Subject: Re: Sun Also Rises and "Six."
From: Jim Rovira (jrovira@drew.edu)
Date: Thu Jun 20 2002 - 09:29:47 EDT
Robbie -- I think Scottie considers you an exception :).
There doesn't have to be an opposition between literature that's beautiful,
and literature that's deep and meaningful. In a sense both these refer
more to the emotional tone of a work more than other kinds of content. I
just finished seeing the recent movie version of "The Importance of Being
Earnest," and in spite of all the tremendous fun Wilde was having with his
characters, his language, etc., he still communicated (I haven't compared
the film to the Wilde's script yet).
I think the real opposition is between literature that's designed simply to
generate a pretty panned effect (say, genre fiction) and literature that's
trying to create a new effect and say something at the same time. I've
heard writers of romance novels, say, are given a specific outline and
character types for their books when they sign contracts with the
publishing houses. For example, they're told that X is supposed to happen
by chapter 4, Y by chapter 7, in chapter 10 X is supposed to die, etc.
So once you've read one you've quite literally read them all. They're
formulaic and communicate nothing more than a specific series of emotions.
They're not necessarily "beautiful" where, say, "For Esme" is deep. My
experience has been that the beautiful tends to really communicate, and
that which doesn't is neither beautiful nor deep.
The mindlessly beautiful is limited to certain girls I liked in HS :)
Jim
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