with immense personal satisfaction, I present...

[lagilman]

from Publishers Lunch:

"Stephen King’s "humorous, sentimental and defiant" (AP) speech in
accepting his medal for distinguished contribution to American letters dominates the coverage. Quotes:

He claimed the award on behalf of other popular authors like Elmore
Leonard, Jack Ketcham, John Grisham, Dennis Lehane and at least "a
dozen more."

"I am begging you not to go back to the old way of doing things."

He asked for the National Book Foundation to avoid "tokenism" and to
build bridges "between popular fiction and literary fiction."

"You know who you are and where you stand and most of you here
tonight are on my side."

He has no "use for those who make a point of pride in saying they have never read anything by John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Mary Higgins Clark or any other popular writer."

"Whaddaya think, you get social academic brownie points for staying out of touch with your own culture?"

(LAG: and there was much cheering from The Rest of Us)

In the case of fiction winner Shirley Hazzard, that answer would be a yes. "I don't think giving us a reading list of those who are most read at this moment is much of a satisfaction." She’s busy with Shakespeare and Conrad, doesn’t own a television, and hasn’t read anything by Stephen King. "I just haven't had time to get around to one." Plus, "I don't regard literature ... as a competition." (According to the most recent Nielsen Bookscan figures, her well-reviewd novel has sold a little over 3,500 copies since its release in early October.)

(LAG: what, she can't read Shakespeare and Conrad and King? Bunch of _us_ do! Well, okay, not Conrad. Scarred for life by that one...)

Reuters
http://click.email-publisher.com/maabGxsaa2i4oa2wovGb/
AP
http://click.email-publisher.com/maabGxsaa2i4pa2wovGb/

Comments

[kefiraahava.livejournal.com]

Aw RIGHT Steve!

I've read Conrad and Stephen King, romances and Sartre, etc., etc., and consider myself just as literate as the Literati who sneer at "popular" fiction. And for my money Dennis Lehane is one of the best modern writers going. So there to Shirley Hazzard.:-)

And when I was in junior high, a reading teacher I'd never met saw me with =The Shining= and stopped me outside my literature classroom to interrogate me as to whether my parents KNEW I was reading (gasp) Stephen King. Mind you, the other pleasure reading books I had with me were =A Separate Peace=, =The CIA Nicaragua Manual=, and =Jane Eyre=; the King was just at the top of the stack.:-)

I drew myself up with all the hauteur a precociously intellectual preteen could master and informed her in my best Bostonian Bitch voice, "MY parents don't believe in CENSORING what I read. Would YOU like to call them and tell them you DISAPPROVE of what I read?" Fortunately my teacher stuck his head out the door, saw the confrontation developing, and sent me into class while he nicely told the other teacher to leave his student alone.:-)

I'm glad King did this. Very glad.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

"MY parents don't believe in CENSORING what I read. Would YOU like to call them and tell them you DISAPPROVE of what I read?"

Heh. My aunt the librarian always brought "good books" when she came to visit because she felt my parents were rotting out my literary skills by permitting me to read Nancy Drew.

Me, I've always wondered about the subtext to the statement "I don't [read/watch/look at/whatever] X because it's too popular." The intent may be to say "I am above the hoi polloi" but the actual statement means something along the lines of "people like that, I don't like what people like, ergo I am not a person."

[lagilman]

the actual statement means something along the lines of "people like that, I don't like what people like, ergo I am not a person."


*snicker*

I've always thought it was another way of saying "I need some way to set myself apart from others and being a snob is the only way I can do it, rather than via something innate like personality or talent." Me, there are pop culture things I don't like (reality tv, for one glaring example). Lots of lit-cha-chure I can't stand, either, though.

[neadods.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I like your interpretation better.

Me, there are pop culture things I don't like (reality tv, for one glaring example). Lots of lit-cha-chure I can't stand, either, though.

Well, yeah, there's this little notion of "personal taste" involved. Thing is, it's one thing to say "I've tried it and I don't like it" - or even "from the description that's not the sort of thing I enjoy." These at least have thought and a certain amount of self-understanding behind them.

To say "you like it, and you like it, and you like it, so *I'm* going to have nothing to do with it" - this doesn't even make sense! I had a friend who wouldn't see Star Wars because it was "too popular." I told her she was cutting off her nose to spite her face.

Here's another wrinkle to the conversation - isn't snobbishness simply the same sort of herd-think? What makes some of these "good books" actually "good" aside from the group decision of some SMoL? Sister Carrie, for example. I can tell you why it's historically and literarily important, but do I think it's a good book, or even relevant to modern readers? Not while The Custom of the Country is still in print.

And when do popular writers achieve literary status, anyway? Shakespeare, Dickens, and Austen hardly set out to write Great Works of English Literature. We can argue about the timelessness of their situations and the accuracy of their depiction of human nature, but are they really cosmically better at that than all of the modern writers combined?

And besides, isn't it all in the packaging? What is more relevant and sophisticated to read - a social satire, a work of literature, a comedy of manners, or a regency romance?

Oh, wait, they're all the same book: Pride and Prejudice.