your university perhaps.
There is a book by Joris Luyendijk titled "The Seven Ticks," which claims the world (well, at least the Netherlands) is ruled by people who all check on these 7 points:
Male
White
Hetero
Educated (Academy or University)
Educated Parents (likewise)
Lives in 'De Randstad' (the area between Amsterdam - Utrecht - Rotterdam - The Hague)
Speaks ABN (Dutch, free from accents or dialectical influences)
It's not exactly called a Class, but... maybe it is.
Extollager
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Eckerlyc, your comment shows what, I suppose, everyone recognizes, i.e. that snobbery exists (though I still would welcome a definition of the word). Some people who enjoy the pleasures (such as they are) of snobbery may show their proclivity by what they say about books and reading. If they are professors of literature, they will probably show it in their teaching.
But to say that, says nothing about the distinction between literature and subliterature explained in posting #125 above. (Nor do I assume that your comment was intended as a riposte to it.)
Snobbery would actually get in the way of someone who wants to read well. It is "noise" in the sense of Shannon's model of communication.
I love C. S. Lewis's comment, which goes something like this, about the household in which a dinner party is going on and the adults are all rattling on about the latest fashionable novel, enjoying their feelings of being In the Know and of being Politically Correct and so on; meanwhile, upstairs in his room, a boy is raptly reading Stevenson by flashlight -- and his is the only truly literary experience going on in the house.
But I hope people interested in the present discussion will go back and ready #125. Does that help?
It's what I taught for years, but that doesn't make it right if it's wrong.
PS In #125 I made a remark about Clark Ashton Smith in passing. Someone might want to respond to that. Could that discussion be undertaken on the thread that's available for that purpose?
www.sffchronicles.com
But to say that, says nothing about the distinction between literature and subliterature explained in posting #125 above. (Nor do I assume that your comment was intended as a riposte to it.)
Snobbery would actually get in the way of someone who wants to read well. It is "noise" in the sense of Shannon's model of communication.
I love C. S. Lewis's comment, which goes something like this, about the household in which a dinner party is going on and the adults are all rattling on about the latest fashionable novel, enjoying their feelings of being In the Know and of being Politically Correct and so on; meanwhile, upstairs in his room, a boy is raptly reading Stevenson by flashlight -- and his is the only truly literary experience going on in the house.
But I hope people interested in the present discussion will go back and ready #125. Does that help?
It's what I taught for years, but that doesn't make it right if it's wrong.
PS In #125 I made a remark about Clark Ashton Smith in passing. Someone might want to respond to that. Could that discussion be undertaken on the thread that's available for that purpose?
Did Clark Ashton Smith write literature?
Here is a place for people who know Smith's work better than I do to make the case for (or against) Smith as having written literature. This really means that one must make the case that at least one of Smith's stories qualifies as literature rather than subliterature. Remarks about Smith in...
www.sffchronicles.com
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The Big Peat
Darth Buddha
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Relevance to who?
To your reading tastes? Not unless you read something in the literature section and want to read more of it, no. I can see worth to the idea of finding out what Sci-Fi is seen as particularly well-written and thought-provoking, but use the word literature and you get this thread instead of recs.
To people generally interested in books and the thinking around them? Very relevant in places, but if you lock three readers in a room and ask for a definition you'll get five answers back.
Swank
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Alastair Reynolds is fantasy because of drives that make energy from calculation.
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The Big Peat
Darth Buddha
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Search for the word and the following double definition comes up as the first hit:
"a person with an exaggerated respect for high social position or wealth who seeks to associate with social superiors and looks down on those regarded as socially inferior."
"a person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to those of other people."
Which is how I'd use the two myself. (There is also inverted snob "a person who appears to despise anything associated with wealth or social status, while at the same time elevating those things associated with lack of wealth and social position.")
Is snobbery needed to make sense of the technical definition you provided? No.
Does snobbery shape what is seen to fit each definition at a pivotal level of decision making? It can do and almost definitely has.
Can snobbery be seen in the way the definitions are presented and which is seen as more worthy? Yes, with both definitions. The superior taste one is obvious, but given how high social position/wealth usually has a correlation with the education needed to spot references and the time to do so, that sort of work gets associated with them, and is then presented as superior. I would gently suggest that nobody outside of geography has defined something as X and something else as sub-X without trying to say the latter is inferior.
Of course, there's nothing stopping definition 2 (and a touch of inverted snobbery) being used against literature among groups of readers who are mostly fans of works considered as non-literature - as seen in this thread.
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My own view (no offence intended to the original poster) is that the question of what is and isn't "literature" is hardly worth asking. It's like asking "Is X art?". It's impossible to answer definitively, although some answers will be more popular and credible than others. I think it's much more important to ask "Is it any good?"
Take 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King. Whether it's your sort of thing or not, by almost every literary standard this is a good book, perhaps a very good one. It would be reasonable to place it in the top 100 horror novels and the top 10 vampire novels. Technically, it achieves what it sets out to do. It is a good novel by the usual standards and it includes scenes that are suspenseful and frightening. To me, that makes it not just a successful novel, but a successful horror novel. Then, on top of that, it includes social commentary (which King says he deliberately included). That's an extra point.
I suspect that this extra element beyond just being a very well-executed novel of its sort pushes it into "greatness" - perhaps not great compared to every other novel, but great in the smaller field of horror novels and excellent in the even smaller field of novels about vampires. This extra element doesn't have to be social commentary or anything "true": it could be exceptional writing, world-building etc.
My feeling is that this test of "greatness" works much better than "Is it literature?" We clearly have a lot of problems defining "literature" and it's been implied that the concept is too bound up with class, tradition and snobbery to have a clear, objective and useful definition. Are Raymond Chandler's crime novels literature? Who cares! They are exceptionally good books, and that's what matters. Whether Penguin wants them in its classics range is neither here nor there when considering their real importance.
Take 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King. Whether it's your sort of thing or not, by almost every literary standard this is a good book, perhaps a very good one. It would be reasonable to place it in the top 100 horror novels and the top 10 vampire novels. Technically, it achieves what it sets out to do. It is a good novel by the usual standards and it includes scenes that are suspenseful and frightening. To me, that makes it not just a successful novel, but a successful horror novel. Then, on top of that, it includes social commentary (which King says he deliberately included). That's an extra point.
I suspect that this extra element beyond just being a very well-executed novel of its sort pushes it into "greatness" - perhaps not great compared to every other novel, but great in the smaller field of horror novels and excellent in the even smaller field of novels about vampires. This extra element doesn't have to be social commentary or anything "true": it could be exceptional writing, world-building etc.
My feeling is that this test of "greatness" works much better than "Is it literature?" We clearly have a lot of problems defining "literature" and it's been implied that the concept is too bound up with class, tradition and snobbery to have a clear, objective and useful definition. Are Raymond Chandler's crime novels literature? Who cares! They are exceptionally good books, and that's what matters. Whether Penguin wants them in its classics range is neither here nor there when considering their real importance.
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Just had a shock, 
This thread has really taken off and is now full of interesting comments! I started the thread but for some reason the last Notification I got was for Christine Wheelwright's post on 7 May (re Jules Verne). Decided I'd look again today to check for book recommendations and we're now on page 7!! The thread shows me as 'watching' but evidently it ain't working.
Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Something I need to switch on or off? Sorry, still a newbie.
This thread has really taken off and is now full of interesting comments! I started the thread but for some reason the last Notification I got was for Christine Wheelwright's post on 7 May (re Jules Verne). Decided I'd look again today to check for book recommendations and we're now on page 7!! The thread shows me as 'watching' but evidently it ain't working.Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Something I need to switch on or off? Sorry, still a newbie.
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The Big Peat
Darth Buddha
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Just had a shock,
Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Something I nbeed to switch on or off? Sorry, still a newbie.
Did you look in the thread after you got that notification? Watching only mean a notification when there is a new post after a post you've already seen, not a notification for every post.
There can be a few reasons why, this has happened. I'd guess:Just had a shock,
Anyone know what I'm doing wrong? Something I nbeed to switch on or off? Sorry, still a newbie.
If you are following a thread, but then, for some reason you decide to not click on an alert that tells you something new has been posted, I believe the software decides that you are no longer interested in following and you no longer get alerts.
At least that happens to me all the time.
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This is a strong point, PM. What we like - or what is popular - ain't necessarily what is classified as literature. In fact I suspect there may be an anticorrelation - or is that just what studying 'Literature' at school has done to me?
I strongly suspect that, ultimately, 'Literature' is 'what stands the test of time' - and we won't know that for a century. Which is partly why this is an interesting question: we are asking whether we can predict the future. If Jules Verne is still there 100 years on, I suspect Terry Pratchett and JK Rowling will be too - though I would put all these in the category 'children' or 'young adult'.
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That's weird. Sometimes I don't get notifications, but it tends to only happen with the "Name the person" and "Name the film" threads in the "Playroom" section. I've no idea why, though!
I'm not sure that stands up as a definition. There are many living authors regarded as literary. Iain Banks very definitely was (if not Iain M Banks) and I'd say Haruki Murakami is and also the likes of Roberto Bolano and Gabriel Garcia Marque were in their lifetimes. And I'm sure there are many others, I'm not a huge reader of literary authors. I think the definition is always going to be a bit vague but I suspect it comes down to a serious piece of writing (although it can be serious comedy) that invites the reader to think a bit more deeply about what they have read. Which of course is drifiting into the intellectual snobbery alluded to earlier, but I just don't think you will escape that. I think it's wrong to assume that just because a book has enduring popularity it is automatically going to be, or indeed should be, considered literary. Looking from the other side, ERB's Barsoom books enjoy a fair degree of enduring popularity and, whilst they are well written and great fun, I'm afraid few, including ERB himself, would probably classify them as literary.
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Agree; the 'time test' is a necessary but not sufficient condition.
Yes, I did - that 's how I know Christine wrote about Jules Verne.
Coincidentally (or not) it was the last post on a page. I wonder if that's anything to do with it...
The Big Peat
Darth Buddha
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Yes, I did - that 's how I know Christine wrote about Jules Verne.
Bizarre. Maybe flag this with the admins to see if it's a technical glitch they should know about?
The Big Peat
Darth Buddha
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At any rate, if I were to draw a line between 'mere stories' and 'literature', the line would be weight, for want of a better word. Some books' offerings weigh more heavily on your mind and leave more of an imprint. I think this is fairly similar to other definitions offered by others in the thread too, and most of the definitions out there in some way or the other.
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