Video Games are they art?

Hello Gentle Reader

What a week it has been. Got some books I ordered, bought three more, and now I am just waiting for the last one, to be shipped to me. Upon reflection last night, I have many books from authors from around the world. Each book to me from around the world is like travelling. From Japan (Yukio Mishima, Haruki Murakami, Yasunari Kawabata) to Egypt (Naguib Mahfouz) to France (Jean-Paul Sartre) to Russia (Fyodor Dostoevsky) to England (Virginia Woolf, Doris Lessing, Kazuo Ishiguro) Canada (at least the Canada I have not seen) (Margaret Atwood) Romania/Germany (Herta Muller) all these books present a world that I have yet to see, and yet will someday enjoy seeing. But for now, reading these books from all around the world, I enjoy reading these novels. The characters may have different names, the cultures maybe different, the world around these characters are exotic to me -- and mundane to them; but the human condition, the universal themes are all the same. But they give different perspectives on the world, and the human condition, the meaning of life, what is love, what is this and what is that. All that is very interting to me. So reading to me is traveling, in time, and to different places. At least for now its an affordable way to travel.

The other day I bought a book, which is a short story collection by "Patricia Highsmith," I believe I read and reviewed her book "Strangers on A Train," here. I can't recall to be honest, either way it doesn't matter. Anyhow it was either on this book or the biography "The Talented Miss Highsmith: The Secret Life and Serious Art of Patricia Highsmith," by Joan Schenkar, that the Pulitzer prize winning critic Michael Dirda had said the following:

"Europeans honoured her as a psychological novelist, part of an existentialist tradition represented by her own favourite writers, in particular Dostoevsky, Conrad, Kafka, Gide, and Camus."

Of course, when i went to buy the selected stories of Patricia Highsmith at the book store naturally she is placed in the "Mystery," section, but I consider Patricia Highsmith, as a psychological novelist, not a psychological thriller novelist. Yes she deals with murder, she deals with, all that dark human soul like stuff. But she probes the mind. She goes into the heads of these characters, these amoral creatures, and dissects them so easily. She stands above the cranium of the characters the top of the skull removed revealing the brain, scalpel in hand, and slowly pulls apart the characters psychologically.

But this blog isn't about Patricia Highsmith, no quite the opposite really. This blog is about the Pulitzer prize winning critic Michael Dirda. Upon reading his statement about Patricia Highsmith, is where I got interested in Michael Dirda. Usually I don't really care to talk about, literary critics, and their views on works of authors. Though I wouldn't mind one day reading something by Maurice Blanchot. I usually don't like reading stuff by some critics because they come off as rather rude. I mean Harold Bloom a respected (that depends on who you ask naturally) literary critic, had moaned about Doris Lessing winning the Nobel Prize in Literature of 2007 as: "pure political correctness," and remarked that Doris Lessing was a author of "Fourth rate science fiction." That doesn't sound very nice to me. There is always a thin line with me personally of criticism and just being pompous, stuck up and just being all around reality rude. But my criticism of the literary critics cannot end with Mr. Harold Bloom, it should end with another critic by the name of Michiko Kakutani. Norman Mailer has remarked that Kakutani is a "one-woman kamakazi," who also "disdains white male authors." The next part by Norman Mailer is what I find/found most interesting is that he also remarks that she: "bring[s] out your review two weeks in advance of publication. She trashes it just to hurt sales and embarrass the author." Jonathan Franzen has called her "The stupidest person in New York." Which says a lot seeing how there are however many people in the city and metropolitan area of New York. But whatever. So it says a lot that, to me about a critic who gains the harsh criticism back from authors, because she dishes it out. Is it fair? I can't say; but is it also fair to write a horrible review two weeks in advance to simply humiliate an author for the sheer enjoyment of it? Not my place to say either, but proves my point on why I don't give much thought about critics.

But this blog is about the above critics, which is above all else irrelevant talk that has nothing to with what I was originally going to do, but seeing as I have found it fitting to fill this blog up with background information which is both pointless and meaningless, and generally fun for me to write, but of course I shall stop being self-centered, and get to the damn point.

So after seeing what Michael Dirda had wrote about Patricia Highsmith I decided to look him up, and so I did. After reading some stuff by him, and seeing his photo -- its always nice to put a face to the writer at times; I decided I was going to look for an interview with Michael Dirda. For once I may have seen a less angry critic, and so far, I have. What a relief that is.

So after looking for an interview I stumbled upon this interesting article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/15/AR2007091500132.html

Which is what I wanted to discuss today. Are video games art? This is exactly what this article is about. So first and foremost I wonder to myself, what the term "Art," really means. In school, art was painting, sculpting, drawing, crafts, and all that waste of time bull shit that I didn't care about. Which first and foremost, I am not skilled with working with my hands. I don't like folding paper, because the art of "paper folding," to me is stupid. paper is to be wrote on not folded into funny useless shapes and animals. Second, my paintings never turned out to the way I wanted them too. Neither did my drawings. So I have it instilled in my brain that art, is not anything outside of this narrow field of "painting, drawing, sculpting, paper folding," frustrating forms of waste of time for me. That means that I don't consider music, carpentry, architecture, Literature/writing, singing, dancing, or video games as "Art." I consider them separate forms all on their own. Which is usually why I scoff at musicians or dancers or actors or whoever saying "well doing this kind of art . . ." turns me off. Perhaps the word "Art," has a negative form or connotation to me.

But are video games art? To me no. Not because they are not in that traditional way of entertainment, and some are more interested in blowing people’s brains out -- hello cinema and theatre is too sometimes as is literature and music can too, also art can be violent; but because the term art, is not something that I deem anything outside of "painting, drawing, sculpting et cetera," as art. So its not an insult that I don't say video games are art, because video games are very entertaining and some are of a higher quality in visuals and storytelling, but I don't see it as art. Which of course is again not an insult to people who enjoy video games. I like video games, I quite liked Silent Hill games that I have played, but I still enjoy a good book. But that doesn't mean that video games are not enjoyed by people, to this day and are not a form of "low entertainment."

In this new world of different technologies, accessible information, and a world that is smaller by the day by how connected we are via the internet, and other ways of communication. Video games are nothing more than a new form of entertainment. Did cinema kill the book? Did comic books/graphic novels, kills the book? Did television kill the book, cinema, graphic novels/comic books? No, no, no, all of them are different forms of entertainment and all of them have pros and cons, and each one of them, is good in their own way. Each one should drive and thrive in the goal and accomplishment of the goal of entertaining the buyer, the viewer, the reader, and the listener. Each one should be able to make sure that person is entertained, and is given a broaden out look on life. That’s what all forms of entertainment should be for -- to entertain and to open up peoples minds to different ways of thinking, and I am sure that video games can do that.

Besides as the last part of the article said:

"BioShock was influenced by his [Ken Levine] interest in books such as Ayn Rand's, but he didn't want to cram that interest down the throats of people just looking for a good thrill ride."

So me being bias -- its not all that bad.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read

M.Mary