Hello Gentle Reader
Part I
It shall (and should not) come to anyone’s surprise that literature now days is no longer what it used to be. There are those that do take up the mantel and hold up the flame, and do not wish to let what good literature die, but even their attempts at maintaining the pristine mantel at times appears worthless, and they themselves should let the mantel drop. However as long as there are people that read their work, and people to appreciate the work, then those people themselves can maintain the fact of keeping a strong hold on that mantel, and keeping literature firmly in this world. Maintain the fact that good literature can and always will succeed even in the harshest of conditions of the publishing world. Authors like Roberto Bolaño, David Mitchell, and Haruki Murakami have kept the torch alive; yet even before them Dame A.S. Byatt, Margaret Atwood, Umberto Eco, Paul Auster, Allain Robbe-Grillet, Jack Kerouac and others had taken the mantle from their predecessors of the earlier modernist period; authors such as Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Joseph Conrad, Knut Hamsun, and the last modernist and first postmodernist Samuel Beckett. Yet in today’s day and age, with a rising amount of people flocking to “young adult,” literature – including middle-aged adults, it’s becoming apparent that people do not want literary merit, and literature. They want fluff. Something that’ll make them feel good. Watching it on a day to day basis causes great ill in my stomach. The fact of the matter is I work at a bookstore and must help this people. I must show them where their beloved “young adult,” fiction is – which is more or less, soft-core porn in their sexual explorations, mildly violent in any action at all, and horribly written. No sense of literary merit could be sifted through that junk. My opinion is, if you are going to put down a sexual scene, or you are going to put down that eroticism guessing game, you have to do a better job than stating – “When his (or her) skin touched mine, it was like a grass fire dancing all over my body.” Surely there is something a bit more poetic, and sensual then that? Surely something could be changed, reworded, even added, to have changed something of childish giddiness in the sense of sexual discussion, to being something better. If one is not going to do it at least half ass right, then they should not even attempt to or bother to do it at all. Now days the lament of literature falling down the drain in favour of novels more plot driven, and more action paced, and plot oriented has left literature to be something of a secret treasure to be more or less held in the hands of those that go out seeking it.
The Guardian a United Kingdom news paper had brought this problem to the attention many of the reading public’s attention with their article: “Has plot driven out other kinds of story?” Which brings the question to many people’s attention. Yet could this be also another reaction against the Booker Prize this year with its exclamation that readability is more important then experimentation – or whatever it was; has got many people in the literary world, feathers ruffled. When the world today is more interested in books, to books to film, and long winded book stories – usually in the young adult fiction; literature has become well almost obsolete. Yet there is hope, as it had already been stated. Though it is still somewhat of a small sliver of hope. The golden age of authors, who had shown the human condition to its extreme, have since died away, or become disillusioned in their attempts to awaken the masses, and try to help them see the truth in their works. Their complete understanding of the human condition. Yet the general reading public looks down upon such things, as difficult, or not entertaining and too hard. They do not see the true nature though in it all. The true nature of it all is this fact, which throughout its complications and difficult reading, just shows how dumb downed people have become through the ages, and years that have passed by. No longer up for a challenge, but rather feeling entitled to have everything shown to them, and given to them as they please. People have become so self-absorbed and lazy in such their nature that any concept of a challenge is just ridiculous. So that’s what they wish for. Fluff, books that have no more weight than balls of dust, or the lint from the dryer. Not even two dimensional characters – just cliché cardboard cut outs, trendy plot lines (zombie apocalypse, vampire love story, or near future barbaric landscape, where people show their underbelly and secret desires for carnage). It is all just hideous. Quite frankly a change in style of writing, being a being difficult, it never hurts anyone; and some people just need to learn to accept a challenge now and then. Look into the human condition; see the different perspectives of the human mind, look past the ham and tomatoes, and be courageous and open up for a new experience. But of course people just want to read fluff.
Speaking highly of Virginia Woolf, has its definite positives and negatives. For one, Virginia Woolf had excellent use of the English language – her diction was impeccable. Her style and bold new ventures into the consciousness of the characters was an incredible and bold journey. However it appears that for the life of her, Virginia Woolf never was a good story teller. Her scholarly and literary talent, of experimental venturing had driven out any aspect of telling a story. Yet she still remains a great author, and though she pushed fiction to its breaking point, and for that as a reader I am truly grateful for it. Though part of me cannot help but wonder if Virginia Woolf’s talent could have been put to better use with non-fiction before her death. But it is there, that we will never know.
Though the world today is far more interested in plot driven novels, there are still novels out there, which focus on the human mind, and the human condition itself. Those novels, become treasures in their own right, which can entertain and yet still provide insight. The world may be heading into the direction of plot driven over serious fiction, but as long as those few treasures remain, then the literary world is yet to be doomed to fall into its own self-indulgence, and to become a mediocre parody of its once former glory.
Part II
Stieg Larsson is a man known for his set of novels called the “Millennium Series.” Who could forget now with an English adaption of the film coming out “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” with Daniel Craig. However it shall be curious to see how much of it will have been changed, of the film in all, and to see if the original version will match with the original novels, rather than some twisted western perspective of what it should be, rather then what the author had it become. Yet the author’s life itself is what interests me here today. Stieg Larsson was known as a revolutionary socialist – specifically the Communist Worker League (Kommunistiska Arbetareförbundet.) In the year nineteen-seventy seven (or at least part of it) Stieg Larsson interestingly enough, spent some time in Eritrea, training a group of female Eritrean People's Liberation Front guerrillas in the use of how to use grenade launchers. After his return to Sweden, he worked for one of the largest news organizers in Sweden as a graphic designer. Stieg Larsson’s political convictions in this time however did not die in this time period or cease not become something of a main part of his life. His journalistic experience and political stand point led him to create the Swedish Expo Foundation, which is similar as the British Searchlight Foundation, a organization that had been established to: “counteract the growth of the extreme right and the white power-culture in schools and among young people.” In that same time period he became editor of the magazine that went had in hand with the Swedish Expo Foundation titled “Expo.” Yet even though Stieg Larsson had a day job, at night he became much like his main character in the Millennium Series “Lisbeth Salander,” and would head out at night doing investigations on far right extremism, and fascist activities. This lead too many death threats.
Stieg Larsson’s novels “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” and “The Girl who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest,” were all published posthumously. However before the three novels that made him famous Stieg Larsson published a book of his research in to the far right titled “Extreme Right,” which led to many death threats. The Sweden Democrats was the party of most interest to Stieg Larsson, with their nationalism, social conservatism, and right wing populism. However Stieg Larsson died in two thousand and four from a heart attack, which many stated as suspicious. However those suspicious have been seen as ungrounded.
Stieg Larsson was a journalist. An investigative journalist, a man of action and an individual who danced to the beat of his own drum. He trained guerillas and investigated into fascist underworld, of the modern world. He turned his experience into a set of novels – though only three had been published so far – and may only remain as such. Yet Stieg Larson died, before seeing his novels published, and yet in his death had become somewhat of a literary icon in the crime world, selling millions of copies of books worldwide. Yet hopefully the author will be reminded of the acts and deeds he done, not just for his crime novels.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
*And Remember: Downloading Books Illegally is Thievery and Wrong.*
M. Mary
The links for the articles are as follows:
For the article on Plot Driven novels over more Literary or Serious fiction see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jul/14/plot-driven-out-other-kinds-story
For the article of Stieg Larsson’s time in Africa see:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/15/stieg-girls-with-grenade-launchers
