[Nogrod]

An interesting discussion. Thanks all!

Originally Posted by davem

I don't know whether Fantasy is judged to be junk, or relegated to children's literature because most of it is bad (& in the judgement of critics all of it is bad) or simply because it contains Elves, Dragons & dark lords. Perhaps it’s a combination of the two. Certainly there is a lot of junk churned out in all genres, but there isn't the same conviction that all crime, or all historical, novels are 'trash' just because a good deal of them are. So it does seem to be the subject matter that is the basis for this negative judgement.

Here I need to mildly disagree as someone who has actually taken part in the academic circles… There really are people among the literati who scorn all crime and historical novels as well as fantasy or sci-fi. To them these just aren’t literature but low-brow entertainment, the easy instant gratification stuff that hasn’t the merits of Real Literature. So sadly it seems that it is the genre which dictates the possible worth of a piece of writing in the academic circles. Surely the genre carries with it it’s natural subject matters so it seems to be both together.

But this academic taste seems also to catch the people’s minds outside the literature departments and academic journals as well. I’d say that the majority of the people with university education (humanistic, scientific, engineering, marketing, juristic, medical…) would answer just like the board of the Randomhouse poll shows even if they would never had studied literature or aesthetics or belonged to those circles. Not to say that they would have actually read the books they deem so worthy of praise.

One thing all the people learn in Uni is that Uni is a respectable institution which has a priviledged position to the Truth. This might have a ring of truth in it regarding the “hard sciences” but with humanities it’s more difficult to see the inevitabliness of the claim. It’s as well a question of taste and of the position of the academics in the world we live in. For example many academics want to differentiate themselves from the commercial world and the values it carries with it and thence see their position in the opposite direction: what sells can’t be good, what entertains can’t be good, what is easily approached can’t be good etc.

Just to defend the academics a bit in the end. Yes I fully agree with Bethberry about Shakespeare – and would go even further - I like the unabridged versions even more… As a non-native speaker I have never dared to approach Finnegan’s Wake (Proust is another one I have managed to duck as I know I should read it in French and that’s a challenge I’d not wish to take) but I kind of liked Joyce’s Ulysses and writers like Kafka, Beckett, Ionesco, Broch… I still hold them as my favourites. So arrogantly intellectual and elitist as they are. So why? Because they are geniuses!

So as you Morthoron protested that your seven year old daughter could teach Paul Klee about perspective, I think you should reconsider. If anyone of you have seen some early works by say Picasso or Kandinsky you know what I mean. They really knew how to paint and they were masters in the art. They just decided consciously to do something completely different – and they had their reasons for it. Just read any of the theoretical discussions there is a wealth of by modern artists like Cézanne, Matisse, Kandinsky, Picasso, Leger, Malevich… you name it.

Just an anecdote to sum up. Two years ago I was visiting my sis in London and took a decent walk in the National Gallery, walking through the whole museum in chronological order (it was hard to keep it all the time but I managed somewhat well). What made an impression on me beside the great paintings was the notion that the few self-evident truths of academic art history were in fact so true! So the renaissance really was something! It was like an explosion after the middle-ages (in which there is nothing wrong… there are great pieces of art there as well)! But then even bigger bang was the advent of modernism… how refreshing it was after centuries of doing the same nice thing all over and over again! It was like fresh air coming into the room in a hot day!

So the literati aren’t always wrong or stupid and thence we should seek for the bad publicity of the fantasy also from other areas. Prejudiced the academics may be – and they are, trust me, I know enough of those people to say this – but there surely are other issues, like ones we have been talking here about… mass-producted moneymakers, lowest common denominator searchers, instant gratification seekers…

I’d agree with Bethberry once again. Read Iain Banks - with M. in the middle or not!