The ignorant American writer
This grand declamation comes from the Swedish Academy a week before the Nobel Prize for Literature is announced. The organisation’s permanent secretary Horace Engdahl gave a couple of explanations that need to be examined:
- “Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the centre of the literary world... not the United States.”
Europe has always been seen a culture snob, and its literature is no exception. Yet, I do not see the prudence of hemming in all of European literature under one roof. What would a German have in common with the English, or the French with the Spanish? Is ancient Greek literature to be held in reverence forever?
I have to admit that my knowledge of contemporary American literature is limited, but would it be true to say that US writers are dragging down the quality of their work because they are...
- “too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture”?
Is sensitivity and intimacy with one’s environment not important enough to be able to critique the same mass culture? If the allegation serves to convey that American writers tend to fall prey to mass trends, then that is indeed the case with a limited number of people anywhere in the world.
Pop culture is a legitimate area of study, whether in fiction or non-fiction. Wasn’t consumerism the central theme of Death of a Salesman?
- “The US is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature.”
Here I have to admit that I find US political policy and the great masses to be insular; there is an element of not being quite aware of what happens outside the super bowl of American life. However, artistes have tried to break the barrier.
David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker, provided a response: “And if he (Engdahl) looked harder at the American scene that he dwells on, he would see the vitality in the generation of Roth, Updike, and DeLillo, as well as in many younger writers, some of them sons and daughters of immigrants writing in their adopted English. None of these poor souls, old or young, seem ravaged by the horrors of Coca-Cola.”
Spirited as the rejoinder is, it does not examine that Coke is in fact a great leveller and hardly cause of the insulation. The cola has crossed the big divide and is chicken soup for many a writer dead-beat on a metaphor for ‘uncivilisation’.
Immigrant writing, on the other hand, tries – often too hard – to recreate an ethnicity based on nostalgia of the earlier generation. This is most evident among the South Asian diaspora.
The Nobel Committee, in fact, errs not because of intent but its lack of it. It is a faulty premise to expect literature to shun one’s environment. Aren’t writers and artists the recorders of contemporary history?
Cut them some slack and they might survive it to become posterity.
- - -
Some more of my views appear in Mailer’s Miasma
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Eric Nichols says:
Louis L'Amour said it best
Louis L'Amour said it best some 40 years ago. (And with his French ancestry, I think he's qualified to speak on the matter)
(Roughly transcribed from my faulty memory :) )
"We writers of Western novels chronicle the opening up of an entire continent...and yet fail to qualify as "Literature" by European standards. If the Western novel isn't literature, what is?......"
Eric
Matthew Biberman says:
what is literature these days
When the Nobel committee starts awarding prizes for comic books and blogs and theory and best text messaging and all the rest, I will pay attention to what they have to say. What interests me about literature is its spirit and not its form. I am not sure literature resides in novels or poems as much as it once did. As for where exactly it is . . . well, that is the place to begin.
Farzana Versey says:
Why Matthew?
Why do you say that, "I am not sure literature resides in novels or poems as much as it once did"?
I understand your point about being interested in the spirit as opposed to the form of literature. But the spirit cannot exist in a vacuum, and genres do extend the parameters of exploration and perhaps the spirit you speak about.
We can argue about what forms we think constitute literature, and there will be varied versions, but they cannot be formless.
PS: If there is a prize for best text messaging, I want to be counted!
Farzana Versey says:
Western novels?
I find that a curious term, Eric. But that was 40 years ago...and why do you think L'Amour said it best?!
Huntington W. Sharp says:
Meme!
Thanks for looking at both sides of this issue, Farzana. Dennis Shay linked to the story, and I recommend Stacy Nyikos's blog post about Engdahl's statement as well.
Huntington Sharp, Red Room
Farzana Versey says:
Thanks Huntington...
The linking does form a nice food chain of thought.
Hope you aren't doing it with every Sarah Palin post, though:-)
Ghausia Rashid says:
Personally, I consider old
Personally, I consider old literature to be literature, and modern literature as books. It's an unconscious division in my mind that I realized just now reading your post. The problem is that we are raised to believe that literature is Poe and Keats and Frost and Dickensen, and yes, to some extent, they are. But while we must preserve what was in our minds, preserve the very soul of literature, we must also embrace the changes in literature worldwide and accept it. To say that literature is confined to Europe is pure snobbery. But that's the problem, I think, with literature. Snobbery. I don't pretend to be very educated in literary history, I just know what I read or learn as a part of my course. But what I do see is, the trend of snobbery. What poets would refer to as criticism was really harsh setdowns designed to demoralize budding writers so as to ensure that such people would never even have a chance to glimpse life in the literary circles.
A further example of literature in the USA? Anne Rice. Call her gothic, call her creepy, call her bizarre, but there is beauty in the way her vampires drink blood, there is heart wrenching pain as they suffer from their own mistakes. And yet no educational institution would place her books in libraries or as a part of the student's course.
Incidentally, I would like to mention that I clicked no your bio out of curiosity, and fell in love with the way you write. Let me describe it this way. I'm normally capable of socializing with people, but in too many ways, I'm a social buffoon and often feel like I'm blundering awkwardly trying to find my footing in a sea of darkness. That's what reading your bio made me feel like. In terms of writing I pride my ability to write stories or poetry that even I read and think, "Wow. This one's really beautifully written isn't it?" Looking at the way you've just described yourself, I thought, "Wow. I'm pretty much nothing compared to this am I?" And it's a good thing. I thought I was good. Now I just want to be better. Perhaps after years of experience, I would be able to measure up to your calibre.
PS: Do pardon any errors in this comment, its 4:30 in the morning, so...Yeah. I'm mildly disoriented.
Farzana Versey says:
Literature vs. books
That is how most of us demarcate when we are young. It frightens us to think of 'those big writers'.
Thank you Ghausia for your words to me. Calibre, however, is relative...the one man's blah is another's poison bit. I love poison.
Stacy Ann Nyikos says:
Hermeneutics
Not to get too "out there", but it's all an issue of hermeneutics. Each culture has its interpretation of life as we see it. Even if we American writers embrace thematics outside U.S. boundaries, it is still within our boundaries of interpretation, which are, by nature and necessity, subjective. They are influenced by the thousand little differences that make American lifestyle distinct from any other.
Having said that, I still do believe we could enrich our own hermeneutics by embracing foreign literature in our mass culture, bring a few more foreign ideas onto the shelves of major bookstores, enrich our experience of interpretation of the world.
I don't think we will ever be able to "please" the powers that be in literature in Europe, but we might be able to take something from this that will enrich our own experience.
Farzana Versey says:
A little beyond
Stacy, I'd go with you for the most part and indeed enriching oneself with other input is part of extending one's experiences.
I'd take your argument further: How subjective can literature be? I understand the subjectivity of individual writers, but American literature itself is vast. Then we have the interpretation of genres, of mindsets, of quirks...
Bringing foreign ideas to bookshelves may not always influence us. I have read foreign literature and a good deal of it has made a deep impact. But, when I interpret it, there is my baggage to first deal with.
That's the challenge, I guess.
Jorge Richard Guerrero says:
Literature
Literature has its own world and environment - not European, not American, not Asian, not African. It exists in its own sphere, apart and above the abode of any race, color and lineage.
Farzana Versey says:
Isn't that too insular?
And how can we write if we don't have the raw material of race, colour, lineage - even if we wish to debunk or deny these?
If you wish, you may look at this earlier post.
daniel curzon says:
too many books to read
DANIEL CURZON
First, I suspect there are simply too many books to read. I say that having a Ph.D. having read many books, and with lots of time to read. I doubt that people making broad generalizations about American literary efforts have read very many recent novels or short stories. I plead guilty myself. There is simply a lot of blah, blah, blah going on. Second, it is also true that "literary" qualities have been over-ridden by "market" values and numerous books, including some of my later ones, have not been able to find an audience because of not being put out by a major press. It is difficult to sift through all the self-published books to separate the chaff from the wheat. Or the chaff from the chaff, for that matter.
Farzana Versey says:
Marketing
That is where it is at, really. We get the 'big books', the 'big authors', the 'big controversies'.
The worst possible thing that can happen is when writers play the game, not because it is inherent in the content (something might in fact be controversial due to its subject or treatment), but because they know that it will get time and space on the bookshelves.
Rosy Cole says:
Outward Bound
Jorge Richard Guerrero has a profound point. What defines great literature, as distinct from accomplished literary works, is that it doesn't need a context to qualify it. It conveys truth about the human condition as a whole.
Farzana Versey says:
Looking inward
'Great litearture' - a subjective constuct - may not need a context to qualify it as such, but the context is inherent. It isn't about text and sub-text, but a subconscious learning/unlearning. The truth about the human condition is again not universal, is it? Unless you are talking about generally-recognised emotions for generally-recongised situations.
Just thought I'd add my bit...
Keiko Amano says:
Farzana
Farzana, I appreciated your blog very much. It made me research more on the subject and think. I am very interested in Horace Engdahl’s further explanation on the comment.
I don’t know exactly what it is, but I feel there is something in your writing below that may connect to that comment. “Bringing foreign ideas to bookshelves may not always influence us. I have read foreign literature and a good deal of it has made a deep impact. But, when I interpret it, there is my baggage to first deal with. That's the challenge, I guess.”
I think the translation quality and quantity are definitely problems. And readers’ capability in grasping foreign ideas is the third and most challenging problem, I think.
I am also very interested in your further explanation on your comment below. “Immigrant writing, on the other hand, tries – often too hard – to recreate an ethnicity based on nostalgia of the earlier generation. This is most evident among the South Asian Diaspora.”
Keiko
Farzana Versey says:
All about spaces
That is what diaspora writing is about, Keiko. I have taken the easy way out and put up a new blog post that has an old article of mine on the subject. Do look at it, because that is what I have explored in there.
I agree about translation quality, though. But what I am talking about is works written in English using 'ethnic' subject matter.
Keiko Amano says:
The blog spot
I got it. Thank you. I can stay away from those culturally phony books on Japan, but not on Indians’ or any others’ because I have little or no cultural base to judge. So I appreciate those discussions.
Keiko
Zarin Rafiuddin says:
The Cannon
I am not truly fascinated with the cannon of literature. English literature was thought only to be limited to the English; but I do not understand how writers whose ethnicity is not of english orgin not be considered, by some critics, to be a part of english literature?
I have always considered that anyone who is recognized as an author is recognized due to his or her abilities so I do not like categorizing of any sort on the basis of 'What can be called cannon and what can't?"
I like Jhumpa Lahiri and Amitav Ghosh and I think them to be great contributors to English Literature. I cannot say they are not part of other literature as they are Indian writers writing in english but I think they are also part of English Literature.
So, to say Americans or Canadians or etcetera is not part of the English Literature is very untrue.
Farzana Versey says:
I don't think anyone said
I don't think anyone said the examples you gave did not qualify as English literature.
rikkutas (not verified) says:
literature
One of the earlier comments included the thought that literature = universal, and that is, in my humble opinion, where this has gone wrong. There are lots of good stories, well-crafted and original, that speak to their local cultures, but there is very little currently selling anywhere that one would either want to re-read or that would appeal to someone from another country/culture. The concept that it is possible to pick a book from somewhere in the world and call it the best writing in the world is the fallacy. Many English authors don't sell well in the US, too many references that don't translate. Yes, the US is isolationist and self-absorbed, which exacerbates the problem, but life in the UK is simply different from life in the US - or in any other English-speaking country, for that matter. I think it unreasonable to expect the stories that speak to many in one place to speak to anyone in the other. Regards, Rikk
Farzana Versey says:
Universal=monotony
In my opinion. This discussion began because of the American vs. European literature comment.
There is no best writing, because it is all subjective...the judges/readers bringing their own versions of excellence and even 'universality'. A person who has travelled may see metaphors even though s/he is removed from the locales.
However, I disagree with you when you say, "I think it unreasonable to expect the stories that speak to many in one place to speak to anyone in the other". This isn't region-specific understanding, but how equipped we are with technique, nuances, history, and the resonance of a certain story.
I may like Hemingway, but I don't have to like bullfighting!
~F