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Pompous prose

**helen****helen** Deactivated Posts: 9,235 Supreme Poster
edited January 2023 in General Chat
What do you think about literary snobbery? Or more to the point, do you agree with Rhian's rant?

I have mixed views on this so would be great to hear yours. :)

Linky - http://www.thesite.org/community/reallife/rants/pompousprose
Post edited by JustV on

Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I haven't read anything by Celia Ahern but really terrible books do exist that are extremely popular. I think we need to be wary of why they are so popular and why they 'bring a tear to the eye'. An extreme example that springs to mind is 'A Child Called It' by Dave Pelzer. So badly written yet seems to pull at the heart strings of millions, pretty much emotional masturbation at oh what an awful world it is and how sick some people are while reminding the reader again and again that no they arent like that. This is a tangent!

    I can see her point about being more open to including other novels in the canon but how can you diss Shakespeare? I get that most of the plays were a collaberative effort but it shouldnt distract from the play's worth.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    There's a big difference between a novel being enjoyable and popular, and it being of great literary worth. This rant doesn't seem to seperate the two.

    The same goes throughout all arts. You'd find it hard to argue that the latest Kaiser Chiefs single is techincally on a par with one of Beethoven's symphonies, but that doesn't mean it's wrong to listen to it, and love it, and dance round your room to it.

    Personally I think that some books are an embarrassment to the craft and shouldn't be touched, but if people are going to read them, at least they are reading something. In the same breath, just because ten million people read a book doesn't mean it's a literary masterpiece. It might well just be a shit book that a lot of people have read.
  • **helen****helen** Deactivated Posts: 9,235 Supreme Poster

    I can see her point about being more open to including other novels in the canon but how can you diss Shakespeare?

    Indeed :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru

    I can see her point about being more open to including other novels in the canon but how can you diss Shakespeare?

    To be honest, after studying various Shakespeare works at school, I can't even watch anything by him (or adaptations of his) on TV, never mind reading a book. There's a lot to be said for a teacher making something that should be (or at least, could be) a 'masterpiece', dull and uninteresting, and hence putting me off for what I could suspect be life. I left school 14 years ago, and have no intention of picking up another of his works any time soon. I'll happily diss Shakespeare, thank-you very much :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    g_angel wrote: »
    To be honest, after studying various Shakespeare works at school, I can't even watch anything by him (or adaptations of his) on TV, never mind reading a book. There's a lot to be said for a teacher making something that should be (or at least, could be) a 'masterpiece', dull and uninteresting, and hence putting me off for what I could suspect be life. I left school 14 years ago, and have no intention of picking up another of his works any time soon. I'll happily diss Shakespeare, thank-you very much :D

    i agree in that i think teachers made his plays not exactly accessable, at my school we worked together in class reading and studying one play for a year which was a long and arduous process... if teachers dont want to freak their students out with shakespeare then they should relax the study around the plays a bit more and at least try and lessen how scary it seems by letting students know that you can actually work through an entire play in two hours or less.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    g_angel wrote: »
    To be honest, after studying various Shakespeare works at school, I can't even watch anything by him (or adaptations of his) on TV, never mind reading a book. There's a lot to be said for a teacher making something that should be (or at least, could be) a 'masterpiece', dull and uninteresting, and hence putting me off for what I could suspect be life. I left school 14 years ago, and have no intention of picking up another of his works any time soon. I'll happily diss Shakespeare, thank-you very much :D

    Surely that's a diss to your teacher though rather than Shakespeare's work? I know exactly what you mean, I hated Shakespeare throughout most of my school life, until I was taught it by two really good teachers. It makes such a difference, honestly. They taught me to love Hamlet, Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello and King Lear - and I then went on to love The Tempest and the sonnets at uni. I must admit I've really only ever read and studied the more well-known of his works, but I do love them now. It was just a question of having the right approach to them.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    StupidGirl wrote: »
    Surely that's a diss to your teacher though rather than Shakespeare's work? I know exactly what you mean, I hated Shakespeare throughout most of my school life, until I was taught it by two really good teachers. It makes such a difference, honestly. They taught me to love Hamlet, Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello and King Lear - and I then went on to love The Tempest and the sonnets at uni. I must admit I've really only ever read and studied the more well-known of his works, but I do love them now. It was just a question of having the right approach to them.

    Definitely a diss to my teacher(s) - but I have absolutely no intention of wasting my time in delving into them again. For me, they've had their time - and there are countless thousands of alternative books out there for me to read.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Don't really get the whole thing about Shakyspear either, but I do think there's a lot of snobbery around books, especially if they're deemed, 'chick-lit,' i.e. written for women with pretty covers. I have a friend who won't touch books written by the likes of Marian Keyes and professes to know everything about them and why they shouldn't be taken seriously - despite the fact she has never read one.

    Keyes herself has written about fairly serious issues like depression, drug abuse, cancer etc. Might not be a 'masterpiece' as such, but I think people can be too quick to judge -, books touch us on different levels; if it means a person picks up a book and gets something from it, either a laugh or a few tears shed, then who cares what the BA students think? ;)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Just to add I am a BA who loves Marian Keyes AND Shakespeare :blush:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    StupidGirl wrote: »
    Just to add I am a BA who loves Marian Keyes AND Shakespeare :blush:

    So is my mum :D
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If Rhian likes reading "chick-lit" then bully for her; people should read what they like reading and shouldn't let anyone disparage them because of their literary choices. Unfortunately, I thought the article left Rhian in danger of being guilty of fairly basic hypocrisy - a kind of reverse-snobbery struck me when reading it. As TV informs us, popularity is not synonymous with quality; record numbers of people tune in to watch the latest Simon Cowell phone-vote show vomit up - in an incredibly formulaic manner - another predictably glassy-eyed, fifteen-minuter. People love utter shite. It's a sad fact, but they do lap it up. They’re frequently not adverse to emptying their wallets in exchange for utterly trite nonsense, either.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    What is literary quality though - I think you can learn as much about the 'human condition' through the latest Star Wars novelisation as you can through the frankly unreadable 'Satanic Verses'. And Shakespeare read on the page is dry and dull, its on the screen or stage where it comes alive
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