The Guardian click-bait - Get real. Terry Pratchett is not a literary genius

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

So Austen and Dickens are not literary authors according to your definition then.

Indeed they would not be, according to that definition. But please see my later post about that.

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Well, if you re-read the article that started this thread, you will find that its author asserts what he thinks is Pratchett's mediocrity by telling us which writers he thinks are great. These things, silly or not, only work by comparing. So no diversion at all there.

As to the silliness of this thread: Seems it isn't silly enough for you not to participate...

I can't re-read the article because I haven't read it. I'm inferring the basis of this thread from its title. And, are genius (and greatness) really only comparable? I understand that we do generally make comparisons, but I also believe that we can recognize genius (and greatness) in isolation.

Who told you I don't like being silly? The cheek!

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

I can't re-read the article because I haven't read it.

Are you Jonathan Jones?

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by DiapDealer

So why are you keeping up with such a silly thread? Waiting for it to get back to your personal and inconclusively definable version of not silly?

I've personally found it to be a quite engaging and mostly civil discussion. Which is to say ... rare.

Like most people, I find silliness diverting. I wasn't implying that the people involved in the discussion are silly, merely the result. Sort of like otherwise reasonable people analyzing wine.-)

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

Are you Jonathan Jones?

Who's that?

[doubleshuffle]

The Thin Man.

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

Like most people, I find silliness diverting. I wasn't implying that the people involved in the discussion are silly, merely the result. Sort of like otherwise reasonable people analyzing wine.-)

So noted.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I'm not dismissing her at all; you really can't dismiss the most successful writer of novels in history, can you? Her novels were rather formulaic (and after reading all 85 of them in order, believe me when I say I know that!), but extremely influential on later writers. She, Dorothy L. Sayers and Ngaio Marsh together basically define the 20th century classic British detective novel. Being formulaic doesn't preclude being influential.

Ahem.

Originally Posted by HarryT

Of course, exactly the same is true of Agatha Christie, the most successful novelist of all time in terms of number of books sold. Christie found a winning formula, and stuck to it. Read any "Miss Marple" book and you know what to expect from the next one. Christie churned out two books a year for 40+ years and knew exactly what would sell. She was an astoundingly successful author, but not a "great" author in terms of literary innovation.

Now it does seem to me as though you've said at least one of the definitions of Literary is anything that defines or redefines a particular form of writing, thus influencing many others in how they write.
You agree Christie did that, yet you directly compare Christie and Pratchett on the grounds that both were formulaic writers who therefore didn't innovate anything.


Me, I agree influencing others' writing demonstrates the hallmark of Literary, but I don't see what formulaic has to do with that.

Perhaps what they innovated is the single writing style that they then used in a formulaic manner.
People have been judged "Literary" on the basis of one novel. Take one Christie/Pratchett/other novel in isolation, it will no longer be formulaic in comparison to the author's other books -- did that novel redefine one of these mysterious Art Form thingies??

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Now it does seem to me as though you've said at least one of the definitions of Literary is anything that defines or redefines a particular form of writing, thus influencing many others in how they write.
You agree Christie did that, yet you directly compare Christie and Pratchett on the grounds that both were formulaic writers who therefore didn't innovate anything.

You're right, the posts you've quoted above do sound a little contradictory. Let me try to elaborate a little:

Christie was innovative in the sense that she devised a new literary genre: the English country house murder mystery. She was formulaic in the sense that pretty much all her books then followed the innovation she had originally come up with.

What is less clear to me, and perhaps you have a view on this, is whether Pratchett can be said to have been an innovator in a similar way? He wrote extremely good comic fantasy, but many other people had written comic fantasy before him. Did he define or redefine that particular form of writing, do you think?

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by doubleshuffle

The Thin Man.

A little cryptic, but I think I got it. The journalist who wrote the article and who is ". . . known for his provocative and often contradictory and contrarian journalist style." You got me, but then, I'd have to live to a million to get around to anything he wrote.-)

[doubleshuffle]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

A little cryptic, but I think I got it. The journalist who wrote the article and who is ". . . known for his provocative and often contradictory and contrarian journalist style." You got me, but then, I'd have to live to a million to get around to anything he wrote.-)

... and a Mr Jones who doesn't know what's going on, hence the Thin Man...

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

What is less clear to me, and perhaps you have a view on this, is whether Pratchett can be said to have been an innovator in a similar way? He wrote extremely good comic fantasy, but many other people had written comic fantasy before him. Did he define or redefine that particular form of writing, do you think?

Yes. He also kind of defined his own genre. The books were not sold as humorous fantasy. They were sold as Pratchett-books. And nobody wrote working humor consistently good as he.

[dickloraine]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you think there's a difference between money-grubbing hacks who are later recognised as great artists (eg Shakespeare and Dickens) and authors who self-identify as "artists" rather than crass commercial hacks?

I wouldn't describe them that way
Look for example at the historic evolution of writing. Before the 19th century, authors were either rich and noble or had someone rich and noble who gave them money to make their art. But then authors rised, who lived from their work directly. Many were also journalists. Another very important factor at the beginning of modern literature was Kant and his definition of art as purpose free (sorry, I don't know the correct english term). And born was the neverending discussion about purity of art. There is some flawed thinking in it, but it goes a little bit like: If something is popular, there must be some compromises there to please the masses. It is not real art.
Bordieu describes a fascinating double economy, that tries to hide that money is made with literature (there wouldn't be any literary publishers, if not).
What is taught at schools and universities, what is generally accepted as literature is an ongoing discurse. Hard to say who gets recognized. Definitions of literature change and are in conflict.

[meeera]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you think there's a difference between money-grubbing hacks who are later recognised as great artists (eg Shakespeare and Dickens) and authors who self-identify as "artists" rather than crass commercial hacks?

I'm much more likely to want to sit down and have a beer with the former.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by HarryT

My personal definition (and others may well disagree) is that a "literary" author is one who writes as an art form, rather than to entertain the reader. Two examples would be James Joyce and Virginia Woolfe, neither of whom wrote for the entertainment of the public, but considered writing to be a form of art for the "intelligentsia" (however you choose to interpret that word). Which explains why most people don't find their books to be an entertaining read: they weren't intended to be.

My definition of a "literary" work is similar: it is a work in which the prose (the specific choice of phrasing, metaphor and so on) is at least as important as the outward or apparent meaning of the prose. Like poetry, a true literary work paints a feeling or imagery using words that might be quite distinct from the meaning of the words themselves.

Non-literary works (basically everything else), are those that use the overt meaning of the prose to impart the desired effect. Such works are more those of a craftsman or tradesman rather than a pure artist. But there is, as we must all have seen, considerable overlap. Many craftsmen (crafts-persons?) can easily be described as artists, and some artists create work of deliberate purpose, achieving both form and function. The distinction, for me, is that for a craftsman function is the priority: first it must work, second it should look good.

For me, "great" works are those that achieve an ideal compromise between the literary and non-literary aspect. Some, I believe, manage to achieve it deliberately, but others - I think - come across it accidentally, finding that form and function have complemented themselves in the effort to achieve one or the other.