Confession: I'm an elitist. Sometimes I wish it weren't true, but I'm not likely to change. I don't think I can. I'd like to think I had no choice in the matter, that the values I hold was foisted upon me by time and place. Somewhere along the line, I was taught to believe what I've come to value--that reading "realistic" literature was good for you, good for the soul.
I still believe that, and that belief makes me an elitist.
Case in point--News of the World. I liked the novel a ton--you'll note I didn't say love. My feelings for the novel ran right up to the sweet edges of love. I admired it greatly, thought it wonderful, in fact. If I had any criticism, it was likely in the shape of the narrative--it was, perhaps, just a bit too sweet. Maybe. Just a bit. Not much either. Just a little.
And maybe a bit too predictable. John Gardner used to say that the difference between great fiction and romance was razor-thin. For my tastes, News of the World didn't quite make it. Close, but no ringer.
I wouldn't have missed the movie for the world, but I got there early even though I knew I'd suffer because the previews--there were three--were all for upcoming action thrillers. You know--volume up high enough to make the floor shake, explosions about every four seconds, uninterrupted violence, not-to-be-believed car or boat or crotch rocket chases, a screen blown up with fireworks.
Tom Hanks or no Tom Hanks, News of the World doesn't stand a chance in competition with action movies, just not enough gusto, not enough spectacle, not enough buildings destroyed. News of the World is going nowhere. Just not enough action.
All of which translates down to a conclusion I can't help but draw. I'm an elitist--and, more to the point, I'm an old elitist.
The Los Angeles Review of Books offers some rescue work this week for someone like myself, a bit of an explanation of what I'm feeling--or at least a bit of an explanation of why I feel what I'm feeling.
An interview with Dana Gioia, the American poet and former Poet Laureate of the U. S. of A., Sam Weller talks about the place of Ray Bradbury in the story of American literature in the 20th century (you can read it here). Their contention is that Bradbury is an immensely important American writer because he wasn't an elitist. His work, they make clear, is terrific and greatly worthy of our attention, even though he is, this year, 100 years old. They claim his great achievement in writing was serving as a bridge between "literature"--and he produced it--and the masses. By using "genre literature" (i.e. fantasy, sci fi), Bradbury, a very serious writer, brought ordinary people into reading serious fiction.
In 1972, I took a job teaching English at a brand new high school in Phoenix, Arizona, a school where the English classrooms had no walls. The reigning educational theory of the time was "open classroom," which meant class size should be immediately adjustable. "Open classroom" used "team teaching."
My teammate couldn't have been more unlike a small-town Midwestern Dutch Calvinist like myself. She was Jewish, born and reared in New York City, a very, very strong teacher. "Team teaching" meant shared responsibilities in writing curriculum, and Helene was a sci fi buff who simply, by the power of her personality, wouldn't be denied.
Helene insisted on a six-week curriculum of sci fi, including Bradbury's Illustrated Man and Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land. She loved those novels--and others--and insisted the students would too. We were a team, Helene and me, and team members give in. I did, even though I didn't "love" the work. I thought they were lowbrow. I was an elitist. I believed in realism.
But the students loved them, and maybe because they did, I learned to tolerate them, even to like them--especially The Illustrated Man.
Truth be told, that whole experience didn't change me. I don't know that I've read another sci fi since, but I do remembering thinking Bradbury made teaching more fun than Thomas Hardy did.
About halfway through this long interview, Gioia tells a terrific story about Bradbury, not so much about him but about his legacy. Bradbury was wheelchair bound, and getting him into a university classroom building required using a back door to get to a useable elevator. You should read it for yourself--you'll find it after Sam Weller's question, "Do you have a favorite memory or moment with Bradbury?"
It's really worth your time. Take it from a repentant but hopeless elitist.
p. s. In the interest of truth, I need to say that my last collection of short stories--I'll be glad to send you one!--is titled Up the Hill: Folk Tales from the Grave. There isn't a real live human being in the book. They're all dead.
Sigh.
No comments:
Post a Comment