Jan 25, 2023·edited Jan 25, 2023Liked by William F. Edwards
Hi William! I enjoyed reading your perspective on this and how you communicated it. Personally I haven't encountered this frustration yet in the writing community or in the market. So much of what sells is not considered literary yet is very popular (and I would say that just because it's marketable doesn't make it a good story either). There's a lot I could say here and your post got me thinking and I appreciate that. I have my own frustrations with fiction as someone who used to read it constantly and I started composing a draft on it. Not sure if it'll be worth sharing but I wanted you to know that you're not alone in your struggles and a lot of "literature" we read in school was good because it was good for that time period and taught us about the humanities and history but there are other essential functions to the written word as you have pointed out. I think that a piece can be good whether or not it is considered "literary" (and perhaps outlining a specific definition for that in your own words would be helpful for the reader here) and think most would agree more or less.
Thank you. When it comes to 'literature' versus other kinds of fiction I find the line arbitrary and therefore it's hard to define what exactly is literature. For example if Dracula was published today it absolutely would not be considered literature, it'd be put in the 'horror' section and English teachers would be upset by any implication it could ever belong in the same category as Dickens.
What sells, what is respected, and what is good don't always overlap. Pornography is the obvious extreme of this, a very profitable kind of entertainment nobody wants to be seen with. We live in a culture where profiting off of things while clearly not respecting them is second nature.
I loathe everything about public schools in the U.S, and that goes double for how English classes are run. It's where the love of reading goes to die, with help from the 'classics.'
I'd read your post about your thoughts on fiction.
Hi William! I enjoyed reading your perspective on this and how you communicated it. Personally I haven't encountered this frustration yet in the writing community or in the market. So much of what sells is not considered literary yet is very popular (and I would say that just because it's marketable doesn't make it a good story either). There's a lot I could say here and your post got me thinking and I appreciate that. I have my own frustrations with fiction as someone who used to read it constantly and I started composing a draft on it. Not sure if it'll be worth sharing but I wanted you to know that you're not alone in your struggles and a lot of "literature" we read in school was good because it was good for that time period and taught us about the humanities and history but there are other essential functions to the written word as you have pointed out. I think that a piece can be good whether or not it is considered "literary" (and perhaps outlining a specific definition for that in your own words would be helpful for the reader here) and think most would agree more or less.
Thank you. When it comes to 'literature' versus other kinds of fiction I find the line arbitrary and therefore it's hard to define what exactly is literature. For example if Dracula was published today it absolutely would not be considered literature, it'd be put in the 'horror' section and English teachers would be upset by any implication it could ever belong in the same category as Dickens.
What sells, what is respected, and what is good don't always overlap. Pornography is the obvious extreme of this, a very profitable kind of entertainment nobody wants to be seen with. We live in a culture where profiting off of things while clearly not respecting them is second nature.
I loathe everything about public schools in the U.S, and that goes double for how English classes are run. It's where the love of reading goes to die, with help from the 'classics.'
I'd read your post about your thoughts on fiction.