Tom -- I don't know who you're arguing with, but it isn't me. I find the bucking-for-respect thing tiresome in SF too, as well as in comic books. I think that art forms often thrive best when they fly under (or just ignore) the respectability radar. One of the reasons I enjoy working in erotica, satire, and audio where my own creative projects go is that they Get No Respect. Getting no respect can be freeing. (Though the yearning-for-intellectual respect thing is an interesting part of the cultural landscape too, god knows.)

You write: "You mean they have publicly visible venues like the NYT and English courses for the discourse of literary books while we commercial fiction lovers only have... every other place on the planet. This has got to stop! It's intolerable that anyone be publicly contemptuous of the stuff I like anywhere!"

Where to start, where to start ...

1) I like all kinds of bookstuff. I like some lit stuff, I like some comic books, I like some genre fiction, I read a lot of philosophy, I enjoy trashy biographies, film books, diet and workout books, books that are co-written and ghostwritten, books that are visually-driven, and even the occasional self-help book ... Unlike many more high-minded people, I genuinely like books, and not just lit, let alone Eternal Works.

2) It doesn't bother me in the least if some editor at the NYTBook Review or some prof at Harvard doesn't respond to, say, Joseph Wambaugh, who (FWIW) I think may be a great novelist. It does bother me a bit that many civilians take the judgement of this editor and the judgement of this prof seriously, especially when the editor and the prof in many cases haven't even read Wambaugh. And many people do take these profs and editors seriously. In my experience it's quite amazing how often someone who loves, say, western stories will apologize about it, saying, "Of course, it's not serious fiction ..."

3) The opinions and conduct of the gatekeepers do indeed count, because, where books go, many people come to a love of reading-and-writing thru school, and they sustain their interest through press coverage. In other words, they relate to the world of books via the gatekeepers. They learn about books from teachers, and they maintain their interest by looking at the NYTimes Book Review section. Guess what? They're being misled.

4) While people often discover the pleasures of music or graphics or movies on their own, or through friends, many people who are drawn to books go through some kind of English-major indoctrination, er, process. Who are these people doing the indoctrinating? And what does the indoctrination consist of? Questions worth asking.

4) I really don't know where this picture some have of "those who care about lit" being a noble and beleaguered population cowering in scattered and increasingly lonely redoubts while the barbarian hordes have the rest of life their own way comes from. It's got zero basis in reality. "Lit" as we currently know it is by and large something that certain kinds of upper class and upper-middle-class people do to impress each other. And it's well-subsidized by parents, schools, foundations, grants, spouses, and the government. (As I noted in a comment a few postings down, nearly every one of the people on a recent NEA board that I looked into had a background in academic workshop writing and teaching.) It's also given 'way more coverage, discussion, and respect than it has any sensible right to claim. Good lord, if you're determined to feel sorry for someone, save it for someone who's genuinely hungry and deserving. Feeling sorry for "literary" people is like ... I dunno, feeling sorry for Communist Party higher-ups during the USSR days. Poor things, no one understands how hard it is to run a totalitarian country ...

So much more could be said ... But, in any case, please don't mistake me for someone who's begging the elites to respect what I like. Bashing the elites for vanity, for excessive navel-gazing, for being blind to much that's of value, and for misleading the public, yes. Suggesting that the publishing industry (and our intellectual class) ought to be more open to and respectful of values and creations that don't emerge from their own class, sure. Eager that civilians should feel less cowed than many of them often do by the posturings of the profs and editors, you betcha. Eager to hint to a few websurfers that that the "lit vs genre" thing is hooey; that no one knows what the future will decide was the fiction of note of our age; and that reading and book pleasure can arrive in all kinds of different sizes and packages -- all that, you bet.

And please note that I don't just bash, I pass along suggestions of popular fiction that I think readers might enjoy.

Posted by: Michael Blowhard on August 29, 2009 4:42 PM

Unlike many more high-minded people, I genuinely like books, and not just lit, let alone Eternal Works.

To be honest, it sounds like you're rather better rounded than me.

It does bother me a bit that many civilians take the judgement of this editor and the judgement of this prof seriously, especially when the editor and the prof in many cases haven't even read Wambaugh. And many people do take these profs and editors seriously.

In my experience it's quite amazing how often someone who loves, say, western stories will apologize about it, saying, "Of course, it's not serious fiction ..."

Point taken. (Aside: my wife's book review column in an SF magazine used to be called "Guilty Pleasures". To the credit of the new owner, he insisted on changing the name because he felt one should never feel guilty about what you like.)

However, to me, it's more people granting the the Lit crowd power over their personal likes/dislikes.

The opinions and conduct of the gatekeepers do indeed count, because, where books go, many people come to a love of reading-and-writing thru school, and they sustain their interest through press coverage. In other words, they relate to the world of books via the gatekeepers. They learn about books from teachers, and they maintain their interest by looking at the NYTimes Book Review section. Guess what? They're being misled.

Another solid point. However, do you really think people are getting their book preferences from the NYT, Universities, etc? My take is that given commercial realities, there's almost no other avenue of exposure for more Literary works. I strongly suspect that there are a *lot* more people who might otherwise fall in love with Literary works who have simply never been exposed to them because of commercial pressure, than have been warned off of commercial books that they would otherwise have loved by the Literati community.

many people who are drawn to books go through some kind of English-major indoctrination, er, process. Who are these people doing the indoctrinating?

Okay, let me formally regret my previous harshness. I see where you are coming from. Personally, I think of the academic field of English as, well, a field unto itself, as opposed to something related to English as she is used :-). It has its own rules, laws, etc. I suppose my internal analogy is Math. At the risk of appalling practitioners in the "one true field", Math doesn't have much relation to the field that you and I call Math.

I'll address some other points after dinner.

Posted by: Tom West on August 29, 2009 6:24 PM

To each his own, indeed, PA. Seems we at least agree on one thing, though (along with Long Island commuting weight-lifter Peter); the desirability of women actually looking like women, where adolescent hair growth occurs, rather than like the 'prophet' Muhammed's first wife Aisha at the time of their marriage.

Posted by: anon on August 29, 2009 11:43 PM

I like what the Hungarian-born Canadian London-dwelling novelist-essayist Stephen Vizinczey said in "A Writer's Ten Commandments", reprinted in Truth and Lies in Literature:

VIII

"Thou shalt not worship London/New York/Paris.

"I often meet apiring writers from out-of-the-way places who believe that people who live in the media capital have some special inside information about art which they do not possess. They read the review pages and watch arts programs on television to find out what is important, what art really is, what intellectuals should be concerned about. The provincial is often an intelligent, gifted person who ends up following some glib journalist's or academic's notion of what constitutes literary excellence, and betrays his talent by aping morons whose only talent is getting on.

"Even if you live at Land's End, there is no reason for you to feel out of touch. If you have a good paperback library of great writers, and if you keep rereading them, you will have access to more secrets of literature than all the cultural phonies who set the tone in the big cities. I know a leading New York critic who has never read Tolstoy and is proud of it, too. So don't waste time worrying about what is the declared fashion, the right subject or the right style of what sort of things win prizes. Any body who ever succeeeded in literature did so on his own terms."

My own manifesto on such metropolitan matters appeared in National Review in 1986:

http://www.thefreelibrary.com/The+fourteenth+colony-a04588745

Posted by: Scott Lahti on August 30, 2009 1:31 AM

Speaking of gatekeepers an' all, our pal Dan McCarthy has a sharp post on the recent channeling of the late Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., by NYTBR/WiR chief Sam Tanenhaus, with Greek chorus by me in the comments in the form of a diamond-compressed Mr. Peabody's Improbable History look WABAC at Tanenhaus's career, bad puns and Britannica-length the price of guilty admission.

http://www.amconmag.com/mccarthy/2009/08/29/trs-kids/

Posted by: Scott Lahti on August 30, 2009 3:32 AM






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