Told by an idiot, No. 8

There was a time, still within living memory, when indoor plumbing was a luxury for the upper classes. Nowadays, of course, indoor plumbing is an evil conspiracy by the American cultural imperialists; but that is neither here nor there. The point is that back in the day, certain members of the English upper classes held that bathtubs were too good for the masses. It was usual to attribute this attitude to old ladies from Brighton; and the classic form of the sentiment was this:

‘What ever would be the use of giving bathtubs to coal-miners? They would only use them to keep coal in.’

This, of course, is proof positive of how evil and reactionary the old ladies from Brighton were. Not, mind you, because they believed such things; a person may believe all sorts of things, and act on those beliefs, without opprobrium. No, no, they were evil because they said them, and that just will not do. Anyway, they erred by aiming their sentiments at the downtrodden industrial proletariat, instead of venting them upon a worthy target.

So in the spirit of the old ladies from Brighton, suitably corrected and brought up to date, I should like to say a few words about this monstrous plague of self-publishing. The publishing industry, as everyone knows, was divinely ordained to be the sole curator and seller of literature to the world. By taking their business directly to readers, these self-published cads represent a terrible threat to publishers, to all that is right and noble – to Culture itself. Of course it is impossible that this threat should ever amount to anything, because the publishing industry, being divinely ordained, will obviously exist in its present form for ever and ever. But the sheer impudence of the attack is an affront to every right-thinking literary person. It is for this reason that I offer a rebuttal.

The cads defend their horrible activities on the grounds that they are giving more money and artistic control to writers. This is a feeble excuse. For what ever would be the use of giving money and artistic control to writers? They would only use them to write fan fiction.

I intended to say more, but I have an urgent deadline to meet. You see, I am under contract with a very prestigious publisher to write a brilliant and slyly referential homage to Gabriel García Márquez. Only it’s not fan fiction, because we don’t call it that when it is Literature.

   (signed)
   H. Smiggy McStudge

Sarah Dimento explains literature

From Nine Literary Movements Explained Snarkily:

Books can be complicated, because they’re full of words and stuff. Apparently book words are not complicated enough to justify research grants though, so academics made up new words to describe what the words in books do. As a graduate of Fine Arts, I’m here to demystify some of their terminology so you can sound smart and stuff too.

1. MODERNISM

Yo, we’re sick of them elitist Classicists not letting us in their clubhouse, so we’re going to make our own isms, with blackjack … and hookers.

2. POSTMODERNISM

Screw those Modernists not letting us in their clubhouse. We’re going make our own isms, with blackjack, and hookers. Actually, forget the isms and the blackjack.

Read the rest from Sarah Dimento. (Who is, by the way, not only a Grandmistress of Snark, but my cover artist as well. Plus she can operate cats and other dangerous equipment.)

C. S. L. on reading old books

There is a strange idea abroad that in every subject the ancient books should be read only by the professionals, and that the amateur should content himself with the modern books. Thus I have found as a tutor in English Literature that if the average student wants to find out something about Platonism, the very last thing he thinks of doing is to take a translation of Plato off the library shelf and read the Symposium. He would rather read some dreary modern book ten times as long, all about ‘isms’ and influences and only once in twelve pages telling him what Plato actually said. The error is rather an amiable one, for it springs from humility. The student is half afraid to meet one of the great philosophers face to face. He feels himself inadequate and thinks he will not understand him. But if he only knew, the great man, just because of his greatness, is much more intelligible than his modern commentator. The simplest student will be able to understand, if not all, yet a very great deal of what Plato said; but hardly anyone can understand some modern books on Platonism. It has always therefore been one of my main endeavours as a teacher to persuade the young that firsthand knowledge is not only more worth acquiring than secondhand knowledge, but is usually much easier and more delightful to acquire.

—C. S. Lewis, Introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation

‘How to read Tolkien’

Michael Drout’s superb lecture, ‘How to Read Tolkien’, is now available on YouTube, and by the magic of the Intertubes, it’s available on this tube too:

Told by an idiot, No. 7

In 1916, after extensive study, French writer Georges Polti announced that all the stories in classical and modern literature could be reduced to 36 essential situations.

Futility Closet

Au contraire! There are only two possible stories in the whole of literature:

1. Something happens.

2. Nothing happens.

All True Literature is, of course, in the second camp. The other kind is vile pulp for the kiddies, and we turn up our noses at it to prove that we are Cultured People.

    (signed)
    H. Smiggy McStudge

Heinlein on literary snobs

A small further illustration in support of my thesis in ‘Why are dragons afraid of Americans?’:

In 1949, Robert A. Heinlein’s third juvenile SF novel, Red Planet, was summarily rejected by Alice Dalgliesh, his editor at Scribner’s. The tone of the rejection quite justifiably sent him into a fury. Here is an excerpt from a letter Heinlein wrote to his agent, Lurton Blassingame, on March 4, 1949: [Read more…]

Gene Wolfe on the realism of fantasy

In an interview in Clarkesworld, Gene Wolfe was asked why his fantasy seemed ‘much truer to reality, truer to what we humans experience in this life than most of what passes for realistic, mainstream fiction’. His reply:

Because fantasy is nearer the truth, that’s all. Realistic fiction is typically about a married couple, both college teachers. He’s cheating on her with a student, so she cheats on him with whoever’s handy. Angst abounds. How true is that story for the bulk of humankind? Realistic fiction leaves out far, far too much. How old is realistic fiction? How old is fantasy?

 

Why are dragons afraid of Americans?

The chief business of an essayist — I speak here of the kind of essayist that I occasionally manage to be, and that better men than I are sometimes reduced to when not at their best — is to tilt at windmills. The second greatest delight such an essayist can know is to tilt at a windmill, in the full knowledge and expectation that it is really a windmill, and that he shall end by making a quixotic fool of himself, and discover in the heat of combat that it is only a giant after all. [Read more…]

Death carries a camcorder

The fifth essai in a series, following ‘Teaching Pegasus to crawl’. The original appeared on LiveJournal in May, 2006.


 

Fiction is, among many other things, a game between writer and reader, a kind of mental strip-tease in which the writer slowly reveals the details of the story, and the reader tries to guess at their significance. Mystery stories exhibit the game in its purest form, of course; but the element of guessing ‘whodunit’ turns up in every kind of fiction.

As stories have grown more complex, and the telling more elliptical and compressed, guessing out the storyteller’s meaning has become a difficult and demanding skill. Usually we don’t think of it in those terms, because as readers, we began to develop that skill early in childhood; it was fun to do, and after all, children can take delight in the most fiendishly elaborate games. Generally speaking, we don’t notice the skill involved until it stops working — that is, until the writer breaks the rules of the game. [Read more…]

J. Gordon Smith on literary fiction

Literary fiction is the fancy wine of the publishing world. The grapes have to struggle against chalky soil and harsh hot days with chilly nights. And then there is the two-buck-chuck blind taste off and what do we have? Or the incident where French and American wines were blind taste tested by French reviewers and the American wines won.

J. Gordon Smith, on The Passive Voice