Cognitive development/but is it literature (long)

[pippin_999]

I wrote:
> As far as taste/artistic merit goes, IMO, the only one of the 
above 
who compares to JKR for sheer magnetic story-telling power is 
Herbert.<

Tabouli:
Now this reminds me of a plaguing question... What Is This 
Thing CalledLiterature?? What makes one book a trashy airport 
novel and another a respected classic, worthy of winning serious 
awards? Particularly interesting in the context of HP fandom, 
because HP has been classified into both (oooo,that glorious 
quote about "Is Britain a Harry Potter nation or a Beowulf
nation?"! Beautiful, just priceless).

I get the vague impression that it's something to do with 
accessibility, which is a bit worrying. I often get the impression 
that the line of the Literary Establishment goes something like 
this: "If its themes, language and storylineare simple and pacy 
enough to be considered "entertainment" by the Common Herd
(eeoh, how Vulgar!), it must surely be trash and of no True 
Literary Merit." 

By extension, then, True Literature is that which can be 
appreciated by anerudite, sophisticated elite. And by definition, 
then, anything which becomes a bestseller is questionable, 
because there just aren't enough erudite sophisticates around to 
buy True Art. <<

Pippin:
Ah, the erudite sophisticated elite...what do _they_ know? <g> In 
a market oriented society, they must add value in order to earn 
their bread. A book  which is easily accessible does not require 
their interpretive services and is therefore to be disdained. 
Airport trash is accessible, and when you subtract the emotional 
content (see below) contains no Truth which is not already 
obvious to everybody, so from the point of view of the literary 
elitist, it is no good.

Tabouli:
I'm reminded of this by Pippin's mention of story-telling power. 
After some of
my attempts to read the Literary Classics, I have to say that 
"story-telling
power" does not seem to be a prerequisite for membership into 
this elite
category. <<

Pippin:
Indeed it is not. However, the trouble with the whole idea of the  
classical standards is that some of the rationalist/humanist 
assumptions they were based on are obsolete. (See Thurman's 
"The Folklore of Capitalism" )If you don't believe that man can be 
educated out of his irrational "primitive"  emotions, or that reason 
is the highest faculty of human beings, there's no logical reason 
to shun emotional involvement as a criteria for artistic excellence 
in prose, but that's what classical criticism is supposed to do. 
 
The mob's taste is also notoriously fickle, which means it can't 
be an indicator of Lasting Value (the very definition of a classic). 
Worse than that, from the point of view of the Literary Type, it 
resists analysis. The literary type who finally comes up with a 
reliable method of predicting hits will make a fortune.

The Lasting Value thing itself is problematic. It ties in with the 
Protestant concept of Universalism which Tabouli mentioned in 
another post. We hold the truth to be self-evident.  Scripture is 
perfectly true therefore it must likewise be perfectly self-evident, 
and no Literary Types need apply. Lesser works admit of 
interpretation, as they must neccessarily contain some dross. It 
is then the job of the liberal arts scholar to discern the Truth and 
Beauty they contain and interpret it for the masses, who lack the 
education to do so themselves, having not been trained to 
subdue their emotions either to Faith or to Reason.

The problem for the present day is, Truth and Beauty to whom 
and for what purpose? The classical standard takes Man as the 
measure of all things, but the Man in question was defined as a 
classically educated white Christian European male (WCEM), 
that obviously being the closest thing to the Platonic ideal of the 
species :P.  The purpose was to give said Man a better 
understanding of the only topic worthy of study, Himself. So, as I 
am not a WCEM, my understanding of whether HP contains 
Truth or Beauty would neccessarily be deficient. Alas.

The classical standard is in the process of being replaced, at the 
university level, by Postmodernist Deconstructionism, which 
seems to measure everything according to its usefulness in 
illuminating the power struggle between the WCEM's and 
everybody else. So the classics can still be studied, but only to 
reveal what the WCEM used to think about everybody else, and 
also for possible subversive elements introduced by 
non-WCEM's. Excellence is therefore of no critical concern and 
awards are just a power grab anyway.

We can see some of this going on in Potter criticism (thought I'd 
never get there, didn't you.) There are non-Humanist critics, who 
denounce the book as being too far from Scriptural truth, 
humanist/rational critics who dislike it  because it's popular, and 
post-humanists who don't like it because it doesn't illuminate 
their particular aspect of The Struggle (no gays, too few women, 
blacks, etc). Personally, I think it illuminates my struggle just fine. 
But that's just my prejudiced opinion ;-)

Tabouli said:

Maybe the reason why children can't understand why Snape 
wasn't the villain is less because they aren't capable of 
understanding complex portrayals of Good
and Evil, but because almost all of the books and TV and films 
and educationaimed at them are indoctrinating them in 
simplistic notions of Good and Evil,where the hook-nosed mean 
guy with greasy black hair is by definition thevillain...

Pippin:
As a mom I have to disagree. Many under twelves *like* that stuff, 
and given a choice they prefer it. I believe this is because the 
healthy child identifies with the parent. To develop a positive 
self-image, the child must view the parent, and by extension 
adult society, as good. Bad things about adult society must be 
the fault of mean people, not society itself. Anything that 
challenges this inherent conservatism is going to be disturbing, 
and kids will tune it out if they can.

After the French Revolution, adult literature became pre-occupied 
with social struggle and began to glorify rebellion. So children's 
books were created to provide a moral narrative which was 
developmentally important to them, but out of fashion with adults. 
Now we also have YA books because we have created 
teenagers: people who no longer have a developmental need to 
identify with their parents but are still economically and 
emotionally tied to them. As far as I can see, the typical YA book 
is one which presents life in a moral context but with heavily 
underlined social themes, and BTW is  slender enough to be 
regurgitated in time for the next book report ;-) GoF is just too 
long and too subtle to be a standard YA,IMO. 

Pippin