Day Two Hundred and Forty Four
The Bookshop, The Gate of Angels & The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald Page: 472
We had friends over for dinner tonight so in addition to not getting my reading done, I’m also very tired. I don’t think I can get away with two unthoughtful blogposts in a row so…I’ll pretend I’m being thoughtful or at least ask you to be thoughtful.
What is the litmus test for contemporary literature? Time is a nearly infallible test, seventeen centuries of appreciative critics adds more than a sheen of respectability but without more than a few decades what decides you?
Posted by Mandi |
I studied litmus tests in high school chemistry. Standard procedure would be to pour some household chemicals, something bluish, like Drano or Windex, on the text in question being sure to soak all of the pages. If it was written in the last 99 years or so, and the pages turn blue, then it has passed the litmus test. You must at this point throw the book away because it is contemporary literature, and there is really no good use for it.
August 31st, 2008 | #
Honestly,I just don’t waste my time on it. It almost always falls short of my expectations…
September 1st, 2008 | #
Seeing your affinity for CS Lewis, what is it that draws you to him, rather than, say, to Samuel Beckett? What is it about Lewis’s modern novels/essays/stories/what-have-you that make them worth reading and enduring, in the way that other “contemporary” works fail? I think people risk throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water when they reject an entire era of literature in generalities, rather than recognizing the different ideologies and purposes that compose different sectors of that era. Some are valuable, others are so limited that I marvel at their sustainability even one year after publication. I have my own opinions, but I’d rather hear yours, as you are attempting to write a book about it!
I think your term of “contemporary” is rather problematic, and that you might start by defining your terminology. That could help jump start the critical process. What exactly do you mean by “contemporary” literature? Do you use that term to refer to a particular set of philosophical thought/intention or shared aesthetic conventions? If so, what are they?
September 1st, 2008 | #
I pretty much ignore most modern literature. I do have a way to work into it though. I start with an author who I am familiar with, then go with his recommendations. That is how I found Canticle for Leibowitz. C.S. Lewis mentions it in a transcription of a recording on science fiction.
I think people tend to give to much credit to modern literature. Sure there are ‘ideas’ in them, but for the most part, I have to wallow in all those ‘ideas’ each day because the people I interact with adhere to them. Yeah, another book about feminism, or multi-culturalism, or let’s-ignore-the-classics because some white people wrote them.
September 2nd, 2008 | #