So, just what is "literature" anyway? A couple of days ago I wrote about Harry Potter, and Kootch commented, asking the question I was hinting at: If the book is a result of good story-telling, keeping the reader wanting to turn the pages to find out what happens next, why isn't this good literature? Why aren't Pulitzer Prize for Literature given out to John Grisham or Tony Hillerman or Jackie Collins? Their books sell well. People enjoy reading their books. Do you even know who won the Pulitzer for a fiction book in the last three years? They were awarded to: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides [2003], The Known World by Edward P. Jones [2004], and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson [2005]. I don't know about you, but I've never heard of any of these books. So I want to know. Just what is it that makes these better books? Books worthy of being considered "literature"? 'Cause quite frankly, it would seem that to be considered "literature" it would have to be inaccessible to the average reader, both physically and thematically.
Thoughts anyone?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
I've never heard of any of those books, either. I am always annoyed when a bookstore has a section for "fiction" and a separate section for "literature." It seems more than a bit pretentious to me.
But it seems to, don't you think? Are the popular authors not deserving of a prize? My feeling is that there is a more fundamental difference that you touch on when you write: "...offer a greater freshness of expression and subtlety of insight."
Perhaps the "prize" for being a successful popular author is the more instant monetary reward.
By Mo's standards (and I'm not necessarily disagreeing with him) then Zane Grey might be considered "literature". I still see his stuff in bookstores. Stephen King looks like he might be around in a few more decades still, and I'm hard-pressed to consider his work "literature" myself (with maybe the exception of The Stand).
Strangely, the prize winners for drama are all titles that I AM familiar with... these are plays that people are seeing and talking about. Unlike the majority of the prizes for fiction.
Yes, K, I agree that the prize winners aren't given the same kinds of advertising budgets as the best-sellers and slapping a foil sticker on the cover tends to level the field a bit, BUT why are the best-sellers given those ridiculous advertising budgets? Isn't Stephen King going to sell just because it's Stephen King? Does John Grisham really need to be plastered all over the Times when his new book is out?
Maybe it's not a question of literature or popular. Maybe it's a question that should go straight to publishers to find out why they push some books and not so much on others? (Actually, this is a question/answer topic that is approached at every writer's conference I've ever been to.)
Post a Comment