On Literature and Greatness and Snobbery of All Sorts

Regarding the attached article …

I know people (well, at least one, Jonathan Jones) who will never, intentionally never, read a Terry Pratchett novel.

I know people who will never, intentionally never, read a Günter Grass novel.

I know people who will roll their eyes over either of those sentiments. Or, possibly, both.

Love of literature (and I'm intending that term to extend to all of creative narrative media, which probably immediately betrays a bias right there) is a multi-faceted thing. Not everyone is going after the same bits. Not everyone knows everything they may like, or that they may enjoy, or that they may find life-transforming.

Jonathan Jones found Mansfield Park moving, and life-changing, and something he is terribly pleased to have finally made a part of him. There are people who feel the same way about Star Trek.

So, to partially balance Mr Jones' screed (hint: telling people "I'm not a snob, but …" shares a lot with telling people "I'm not a racist, but …"), here's my own story.

I first picked up a Terry Pratchett novel about five years ago. Pratchett's fans are legion, and, in some ways, sort of offputting in their fannishness and devotion to him (so I sort of get that emotional undercurrent from Jones).

I read the novel. I finished the novel — I think. I put down the novel. "Okay," I said, "I guess I can now honestly say that it's not my cuppa."

Back in March, after the upwelling of Internet grief over Pratchett's death, and the extensive quoting from his books (much of which sounded humorous / witty and much of which felt a bit insider-jokey), I picked up that novel again and re-read it.

And then read two more from that particular string of Discworld books, and the fourth is in process, and I've been adding Pratchett to the quotations I post up on http://wist.info .

Did Terry Pratchett change my life? Well, no, not really. Is his writing about sheer entertainment? Not quite, though I think he strove to entertain as he went. Are his books challenging and "ambitious fiction" (as Jones puts it)? Mmmm, no, probably not so much. Is there profundity in what he presents, vs. "mere" escapism?

Yes. For me at least.

(I've been reading the "Death" books, starting with Mort. There is in fact philosophy and social commentary and meaning-of-lifeness in what happens there.)

Profundity, intellectual and moral challenge, are, I think, where you find them. People find them in lengthy, complex, deeply crafted novels. People find them in pieces of toast.

There is a myth in the education business (or in the public, about the education business), fostered by pundits, politicians, education academics, and textbook companies, that there is Magic Bullet to education out there. If you just did this, or taught this way, or use this series, or make your curriculum and teacher training and philosophy this, then educational problems would disappear, every kid would be above average, and we would beat China and those pesky Europeans in the Education Race.

This is a myth, because education is as multi-faceted as the number of kids you're dealing with, and the number of teachers, and the number of subcultures. The more you generalize about "how kids learn" or which learning modality should be stressed in which way, or what testing standards should be taught toward, or in what kids are capable of or respond to or will be reached by, the more kids slip between your fingers.

Are there ways of teaching that are more effective than others? Sure. There are ways of selling cars that are more effective than others, but every single one will drive away a certain percentage of potential buyers on any given day. (Indeed, how a potential buyer will respond to a given approach will vary to a degree on any given day.) Any teaching method will reach a certain number of kids to a given level, and will also leave another number of kids in the cold, or confused, or turned-off.

So, too, with literature. I've read "ambitious fiction." No, really. Some of the American Lit classics. Umberto Eco. A few others that don't come immediately to mind. And I can admire the craft in some of them, and I can nod at and appreciate the complex moral and/or intellectual questions raised by others.

And I've read "less ambitious fiction." I won't call it potboilers (though I've read some of that), but let's identify that as narratives with less challenging structure, theme, plot, language.

Jesus taught in parables, you know. He didn't write lengthy theological dissertations, then debate them in a legalistic fashion with the priests and scribes. He constructed simple, elegant analogies and metaphors that could be appreciated on multiple levels, could be taken as simple moral tales … or debated legalistically amongst priests and scribes.

(Paul cut straight to the dissertations, which is why priests and scribes to this day tend to spend more time on Paul. But I digress.)

Complexity of writing and language and concept and plot are not a pre-requisite to profundity and worthiness. They can provide it. But some folk will respond to it, to "great literature," and others will respond more (and not just in a popping-a-brewski fashion) to other, less challenging, simpler writing.

I am not proposing "dissolving the difference between serious and light reading," and I'm not "justifying mental laziness and robbing readers of the true delights of ambitious fiction." I would encourage anyone to read Gabriel García Márquez or Günter Grass, if they so choose. I would encourage them to read Pratchett, who I enjoyed, or Bradbury, who I didn't care for so much (with a few noteworthy exceptions). I would urge anyone to read things that are occasionally disturbing, or that have characters or occurrences that challenge their preconceptions …

(Though I suspect that people come away with the reading they feel challenged by, even in "ambitious reading," with fewer epiphanies than Jones thinks, given the nature of confirmation bias and its role in choosing what "ambitious reading" they will tackle.)

… but I would do that with whatever sorts of reading (or viewing, or listening), they find themselves best reached by, and not claim Great Literature® as a Clearly Supreme Form that Must Be Engaged With as an Objective Moral Imperative.

Similarly, I would, as I said, encourage people to read Pratchett, without claiming he is a Literary Genius The Likes Of Which Will Never Be Seen Again. I can point to his clever wordplay, I can talk about his amusing conceits, I can discuss the moral lessons and observations on the human condition he slips in there, and I can talk about how it affected me, or what specifically I think worthwhile sharing … but the people who act as though Pratchett is objectively better than Jane Austin are mistaking personal aesthetics and anecdotal experience for Deep and Indisputable Truths®.

And I think Pratchett would have a chuckle over that, too.

Get real. Terry Pratchett is not a literary genius
Life is too short to waste on ordinary potboilers – and our obsession with mediocre writers is a very disturbing cultural phenomenon

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