Define "great."
Monday, June 22, 2009 at 10:16AM "The real Brahms…is nothing more than a sentimental voluptuary…the most wanton of composers…his wantonness is that of a great baby…rather tiresomely addicted to dressing himself up as Handel or Beethoven and making a prolonged and intolerable noise.” —George Bernard Shaw, in The World, 21 June 1893
“The final business of art is not with ‘impressions’….The man who can convey an impression of what he has heard is listened to only until that other man comes who has both the impression and the knowledge. We want not ‘impressionists’ but ‘expressionists,’ men who can say what they mean because they know what they have heard. In art we want the same. We want…still more that the artist should be at pains to give us of his knowledge, and we want not always the scratches and blotches and misty suggestions of the ‘impressionist’ drawings…” —Unsigned Review: “The Impressionists and the ‘Values’ of Nature,” in Artist, 1 May 1883
“[In Moby Dick,] the idea of a connected and collected story has obviously visited and abandoned its writer again and again in the course of composition. The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed. Our author must be henceforth numbered in the company of the incorrigibles who occasionally tantalize us with indications of genius, while they constantly summon us to endure monstrosities, carelessnesses, and other such harassing manifestations of bad taste as daring or disordered ingenuity can devise....” —Henry F. Chorley, in London Athenaeum, October 25 1851
Lately I’ve been reading a lot of conversations about the quest to write the Great Mormon Novel. Will there ever be one? If so, will it be literary fiction? Will it be speculative fiction, which, as I wrote here, is a genre in which LDS writers feel especially at home? Or will it defy categorization, as great art often does until the critics and marketers catch up?
The first quote at the top of this post comes from the book The Lexicon of Musical Invective, by Nicholas Slonimsky, which presents scathing reviews of every significant classical music composer from Beethoven onward—all written by prominent reviewers who were the composers’ contemporaries. Chopin, Debussy, Gershwin, and many others whom we now revere as geniuses were often held in utter contempt by arbiters of taste of their day (note: this makes for highly entertaining reading).
As all three quotes above show (and the emphases are mine), this critical short-sightedness is not limited to reviews of music. Often the consuming public needs the perspective that the passage of time affords to recognize artistic genius, whatever the medium.
When Orson Whitney called upon the shades of Milton and Shakespeare to spur his people on to greatness, those worthies had already been dead for 200 years. He wielded their names with authority. History had already given them the stamp of ultimate approval: greatness.
Today, more writers than ever are creating the best stories they possibly can and getting published in one form or another. Is it possible to identify true artistic genius when a work is comparatively new, or do we need to let it age for a while? What are we to do in the meantime? How do you define “great” when it comes to art that is being produced in our lifetime?
Personally, I’m not sure I’m worried about “great” right now. As far as books go, what I want is a thumping good read with characters who feel true and complex, plots that that arc in satisfying fashion, and stories that are imbued with what I call “surprising inevitability.” By this I mean that I can’t necessarily predict what will happen (or, more importantly, how it will happen). But when I reach the last page, I’ll know that the story had to turn out in just this way and no other. (As it happens, this is precisely the kind of books I’m trying to write.)
I’ve read two books recently that exactly fit these criteria. Bound on Earth, by Angela Hallstrom, caught my attention when it won the Whitney Award for Best Novel by a New Author this year. Judges, I concur. Bound on Earth is a series of interconnected narratives told by characters who feel real and familiar. Hallstrom’s writing is graceful and spare, and her expositional judgment is keen. Highly recommended.
I gather as I scan the reviews that the press has not been kind to Shannon Hale’s The Actor and the Housewife. I, however, liked this book very much. Pregnant LDS mother Becky Jack meets her favorite movie star under highly unlikely circumstances. Said star finds himself drawn to Becky and her quirky charm, and the two become best friends. Yes, the premise is a fantastic one, but story feels true and believable. I easily identified and sympathized with the main character and her family. The book's chatty, confessional style served as a skillful counterpoint to what is ultimately a tale of heartbreak. I literally laughed (many, many times) and cried (at least twice, with more wellings here and there) while reading it—and Ms. Hale, that doesn’t happen very often.
Another plug for both Hallstrom and Hale: they have written mainstream books with well-drawn and three-dimensional LDS protagonists. It’s one of my dearest dreams to see interesting and complex Mormon characters become as familiar to the general public as those of other faiths and cultures. These writers have made a great beginning toward realizing this dream; I hope to follow in their footsteps someday very soon.
