May 30, 2004
THE HIGH FEELING LOW:
The Literary Divide (Anne Applebaum, April 7, 2004, Washington Post)
At the National Book Awards ceremony last fall, a special lifetime achievement award was given to the horror writer -- and mass-market success -- Stephen King. He returned the favor with a slap in the face. In an extraordinary acceptance speech, he claimed that he had been snubbed all of his life by snooty critics; that wonderful writers such as John Grisham were regularly ignored by snobbish prize committees; and that never, ever in his entire life had he written a word for money.But most people do write for money. How else would we survive? As long ago as the 18th century, Samuel Johnson declared that it would be idiotic to imagine otherwise: "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money." Only people like Stephen King, whose best-selling novels are regularly made into popular movies, don't need to think about money: He employs an accountant to do that. It's hardly surprising that he's resented, even snubbed, by authors like the anonymous, self-described "critically acclaimed mid-list writer" who wrote a long, painful description of her career ups and downs -- four published books, good reviews, middling sales, waves of rejections thanks to middling sales and, finally, a decision to take another job -- in Salon last month, causing a minor sensation.
There are, it is true, still a few "crossover" writers, mostly writers of excellent popular books about American history, and one or two novelists. But my sense is that their numbers are shrinking, that there's almost no more middle ground. Popular culture now hates high culture so much that it campaigns aggressively against it. High culture now fears popular culture so much that it insulates itself deliberately from it. As for the rest of us -- we're inundated with the former, often alienated from the latter. And if we write books, we skulk about checking our Amazon rankings, wondering whether CNN might possibly have put our names in tiny print at the bottom of the screen, and feeling dazed -- and extremely grateful -- when we win prizes.
Americans have especially good cause for and a long history of hating intellectuals, but the literati have done themselves no favors in this regard by intentionally making their work unreadable. Meanwhile, popular culture is obviously uneven, but much of it--from Lord of the Rings to The Passion to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and so forth--plumbs more enduring and interesting themes than most high culture. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 30, 2004 7:25 AM
The odd thing is King has voiced the proper political beliefs (i.e. liberal Democrat) over the past 25 years that should have gotten him some top awards, based on what type of writer is normally looked on with favor by the judges of these awards. I would guess King's failure to translate those political stances into major parts of his novels, combined with genre he works with, is why he hasn't pulled in the honors.
Posted by: John at May 30, 2004 12:14 PM"ever in his entire life had he written a word for money."
Wasn't there that attempt a while back to publish a book online in installments that he stopped because of too many downloads and not enough payments?
Maybe I'm thinking of some other famous hack, because that's what he is-- he repackages the same stuff, or steals good ideas from 1950s and 1960s sci-fi, and thanks to the name-brand "Steven King", it sells without much trying. With this award, he's just the high school geek who cashed out in 1999 and returns to the reunion to show up all the other losers.
A really talented person who just unintentionally happened to get rich in the process, and who felt this way would have created and subsidized an alternate persona which published ~literary~ works with the intention of going after this sort of prize. Then show up at the award to expose the fraud and point out all the various ironies and otherwise make fools of the award givers.
A person with some class would have just turned down the award with a "thanks, but no thanks" and left it at that.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at May 30, 2004 12:53 PMRegardless of his political beliefs, his books could've been written by a right-winger; I had no idea he tacked left until a couple of years ago. Until then, I figured he was a Republican.
And Raoul: It was he.
Posted by: Chris at May 30, 2004 1:16 PMI've never understood King's popularity, and never had any interest in reading his books or seeing the movies.
Posted by: jd watson at May 30, 2004 1:45 PM"high culture." Keep insulting us lowbrows and you never will have money.
Posted by: Sandy P at May 30, 2004 2:14 PMRaoul:
Almost every fiction writer steals, for almost all stories have already been told. It's how they recycle ideas, characters, and plots, and how adept they are at dialogue, that makes most of the difference.
A hack does it poorly.
While King is no Poe, who really did write some unique stuff, how do you think the brand "Steven King" became so popular ?
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at May 31, 2004 6:24 AMMichael, your point helps to exlain the divide between "High" and "Low". The "High" culture writers are not satisfied with recycling the works of past masters, they must truly 'create'. It is an ego thing, not a literary thing. They want to be the first artist in centuries to truly create something new. The only untapped space for creativity is in the meaningless and unintelligible. This explains modern art as well.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at May 31, 2004 11:20 AMRobert:
They're just trying to keep up with science:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/reviews.detail/book_id/991/
Posted by: oj at May 31, 2004 11:33 AM