Keith Alan Deutsch wrote:
> I think Moby Dick was a masterpiece when
> written, and is a masterpiece today---and I'm not
sure that there is another
> American work that has been written in the same
"form." By that, I mean that
> despite the fact that Moby Dick is generally
acknowledged as one of American
> literature's greatest achievements--I do not believe
that it served as a model for
> any tradition that grew up around it. That is, it
still does not fit into any
> "canon." (As I understand canon.)
This is not the canon I meant. I meant the canon that has
been put up by the academic circles and literary expertise
and not the canon that predetermines the books in it.
"Moby Dick" is in the canon because it fits the modernist
paradigm of literature (and now it seems to fit the
postmodern paradigm.. so it's a classic). And with modernist
paradigm I mean that there can be discontinuities in
storytelling, in character development, the book can contain
text examples of different genres, and so forth.
> And certainly Chandler and Hammett are part of the
fabric of American Popular
> culture. And because this is America, popular
culture has a way of becoming (often
> after the French analyze it to death intellectually)
comes back to us as "art" and
> for other reasons, our American popular culture
forms seem in time to emerge as part
> of our mainstream intellectual heritage. Look what
happened to Rock & Roll.
> Dylan's got honorary degrees from Princeton, one of
Frances highest artistic honors
> (forgot the name of the honor) etc., etc.
Yes, but being "part of mainstream intellectual heritage" is
different from being a masterpiece. I've been studying quite
closely the academic literature circles here in Finland and
have noticed that even though they like to think they know
popular culture, are interested in it, study it and no longer
think of it only as popular culture, they still know next to
nothing about it. They don't go seeing the Hollywood
blockbuster action movies, they don't listen to Madonna or
Britney Spears, they don't read paperback crime literature.
In Tampere university, where I studied, popular literature
was taken in as a part of the Master of Arts education
program. In the Romance section, there were books by Simone
de Beauvoir and Raphaele de Billetdoux, and not by Barbara
Cartland and Victoria Holt! So there was your popular
literature. (Now my friend, who knows these things and runs
the job, has put up a different list. Included are Elmore
Leonard, Donald Westlake, Hammett etc.) Bob Dylan and some of
the other sixties guys and girls are included in the
masterpieces canon, but is Little Richard there? Is Ramones
there? What about John Lee Hooker? Or Sex Pistols? These
popular culture things tend still to be regarded only as
sociologically interesting or as milestones, not *textual
masterpieces* (with "textual", I mean also the texture of
music, and I believe Ramones's
"Blitzkrieg Bop" is a masterpiece).
> I liked much of what you said, but I think you err
by implication when you say
> "they're still popular culture and not masterpieces.
I suggested that Chandler and
> Hammett probably each wrote "a masterpiece of
popular culture" and that American
> popular culture tends to become mainstream,
particularly after it is acclaimed by
> the rest of the world--that probably doesn't know
about or care whether Americans
> consider our own works mere popular entertainments,
or great artistic achievements.
I tried to imply that there are different canons for each
culture. Homer's Iliad and Pound's Cantos are masterpieces in
different one, "Farewell My Lovely" and "The Maltese Falcon"
are in different one. Each subculture (we are a subculture,
reading these books and commenting them on the e-mail list
and *making up a canon*) has a different canon of
masterpieces. The more extreme example could be the canon of
trash/camp film buffs. John Waters and Herschell Gordon Lewis
are directors of masterpieces back there, but not in any
other subculture.
William, try to bear with us. In this message I at least
mentioned couple hardboiled novels!
Juri
jurnum@utu.fi
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