On Literary Greatness

Until the last sixty years, literary permanence wasn't bestowed, it was earned by an author and a work still being read and admired after many years of being published.  

In the Sixties and beyond, critics and scholars started labeling current books as great and part of the literary canon.  Not surprisingly, the books declared great have mostly disappeared into obscurity and only those of us forced to read these "masterpieces" in graduate school still remember them.  In my fortunate case, they vanished into the aether years ago.  

One major criteria of a work lasting is that one generation passes the book to another.  If the book continues to speak to that next generation, it will continue to survive. THE LORD OF THE RINGS and the Harry Potter series are two obvious generational favorites, but no one in academia or literary circles would have said so. 

~*~

On a side note, I've collected a few review quotes which have proven to be really wrong.  Here are a few:

"Sentimental rubbish... Show me one page that contains an idea.”-- Odessa Courier on Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, 1877.

"Shakespeare's name, you may depend on it, stands absurdly too high and will go down.”-- Lord Byron, 1814.

"His fame is gone out like a candle in a snuff and his memory will always stink.” -- Wm. Winstanley on Milton, 1687.

"Monsieur Flaubert is not a writer.” -- La Figaro, 1857.

"This is a book of the season only.”-- NY Herald Tribune on The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

"We do not believe in the permanence of his reputation.  Our children will wonder what their ancestors could have meant by putting Dickens at the head of the novelists of today."-- Saturday Review, 1858.

"Nothing odd will do long.  Tristam Shandy did not last.” -- Samuel Johnson in 1776 on a novel that has never gone out of print.

"The only consolation which we have in reflecting upon it is that it will never be generally read.” --J. Lorimer reviewing Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, 1847.

 

Vicious Reviews R Us

QUESTION: Why are some book discussions and reviews so mean? Some of the so-called reviews at Amazon are horrible.

Humans have always needed to belong to a group -- some tribe that will offer protection as well as feed the primal need to be accepted. 

That's why tribes were formed by early man, why kids join gangs or fraternities, and why normally sane people paint themselves with their team colors and scream like crazed animals at sporting events. 

This tribal mentality makes those who are on the other side enemies and idiots.

The Internet has allowed this mentality to splinter in so many directions that we now have a vast culture of micro-niche tribalism. Books are just another example.

Some authors have bands of groupies who trash other authors, normally against the desires of the favorite author. 

These people seem to have lost the ability to separate themselves from the author because they tie so much of themselves into the author's works. 

There's also the problem of intellectual dialogue versus emotional monologue. People are no longer taught how to think, as opposed to what to think, they don't know how to use reason to express ideas, and they seem incapable of doing so. Instead, it's all about emotion and being led by that emotion.

We see that in what is laughing called political discourse as well as every other form of discourse. 

That book discussions have reached this name-calling low shows how intellectually bankrupt even readers have become.

And, then there are bullies who get off on hurting others, and there is no safer place to bully than on the Internet.