I'd like to get the opinions of the people here. I think the issue is an important and interesting one if one looks beyond the surface and considers the reality of the world we live in.
As I've made clear on this forum before, my opinion of what American culture, in particular popular culture, has done to the collective minds of the people; our society caters to the popcorn flick. I cite Stephanie Meyer, Clive Cussler, Dan Brown, and Danielle Steele as examples, a very "successful" group of authors who embody the style-over-substance nature that Americans have, for whatever reason, nurtured. We see it in other walks of life as well: television (American Idol, Survivor, the cancellation of shows worth watching because people are watching the previous two instead, such as Carnivale, Firefly, Rome, etc.), music (virtually everything to have been released in the last decade, Brittney Spears as an example), film (horrible American remakes of good foreign films, every movie insisting upon ending with a twist and negates 90% of what came before it), as well as literature, which tends toward melodrama rather than actual characterization.
While I realize that not every show, song, film, and book that comes out is going to be great art, I believe, and a little research will prove so, that we cater to those who seek something far less than art. We buy the Brittney Spears cds (or at least we used too LOL!!!); we watch American Idol; we spend $10 to watch Michael Bay's next explosion fest; we shelve out twice or three times that much to read a misogynistic book about a girl whose only goal in life is to follow her misguided idea of love and bow down to a boy.
However, I also believe that American literature has enough artists to be considered above this so-called pop culture. We have great--some all-time great--writers who represent what B&N likes to dub American "literature": Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Roth, Don Delillo, Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace (before his suicide), even Stephen King (young SK moreso than current SK), just to name a few working today. I think this shows we have enough people who write things that truly matter to allow us some leeway in the "American literature is no good" discussion.
This is why the statements of certain people in the Swedish Academy, the group of people responsible for the Nobel Prize in Literature, strike me as surprising, offensive, and hypocritical. I'm providing a few links here, hopefully to give different perspectives...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95537900
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/oct/01/us.literature.insular.nobel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Engdahl
So, let me get this right...American literature is naive, narrow-minded, and with little merit. I believe this is partially true, but as I said in relation to film, music, and television, this is true in every art form and storytelling medium. I reiterate, not everything can be great art, and it doesn't necessarily have to be, even if I firmly believe one should aspire or aim toward that. In Mr. Engdahl's opinion, is Europe then devoid of these same issues? Since Europe is the "center of the literary world", I assume Mr. Engdahl believes this to be at least partially true. Isn't that just as narrow-minded and insulated as he says American literature is? Is all literature in Europe great works of art? No, of course not. There's crap in Europe just as there's crap here in America, albeit different kinds of crap. I agree with the fact that America doesn't translate enough of foreign literature, namely most of the great Japanese writers, but we have Tolstoy, Chekov, Dostoevsky, Borges, Marquez, and so on. That doesn't mean American literature is so insulated that we "don't participate in the big dialogue of literature," as Mr. Engdahl so eloquently put it. His comments have made the rounds since he uttered them last year, leading those in the know to speculate that it will be a long time until an American author is given the Nobel again (the last one was Toni Morrison, in 1993).
Awards aren't, and shouldn't be, the driving force behind a writer's work, but it's interesting to note the views of the outside world on American literature, and in effect American culture. Again, I'm not a homer; I have little American pride, being what right-wing conservatives like to call a "bleeding heart liberal", as I find it hard to deny the fact that America hasn't been one of the goodguys since WWII. I'll admit to being opinionated, but I firmly believe in objectivity in all matters--one cannot truly understand the underlying truth of things without considering all perspectives equally.
That said, I'd like to hear the opinions of others on this matter, especially those who live outside the US. Let the discussion begin! Hopefully...
As I've made clear on this forum before, my opinion of what American culture, in particular popular culture, has done to the collective minds of the people; our society caters to the popcorn flick. I cite Stephanie Meyer, Clive Cussler, Dan Brown, and Danielle Steele as examples, a very "successful" group of authors who embody the style-over-substance nature that Americans have, for whatever reason, nurtured. We see it in other walks of life as well: television (American Idol, Survivor, the cancellation of shows worth watching because people are watching the previous two instead, such as Carnivale, Firefly, Rome, etc.), music (virtually everything to have been released in the last decade, Brittney Spears as an example), film (horrible American remakes of good foreign films, every movie insisting upon ending with a twist and negates 90% of what came before it), as well as literature, which tends toward melodrama rather than actual characterization.
While I realize that not every show, song, film, and book that comes out is going to be great art, I believe, and a little research will prove so, that we cater to those who seek something far less than art. We buy the Brittney Spears cds (or at least we used too LOL!!!); we watch American Idol; we spend $10 to watch Michael Bay's next explosion fest; we shelve out twice or three times that much to read a misogynistic book about a girl whose only goal in life is to follow her misguided idea of love and bow down to a boy.
However, I also believe that American literature has enough artists to be considered above this so-called pop culture. We have great--some all-time great--writers who represent what B&N likes to dub American "literature": Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Roth, Don Delillo, Neil Gaiman, Jonathan Franzen, David Foster Wallace (before his suicide), even Stephen King (young SK moreso than current SK), just to name a few working today. I think this shows we have enough people who write things that truly matter to allow us some leeway in the "American literature is no good" discussion.
This is why the statements of certain people in the Swedish Academy, the group of people responsible for the Nobel Prize in Literature, strike me as surprising, offensive, and hypocritical. I'm providing a few links here, hopefully to give different perspectives...
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=95537900
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/oct/01/us.literature.insular.nobel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Engdahl
So, let me get this right...American literature is naive, narrow-minded, and with little merit. I believe this is partially true, but as I said in relation to film, music, and television, this is true in every art form and storytelling medium. I reiterate, not everything can be great art, and it doesn't necessarily have to be, even if I firmly believe one should aspire or aim toward that. In Mr. Engdahl's opinion, is Europe then devoid of these same issues? Since Europe is the "center of the literary world", I assume Mr. Engdahl believes this to be at least partially true. Isn't that just as narrow-minded and insulated as he says American literature is? Is all literature in Europe great works of art? No, of course not. There's crap in Europe just as there's crap here in America, albeit different kinds of crap. I agree with the fact that America doesn't translate enough of foreign literature, namely most of the great Japanese writers, but we have Tolstoy, Chekov, Dostoevsky, Borges, Marquez, and so on. That doesn't mean American literature is so insulated that we "don't participate in the big dialogue of literature," as Mr. Engdahl so eloquently put it. His comments have made the rounds since he uttered them last year, leading those in the know to speculate that it will be a long time until an American author is given the Nobel again (the last one was Toni Morrison, in 1993).
Awards aren't, and shouldn't be, the driving force behind a writer's work, but it's interesting to note the views of the outside world on American literature, and in effect American culture. Again, I'm not a homer; I have little American pride, being what right-wing conservatives like to call a "bleeding heart liberal", as I find it hard to deny the fact that America hasn't been one of the goodguys since WWII. I'll admit to being opinionated, but I firmly believe in objectivity in all matters--one cannot truly understand the underlying truth of things without considering all perspectives equally.
That said, I'd like to hear the opinions of others on this matter, especially those who live outside the US. Let the discussion begin! Hopefully...