The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Arts & Entertainment => Topic started by: theinevitable on January 08, 2008, 06:17:58 am
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Here is a question. I thought of this when I was in Barnes and Noble looking at all the rows of books. It seems to me that all the good literature is in English. And then I thought, "no, that can't be right, obviously I just think that because I can only read English. Other languages must have just as many books written in them."
But... is that true? Is a French bookstore full of an equal number of French authors that they think are horribly important that I have never heard of? It seems impossible. At the same time, it's depressing to think all these other people are reading translated novels, where all the artfulness of the original language is lost.
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Apparently One-Hundred Years of Solitude (S. America somewhere) is supposed to be an amazing book. When I read it (in English) I hated it. I did enjoy The Seven Madmen, written by coked up Buenos Aires journalist Roberto Arlt. In fact, that book was awesome.
My Russian friend is always talking about how much better Russian novels are in Russian than in English. I don't really know, as I don't read Russian. Apparently they have a lot of ways to describe something in much higher detail than english speakers. It is his first language though, so. And, uh, are you really asking this? Think it through man, there are important writers and works from everywhere. That is what makes writing so awesome. One guy, who I am unsure of whether he wrote in his African language or not, Chinua Achebe from, well, from somewhere in Africa (kenya?Nigeria?)(also I am sure there are more African writers, just, you know that is who I have read), the Russians, South Americans (I specifically like Argentinians and Brazilians. Aren't your grandparents living in Argentina? They have amazing culture from what I understand. Also, despite dejavroom(?)s dislike, check out the tropicalia movement in Brazilian music. Caetano Veloso, Gilberto Gil, Os Mutanttes(muttanttes, muttantes?)), French, Germans, Italians. I haven't read too many things from Asia that don't deal with Buddhism or Confucianism, but lots of that stuff is like literature (very small sample size though).
I feel like you are being WAY TO fuck*ng ETHNOCENTRIC. Maybe that answered your question.
Basically, yes.
Re-reading your question; how many English authors do you think are important. I mean, in those rows of books there are shit tons of these: http://www.amazon.com/Cross-Heart-Hope-Gallagher-Girls/dp/1423100050/ref=pd_bbs_sr_5?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1199775840&sr=8-5
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no, what I am asking is not "do writers in other languages exist." What I am asking is, are there equal numbers of books published in other languages? In, say, a French bookstore, do they have 20 shelves all of French authors I mostly haven't heard of? I am asking a question, so I don't see how I am being ethnocentric in any way. Are you kidding?
There are two possibilities:
most of the great literature is written in English
or
there is a roughly equal amount of great literature written in a lot of different languages, the problem is that not enough of it gets translated.
both of these seem equally horrible and impossible to me.
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there is a roughly equal amount of great literature written in a lot of different languages, the problem is that not enough of it gets translated.
Basically, the good stuff probably gets translated. Unless everything that is published in english is great.
I am going to have to say yes to your second question, but that is an educated guess. Especially with the French.
I mean, okay, I really like Phillip K Dick, but do I think it is important enough to be translated? Maybe some of it. I am sure it all is. Are there French PKDs that have not been translated to English? Probably. But the really important ones will be translated. Is that what you are asking? Other stuff, Bukowski, would that even translate? Yes and no. So there is probably no reason to, but I am sure it is.
I mean, have you heard of the three authors I listed in the first post? because they are all translated.
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some of them.
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If one PKD is worth translating then it all is. All or nothing. A vast web of information that comes into clearer and clearer precision as more of the pieces are put together but is hazily visible from even one tiny chunk... much like a hologram.
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I think that's a truely fine question to ask.
I understand the question to be "Is English the accepted language of literature, world-wide?" It would appear that the answer is no.
It is, however, the accepted language of Air Traffic Controllers, even if the pilot is french, and the controller is french.
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See the problem is that writers don't understand the value of a standard form of communication the way air traffic controllers do.
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But... is that true? Is a French bookstore full of an equal number of French authors that they think are horribly important that I have never heard of?
Um, yes. Have you never visited another country?
On the other hand, maybe you should stay blissfully ignorant. I wouldn't wish on you the horrible feeling of frustration I have in a Japanese bookstore.
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I have visited other countries, but not their bookstores. It never occurred to me to check out an Italian or Dutch bookstore.
I checked in England, though, and yeah-- they had all these books I had never heard of. Crazy.
(um, kidding.)
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Well obviously there's going to be more literature in English than in most other languages, because so many more people have spoken English for so long. If you go into an Estonian Barnes & Noble say, there won't be ten shelves of romance novels by Estonian authors, and another ten shelves of Estonian science fiction. On the other hand, languages that a lot of people don't speak may well have a higher proportion of important and/or excellent literature. If you're an English writer, the odds of you equalling Chaucer, Shakespeare, Pope, Wordsworth, Austen, Wodehouse, etc. are so low that you'd might as well write that detective romance thriller about sassy time-travelling werewolves. Whereas if you're an aspiring young, let's say Romansh author, you probably actually have a fairly good chance of being the Byron or Trollope or Twain equivalent for your language, and so you might actually try to aim that much higher.
But to actually answer the original question, there is absolutely as much excellent literature in French/Spanish/German/Italian/Swedish/Polish/Russian/Chinese/Japanese/Persian as there is in English that you've never heard of.
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damn, that's what I was afraid of.
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damn, that's what I was afraid of.
There's plenty of time, man! You can read it!
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Ahhhhh! I just wrote a long, well thought out post, but my penis is broken and it somehow cause a total deletion!
Inev, I think maybe people are misinterpreting your question: of course you know there are libraries in Cambodia and bookstores in Japan, and it's sort of unnecessary for people to conclude that you didn't know this if they've read your posts at all.
You ask if there is literature in other places and other languages. That is an important question - we have to stop and think about what literature is here before we answer this one too swiftly with a "well duh, there's lots of books in other languages" type answer!
What literature is and how it's determined derives from Western theoretical practices - a piece of literature isn't just "a book" or "story" - the concept of a piece of writing being a work of literature derives from the hierarchical practice of determining a text's "value" and if it meets certain standards. This practice draws from various philosophers and theorists like Plato, Aristotle, Marx and right through to current critical theory and practice. While the act of making art is global and there's probably not a culture known that doesn't make some form of art, there isn't a substantial body of theory and analysis of art outside the Western one. The literary canon (i.e. that nonspecific ever-changing set of books that are the "greatest" or "most important") is traditionally made up of works by dead while men (as I think you're trying to allude to with your question) because the analysis of artistic aesthetic draws from a history that is primarily Western. When it comes to the French, they're part of Western culture and plenty of their writers are part of the literary canon: think Les Miserables, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Cyrano de Bergerac, or even L'Étranger (oh! The Stranger by Albert Camus! Read it!)- these stories are parallel to those written in English because they draw from the same system of valuation. Certain cultures value different works more or less depending on their own preferences: American scholars value Mark Twain more than the English do, some Canadian literary theorists worship Margaret Atwood while plenty of people outside Canada have no idea who she is. If you look at the actual work - you can read a book you've never heard of before by and author you've never heard of either and know if it's literature or not after having read enough books that you know are literature because all books within the category follow a certain set of standard aesthetic values.
If you turn to a non-Western country though, especially with work created before the country had been influenced by the West, the same parallels aren't there because the art was created outside of literary tradition - i.e. outside of Western tradition. This is not to say a piece of writing from before Western contact was made isn't "good" but that the valuation system we draw from doesn't work for it. Did a guy visiting Japan in 1918 have the right to see a Japanese Noh play and dismiss it as without merit because it didn't fit into the Aristotilian model of how a play should be structured? No, but it happened back then, it happened sixty years ago, and it even happens now. The scholarly measure of aesthetic value inescapably draws from a Western view of the world because that's where the study and theory was born and flourished. So if you're really asking "is there literature outside of the English language, then yes - there is. If what you're really asking is whether literature exists outside of the Western world, the answer is yes too, but only to the extent that the Westernized view of what makes good writting has spread to the point that non-Western artists regularly work toward creating work within a Western aesthetic frame work. Beyond that however, there is a large body of artists outside the Western world and even within it who work or have worked toward aesthetics outside this frame work, and it is only in the late 20th century and into this century that critics and theorists have really come to terms with the concept of aesthetic value existing outside the structure of the long history of Western theory and criticism. So, as far as I'm concerned "literature" as a concept and creative practice is Western - no matter who makes it, what country they're in and for what audience simply because the aesthetic draws from that framework.
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The reason english authors are translated into so many other languages is because there is a demand for those works. I am reasonably certain that if there was some amazing Dutch John Grisham or whatever, that there would be people who would see the money in translating it for english markets.
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The reason english authors are translated into so many other languages is because there is a demand for those works. I am reasonably certain that if there was some amazing Dutch John Grisham or whatever, that there would be people who would see the money in translating it for english markets.
It feels like there's a mistake there that demand equals value. There likely is an amazing Jorn Gvesham, but we wouldn't really know to even demand it, so his work won't be translated, and with out that, no demand for his work.
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That said, there are certainly works within other societies that have the importance of, say, Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice, as far as informing the cultural context in which people live. Many of them, like the Vedas for example, are religious in nature. Others such as the Chinese Classics aren't authored by a single person, but are sort of like the Bible in that they collectively describe an ethos. There are also epics like the Illiad or Beowulf such as The Tales of Genji, the Mahabharata, or the Romance of the Three Kingoms. Also, the Chinese have a tradition of lighter fiction such as Di Gong An.
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It feels like there's a mistake there that demand equals value. There likely is an amazing Jorn Gvesham, but we wouldn't really know to even demand it, so his work won't be translated, and with out that, no demand for his work.
Sei Shonagon isn't an author that leaps to the minds of most folk, but she wrote The Pillow Book in 1002 AD. Admittedly, most people have read it because of the movie...
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So, as far as I'm concerned "literature" as a concept and creative practice is Western - no matter who makes it, what country they're in and for what audience simply because the aesthetic draws from that framework.
I think the Chinese would disagree.
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See I think the thing is that inev thinks way more English works are important than actually are. Just because it is at barnes and noble doesn't mean it is good...
In all honesty, there are not That many hugely important novels.
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I mean, still, I started making a list of books I want to read, and I gave up. There are too many. I mean, I consider books which have influenced modern culture in significant ways to be worth reading, which is kind of what I do with music, too.
Which, incidentally, is something that I find myself really interested in-- the way different mediums are understood differently because of being processed through different senses. I used to get into really interesting discussions with this girl I was dating last year about the differences between visual art (which was her thing) and music. She said, for instance, that people have an easier time liking "weird" music than "weird" paintings. I, quite frankly, think it's quite the opposite, for the simple reason of duration. I can look at some crazy abstract painting and say "oh, that looks cool," but I don't know how long I could listen to John Cage for before I'd get bored or annoyed.
Then, you know, we started getting into like "what is the musical equivalent of abstract expressionism" or "what is the visual equivalent of jazz" and we realized that we were full of shit, and stopped. probably the best choice.
Also, I don't tell you often enough, Melanie, how much I love you. The love I have for you is deeper than any affection.
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some Canadian literary theorists worship Margaret Atwood while plenty of people outside Canada have no idea who she is.
I actually first heard about her because another author was bitching about some disparaging remarks she made about science fiction and fantasy, since her own work is clearly "speculative fiction."
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I believe I am pretty well-read and...
I've only heard of Atwood because she was name-checked in a Moxy Fruvous song.
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Well when I sorted our books I discovered that the SO has 2 or 3 of her books but I haven't read any yet. But man, Steven Erikson hates Margaret Atwood. Hates her to hell.
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oh, lord, she wrote The Handmaiden's Tale. I know so many people who love that book.
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oh, lord, she wrote The Handmaiden's Tale. I know so many people who love that book.
I just read it a few months ago. Very good, but not life-changing. I liked Oryx and Crake a little more.
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The Handmaid's Tale was okay, but it had one of the biggest cop-out endings I've seen in some time.
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I believe I am pretty well-read and...
I've only heard of Atwood because she was name-checked in a Moxy Fruvous song.
I had the same thought.
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I don't know how long I could listen to John Cage for before I'd get bored or annoyed.
Oh I don't know, I listened to about nine hours of 4' 33'' once before I felt the need to turn it off.
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Oh I don't know, I listened to about nine hours of 4' 33'' once before I felt the need to turn it off.
When will this end? oh! it's paused! ok... no... now it's paused. Now it's playing. Right?
I feel like it would be much better performed live.
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The best application of 4'33" I've ever seen was when it was included in a mixtape a friend of mine made, "by special request of (our mutual deaf friend)." I can't imagine a better use of the song than that.
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I've seen it performed live, in front of a bunch of high school students.
I think it took 4.33 seconds before the first fart noise came out.