FZ wrote:
"Usually I teach that "popular culture is traditional middle
class culture in a carnival atmosphere." By the same token,
popular fiction puts traditional middle class culture on
trial in a carnival setting.
(Surprisingly enough, those traditional middle class values
are acquited.)"
One thing that fascinates me is when you add the historical
element to this process, how books or music or movies can
rise or fall on the respectability scale. Dickens went from
being a pulp writer of his day, writing longer to get paid
for more words, to being the exemplar of Victorian
literature. Chandler and Hammett (and a few more recent crime
writers, although they're still defined as crime writers,
rightly in my book, and that's not meant as an insult) went
from the pulps of their days to being compiled by the Library
of America. Or, as Mario pointed out, jazz has gone from its
birth in whorehouses to representing the US overseas and on
to being hailed by PBS. (By the way, Mario, are you saying
your library has pre-Chess recordings by Howlin' Wolf? I'm
impressed.)
Mark
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