Or maybe better, Literary Criticism in the Hands of an Angry Blogger. Or perhaps, Defending Coleridge and Granger.
I wrote a couple of days ago about the out-of-hand dismissal of the idea that authors are actually careful artists who choose their imaginative keys, symbols, and overall approach to literature very deliberately – i.e., they are attempting to write deep art, not just mindless entertainment. Undoubtedly, there are “mindless entertainment” authors. There are readers who are seeking only “mindless escapism.”
But then there are those who hold nothing but disdain for anyone who might find brilliant artistry in popular works of fiction. Enter a wildly popular Twilight journal and its recent mocking of the Hogwarts Professor. I don’t need to defend Mr. Granger or be his cheerleader; readers here know that particularly on Twilight, we’ve had our disagreements. The difference between the caliber and quality of John’s analysis in comparison with self-congratulatory sarcasm and derision is evident enough, so Mr. Granger doesn’t need me to come to his aid there.
What shocks me about the particular diatribe that comprises the post and all its comments, is that the concept of iconological criticism is so utterly foreign that to them, it’s nothing but a pretentious, made-up, reading-too-deeply sort of criticism. “How dare you argue that authors are really good artists? I want mindless fun. Don’t ruin my mindless fun with your pretentious academic nonsense.” This is where these readers fail. Refusing to even have the conversation, clinging desperately to “mindless fun,” and relegating everyone who would reader deeper to the category of “pseudo-intellectual asshats,” they ironically do a massive disservice to the authors whose works they claim to love.
We could be having interesting conversations about works of art – whether failed or successful – in gracious manner, resulting in better understanding of each other’s positions, even where we disagree, and learning from one another. We could be appreciating the great works of literature that so obviously informed the works of Rowling, Meyer (and I intend to do this with Meyer even before ever finishing her saga and despite not liking the first novel), and other authors. We could be exploring what it is about these books that draws so many readers, aside from the mindless default position of, “it’s an escape.”
Instead, we’re left with condescension. It’s unfortunate. The good news is, we don’t need to get too riled up: Dante, Coleridge, Ruskin, MacDonald, Tolkien, Lewis, Chesterton – these will all still be relevant long after the angry ramblings of an internet journal have faded into oblivion. They’ll be all the more so if people like John Granger continue to revive their way of thinking for postmodern times.
I’ve no intention for The Hog’s Head to get dragged into the type of conversation represented there, and we’ll be getting back to our regularly scheduled (pseudo-intellectual?) analysis of literature from all the wonderful and fascinating perspectives our patrons bring here. I bring up this issue for two reasons, and I’ll leave you with these:
- To illustrate what I wrote a couple days ago about the mentality of too many readers today that “mindless fun” is the highest goal of a book.
- To thank you all, once again – especially since I haven’t done so in a while – for the very intelligent, gracious, and respectful conversations you all foster here at The Hog’s Head.
I welcome your comments, questions, and declarations of heresy.
Ally on 
PotterMom05 on 
Red Rocker on 
Joivre on 
revgeorge on 
Arabella Figg on 
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{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
Part of the problem, I think, is that most people don’t realize that the 4 levels of meaning has been around for a long time in literature. This is the way many works, at least in the Christian West, have been read. And while it has its problems, especially in reading Scriptures with it, it’s still perhaps the most comprehensive way of reading a text.
I don’t know if this idea of books as mindless entertainment is a spillover from television or not. I don’t think it would be hard to argue that most of TV is mindless entertainment. And any shows that have depth can probably be read only one or two meanings in. Same with movies. There’s a fair few exceptions but most of video entertainment is meant to be absorbed rather than engaged. Maybe this spills over into people’s expectations of books.
I don’t think it would be hard to argue that most of TV is mindless entertainment. And any shows that have depth can probably be read only one or two meanings in.
Oh, man, don’t get me started. There’s a lot of mindless entertainment on TV, sure (especially “reality”), but there are also several shows out there, especially from the past 10 years, which can be read on more than a couple of levels, imho. (Anything helmed by Joss Whedon, for instance.) I might have to see if I can blog about this myself.
I’m not surprised of the reaction at the linked site. I can’t tell based on their posts whether they even like reading twilight or not. After the education that I have received in school, I was not any good at picking out icons or symbols in any text that I read. It’s not something that was taught or taught particularly well when it was. I didn’t appreciate that level of thought until I started to examine the Harry potter series in order to figure out why I would read a book for fun.
I should note that there were no ping-backs to my site from this live journal and none of the readers there, if they actually visited HogPro, bothered to leave a note.
Let me add my thanks to Travis’ for the conversations here and HogPro. I’m done with seven parts of my exploration of critical reception to Harry and Bella — and I certainly wouldn’t have bothered except for the intelligent, bracing, and charitable discussions available here on these sister sites.
And a special thanks to Travis for his kind words above.
Hmmm, I know I’ve said a few things that were also said over at that Twilight journal. Like sometimes it’s possible to read too deeply into a text or that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Which are in fact valid criticisms of the four levels of meaning readings. But I hope I’ve been more charitable in my uses of those criticisms than some of the people over there.
Plus, I remain open to deeper readings of Meyer’s or anyone’s work. Or at least I remain open to the possibility of there being deeper meaning. I’m not likely to find out any time soon since I don’t plan on reading any more of the Twilight books in the near or even distant future. I’m going to try my hand at reading some Dickens, Austen, MacDonald, & Chesterson. As well as continue another read through of HP.
John, despite any disagreements we may have had on this subject, I just want to say how much I’ve appreciated your analysis & commentary. And I usually read all of your posts, both here & at HogPro’s, even if I don’t comment on them. Don’t let these critics who aren’t willing to seriously engage with literature get you down!
I felt the same way about the few comments I read at the linked journal. I couldn’t figure out if they like Twilight and don’t want it to be anything more than entertainment, or if they dislike it and have nothing better to do than ridicule it. If the latter, it’s a sad commentary that people waste their time just making fun of something they don’t like. Can’t they find something they do like and discuss it or enjoy it?
And if all they want is mindless fun in a book, they should really try Janet Evanovich’s Stephanie Plum series. I read the first 8 books back in the 90s. They were funny with a wide array of unique characters and didn’t require any thinking on my part. Parts of the books are laugh-out-loud funny, something that other people who have read them have said as well. Deeper meaning, any symbolism? Hardly. And there’s nothing wrong with that.
Just like there is nothing wrong with watching TV shows that let our brains turn off of the world problems for a half hour. I watch very little current TV, and prefer the re-runs of “I Love Lucy” when I want to watch something mindless that makes me laugh.
But then I think of all the seasons of MASH, which was one show that I watched all through, and have watched the reruns so many times I can see at a glance which episode it is (rather disturbing). With that one, I don’t think the original intent was much beyond entertainment, with the undercurrent that the war was bad, with the Korean war standing in for Viet Nam. However, it mainly started out to be funny, laugh track included. At some point, the laugh track went away, though the humor was always there but less slap-stick and more ironic. And the characters evolved to have a social conscience; the show explored the relationships strained by war, of families separated, friends, bonds that are formed in a war setting that would never form otherwise. The show ended by being much more than it was when it began.
I still haven’t read Twilight, and likely won’t. But I don’t discount those who see something more than just a mindless bodice-ripper. Whether or not Stephenie Meyer intended it to be more, it’s hard to say. I think we end up back with the discussion of a long time ago that sometimes authors, in creating characters and their story, write more into it than they intend – sometimes the story does take on more depth. That may be the case with Twilight or it may not. But, like, revgeorge, I have enjoyed hearing the opinions of everyone here and at HogPro.
There’s nothing to be gained by discussing the Stephanie Plum series, beyond having a good laugh with other people who have read the books, because they are intended and written to be fun. And that’s it, nothing more.
But when a book includes anything more then it seems to follow that some readers will just enjoy the surface story while others will see more or be touched by the story in a way that goes beyond entertainment. I think it’s more of a reflection on the person who refuses to acknowledge that a book might have a deeper meaning than on the person who discovers hidden meanings in the book. I remember people who were horrified to learn that C.S. Lewis was writing more than a cute children’s story with Narnia, after which they wanted nothing to do with it.
I have to wonder why people don’t want to have to think when they read? What are they afraid of? Because their reaction, disguised with sarcasm, sounds like they are afraid of something.
Pat
I am thinking that part of what is driving the younger audiences who are so enthralled with the story of Twilight is that they seemed – at least a lot of them seemed – to take the end of the Harry Potter series very hard. It was almost like a death to them, it was over. It was done. Twilight was a natural to fill the void left from no more HP books to look forward to. Some of that excitement has been projected on to the Twilight series, but while it has an abundance of story, it doesn’t go much below the surface. It’s a yarn.
That being said, one could also make the case that many of the younger readers simply loved the story of Harry Potter. What made J.K. Rowling’s series stand out from the rest is that, in addition to being that great story – it is also satire. That aspect I am afraid is lost on many, even now.
For example, it appears that even the title of the final book “Deathly Hallows” is satire, and sly, sly, sly of Jo Rowling. I have thought for the longest time that it was a clunky title. It didn’t soar. It was strange. Ah, but think again. J.K. Rowling’s harshest critics have made fun of her use of adverbs in her writing. So what does she do – she puts one of her beloved adverbs right in the title. Hah!
She doesn’t take herself too seriously – serious-ly, though she’s very very serious about the writing – so much so, that she can satirize herself. Brilliant.
There’s no satire, no story below the surface, no pet rat that’s actually a wizard in Twilight. It is what it is.
-Mary
Ah, Mary… You’re in for a surprise.
I just want to note that it appears the journal I criticized in this post might very well be a Twilight spoof page.
That’s what you get for not getting to know an entire site before posting!
Coming soon from The Hog’s Head: Serious debate with the news articles over at The Onion.
Several people here and at HogPro are referring to Meyer’s saga as a “bodice-ripper.” This does Meyer a serious injustice. Romance, Harlequin, yes. Bodice-ripper, no!
When bodice-rippers became the rage in the early ’80s, I spent a coupe hours at the library looking some over. These lurid books were all about male dominance and steamy sex scenes wrapped up in some “historical” story. The books had a pattern: the narrative line would go so far until boredom was about to set in and then the reader would be “paid off” with several x-rated pages.
The One Look online dictionary accurately defines bodice-ripper as “a romantic novel containing scenes in which the heroine is sexually violated.” (This was usually against her will until it became her will.) The books were just sick.
I would very much like to see this term expurgated from description of Meyer’s romance genre.
Arabella, I Googled the term and found the following.
Interestingly, there was no Wikipedia entry. But the first item the Google search brought up was a Wikipedia entry for Romance Novel Under the sub-heading Birth of Modern Romance, Wikipedia says:
The success of these novels (novels by Kathleen Woodiwiss and Rosemary Rogers) prompted a new style of writing romance, concentrating primarily on historical fiction tracking the monogamous relationship between a helpless heroine and the hero who rescued her, even if he had been the one to place her in danger.[6] The covers of these novels tended to feature scantily clad women being grabbed by the hero, and caused the novels to be referred to as “bodice-rippers.”[66] A Wall St. Journal article in 1980 referred to these bodice rippers as “publishing’s answer to the Big Mac: They are juicy, cheap, predictable, and devoured in stupefying quantities by legions of loyal fans.”[70] The term bodice-ripper is now considered offensive to many in the romance industry.[66]
Specific entries under bodice ripper included The Phrase Finder, which defines it as:
A sexually explicit romantic novel; usually in a historical setting and always with a plot involving the seduction of the heroine
The genre is commercially highly successful, but isn’t taken seriously by most literary critics. Most examples are judged by more base criteria than the classic works of Austen or the Brontes. Bodice Rippers are strictly formulaic and the plot usually involves a vulnerable heroine faced with a richer and more powerful male character, whom she initially dislikes. Later, she succumbs to lust and falls into his arms. The formula requires the books to be fat ‘page turners’, i.e. a plot device, usually a seduction scene, must happen at frequent intervals. Depending on the author or publishing house style, the principal characters must marry. It is virtually obligatory for the cover picture to show the swooning, ample-bosomed heroine.
And Answers.com produced:
A work of popular fiction characterized by scenes of unrestrained romantic passion
The label seems to me to fit in some ways, but not others. We have to wait for the sexual pay off until book 4, which is quite opposed to the usual formula. Also, the covers don’t feature cleavage. And Bella sometimes seems helpless (for example in book 1) but I understand that she takes charge later on (book 4?) And Edward strenously resists his primitive urges. And there is no sex until after marriage .
So why call it a bodice ripper?
I think that the term becomes more apt when we look at vampirism as an extended metaphor for sexuality. I’d say teen-age lust, but Edward is a teen-ager only in appearance. What drives the books (at least the two I’ve read, the first one and MS) is the obsession of the two characters with each other’s physical traits: for Edward it’s Bella’s scent. For Bella, it’s Edward’s physical beauty.
Actually, I think that the term sexual obsession describes the books better than the term bodice ripper.
One last word. About those covers. I can’t remember the imagery of books 2-4, but the imagery on the cover of book 1, that of young female hands offering a succulent apple, is pretty darn suggestive. Forbidden fruit indeed.
“I don’t think it would be hard to argue that most of TV is mindless entertainment. And any shows that have depth can probably be read only one or two meanings in.”
Re four levels of meaning on the boob tube–anyone out there watch Lost?