First of all, before I start today's blog, I'd like to share a quote with you from a good friend of mine:
"You'd better quote me in your fucking blog this time." - Abbie Jaggers
Consider yourself quoted.
Right then. As you may have guessed from my title, this blog is going to be about the virtues and vices of things I have read over the course of my university degree. Now firstly I'm going to say this: I love reading, and I love books, even some of the really old stuff I've come across on my course. A tad harder to negotiate through the older language, but it can be rewarding.
But some of the stuff I read isn't just old...it's, well, rather bad to be perfectly honest. I suppose I can chalk some of it off to it just not being my preference, but some of the things we read I struggle to see how they managed to get published. Now, I understand that we study a lot of it in order to gain a better understand of the issues and culture of the periods we're reading about. It does make sense: people create art in order to express themselves, their emotions and their thoughts, and this can be a better way of understand history than some "historical documents". Granted, it's just a subject to editing and all that stuff as other documents, so it's not foolproof but I think my point still stands.
The thing I've noticed throughout all of it though, is that I still don't understand why some things are considered "true" literature, or whatever term you wish to use. I guess I'm aiming this at what I like to think of as "literary snobs", for lack of a better, more accurate or official term. This isn't really at anyone I know, more based on things I read in articles and things written by some academics.
Maybe it's just some of the lecturers I've had, maybe I've just stumbled across some rather pompous academic writing, but nonetheless some seem to hold this distinct view that unless a piece of writing is written in a certain way, or has a certain point to make then it is automatically not literature and consequently of no use to anyone. Now I'll be the first to admit that there is a whole host of brilliant stuff out there, Austen, Wilde, Stevenson, Milton, Woolf, Fitzgerald to name a few. There's Bryon, Blake, Eliot (though technically this is poetry and I'm unsure as to whether that's classed as literature? I'd love to be enlightened if anyone knows!) who are equally as brilliant.
But they aren't just remembered for their cultural and historical significance (great though it is). They're remembered and reread for the simple fact that they can fucking write. They are brilliant writers, styling words in brilliant sentences, choosing interesting topics and generally making you actually give a shit about what they're writing about. It doesn't mean they necessarily need to have a brilliant plot, though it does help; I love 'The Great Gatsby', which is a book more about the way it's written and the significance of seemingly small events rather than a grand, arching plot.
These people can write, you want to read their stuff because it's good, not because some lecturer or teacher told you it's important or might be a good idea. Maybe I'm getting worked up over nothing, I know not all academics are like this, but it feels like some of them live in their own little bubbles and cannot accept that anything contemporary could have any value unless it's at least fifty years old (preferably older) and that no one really understood at the time, but has now thankfully be resurrected by their clever analysis.
Bollocks. There are so many brilliant authors around these days, who granted may not fit into the traditional literary or academic standards of "literature", but whom I think are nonetheless brilliant. I'm a bit of a geek - well, a lot - and I love fantasy novels, one of the least literary genres around. And yet I think writers like Tolkein, Nix, Hobb, Pratchett and maybe even J.K. Rowling are fantastic. Not all of them are the best writers, true, but their imaginations are limitless and isn't that just as important a trait when it comes to writing?
It's one of those open-ended debates that probably will never truly end, but that's partly what makes it so interesting to me, and why I love having a good old rant and natter about it. If you disagree with me, please tell me, I enjoy a lovely intellectual debate...provided I've had at least a few drinks, or else my arguments become far too coherant and structured for my liking. I'll leave you with a quote from the third Discworld novel, 'Equal Rites':
"They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it's not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance." - Terry Pratchett.
Sorry this is technically published past midnight, but as usual I left it far too late. Better luck next week!
~ Toby
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