Disciplines like literature, history, and philosophy give us an approximation of contemporary public consciousness: what’s going on in people’s heads at that moment in time, which in turn informs the critical reception and commentary on subsequent works in those disciplines. It’s cyclical. Title A shows you something you’ve never seen before, then Title B comes out and copies it completely. Suddenly it isn’t so special anymore and your standards have risen. But any particularly groundbreaking or unconventional work is still fundamentally a product of what that came before it. If I read The Great Gatsby in 2018, the story would still hold up because of its rich thematic substance that can be reconstrued and analyzed in a thousand different ways for a thousand different audiences with little dissonance caused by the era it was written in being so far removed from the time we live in today. But I find Fitzgerald’s writing style and use of figurative language to be incredibly distracting and obnoxious, not by any fault of the novel itself but rather because my interpretation of the work is firmly rooted in the context of Gatsby as required reading for a high-school freshman.
Do you know what symbolism is? Well take a look at this giant sentinel of a billboard with glaring ever-present eyeballs that keep watch over this desolate, ash-covered wasteland. How do we represent Gatsby’s longing for Daisy without having him say “I long for Daisy”? How about a literal beacon flashing in the night that’s always visible but just out of his reach.
Pass. Don’t even get me started on the alliteration. But my contempt is solely driven by the familiarity of the material: I’ve seen this before, it’s not impressive like it was the first time, show me something different. And that’s the central reasoning that drives any kind of change in culture and the work that people are producing. We want new and different, but new and different are concepts intrinsically dependent on the old and familiar. You can use literary devices in interesting and unexpected ways, but without my experience with Gatsby I might fight those devices to be too avant-garde or esoteric. So how do you strike that balance of delivering something fresh and original that adheres to tried-and-true storytelling techniques without becoming a slave to those conventions and without being blatantly contrarian? I don’t have the answers, I’m just a student.
I think this is a really interesting paradox you’ve pointed out. I didn’t ever think about this in the way that you do, and when you lay it all out it makes sense. We’re trapped in a paradox because we base our new opinions on old concepts, and if you trace them back to their roots you might find the beginnings of human society. In some of the science classes I took the professor would say, “these are theories, and theories cannot be proven or disproven.” Or something along those lines. I always looked at theories like stepping stones, whether right or wrong, it would prove to be useful, even if its only usefulness is disproving itself. That’s the way I look at classical literature, like a stepping stone, or a means to an end. Whatever end it is, you’re right, we’re just students.
I like how you touch on the fact that most novels use the same literary devices over and over in the same patterns. In each genre there are series of set plot points that are used over and over because they have been proven successful with readers. The reason they are seen over and over again is because they sell, though as a reader they begin to become mundane and normal, causing readers to become bored. Like you said with the Great Gatsby “show me something different”.
I think your concept how literature can be the same is very interesting. At times, I agree. Some books, even movies, can be guessed so easily what the story line would be about. And then one original movie comes out and shocks us all, but then another one of the same kind premieres and bases its concept from that one original movie. Does it make that one original movie no longer really original? Do we only see this in movies and fiction stories, or biographies too? Does this affect what you read and how you choose to read? All the books that we have been told to admire, the classics, we all read and are clearly aware of. What book from our generation can really do that?
I really enjoy your style of writing and like what you had to say.
I find this take to be particularly interesting to Fun Home because of its unique nature. Part of what it has going for it in terms of intrigue is that it is in a peculiar format – a graphic novel. Perhaps this look of intrigue upon such a format will diminish with time, like Gatsby’s metaphorical style has for you. It’s curious to think about how people will view something like Fun Home when it’s 50 years old, rather than just a few.
Great conversation here. What I’m thinking about is the comfort that comes with recognition in reading. So, yes, fresh and original can be very stunning. But sometimes fresh and original seems to me like it’s a trick. One thing that I look for in reading is the sense of recognition I get in reading about someone or something that connects with something that I’ve experienced.