22 Sep 2010, Posted by admin in Anthony,Erika,Thoughts, No Comments. Tagged Anthony, deeper meaning, Erika, Thoughts
Classic vs. Modern V Gandalf vs. Dumbledore
Image by Erika
Words by Anthony
At the risk of sounding like a Philistine, I’ll confess I don’t set much store by ‘classic’ novels. Having asked myself why they were often forced down our throats by academics.
Shakespeare? He wrote some good shit. But he wrote some shit, shit too. Intellectual (s)nobbery compels certain types to wax lyrical about anything that came from his feathered pen, because to do so makes one appear clever. It is okay to enjoy his stories, but be suspicious of anyone who doesn’t have the nerve to admit that a lot of it was a drag.
The “classics” are so because society’s intelligentsia decided it. They are often about the upper classes, often about high-society women with too much time on their hands (no fault of their own – the classics are, by definition – old), or men squabbling over who gets to inherit the manor.
It is no accident that the class of people who have the power to dictate what becomes classic and what does not are often not so far removed, in power terms, from the characters they profess to love. Even when an author gives a devastating critique of the ruling class, a la Thackeray with Vanity Fair, still we are told what is great and what is not, rather than letting people decide for themselves without feeling stupid.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy and it’s surrounding literature, is rather good. But that they are, is forced upon us not through how much we actually enjoyed reading them, but by their sheer scope. Anything that damned long and involving has just got to be good. Well, you can be impressed by a story without getting so serious. I have just finished reading The Hobbit again and was struck by the sheer amount of pages wasted on describing a group of characters meandering across vast swathes of land. Okay, Tolkien, the trees are beautiful. Yes, the grass is really, really green. The water really is very, very wet. But get on with it. How can our imaginations run wild, when the wild is so painstakingly described?
I hear far too many people of my age and older sneering at the Harry Potter novels. They are for ‘children’, just because they are set in a school, feature children, and contain magic spells? Because the language is simplistic? The intellectual snobs don’t like how accessible they are- because of course, this is the point. To feel superior, they like their literature to be available only for them to read. A book or series can have a scope as wide as that of the Tolkien novels, can contain magic, like the Tolkien novels, can have socio-political subtexts galore, like the Tolkien novels, but if a child can enjoy it too, get the sneer out, and label it a “children’s book”- unlike the Tolkien novels, which are masterpieces because a child would get bored once the 105th tree had had it’s leaves individually described and named.
If you enjoy a book, don’t be afraid to stand up for it. Don’t wait for the “cultured” mob to declare it safe for adults to read without looking stupid. Remember they have an ulterior motive- to separate themselves from those they view as beneath them, through language and literature. Yes, Gandalf was a good wizard. But Dumbledore’s got skills too.
