Liz: What Makes Great Literature?

41 comments on this post so far. Add yours!

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  zelda on May 01 at 5:04 p.m.

  It is remembered because it speaks of experiences that human beings share that are profound or memorable. It is remembered because it is artful in the way it expresses these experiences and connects us to others. It enriches life and it endures. Stephen King is a good storyteller, but that’s not enough. He slams readers over the head with a two-by-four so we can’t miss his obvious points. If you want a ghost story that will stay with you forever and wake you up at 4 a.m., read Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House. The horror is psychological and she didn’t need 450 pages to tell the tale. Jackson isn’t literature with a capital L, but she was a heck of better writer than King (and I’ve read my share of his stuff).

  Sometimes it’s hard to read great works of writing, but it’s mentally nutritious. If you can’t devote the time to the novels, try short stories. It’s worth the effort.

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  BethB on May 01 at 5:22 p.m.

  For me, it’s the words. There is a phrase that stands out that brings me back to it. It could even be a half a sentence. I just saw “Belle of Amherst” at Interplayers, the story of Emily Dickinson told almost exclusively through her poems and letters. I went three times, and kept hearing new nuances of words that mesmerized me. It is also in structure, for me. Reading William Faulkner taught me so much about narration - granted, I studied him in a class which helped immensely. But “As I Lay Dying” is still magical - Daryl’s omniscience, Addie’s - addieness… The first line in Cash’s chapter: “I made it on the bevel…” Made what? His mother’s coffin… His mother was dead, and all his energy went it making her coffin, not grieving, because that is who Cash was, so to have his chapter begin with “I made on the bevel” - says it all, in one sentence.

  Or J.D. Salinger’s “Nine Stories,” or Kurt Vonnegut’s wackiness (I still can recognize a “grand falloon” when one surfaces in conversation)….

  I am not particularly entertained by some of the traditional “classics” - love Emily Bronte, not so crazy about Jane Austen… Other authors, too, are dry… But still, if I picked up one of those books, the magic of the words would likely jump out at me, even if it isn’t my personal style. And the themes, and the way that they build character without telling you that they are doing that -

  I’ve reached a point where I can’t really read the “bubblegum” books - the books that take me through a story expediently but without focus on the turn of a phrase. So, it doesn’t mean that every classic will turn my head. But I’m likely to have more luck with one of those.

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  JamesBond on May 01 at 6:07 p.m.

  Some classic literature can be hard to get into, I agree. Some of it is not for everyone. For example, the novel Moby Dick is considered by many authorities to be the greatest piece of American literature. Some hate it. The first time I read it, I struggled at first, and even later in the book, there were some parts that were hard to read. Upon finishing it and thinking about it, I read it again and loved it. Literature can be very challenging, but its message sticks with you for a long time.

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  idawa on May 01 at 6:08 p.m.

  Tough question and if any of us knew the anwer, they should be out writing rather than blogging…

  Anyway, I would agree that it is about the words an author uses, but that can’t be all as some brilliant wordsmith’s works never rise to the level of the sublime. If the words are beautiful, but don’t have a purpose, I don’t think they get beyond logophiles and niche readers.

  The truly great books, in my opinion, even the really dull ones, are those that are able to articulate something about the human experience that, up to then, has been self evident but un-described (or at least not described well). Two examples: 1) Great Expectations. The notions of aspiration, achievement, guilt, dependence, family, and society are all well known and had been written about before - but Dickens was able to capture it all in an eloquent story and give salient image to our thoughts. 2) The Corrections (probably the most ‘important’ novel in the last 10 years) - the notion of the American family: life, love, food, stress were so well captured by Franzen that he could sum it all with the simple, terrible image of ‘mixed grill’ for dinner.

  I guess, to summarize, it would be those works that move our understanding of ourselves by providing a way to describe that which we had not been able to articulate before. In the process of sweeping us off our feet, they carry us like a fast moving river farther away from ourselves and closer to understanding the great ocean of humanity. While King, et al, are great writers and able to spin fantastic yarns the take us away - I find that they generally leave me in exactly the same place as when I had opened up the cover.

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  hmoffsuite on May 01 at 6:25 p.m.

  I have really enjoyed reading this thread. Thanks, all.

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  trishgannon on May 01 at 6:42 p.m.

  Two current examples:

  The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield

  The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  I would love to spend some time in a “cemetery of lost books.”

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  Cindy_H on May 01 at 6:48 p.m.

  For me great literature is simple. It’s what speaks to me, surprises me, engrosses me and makes me think.
  It may be Stephen King, but it hasn’t yet been been Charles Dickens.
  It has been Flannery O’Connor and oh, I adore Shirley Jackson. Franzen moved me, but so has Jodi Picoult.
  What speaks to you may not speak to me, but I remain open to the possibility.
  I love discovering new authors and old classics.
  I think Heaven will be a library with all the silence and all the books one can read.

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  Cindy_H on May 01 at 6:50 p.m.

  Ah, Trish!
  I recently read both books and totally agree.
  Great work.
  As someone who writes non-fiction for a living, and yet endeavors to make a story out of facts, I so admire true storytellers.

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  idawa on May 01 at 7:20 p.m.

  all good points. I guess I thought the question was trying to discern what distinguishes books that have achieved a certain level of esteem in our culture rather than those that we just like and feel moved by personally. I would put a higher standard on “great literature” than what personally speaks to me - while I may be the only demographic that truly matters :) , my opinion isn’t enough to entitle something to “greatness” status. I think on top of all these things we each have discussed, I think there also has to be some threshold number of people impacted by the reading the work - I think it is fine for an author to have a devoted readership, but in order to reach classical or ‘greatness’ status I think a certain number of reader must have been impacted by it. This threshold number is probably pretty low - probably less now with the Internet…

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  trishgannon on May 01 at 7:27 p.m.

  IDAWA - the two books I’ve mentioned I think will stand the test of time. The writing is amazing… sheer poetry in both cases.

  While unlike Cindy I love Dickens, I can’t stand Hemingway. And I’m with DFO himself - Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot was awesome literature.

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  Cindy_H on May 01 at 7:53 p.m.

  Idawa raises a good point. Perhaps great literature is not only works that stand the test of time, but works that speak to and inspire the masses.
  Keeping that in mind, should being on the NY Times best-seller list have anything to do with what constitutes great literature?
  After all Danielle Steele appears on the list with great frequency. And what about Pulitzer Prize winners?

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  Nick_Adams on May 01 at 8:33 p.m.

  What a phenomenal thread!

  I’ve always found it odd that there are those who dismiss any fiction they don’t consider lit-er-A-ture. We live in a multi-tasking society. Why can’t I enjoy both Stephen King/Danielle Steele and Homer/McCarthy? I can enjoy both The Office and Masterpiece Theatre. I can enjoy the Barenaked Ladies and Bach.

  Sometimes there’s snobbishness on both sides. Those who only read “literature” and those who only read “pop-lit”. Is “Water for Elephants”—a book that I believe is as good as any written in the last 15 years—literature or pop? Was it diminished because Oprah picked it for her book club? Would it have been consigned to bargain bins, never to have been read by the masses, without that promotion?

  Stephen King has written novels and short stories that do leave a lasting effect on readers. How do we deal with our deepest fears? Can we overcome the myopia of childhood? Are we willing to risk everything we believe in to move forward? Are these original themes? No. But they were presented in an original and compelling way. I’ll put a Huddy’s on the fact that more people of my generation were compelled to read Shirley Jackson because they started with King than the other way around.

  Writers are inspired by other writers. Finding an author you love opens up an almost limitless world of other authors you’d have never explored on your own.

  Except Thomas Hardy. Sweet Jesus. I can’t imaginqe him inspiring anyone. He’s the literary equivalent of Tylenol PM.

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  brentandrews on May 01 at 8:45 p.m.

  Water for Elephants was awesome. Thanks to HBO for introducing me.

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  zelda on May 01 at 9:11 p.m.

  I have a wide range of tastes in books and read a lot — trashy stuff, good stuff and mostly non-fiction. I didn’t see the movie, but reading the reviews of the movie “Revolutionary Road” caused me to read it. It was tough sledding emotionally, searing, beautifully crafted and also gave me insight into the era that was my parents’ prime years. And what caused me to be interested in “Revolutionary Road” besides the movie reviews? Watching “Mad Men” on TV. And reading “Bridget Jones’s Diary” made me want to read “Pride and Prejudice.” I tend to back into a lot of literature instead of seeking it out. I’ve always regretted not digging into the books that my parents read in their spare time — O’Hara, Updike and Graham Greene. I pulled a few of the old paperbacks out of their house over the years and they’re sitting on my bookshelf, making me feel guilty that I haven’t taken the plunge. (“The Hat on the Bed,” stop looking at me like that.)

  It’s still hard for me to believe that books such as “Catch-22” and “Rabbit Is Rich” were on the bestseller lists compared to the crud that populates the it today. Maybe the tipping point was “Valley of the Dolls” (yeah, I read it in high school). Naughty.

  Everybody has a lit. survey book that knocked them unconscious. “Lord Jim” was pure Seconal for me. But one or two bad experiences shouldn’t make you abandon yourself to pulp fiction.

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  Me on May 01 at 9:17 p.m.

  Wow - great thread. I read voraciously - all kinds of books. All kinds of writers. Fiction and non-fiction. Last year on our trip to Europe I brought Pillars of the Earth and loved it. Long train / air / bus trips were spent reading that book and I only got it on the recommendation of someone on the trip. Probably never would have picked it up otherwise. I read most of the books on Oprahs list when she first started the book club and many of those autthors got my repeat business. I also love true crime stories - Anne Rule.

  I LOVE poetry too. Oh I love words when they are strung together in certain ways.

  Stephen King just always stands out as one that made me re-read a sentence over and over because I was in awe of where he took me.

  Right now on my nightstand I have The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers and Tolstoys Anna Karenina - but as I stated on an earlier thread - summer is coming and I need lighter stuff so maybe some old Stephen King!

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  Liz on May 01 at 9:25 p.m.

  I dug back through my blog archives and found a post I wrote about six months ago about yes, deeper meanings in an SK novel. (Cell, in this case…which creeped me out beyond all because a good chunk o’ the really nasty action took place in downtown Boston and yet more of it in a Boston suburb in which I used to live)

  http://mylifesafreakshow.blogspot.com/2008/10/were-doomed-at-least-in-this-world.html

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  zelda on May 01 at 10:42 p.m.

  King knows how to mine deep veins of fear. Whatever you fear most, he will quarry and bring to the surface. Some of his stuff doesn’t scare me at all (vampires) but “The Shining” and “Pet Semetary” rocked me on my heels. I was literally afraid to turn the page.

  I used to like Anne Rule, but her last book — “Book of the Dead” was soooo bad I sold it back to Hastings as a used book. Couldn’t wait to get it out of my house. I choose to remember Kay Scarpetta in her better days. BTW, I saw a news item the other day that Angelina Jolie has been signed to do a Kay Scarpetta movie. There’s another one I’ve run out of patience with. So many other talented actresses in the world could play Kay Scarpetta — why does it have to be Angelina Jolie?!

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  spokelooneh on May 01 at 10:54 p.m.

  “I think Heaven will be a library with all the silence and all the books one can read.”
  -CindyH

  Praise be to God.

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  Carol on May 02 at 12:32 a.m.

  What a great conversation this is. For me, “great literature” is defined as a book that I can still remember the names of the characters a year or more after I read it. Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn is a prime example. So is much of The Bible, a lot of Shakespeare, and some of Greek mythology. If I were marooned on a desert island, those are the books I could read over and over again and still discover something new each time. A great work of literature is one that is so rich, so multi-layered, you never quite feel that you have got to the bottom of it. ch

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  Fork on May 02 at 4:22 a.m.

  I’m so happy to see I’m not alone thinking that Salem’s Lot is prolly King’s best (among his top 3 at least).
  Nutz to the haters.
  Walker Percy holds a special place in my heart for Moviegoer and Last Gentleman.

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  JamesBond on May 03 at 7:09 p.m.

  I think one of the things that is very common with “literature” is that it must be original, e.g., a new way of delivering an important message or a new message. Literature is often tightly woven, with very few loose ends. While I also like Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot (as well as The Stand), I would not put it in the category of “literature” because I just don’t see it being original in any meaningful way, other than just being a real fun read.

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