bram452 ([info]bram452) wrote,
@ 2005-04-12 12:57:00
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Movies and cultural literacy
So I'm just back from a week-long writer's retreat in California. The Hidden City Workshop was six basic folks with a lot of good local folks swinging by to visit, and involved some very pleasant afternoon naps. No, I didn't get enough writing done.

There was one conversation there that's stuck in my head, and I thought I'd trot my conclusions out here. We were talking (as spec fic writers are wont to do) about the relevance of our work as compared to what we shall call literature. Literature is different from scifi and fantasy in that it is shelved in a different part of the bookstore and is often considered improving.


There are folks who say there's a difference in content. Here's my preemptive counter-argument:

Alien surgically modified to appear human picks up male hitchhikers to fatten up and ship off-planet as a delicacy. Literature. (Under the Skin by Michael Faber)

Axis powers win WWII. America struggles under fascism. Science Fiction (The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick)

Lindberg wins 1940 election. America struggles under fascism. Literature (The Plot Against America by Philip Roth)

Man goes back in time to the middle ages. Literature (A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain)

Woman goes back in time to the middle ages. Science fiction (Domesday Book by Connie Willis)

Thus my conclusion that there is no content that specifically marks spec fic as spec fic or literature as literature.


My sense is that high literature is becoming increasingly irrelevant to the actual civilization in which we live. And, after the conversation at Hidden City, I'm going to further that. Genre fiction is also becoming irrelevant. The written word in general has lost its place as a civilizing influence on culture. This isn't because we're an illiterate culture or that books aren't beloved and improving on a personal level.

It's because there aren't very many movies.

The Locus Index to Science Fiction lists about 800 titles for 2004. (809 to my count, but I was getting a little punchy by the end.) By comparison, 554 movies were released. If you watched a movie or two a day, you could see all of them. If you read a little over 2 books a day, you could keep up just with the speculative fiction. Now throw in mystery and romance and westerns and "real" literature . . .

It is physically impossible for anyone to keep up with the body of literature we're producing. The best anyone can do is pick and choose, creating idiosyncratic personal reading lists. And maybe someone else at the table also read Tevis' The Queen's Gambit. Maybe not.

Credo: Just being well educated doesn't make you civilized. Something can only be socially relevant if it can be shared and discussed. Furthermore, it is only civilizing (that is to say something that brings people in a culture together in a way that strengthens the basic social fabric) if it can be shared across socioeconomic and sub-cultural lines. Books are now being produced at a rate that undermines this role.

Movies (with their incredibly high production values) are still sparse enough that they can act as a shared context for both CEO and roofer. Red and blue America (to use the idiom of the day) could sit across the table and discuss the merits of Drew Barrymore in a way that they couldn't talk about Tom Clancy (much less Georges Perec).

I think books can become more central to the process of civilization, but only if there are fewer of them produced so that the reading public (and let there be no question, we've got a huge and voracious reading public) will have read the same books to something near the proportion that they've seen the same movies.

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[info]force_of_will
2005-04-12 09:26 pm UTC (link)
Wow. Great post. Way to articulate something that is percolating under the surface. Literature has tended to be thought of as a, hmmm, unifying force, pitted against the idea of alienation, but at this point you are painting it as a force quite capable of alienation...

I eventually assume that movies will cross that threshold as well...

Seems to be the post modern philosohical art quandry. For me, there seems to be more and better art, yet I can't keep up with it, much less have as good a shot of seperating the wheat from the chaff...

A couple of personal points...

I had innumerable friends suggest "Ender's Game". It rests on the shelf behind me half read...Likewise I read probably 95% of Gaiman's "American God's" based on publicity and actually reading the first chapter online, and it sits unfinished as well. "Leviathan" is still probably the best thing I've read in recent history along with the Cory Doctorow stuff I've read. William Gibson still gives me the tingles. Hmmm, don't know what this is all supposed to say but simply to give you some referenced I guess on what I can and do keep up with and how I feel.

Will

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Another perspective.
[info]buddhafiddle
2005-04-13 05:25 am UTC (link)
A very good post. Quantitative, bold, uncompromising, and assertive:

Nevertheless, I beg to disagree with your two thesis strictly as stated, though I think all the thoughts that made them are both still valid and very insightful.

You assert:

(1.) There is no difference between genre fiction and literature except where they are shelved in the bookstore and the snobbish appeal of the latter.

(2.) Fiction, and the written word in general, are of diminishing influence in our lives because there is less of it.


(1.) Part of your assertion about fiction is true. The subject matter and the quality of writing in genre fiction, especially in sf, is not so different from literature. I also agree that the difference between literature and sf lies in their readers, not in their writers or books. The difference between the two is key, however -- genre fiction is chosen by its readers for the attitude and structure of its characters and settings, while literature is chosen for the attitude of its author and the structure of his or her setting.

In the last 3 weeks, for example, I have been reading Kôji Suzuki's Ring and Flaubert's Madame Bovary. I read Ring because I was eager to find out its characters and the mysterious blend of smallpox and hatred that became Yamamura Sadako's lethal recording. I read Bovary to find out more about the world that Flaubert lived in. Just as I want to see the hand of an artist in a "painting", but the world inside the art in an "illustration", I read literature for the artist and genre fiction for the book.

One can cross over in attitude. I remarked, when reading Les Miserables in high school, that the settings were so unfamiliar to me and in such constant change that reading it was very much like reading sf, for example. Still, the readership intent (knowing about Arrakis as opposed to finding out what Philip Roth can teach us about Fascism) paints the novel somewhat. Kurt Vonnegut's books are straight sf in their content, but I read them to learn what Kurt Vonnegut knows, and they are written to impart this knowledge comfortably.

(2.) In the case of your books/movie comparison, you are comparing the wrong things. There are lots and lots of movies made every year--more than any person can possibly see--not even counting the multitudes of movies from overseas. What is scarce and therefore widely shared is movies at your local theatre or video store. It is not the explosion of publishing, but the fading of reading, the diminishing of book reviews, and the decline in power of the independent bookstore that have driven the dilution of the impact of books. Whenever a reasonable filter for books has existed (e.g. Oprah's book club), the books filtered in have had tremendous power and became part of public discourse in a big way.

Books have an unbeatable advantage over movies--they are the product of a single artist. The production pipeline, no matter how sophisticated and well meaning, grinds most movies to an uncrecognizable, inoffensive, focused-group paste.

Food for thought,

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Re: Another perspective.
[info]bram452
2005-04-14 01:16 am UTC (link)
That's not quite my second thesis. You paraphrase me as saying there's less of the written word. I'm actually arguing that the written word is becoming less of a civilizing force because there's more of it. So much more, in fact, that folks have less and less in common.

Reading *isn't* dying. I think there are more books (by which I mean more titles -- not just a jillion copies of Steven King) being published now than ever before. And the books are being purchased and read. In the 70s (I am assured by them what was there at the time) you could keep up with every novel written in SF. There could be informed debates over the relative merits of DHALGREN and THE MOTE IN GOD'S EYE because a lot of folks had read both. Now, the opportunity is available to specialize to the point that broad comparison is impossible unless an artificial community is created for the specific purpose of having the debate.

Movies may not be better art (I think your point about the singular artist is well-taken), but there are few enough of them available that they can provide common context. I agree, though, that filtering is one very powerful.

It seems like the next real art form could be a mixture of editing and reviewing -- creating collections of books, music, movies, paintings, games (and so forth) that speak to each other and provide a common context for the folks who partake of the collection. Semantic sculptures.

Hrm... That... Ooh. That's an idea, that is.

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Semantic Sculptures! Ooo!
[info]buddhafiddle
2005-04-14 05:11 am UTC (link)
Sorry. I misquoted you at the top (a brain slip) but I understood you correctly. What I said below the first paraphrase is that filtering, rather than thinning, may be what's called for.

Music is a good example in this respect. At one time one rock and roll group (from Liverpool or something) completely changed the world, because so many people could only name one rock and roll group. As years went by, the music of Bob Marley, Public Enemy, Ladysmith Black Mombazo, and even that of the Bulgarian national women's radio chorus, has had a profound impact on many people, because music chooses its audience and people pay attention mostly to one current of music.

This allows prolific music to coexist with high-impact music, but it comes at a cost. If you ever meet half a dozen spaniards, or half a dozen Mexicans, or half a dozen French people, to sing a song together, they will sing something. If you ask half a dozen Americans to sing a song together, nothing will come to mind--except perhaps some Beatles songs. One of them may know "Redemption Song", but the others may not have even heard of it, let alone know the words. There is no Jacques Brel, no Rosario Flores, no Pedro Infante in our country, because we loathe music too hokey for our selected group, so we can't all learn a song together.

I declare a project; Let's try to figure out what makes us American as opposed to British or Canadian or Kiwi or Aussie or some other Anglophone. Then let's deduce what kind of songs, books, paintings, food or games we should all know because of this.
Maybe we can make a common filter for everyone, and let our subcultures (yknow, like, the cool people like us) make filters for themselves.

Expect a post in my home journal. Post in yours. Pass it on.

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It's all Interstitial to me
[info]ellen_kushner
2005-05-18 01:02 am UTC (link)
You write: Literature is different from scifi and fantasy in that it is shelved in a different part of the bookstore and is often considered improving and give some swell examples of how the lines are drawn in the sand by marketers and academics.

In response to exactly that, a bunch of us have started a foundation to further what we're calling Interstitial Art - big website at http://www.interstitialarts.org/ - and a previously-moribund discussion board reviving even as we speak - please drop in!

I've also just published an essay about IAF, which I hope clarifies some things that have confused or troubled people, in Nebula Awards Showcase 2005, edited by Jack Dann, who cleverly asked a range of people to write about recent literary movements in SF - I hope to get it up on the IAF site soon, as well.

As for the rest of your idea - I absolutely agree with you that common cultural references are what makes society cohere. Fifty years ago, everyone could talk about Herman Wouk's Marjorie Morningstar at parties, and did. Now, it's whatever opened at the multiplex last week. Is one better than the other? Probably not, but the ascendancy of movies over books makes me sad anyway. (Also, if you look at the number of copies sold to make Marjorie a hit, you realize that a very small percentage of the American public bought and read novels compared to today's sales figures for a big bestseller. But, of course, we hate 99% of bestsellers! Boring, dull, dull, boring. Ya just can't win.) And, of course, almost anything becomes a bestseller the minute it comes out in movie version - it's as though, for the greater public, nothing is REAL til it's been validated and rubberstamped by TV or film.

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Re: It's all Interstitial to me
[info]winterbadger
2005-05-18 03:18 pm UTC (link)
The contrast between this statement

Fifty years ago, everyone could talk about Herman Wouk's Marjorie Morningstar at parties, and did.

and this one Also, if you look at the number of copies sold to make Marjorie a hit, you realize that a very small percentage of the American public bought and read novels compared to today's sales figures for a big bestseller.

is what I was trying to get at in my first point. "everyone" wasn't, in fact, everyone at all. It was a relatively small portion of the population, then as now, that was consuming literature. The CEO may have gone to those parties (though probably he avoided them, because everyone would be talking about *books* not *business* :-), but the roofer certainly didn't get the invite, and the parties the roofer went to didn't feature a lot of discussion about Kafka and Proust.

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Re: It's all Interstitial to me
[info]bram452
2005-05-24 05:46 pm UTC (link)
Thanks so much for the invitation. I've tried stopping by. We'll see if EZboards is smarter than I am... :)

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[info]mollya
2005-05-18 02:30 am UTC (link)
Very interesting. It reminds me of something that someone said to me several years ago about contemporary literature: it's harder for good novels to gain great acclaim or real influence now because of the volume of novels that are published. In the past, it was easier for an Edith Wharton to become known, simply because there weren't as many competing novels.

I don't know how this fits in, but even though many people might not read specific novels, their ideas are still disseminated into the culture. For instance, I have not read (and have no intention of reading) "The Plot Against America," or the new Jonathan Safran Foer novel, but I know what they are about and the themes and ideas the novelists were trying to express, because I've read areticles about them, and reviews, and heard interviews with the authors - even though I wasn't particularly trying to. So in this age of "selling" a book in the media, many more people know about novels even if they have not read them.

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[info]winterbadger
2005-05-18 03:10 pm UTC (link)
I'm interested in your theses (however many there are :-) but I would question the idea that everyone in the society needs to read the same books for literature to continue shaping civilization (the roofer and the CEO argument). I would suggest that msot people have not read the same things throughout most of post-Renaissance Western history, but literature has still shaped civilization during that period. Why *would* the roofer and the CEO be reading the same books? What else do they have in common? Where would they share and discuss these things that they read? Literature shapes society by shaping the elite who determine culture, and they're not being overwhelmed, I don't think, because they're not trying to keep up with everything the latest equivalent of Barbara Cartland puts out along with the production of true crime thrillers, endless vampire books, and the Left Behind series. Yes, even cultural critics have to do some sorting and winnowing, but that's what the New York Review of Books is for, right? ;-)

I'd also take issue with (what I think I understand to be) your argument that literature and genre fiction are different only in where they're shelved. Yes, they may have similarities in essential elements of their story lines, but the difference lies in the quality and depth of the writing. Some genre fiction rises above its genre and, as a result, gets treated as mainstream literature. But most genre fiction is (as has traditionally been, since the days of penny dreadfuls and before) churned out by the tub load to meet a very specific market. Just because The Martian Chronicles is a great piece of American writing doesn't mean that Perry Rhodan #137 is in the same class as Wuthering Heights.

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Civilization and Culture
[info]bram452
2005-05-24 05:00 pm UTC (link)
You say

Literature shapes society by shaping the elite who determine culture

Eduardo Galleano talked about that issue a lot -- writing on behalf of the lower classes who were almost by definition less likely to read his work. But I should have been more precise. I think of civilization and culture as being different things, and I did kind of conflate them. My fault.

In my semantic world, civilization is a description of how much people relate to each other as part of a larger, shared community. Culture is a set of shared expectations and references. The two are actually fairly independent of each other. So, for example, the implicit understanding that a white passenger should not speak with a black taxi driver is a fine example of a cultural understanding, but civilized it ain't.

The things that promote connections across socioeconomic boundaries (mass transit, for instance) are civilizing. The things that promote disconnections (gated communities, for instance) aren't.

Movies, by providing a wider shared context, allow conversations not only within an elite (whatever kind of elite -- Christ knows we've got a million of 'em in this country) but between groups. Books don't so much.

You also say:

Yes, they may have similarities in essential elements of their story lines, but the difference lies in the quality and depth of the writing.

Ah. The difference you see is that "literature" is good writing and "genre" is bad writing. As I am a genre writer, you'll excuse me if that gets my back up.

I would also point out that Robert James Waller was shelved in literature, so your argument from pure quality may be insufficient.

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[info]julianyap
2005-05-18 09:14 pm UTC (link)
A few thoughts:

As to the difference, if any, between Genre writing and Literature, I agree that, largely these days this appears to be a creation of booksellers and shelving rather than anything else. To add to your example, _Johnathan Strange and Mr. Norell_ is as likely to be shelved inthe Fiction/Literature aisle as anywhere else. On the other hand crossing between the shelves may not be as simple as it seems, I seem to recall that Doris Lessing's science fiction failed to find an audience at either end (though not, I feel, for a lack of quality)

And yet, I would echo buddhafiddle's point that there are some real structural differences betweent he work. Each work of genre fiction, most of the time, carries with it a certain focus on the conventions of that genre, if only to reject them, whereas literature, for the most part, is free of these conventions.

However, as to your main point, re: common culture. I think your point that it is the scarcity of source material that allows us to find a common ground is a fascinating one. But I think one must also take into account the level of media/advertising saturation that movies enjoy. It is not merely that there are so few movies (thoguh I must admit that that likely has some effect) but that some movies are so aggressively marketed in a way that Books just aren'. This marketing and the ensuing popularity plays a large role in making some movies key points of cultural commonality. For instances, while it may be possible for Red and Blue America (and more on this in a bit) to sit across a table and discuss the merits of Drew Barrymore in a way they couldn't talk about Tom Clancy, I would surmise that they would likely not be able to discuss, oh say, A Very Long Engagement, or even The Interpreter. On the other hand they might be able to talk about _Harry Potter_

I think that the common culture arises from cultural flash points, which depend as much on popularity (measured roughly by box office take, weeks on the bestseller lists or nielsen ratings) and media focus as they do the sparcity of medium they arise in.

As a final note, your post makes me wonder how much common culture even matters anymore. Although we are all aware of it, I would surmise that most of us only deal with common culture in 50% of our daily life (warning, this number made up). The rest of the time we immerse ourselves in closer knit cultural groups, made all the more easy by the internet whcih allows us to seek out others who may enjoy our cultural niche. I think the graph that showed how much Blue America and Red America became echo chambers int heir political reading habits may be an example of this. How tightly woven is our social fabric, and how important is the common culture? Or are we simply lots of little cultures with a thin thread joining us.

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