What exactly does "subliteracy" mean?

[Leaper]

I was reading a brief brief interview in Newsweek with someone whose name I've forgotten - all I remember is that he's a very old writer or professor of literature. The point is, his looks and his answers to the questions given make him sound very, VERY traditional and "old school" when it comes to literature.

Anyway, one of his answers decries the Harry Potter books as a clear sign of the world slipping into "subliteracy." What exactly does this term mean? I can tell it's an insult, but what is it saying?

[friedo]

Seems to me it means just what it sounds like -- less than full literacy. He's saying that if you like Harry Potter books, you are obviously a fool who's unable to appreciate real novels (like the unpublished ones he has surely written.)

The dude might be literate but he sure doesn't know history; trash novels have been wildly popular ever since the medium was invented. A hundred years ago, this guy's grandfather was saying the exact same things about those absurd Sherlock Holmes stories -- and now they're classics.

[eleanorigby]

Originally Posted by Leaper

I was reading a brief brief interview in Newsweek with someone whose name I've forgotten - all I remember is that he's a very old writer or professor of literature. The point is, his looks and his answers to the questions given make him sound very, VERY traditional and "old school" when it comes to literature.

Anyway, one of his answers decries the Harry Potter books as a clear sign of the world slipping into "subliteracy." What exactly does this term mean? I can tell it's an insult, but what is it saying?

It's Harold Bloom. He wrote Hero with a Thousand Faces --a study of the monomyth in fiction and literature around the world. He is also probably the world's (western world) foremost lit critic, for what that's worth.

Coming from Hal, I would say it means a type of literacy that is functional and even competent, but not fluid or cognizant of greater cultural issues, mores and historical aspects of Great Literature.* In other words, overwhelming popularity does not a classic make. Or something like that.





*I would agree with him that HP is NOT Great Lit, but I would also say that his point is irrelevant. It is not up to us to decide what lies in future canons; that is up to the folks in the future. I would argue that HP does belong in the canon of Great Children's Lit, NOT due to the merits of Rowling's authorship, but because of the phenomenon that HP has become. As a way to get some kid's to read-HP is without equal at present. That surely must count for something.

[Exapno Mapcase]

I didn't see this particular article but I've read very similar opinions from Bloom before. He keeps comparing HP to the canon of children's literature without ever once saying if anything being written today for children could ever qualify. If he thinks there is nothing or he just hasn't bothered to read today's works, then his opinion on the subject doesn't amount to much.

OTOH, huge amounts of popular literature - today and every day since the invention of the rotary press that made mass popular culture possible in the 19th century - has been subliterate and aimed at subliterate readers. Of course this is true. Heck, half the people on this board are subliterate as readers and posters.

That has never prevented a certain proportion of popular literature from being truly excellent and from outliving the "high" literature it was competing against.

[Cabbage]

Originally Posted by eleanorigby

It's Harold Bloom. He wrote Hero with a Thousand Faces --a study of the monomyth in fiction and literature around the world.

Actually, that was by Joseph Campbell. Harold Bloom wrote The Book of J, among others.

[dangermom]

Well, Bloom is a pretty cranky guy (I like cranky people, though), but I would not put HP on the list of Great Children's Literature either. It's in the middle. And it is great at getting kids to read, sort of a gateway drug, like pot. I frequently give good books to kids who need a fix while they wait for the next one, so I can often sneak in something better.

We are actually in the middle of a wonderful period in children's lit--great, amazing stuff is being written. A lot of dreck and unoriginal imitative fantasy is being written too; the market is flooded with new children's books. (Has anyone read, for example, Here there be dragons? Gah.)

[lissener]

I personally think HP is pretty badly written, too. But if it gets kids reading--if it's a gateway drug, in other words--it has huge value. I doubt Bloom read Finnegans Wake in rompers.

[mobo85]

They were asking Bloom what his favorite books were and what books he would read to his children. In response to the latter, he said something to the effect that in 100 years, Lewis Carroll's Alice books will still be around while Harry Potter will languish in the trash.

[Raguleader]

Originally Posted by mobo85

They were asking Bloom what his favorite books were and what books he would read to his children. In response to the latter, he said something to the effect that in 100 years, Lewis Carroll's Alice books will still be around while Harry Potter will languish in the trash.

True, but in this day and age, who has actually read Alice In Wonderland or Through The Looking Glass? Especially with that Disney movie you can watch instead?

What I'm kinda curious about is, 100 years from now, what will gaming critics think of Half Life and Marathon and System Shock? Wonderful classic games which revolutionized storytelling, or in the same category as Pong and Contra?

[Wendell Wagner]

I read that short interview with Harold Bloom. I would just ignore it, since I don't think even he knows what he means by "subliteracy." The Harry Potter books are overrated in my opinion. They're not a bad series by any means, but they are barely among the top 20 English-language children's fantasy series in my opinion. So what? Second-rate literature doesn't threaten first-rate literature, even if it's popular second-rate literature. The great books are still there and still in print and still reasonably popular.

[Wendell Wagner]

Raguleader writes:

> True, but in this day and age, who has actually read Alice In Wonderland or
> Through The Looking Glass? Especially with that Disney movie you can watch
> instead?

You know, I get really tired of this "Oh, nobody reads today" nonsense. (Yes, I realize you were partly trying to be funny.) The Alice books are extremely popular. I tried to find out just how high they are on Amazon's popularity index, but then I realized that there are dozens of editions of them available. In any case, many people have read these books.

[Moirai]

I prefer this definition of literacy- reading for pleasure.

If you use that definition, then HP is great. Hell, my 5 & 7 year olds are walking around with all sorts of books in their hands constantly now, having been fired up about reading by a series of kids books featuring Captain Underpants as a superhero.

Whatever gets kids to love reading, is a good thing. We have all read bad fiction, and most of us escaped unharmed.

[eleanorigby]

Originally Posted by Cabbage

Actually, that was by Joseph Campbell. Harold Bloom wrote The Book of J, among others.

Crap-you're right. Thank you. Never was good with names.....


I agree with those who have stated that it's irrelevant if HP is Literature or just a good read or just a gateway/not so good read.

I really don't know how many kids are actually reading Thru the Looking Glass. It seems to be a book one is familiar with, but perhaps has not read--like Treasure Island or Ivanhoe. I just took a KidLit course for library school--the older folks in the program (40 and up) had mostly read all of these (whether voluntarily or for homework was not made clear), but those under had not. Can't really extrapolate to everyone with this, but it does give one food for thought.

I read that interview with Bloom--he seemed (to me) to be expressing that somewhat prevalent attitude of "if a whole lot of people like it, then it must be shite." Which is aggravating as hell. As mentioned upthread--how much children's lit is this guy reading today? Or ever?

(re the Finnegan's Wake snark--I kid you not, but I have a prof now who likes to tell us lowly peons how her Daddy read her Hemingway for bedtime stories at age 5. I so wanted to ask her--which one was it? The Bridge Over San Luis Rey or For Whom the Bell Tolls? Pompous ass).

[Thudlow Boink]

Originally Posted by eleanorigby

Crap-you're right. Thank you. Never was good with names.....


(re the Finnegan's Wake snark--I kid you not, but I have a prof now who likes to tell us lowly peons how her Daddy read her Hemingway for bedtime stories at age 5. I so wanted to ask her--which one was it? The Bridge Over San Luis Rey or For Whom the Bell Tolls? Pompous ass).

It's a good thing you didn't: the prof would have pointed out that TBOSLR is by Thornton Wilder.

[Exapno Mapcase]

Originally Posted by Thudlow Boink

It's a good thing you didn't: the prof would have pointed out that TBOSLR is by Thornton Wilder.

Hey, leave her alone. She said she's not good with names. Look at how she spells Eleanor Rigby!

[kung fu lola]

HP might surprise you - there is at least one reference to relatively obscure Classical mythology that is very cleverly hidden. (When the owl Hermes flies past Argus Filch to land on a bust of Io)

One of my best friends has a Master's Degree in English Literature and he notices every single one of those things in the books.

Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's crap.

[Raguleader]

Originally Posted by eleanorigby

I really don't know how many kids are actually reading Thru the Looking Glass. It seems to be a book one is familiar with, but perhaps has not read--like Treasure Island or Ivanhoe. I just took a KidLit course for library school--the older folks in the program (40 and up) had mostly read all of these (whether voluntarily or for homework was not made clear), but those under had not. Can't really extrapolate to everyone with this, but it does give one food for thought.

Actually, I've read Treasure Island, and Alice In Wonderland, but not Ivanhoe or Through the Looking Glass. I started with Through The Looking Glass, and got a few chapters into it, but I honestly lost interest in it, and the book was overdue at the library.

That said, I read just enough of it to get the references in "Detective Story" on The Animatrix.

Never really was all that interested in classic Children's Lit. When I was a kid, I was all about Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield, and Moonbird. I graduated into Tom Swift (the third series, I think.), and then got into Horatio Hornblower (thanks to the TV movies A&E showed) and Tom Swift (my school library had a couple of the 1st series books with the jetcoptors and such)

[eleanorigby]

Originally Posted by Exapno Mapcase

Hey, leave her alone. She said she's not good with names. Look at how she spells Eleanor Rigby!

<slinks away from thread, thoroughly chastened and will now claim English as my second language>




And this prof would certainly have called me on it. Whew! thank the gods for SDMB!


I like HP--I always will. I think Rowling owes a great debt to Nesbitt and Carroll and even Burnett (not Carol---Frances Hodgson), as well as Lewis and a few others.

I think Harold Bloom is an old curmudgeon, but the world needs old curmudgeons, if only to remind us of what came before.

[Aeschines]

Harold Bloom is a Shakespeare-fellating, highly educated ass whose own critical works will merely be footnotes at best in 100 years, IMO.

To eggheads like him, anyone who doesn't have a college professor's knowledge of "great lit" is "subliterate."

[Polycarp]

Originally Posted by kung fu lola

HP might surprise you - there is at least one reference to relatively obscure Classical mythology that is very cleverly hidden. (When the owl Hermes flies past Argus Filch to land on a bust of Io)

One of my best friends has a Master's Degree in English Literature and he notices every single one of those things in the books.

Just because something is popular doesn't mean it's crap.

Good point. Back in the time of Elizabeth I of England, they had a writer who used to load his popular dramas with all sorts of play-to-the-masses BS: the Elizabethan equivalent of double entendre dirty puns, old drunks who did humorously inane things, etc. He was popular in his day, but of course never wrote Great Lit'ra'cha like Aristophanes and Petronius did back in ancient times; all the scholars said so! Eventually, of course, he went back home to Stratford-upon-Avon and is not remembered by anyone except a few pedants today.

The measure of literature is not whether it's elitist or populist, but whether it says something perpetually true about the human condition along with whatever else it may be doing.

[eleanorigby]

Eh--I'll say this: Rowling's writing is fairly mundane, but her story is fantastic.

I think I may have heard of that Stratford guy....ya think Hal has, too?

[MisterThyristor]

Originally Posted by eleanorigby

I really don't know how many kids are actually reading Thru the Looking Glass. It seems to be a book one is familiar with, but perhaps has not read--like Treasure Island or Ivanhoe. I just took a KidLit course for library school--the older folks in the program (40 and up) had mostly read all of these (whether voluntarily or for homework was not made clear), but those under had not. Can't really extrapolate to everyone with this, but it does give one food for thought.

<other parts snipped>

What I find is that a lot of people think they have read books like Robinson Crusoe, when what they have really read are shortened children's versions or even comic book versions of the classics. For example, ask someone who says that they read Robinson Crusoe if they remember the chapter when he is fighting the wolves in the snow in the mountains between Spain and France -- most people will just look at you and say "Huh?".

I don't think that there's anything wrong with shortening the classics for children to get them interested, but it's nice to revisit them as a teen or adult, and find out all the things you missed.

I agree that anything like HP that gets kids reading is a good idea, whether it's a classic or not.

[Raguleader]

Just a suggestion for a possible alternate definition of "Subliterate"

You can read, but you only read books about submarines. 20,000 Leagues Beneath The Sea, Hunt For Red October, etc.

[eleanorigby]

Originally Posted by MisterThyristor

What I find is that a lot of people think they have read books like Robinson Crusoe, when what they have really read are shortened children's versions or even comic book versions of the classics. For example, ask someone who says that they read Robinson Crusoe if they remember the chapter when he is fighting the wolves in the snow in the mountains between Spain and France -- most people will just look at you and say "Huh?".

I don't think that there's anything wrong with shortening the classics for children to get them interested, but it's nice to revisit them as a teen or adult, and find out all the things you missed.

I agree that anything like HP that gets kids reading is a good idea, whether it's a classic or not.

Yup. That's what I meant. Although I must say that I had to read Pilgrim's Progress last fall for class, and I could have skipped it altogether. (oddly enough, I also had to read Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe, as well!)



And I had to read Little Lord Fauntleroy. Blech. (that has been counted a classic, but for no good reason, IMO).

Raguleader --I suggest we propose that to Hal; see what he has to say. I will add The Little Mermaid to the list.

[picunurse]

Originally Posted by lissener

I personally think HP is pretty badly written, too. But if it gets kids reading--if it's a gateway drug, in other words--it has huge value. I doubt Bloom read Finnegans Wake in rompers.

Did you? Sorry dear, I couldn't resist.