Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
Is a book literature if it's really boring?
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Good question. A book by any other name would still smell as dusty. In my opinion, I think when writing/art/music/architecture transcends it's creator's purpose, then it can begin to enter the realm of higher art.
It also helps to have great PR. When Shakespeare died, for example, his actors were left without a playwright - and paycheck. The hallowed First Folio that is held in such high esteem (deservedly so), was just the guys in the chorus collecting together copies of the plays and selling them to a printer to publish in a single, pricey volume. That kept the plays circulating so that they didn't become obscure.
As for transcending its creator's purpose, an example could be The Wasteland. Eliot wrote it during a time of disillusionment following WWI, when the Lost Generation left the basically innocent America for a horrible, bloody, inhuman war in Europe. The poem begins and ends with hope and cleansing - flowers in April despite the ravages of war upon the land, clean cool water to wash away the scars. The amazing part is that it would perfectly describe today, with the stunned and emotionless people for whom nothing or no one is worth even stopping their regular chess game. But as in the poem, a river runs through us all, be it sometimes dry and lifeless or filtered through the dead landscape to come out clean at the end, even still the river goes on.
I guess to my way of thinking, the answer to your question is "no." A boring book would never have a life of its own, so it would vanish into obscurity and not into immortality.
Dont'cha hate it when I get all serious about a subject. Then I'M THE BORING OBJECT!
