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Today's Literary Blog Hop question is:
Do you find yourself predisposed to like (or dislike) books that are generally accepted as great books and have been incorporated into the literary canon? Discuss the affect you believe a book’s “status” has on your opinion of it.
Chuck D. and Flavor Flav taught me a valuable lesson at a very young age.
DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE! *you felt it coming from a mile away, didn't you?*
Those words echoed in my mind, whenever I read the words of Joyce, Saramago, Thackeray or any other shitbird I was supposed to love because of their name and their "timelessness". Yeah, I'm extremely skeptical of a book's status. Having spent too much time in the academy myself, I gained a decent understanding on how a novel can garner hype and beat father time. No, it's not because the story is universal and dwells within human consciousness. Some of them are. The Great Gatsby is the only novel I could call a "classic" without dreading myself. The style is luxuriant, the symbolism beautiful and the story has something to communicate to every human being. It's a book so universal that it's hard to craft a personal relationship to it, but it's an exercise in concise storytelling and meaningful writing like none other. Fitzgerald is, the fucking man.
But he's also an anomaly in the landscape of timelessness, like a tree on the Interstate.
Here's how it usually goes:
-Egghead #1 writes a book. It doesn't make any sense, it's barely readable, but there's a ton of innuendo to a trendy philosophical current or some allusions to another writer in it.
-Professor Shitcarpet reads Egghead #1's book and recognizes the said innuendos. He tells himself: "I'm so brilliant, I can read between the lines. So if this book makes me feel brilliant, then it is brilliant! I need to teach this to my students, quick!"
-So Professor Shitcarpet teaches Egghead #1's tome to his classroom. Eighty percent of his students don't know what the fuck it's about, but they are too scared the others will think they're dumb if they talk. Especially that guy with the hat and the scarf, who seem to have got it all. So most of them will go home that night and call it "a work of genius" without beign able to say why.
-So the egos of Egghead #1 and Professor Shitcarpet will conceptually copulate and create Professor Shithead, who will go on to do a PhD on that work without a story or relevant characters and he will try to validate his work by teaching Egghead #1's book for thirty to forty years.
That, my friends is how a bad, but highly conceptual novel can beat father time. This is how novels like Georges Bataille's Story Of The Eye are still taught to generations of young and gullible students. It's written by a egghead, for shitheads. Attack a literary critic on this and he will yell at you: "I'M A DECONSTRUCTIONIST, THIS IS WHAT WE DO IN CLASS, IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT THERE IS ALWAYS THE REAL WORLD".
But things are slowly evolving and literature is slowly undergoing a process of democratization. There were always populist writers. Dumas, Dickens, Balzac..and well Hemingway and Fitzgerald I'd dare to say. But now that books are a profitable business, the buyers have the ultimate power to turn a novel into a timeless success. With democracy sometimes comes stupid decision. For example, Stephenie Meyer will most likely outstay her welcome in the literary community by many years. But the warm reception of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom last year and the integrity of most literary prize committees make me hope for the future. I doubt a writer like Paul Harding would've been able to make a name for himself in his lifetime without a Pulitzer sticker on his first novel.
Yes, I'm quite cynical, but I keep yearning for the best.
