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Lalwendë · 10-23-2004, 01:56 PM

Thinking some more about this today, I remembered that there is a 'genre' much beloved by the 'literati' that is pretty close to fantasy, and that is magic realism. Now, it does, by its very name, deal with realistic issues or events, but does this with a huge helping of fantasy. Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits (one of my favourites incidentally, a really heart-wrenching novel) deals with the history of a family in South America through wars, revolution and right-wing oppression, which sounds brutally realistic. But within this novel there are girls with naturally green hair, ghosts, not-entirely-coincidental horrific accidents and a whole cast of outlandish characters. Isabel Allende does not employ a tricksy style of writing as some 'literati' writers do, so perhaps the plaudits come from the material? But I would argue that the brutal regimes of South American dictators are no more 'realistic' to London based critics than are the machinations of Saruman. If realism and relevance should be a criteria for judging novels, then the critics should only be applauding novels about a closed set of middle-class intellectuals, surely?

Taking this a step further, at University I remember someone in a class deriding Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole. One of the characters, whose Mancunian accent is used throughout the novel, talks of politics and my fellow student said that he couldn't possibly understand what he was talking about as he couldn't even pronounce the words correctly. Ever since, this has illustrated to me that there is some kind of sniffy class politics going on within the arena of literature.

Perhaps if a novel uses themes and language from areas of life which the critics are comfortable that they 'know something about' then a work stands a better chance of being accepted by them? I can only hope this changes as time goes by, and as we see more diversity in the 'cultural establishment', but sadly it seems some of the 'toe the line' attitudes are still around - Lush, don't let your prof get you down!

10-23-2004, 01:56 PM	#19
Lalwendë A Mere Boggart Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: under the bed Posts: 4,814	Thinking some more about this today, I remembered that there is a 'genre' much beloved by the 'literati' that is pretty close to fantasy, and that is magic realism. Now, it does, by its very name, deal with realistic issues or events, but does this with a huge helping of fantasy. Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits (one of my favourites incidentally, a really heart-wrenching novel) deals with the history of a family in South America through wars, revolution and right-wing oppression, which sounds brutally realistic. But within this novel there are girls with naturally green hair, ghosts, not-entirely-coincidental horrific accidents and a whole cast of outlandish characters. Isabel Allende does not employ a tricksy style of writing as some 'literati' writers do, so perhaps the plaudits come from the material? But I would argue that the brutal regimes of South American dictators are no more 'realistic' to London based critics than are the machinations of Saruman. If realism and relevance should be a criteria for judging novels, then the critics should only be applauding novels about a closed set of middle-class intellectuals, surely? Taking this a step further, at University I remember someone in a class deriding Walter Greenwood's Love on the Dole. One of the characters, whose Mancunian accent is used throughout the novel, talks of politics and my fellow student said that he couldn't possibly understand what he was talking about as he couldn't even pronounce the words correctly. Ever since, this has illustrated to me that there is some kind of sniffy class politics going on within the arena of literature. Perhaps if a novel uses themes and language from areas of life which the critics are comfortable that they 'know something about' then a work stands a better chance of being accepted by them? I can only hope this changes as time goes by, and as we see more diversity in the 'cultural establishment', but sadly it seems some of the 'toe the line' attitudes are still around - Lush, don't let your prof get you down! __________________ Gordon's alive!