# Were novels ever really a great art form? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 27, 2016, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516 "2016-06-27T13:52:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/21 "2016-06-27T15:46:23Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Filmmakers? Right. They have some hope. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/22 "2016-06-27T15:51:04Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Isn’t Lin-Manual Miranda about as famous as any playwright in American history? Is that the Hamilton person? First, no way. Guys like Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams were treated (still are?) as great playwrights. That category of fame just doesn’t exist for playwrights now. I have heard a lot about Hamilton but not about the writer. And fame seems quite fleeting even for those who write hit shows. I saw Avenue Q a few months ago, even looked up the writers on Wiki. One has been more successful than the other, but I don’t remember their names, and I bet few people do. The musical world hasn’t seemed to have birthed a big brand-name writer/composer since Weber’s era. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/23 "2016-06-27T15:54:09Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Educate me on what you mean by “underlying symmetry.” I always say “symmetry” because the first time I noticed it for myself was with The English Patient, where the two female leads are mirror images of each other: the blonde and the dark, the infertile and the fertile, the dry and the wet. I mapped out the characters’ journeys and it looked like a Rohrschach picture. But “symmetry” works because lots of books beginning in the 20th century use it. Proust’s A La Recherch du Temps Perdu is a nice example of non-binary symmetry: each volume follows a number of strings which are gathered up at the end, repeated, and made to connect. Or Life of Pi, where at the end you’re given a choice: believe the story happened as the narrator told it, or believe that the narrative was a complicated metaphor for what actually happened. Mirroring, again, in a way that I’ve never seen in an 18th or 19th century novel (and I’m mostly limited to knowledge of British novels from that time period, fwiw). The 20th century also saw the beginning of voice in narrative, which was largely missing before that. Sure, Dickens played with it at the Veneering’s wedding near the beginning of Our Mutual Friend, and lots of authors, like Scott and George Eliot, used dialect, but by and large voice is a modern invention. When a Bronte sister or Thackeray writes a first-person narrative, the voice is the author’s own. Mary Webb, on the other hand, became Prue in Precious Bane, as many other modern authors have become their narrators. Then there is atmosphere in novels. Here I might get myself in trouble: isn’t there atmosphere in Wuthering Heights, for example, or in Jane Eyre? Ye-es … but it relies on the setting and the characters to produce it. Something different happened in the 20th century whereby an author could create a whole attitude for a specific novel that isn’t used in the author’s other novels, just by the way he chose to write. The Cider House Rules is painted in gentle glazes and pastels, for example; it reads like an impressionist painting. Whereas A Prayer for Owen Meany feels like watching bubbles of colored oil rise in water. You know there are parts of the narrative missing; you know the author will get back to them; you just don’t know when or why. Or Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. A commentary on Indian social caste? Yep. Does the lush, dreamlike quality of the narration make that pill go down easier? You bet. > [@](#): > > I would ask you this: What is the last novel to have had cultural impact and still be considered a work of art today? _To Kill a Mockingbird_ (1960) comes to mind, though I’m not religiously wed to that. I would call that a decline, or a significant symptom thereof. Like others in this thread, I’m dismissing your criteria for an artistic novel as having (1) deep cultural saturation and (2) profound cultural significance. I’m more aesthetic when it comes to art, though it’s nice when it’s bundled with cultural significance. You challenged me to name some more recent novels that match To Kill A Mockingbird, and I just can’t. The significance of that book–the precise rightness of what it says and the time it was released–are hard to parallel. But what about The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)? What about Fight Club (1996)? Both of those suffer as stories, maybe, because (in my opinion) the authors were so excited about the setup that they forgot to write a satisfactory ending, but they’re both works of art and socially relevant, maybe more now than when they were first published. ---
**Author:** ![Dinsdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/97f17d/32.png) [@Dinsdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dinsdale)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/24 "2016-06-27T15:55:49Z")
Don’t know that I’m able to discuss/debate with you, as I don’t have a clear understanding of what _I_ consider art - and even less idea what you consider it. I don’t understand this at all: > [@](#): > > Things like painting, sculpture, architecture, poetry, music. For the most part, art is not fundamentally entertaining in the way a TV show is, though it certainly can be intellectually stimulating and enjoyable. I mean, a painting on the wall can be either good art or bad art, but no matter what it is, it can’t really be dismissed as “cheap entertainment,” you know? (Note: I am not saying that all novels are cheap entertainment.) You seem to consider poetry worthy of the designation “art”, but not novels? I find that curious. Do you draw similar distinctions between the various visual arts? Painting but not drawing? Oils but not watercolors? Representational but not abstract? I’m also confused by your apparent opinion as to the relevance of popular acceptance. Are you saying novels that are popular cannot be art, but classical paintings - which were sought out and valued when painted - are? I guess I’m having a hard time understanding someone saying nothing ever written by Graham Greene, Thomas Hardy, Don DeLillo, Walker Percy, Stephen Faulkner - I could go on and on - qualifies as art - let alone “great” or “true” art. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 4:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/25 "2016-06-27T16:09:43Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Is that the Hamilton person? First, no way. Guys like Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams were treated (still are?) as great playwrights. That category of fame just doesn’t exist for playwrights now. I have heard a lot about Hamilton but not about the writer. Well, that’s a start. Who knew about Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams? How large a segment of the population considered them great? Did they become great by being taught in schools later? Can you only be great if you are serious and not popular? What about Miller’s marriage to Marilyn Monroe? Don’t you think that might have helped his fame a bit? Aren’t you judging contemporary fame by your own ignorance of a person who has been all over every media? Aren’t you judging all contemporary art by your personal feelings even though you claim to know what the society feels? ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/26 "2016-06-27T17:02:57Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Obviously, the novel as a form produced many valuable works. In any case, I would say either my thesis is correct, or this is correct: The novel has had its run as a serious art form. Just like poetry. The canon is closed. An odd comment given that there is a strong movement these days to expand the canon. Nowadays, the canon includes people like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Anne Proulx, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Chabon, William Kennedy, Paul Coelho, and others. Meanwhile, people like John Bunyan and William Thackeray have been dropped. As for poetry, I doubt there’s an art form that could be considered more serious. It’s not _popular_, > [@](#): > > I’m not really sure any genre fiction written in the 20th century will be read 100 years from now beyond hobbyists in the particular genres. The same is true of any art form. How many plays from 1916 are being produced? How many movies from the same time have any audience? Art from the time is still in museums, but how many works do the general public know? And you can never predict which works will last and which won’t; again, look at Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth or Winston Churchill (the American). Critical and popular successes, but only a few have ever heard of them these days. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/27 "2016-06-27T18:04:45Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I would ask you this: What is the last novel to have had cultural impact and still be considered a work of art today? _To Kill a Mockingbird_ (1960) comes to mind, though I’m not religiously wed to that. I would call that a decline, or a significant symptom thereof. Questions like this are essentially always begging the question. Any recent work, by definition, can’t have had a long-standing effect. Some book that was published in the last five years may, in retrospect, turn out to be the most important work written in the 21st century. But we won’t know that until a hundred years have gone by and we can assess its place in our culture. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/28 "2016-06-27T18:09:10Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > Filmmakers? I once read (and unfortunately I can’t remember who wrote it) that the novel was the definitive art form of the nineteenth century and the film was the definitive art form of the twentieth century. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/29 "2016-06-27T18:25:13Z")
> [@](#): > > The novel is a successful entertainment medium in that it, by definition, contains (or is supposed to contain) a story interesting enough to hold the reader’s attention for several hundred pages. Yet that requirement is antithetical to the subtlety that true art requires. That is why no one reads literary fiction: it’s boring. It doesn’t have the BIG stories full of Voldemorts and vampires and teens dying of cancer but finding true love. … What do you mean by that? Are you suggesting novels aren’t great art if they’re not read by enough people? Or what? ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/30 "2016-06-27T19:04:54Z")
Hey, I appreciate your post and insights. And I would say to **Exapno Mapcase** , this is the kind of post with which I want to engage. You being the DA and demanding I justify the OP doesn’t appeal to me. I am looking for a collaborative discussion. > [@Sattua](#): > > I always say “symmetry” because the first time I noticed it for myself was with The English Patient, where the two female leads are mirror images of each other: the blonde and the dark, the infertile and the fertile, the dry and the wet. I mapped out the characters’ journeys and it looked like a Rohrschach picture. Makes sense, thanks! > [@](#): > > The 20th century also saw the beginning of voice in narrative, which was largely missing before that. Sure, Dickens played with it at the Veneering’s wedding near the beginning of Our Mutual Friend, and lots of authors, like Scott and George Eliot, used dialect, but by and large voice is a modern invention. When a Bronte sister or Thackeray writes a first-person narrative, the voice is the author’s own. Mary Webb, on the other hand, became Prue in Precious Bane, as many other modern authors have become their narrators. I hadn’t thought of this before. Yeah, you start to get this knowingn-ness, this meta-ness, that wasn’t there before. Dickens is always being Dickens, but more modern authors start to choose their personae. > [@](#): > > Then there is atmosphere in novels. Here I might get myself in trouble: isn’t there atmosphere in Wuthering Heights, for example, or in Jane Eyre? Ye-es … but it relies on the setting and the characters to produce it. Something different happened in the 20th century whereby an author could create a whole attitude for a specific novel that isn’t used in the author’s other novels, just by the way he chose to write. I hadn’t thought of this either… and it makes perfect sense. I think these _meta_ qualities can cut both ways. They do add to the art of the novel, but I think Dickens and Austen are beloved precisely because they are so good at prose and intelligent but not exactly _cerebral_ in their delivery. They offer a kind of refinement within unrefinement that can only be done in one era and not later. > [@](#): > > Like others in this thread, I’m dismissing your criteria for an artistic novel as having (1) deep cultural saturation and (2) profound cultural significance. I’m more aesthetic when it comes to art, though it’s nice when it’s bundled with cultural significance. Here’s the thing, tell me if you disagree: that which is not popular in its time or otherwise possessed of cultural impact (e.g., acknowledged as a masterpiece by the educated elite, for example) will not be a part of the canon in the future. People are going to be reading Keats 200 years from now. They will not be ready _any_ poetry written in the 1980s. Nothing was popular; nothing had an impact. The era will simply be written off. It will be like American theater in the 19th century. A big goose egg. Now that is not always fair, but that is how things seem to work. And, if anything, even artists who were popular in their own time tend to be forgotten, unjustifiably, if they don’t achieve “critical mass.” Example: Ben Jonson doesn’t have the brand power of Shakespeare. I think Jonson’s plays _Volpone_ and _The Alchemist_ are at Shakespeare’s level, easily, but those plays are rarely performed whereas even the crappiest of Shakespeare’s works is occasionally put on. > [@](#): > > You challenged me to name some more recent novels that match To Kill A Mockingbird, and I just can’t. The significance of that book–the precise rightness of what it says and the time it was released–are hard to parallel. And it was the end of an era in which literature and novelists were treated a certain hard-to-define way by the media and academia. > [@](#): > > But what about The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)? I actually read this at the time, or a couple years afterward, as a teenager. Yep, it got some media attention for its feminist premise… I’m not sure it was actually treated as a great novel, however, and is it so today? I had actually considered mentioning it as a kind of runner-up, as a “this is the best we can do since 1960.” My guess is that To Kill will be read in 2100 and Handmaid will be forgotten. > [@](#): > > What about Fight Club (1996)? This one’s tricky because the movie has become a cult film (though, I was surprised to learn, not all that successful when released in 1999; I saw it in the theater). It’s quite possible that movies will keep their original books “alive” in some sense long into the future. Chuck has a fan following, to be sure, but is he really treated as a great novelist? Not sure about that. I don’t know if Atwood is either. > [@](#): > > Both of those suffer as stories, maybe, because (in my opinion) the authors were so excited about the setup that they forgot to write a satisfactory ending, but they’re both works of art and socially relevant, maybe more now than when they were first published. I am certainly not dissing either book. Those are good examples of how big a book, or how important a book, can be these days. I’m not sure how they will fare in the future. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/31 "2016-06-27T19:18:53Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > An odd comment given that there is a strong movement these days to expand the canon. Nowadays, the canon includes people like Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Anne Proulx, Marilynne Robinson, Michael Chabon, William Kennedy, Paul Coelho, and others. Meanwhile, people like John Bunyan and William Thackeray have been dropped. And if you were to say those names to the wo/man on the street, how many would know whom you are talking about? Compare to Hemingway, Faulkner, etc. The names you mentioned are primarily respected by academia, but that type of canon over the years has grown more and more distant from even what your average educated, intelligent reader knows. I mean, MFA programs still pretend that current poets can and are relevant, since they need to sell their poetry programs. Same thing with novelists. > [@](#): > > As for poetry, I doubt there’s an art form that could be considered more serious. It’s not _popular_, Noooo, it isn’t. Yet, 40 years ago, Rod McKuen was massively popular, selling some 40 million poetry books. He was excoriated by academia and the media. > [@](#): > > The same is true of any art form. How many plays from 1916 are being produced? How many movies from the same time have any audience? Art from the time is still in museums, but how many works do the general public know? Well, if we look at the whole of the 19th century up until WWI, only three playwrights are considered any good at all: Shaw, Wilde, and Ibsen. There’s like not even any _debate_ about other candidates. I think a lot of art from that time is known: you have Picasso, Magritte, Duchamp, etc. > [@](#): > > And you can never predict which works will last and which won’t; again, look at Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth or Winston Churchill (the American). Critical and popular successes, but only a few have ever heard of them these days. We are not in total disagreement. I am saying that the popular and acclaimed of the time become the _candidates_ for ongoing attention in the future. Very, very few artists who did not achieve success in their lifetimes or soon thereafter will become famous. There are some exceptions. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/32 "2016-06-27T19:21:07Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Questions like this are essentially always begging the question. Any recent work, by definition, can’t have had a long-standing effect. Some book that was published in the last five years may, in retrospect, turn out to be the most important work written in the 21st century. But we won’t know that until a hundred years have gone by and we can assess its place in our culture. My theory is that the popular and acclaimed works of the time are the _candidates_ for future respect and renown. Thus, what you say is true, if we agree that nothing that is not famous today will be picked up and be famous 100 years from now. Again, I give 1980s poetry as an example. Nothing was famous. Nobody gave a shit. None of it will be considered important in 100 years. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/33 "2016-06-27T19:24:26Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > The vast majority of _all_ art forms are unsuccessful. There were millions of paintings, plays, sculptures, musical works, etc. that are completely forgotten today. I’d guess that less than one-tenth of 1% of all the artistic works created over time are still being considered great work today. And maybe 1% are known by experts in the field, but nowhere else. (Do you know the work of, say Johann Peter Saloman, for instance? Johann David Heinichen?). So this is a meaningless objection, since it can apply to anything. > > As for your definition of “true scotsman . . . Art,” it’s very limiting. Guernica is a great piece of art, and it’s anything but subtle. I’m not sure what “true art” even means. The best I can come up with is “lasting art,” where the work is remembered for years after it comes out. And even that is a bad definition of quality, since tastes change over time. No one cared much about van Gogh until after his death, for instance. I have [suggested](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=3320281&postcount=32) in the past that the proper axis on which to judge art is successful/unsuccessful, rather than some arbitrary “good” vs. “bad”, and that the success of a piece of art lies in how well it evokes the intended emotional response from its audience. Consequently, success is highly dependent on the audience. Art that succeeds with one audience may fail with another. Under my definition, whether something is art or not is unrelated to the form it takes, or the degree of its success, as long as it was created with aesthetic intent. As an extension to that, I argued that great art is art that transcends its context, and evokes an emotional response from audiences it was never meant for. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/34 "2016-06-27T19:25:54Z")
I’m asking questions for two reasons. First, what you stated in your OP is too murky to even discuss. On its surface, its utterly indefensible. But we can’t debate it until your clarify many, many words you are using. Second, we can’t know how to respond until we understand what your knowledge level is. If you are arguing the nonpermanence of the novel you have to justify that by reference to current literature, not to works written before you were born. Third, from your response to Sattua, it’s not clear what it is you want to debate. Do you want to discuss how the novel has changed over the years? That’s utterly different than what your OP said. I’m interested in engaging you because I spend hundreds of hours on the subject of what the public knew when. That means research into contemporary books, magazines, and newspapers trying to get a sense of how wide and deep events were known. It’s an extremely difficult subject. Your glib assertions that some plays or poets or novels or art were famous or not well known seem to be backed up by no facts or research. Why should we take them seriously? If you won’t engage with us at any level except to change the subject when we refute your claims what do \*we \*get out of the thread? OK, those are more questions. But how about meeting us halfway? ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/35 "2016-06-27T19:26:59Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Is that the Hamilton person? First, no way. Guys like Arthur Miller and Tennessee Williams were treated (still are?) as great playwrights. That category of fame just doesn’t exist for playwrights now. I have heard a lot about Hamilton but not about the writer. > > And fame seems quite fleeting even for those who write hit shows. I saw Avenue Q a few months ago, even looked up the writers on Wiki. One has been more successful than the other, but I don’t remember their names, and I bet few people do. The musical world hasn’t seemed to have birthed a big brand-name writer/composer since Weber’s era. This is incorrect LMMiranda has won a Pulitzer, a MacArthur genius grant, a bunch o’ Tony’s and has been featured a few times at the White House, profiled on all the news programs, etc. amongst groups who pay attention to this type of culture stuff, he is a huge name and one that will endure. And take into account the fact that his/Hamilton’s appeal is its crossover to hip-hop and other “non-musical-theater” groups and his popularity may be bigger than theirs on a relative basis. I tend to not participate in your Big Discussion threads for the reasons that **Exapno** articulated. Have fun with it, but it is based on a shaky premise at best. ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/36 "2016-06-27T19:39:55Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > Here’s the thing, tell me if you disagree: that which is not popular in its time or otherwise possessed of cultural impact (e.g., acknowledged as a masterpiece by the educated elite, for example) will not be a part of the canon in the future. Disagree. Sometimes an artist comes along at the wrong time, or lacks resources to have his work promoted during his life. Gold standard example: Van Gogh. > [@](#): > > Example: Ben Jonson doesn’t have the brand power of Shakespeare. I think Jonson’s plays _Volpone_ and _The Alchemist_ are at Shakespeare’s level, easily, but those plays are rarely performed whereas even the crappiest of Shakespeare’s works is occasionally put on. I’d say first, does that diminish the artistic merit of Ben Jonson’s plays? No. And I’d say second, the fact that we still know who he is and can still read his work all these centuries later is real popular success. He isn’t a failure, he just isn’t the stellar darling. > [@](#): > > My guess is that To Kill will be read in 2100 and Handmaid will be forgotten. My guess is that the course of history will determine this. As a barely-Gen-Xer born in 1980, I found it hard to understand what made Mockingbird so significant. I had to have that explained to me after-the-fact. I first read The Handmaid’s Tale, on the other hand, just four or five years ago. A lot of progress in women’s rights was being eroded, and America’s GOP was getting more Fundamentalist than ever. On a personal level, I had a new baby girl, was in my early thirties, and am my husband’s second wife. You bet that book scared the pants off me–and I see a possible future in which the book becomes more and more significant, not less. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/37 "2016-06-27T19:50:30Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > But we […] But how about meeting us halfway? Your use of “we” is really annoying. I’m having a conversation with people here, including people who disagree with me. Speak for yourself. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/38 "2016-06-27T19:57:37Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > This is incorrect LMMiranda has won a Pulitzer, a MacArthur genius grant, a bunch o’ Tony’s and has been featured a few times at the White House, profiled on all the news programs, etc. amongst groups who pay attention to this type of culture stuff, he is a huge name and one that will endure. And take into account the fact that his/Hamilton’s appeal is its crossover to hip-hop and other “non-musical-theater” groups and his popularity may be bigger than theirs on a relative basis. As for endurance, we shall see. I don’t have an opinion either way. I haven’t seen the show or heard the music but will acknowledge it is a big deal in pop culture right now. What I am saying is not personal about any particular artist. One trend “to rule them all” is the long tail, whereby even big deals aren’t as big as they used to be. An even in its heyday, Broadway was a pretty fickle mistress of fame, and even writers of shows that remain beloved can have middling fame. Frank Loesser is my favorite Broadway songwriter, but what percentage of he population know him by name? I doubt even 1%, even though people still love _Guys and Dolls_ and to a lesser extent _How to Succeed._ > [@](#): > > I tend to not participate in your Big Discussion threads for the reasons that **Exapno** articulated. Have fun with it, but it is based on a shaky premise at best. Rock on, man. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/39 "2016-06-27T20:12:03Z")
> [@Aeschines](#): > > I’m having a conversation with people here, No, you’re really not, but I’ll leave you to whoever has more patience than I do. ---
**Author:** ![Aeschines](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aeschines/32/16251_2.png) [@Aeschines](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aeschines)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2016, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516/40 "2016-06-27T20:14:13Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > Disagree. Sometimes an artist comes along at the wrong time, or lacks resources to have his work promoted during his life. Gold standard example: Van Gogh. I don’t agree that he is a good example, as he became famous immediately after death. He had connections to very famous artists (stayed and painted with Gauguin), and his brother was an art dealer. If Van Gogh had not committed suicide, he would have lived to see his own success within a couple years. > [@](#): > > I’d say first, does that diminish the artistic merit of Ben Jonson’s plays? No. And I’d say second, the fact that we still know who he is and can still read his work all these centuries later is real popular success. He isn’t a failure, he just isn’t the stellar darling. I am not saying that people who did not achieve success in their time were failures or that their works lacked artistic merit. Heck, I like a lot of stuff that was never popular in the first place. I am saying that it will not be included in the canon. You’re right, Ben is a success, but he _was_ extremely famous in his lifetime. I used him as an example to make the point that _even_ fame and genuine artistic accomplishment are not enough to have one’s works appreciated in the future. Jonson is basically known only to academics these days. > [@](#): > > My guess is that the course of history will determine this. We agree! > [@](#): > > As a barely-Gen-Xer born in 1980, I found it hard to understand what made Mockingbird so significant. I had to have that explained to me after-the-fact. I am not saying that I love every book in the canon or that the inclusion of everything is justified. Some of it is just inertia. > [@](#): > > I first read The Handmaid’s Tale, on the other hand, just four or five years ago. A lot of progress in women’s rights was being eroded, and America’s GOP was getting more Fundamentalist than ever. On a personal level, I had a new baby girl, was in my early thirties, and am my husband’s second wife. You bet that book scared the pants off me–and I see a possible future in which the book becomes more and more significant, not less. Well, good news: > **[Pro-choice victory: The Supreme Court strikes down Texas abortion law,...](https://www.salon.com/2016/06/27/pro_choice_victory_the_supreme_court_strikes_down_texas_abortion_law_further_shredding_the_religious_right/)** > > The Supreme Court handed feminists a robust victory, destroying the right's entire strategy to nix abortion rights Again, I am not making a judgment about Atwood’s book. I liked it well enough when I read it in the 1980s IIRC. It’s entirely possible it will be picked up for reverence in the future. That wouldn’t run counter to my thesis, however; it was at least a bestseller and got media attention in its time. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/were-novels-ever-really-a-great-art-form/758516.md?page=3)