Brian Lumley's Sole Measure of Artistic Success
cl...@columbia-center.org
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Perhaps not very subtle, but I'm afraid it's true enough. (I suppose those
should be pound signs, but well....)
----------------------------------------
Dan Clore
mailto:cl...@columbia-center.org
The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
Welcome to the Waughters....
The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....
"Hziulquoigmnzhah" (hziulquo...@cykranosh.com) wrote:
> Iqhui dlosh odhqlonqh!
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ShadoeWolfe
cl...@columbia-center.org wrote:
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>
> Perhaps not very subtle, but I'm afraid it's true enough. (I suppose those
> should be pound signs, but well....)
>
> ----------------------------------------
> Dan Clore
> mailto:cl...@columbia-center.org
I'm sorry. I don't understand. What is a *respectable* measure of
artistic success? Do you have one? Or do you just go around cutting
everyone else down like others on this newsgroup? I asked this before in
a different way, but no one responded. The question of "what does make a
good writer?" Do you really think that professional writers spend their
time cranking out works for us to just give them away? Are they *our*
servents, to do what we say and want? Sounds almost a bit socialistic
there, what country are you from? Final question. What makes you get up
in the morning? The joy of contributing every waking hour to the good of
mankind for free? If so, I applaud you, but the rest of us have bills
to pay, so leave us alone. Thank you.
--
ShadoeWolfe
Official Brian Lumley Web Site (USA)
http://www.bright.net/~stryker/dm_lumley.html
--
ShadoeWolfe
Official Brian Lumley Web Site (USA)
http://www.bright.net/~stryker/dm_lumley.html
cl...@columbia-center.org
[posted with cc]
> I'm sorry. I don't understand. What is a *respectable* measure of
> artistic success? Do you have one?
This is a good question. Unfortunately, it isn't very easy to answer. Let
me recommend C.S. Lewis's _An Experiment in Criticism_. (Other references
here include Jurij Lotman's _The Structure of the Artistic Text_, a bit of
hardcore structuralism that attempts to explain the difference with a
generational model; and Stanislaw Lem's criticism, which is unfortunately
snobbish about the matter.) What it boils down to, is that there are two
different ways to read, and two different kinds of reader (this is much
too simplified, but it can't be helped). There are also two different
kinds of literary work. Call them "pulp" and "art" for convenience. Those
who read pulp generally just want to "kill time" in an entertaining way
(and obviously there is nothing wrong with that); those who read art have
deep emotional experiences, among the most important in their lives --
indeed, some have stated that they cannot bear to re-read certain works
too often because of this (e.g., Arthur Machen, in _Hieroglyphics_).
Another difference, is that pulp is usually "consumed" by a single
reading, whereas art gains profundity and power with each re-reading.
Another generalization is that pulp is usually formulaic, whereas each
work of art is unique in a strong sense.
There is no objective measure of success as art, respectable or not. The
best that can be done is to look to the opinions of those who read art.
There does seem to be a clear intersubjective consensus among them about
the quality of works. It is quite possible to put aside one's subjective
tastes and determine that something one does not personally care for is a
valuable, successful work of art. I have a distaste for Realism greater
than that most seem to have for fantasy, but when I've been forced to
read, say, Jane Austen or D.H. Lawrence, I can recognize the artistic
greatness of their works, even though I would hardly read them for
pleasure (yawn).
All of this should not be taken as pejorative of pulp -- there is
certainly nothing wrong with providing entertainment. But the difference
in value between a throw-away method of killing time, and something that
profoundly enriches one's life should be obvious.
To tell the truth, judging work like Lumley's as to whether it is
successful as art or not strikes me as more than a futile exercise; since
it is _not_ art, but pulp, one should simply stick to describing it as
such and judging how successful it as _as what it is_. (Personally, I've
found the Lumley that I've read quite successful on its own level.) There
is no point in deciding whether something is a good or bad dog, when it's
a _cat_.
As a Lit Crit type, what I find most fascinating about this distinction,
is the interplay between the two kinds of literature. There are works like
William Burroughs that take elements from pulp and create art out of them;
there are also the cases like Lovecraft's work, which can be read as
either pulp or art, as if they were written in two different codes at
once, to reveal different works to different readers depending on which
code they happen to employ.
I hope that all of this is clear; it's a difficult subject to describe at
all, let alone succinctly.
> Or do you just go around cutting
> everyone else down like others on this newsgroup?
Actually, I kept out of the Lumley thread as a waste of time. Now I'm in
it. Normally, I greatly prefer to praise and recommend works I consider
successful art (HPL, Clark Ashton Smith, Ligotti, Blackwood, Bierce,
McNaughton, Dick, R.A. Wilson, Lautréamont, Rochester, Borges, Kafka, Jack
Vance, Gene Wolfe, Ballard, William Burroughs, Artaud, Maturin, Richard
Burton, Shelley (either), Beckford, Harlan Ellison, Baudelaire, Crashaw,
the Pearl Poet, Lucian, Jarry, Apuleius, etc etc etc) , and simply ignore
others. In truth, there is usually a great deal of weeding done over time,
as pulp almost never survives more than a few decades, while art may
endure for millennia. -- If you've heard of it, and it's two thousand
years old, you know it isn't pulp. On the other hand, just try reading
some of the bestsellers from the turn of the century....
> I asked this before in
> a different way, but no one responded. The question of "what does make a
> good writer?" Do you really think that professional writers spend their
> time cranking out works for us to just give them away? Are they *our*
> servents, to do what we say and want? Sounds almost a bit socialistic
> there, what country are you from?
Why, the United Stated of America. -- Where else?
But to answer the question, I know for a fact (from their own statements)
that most writers (or would-be writers) share my own experience -- you
simply can't make any money writing art. Because of this, to support
themselves, most wind up spending too much time writing pulp for the
market to create what they really want to create, and what would have a
chance to endure and really contribute to the world. And even so, most of
them can't even break even churning out hackwork-for-hire series novels
and mass-media tie-ins. So it is the tyranny of the market that requires
writers to produce work that they don't even like themselves, and takes
away their time and ability to produce what they _do_ want to create. This
system really _does_ make them servants, even if there is the surface
veneer of "freedom of choice" between doing work you find worthless and
starving to death.
What I want is a system that _does_ allow writers to produce the creative
works that they truly wish to write, and which have a chance to contribute
something unique and irreproducible to the world, rather than cranking out
more indistinquishable mass-produced commodity-culture units to add to
the heap, only to be tossed out the next day to make room for more
corporate profits (and author impoverishment) as the consumers move on to
the "latest" thing. I believe that an anarchistic system could achieve
this, but that is a can of worms that I hardly want to open here. It would
truly be wonderful if there were some system that supported artists, and
if they _could_ afford to give out their creations for free.
And: I believe that, given the freedom, Lumley would choose to write
pretty much what he does already, though probably less of it. What I truly
do object to is his apparent belief that his books are "good", and that
critics who judge them as art and find them poor are wrong, just because
he's managed to sell a lot of them. That's not the case at all; pulp
usually reaches a mass audience, while art usually reaches a very small
audience. The works of, say, Agatha Christie have far outsold the works of
Dostoievskij, perhaps sold thousands of times as many or more, but it
would surely be fatuous to claim that they are therefore better art or
good art or even art at all.
> Final question. What makes you get up
> in the morning? The joy of contributing every waking hour to the good of
> mankind for free? If so, I applaud you, but the rest of us have bills
> to pay, so leave us alone. Thank you.
I hope it's clear by now that I don't disparage anyone for writing for
money; but I certainly do take issue with someone like Lumley, who seems
to have no conception of artistic success outside of a paycheck. The main
thrust of my comment was in the word "sole". To put it another way,
Lovecraft made much more money on his "revision" work, ghostwriting
uplifting pop psychology tripe and things of that nature, than he ever did
with his artistic work. Which would you rather read? -- "The Colour out of
Space", or something like this:
Just Boost and Make 'Er Go
Don't have a face so glum and long
You look like a baboon
But have a grin upon your chin
Like that upon the moon.
So with a smile meet ev'ry foe;
Just boost 'er up and make 'er go!
(Quoted in DeCamp's bio.)
----------------------------------------
Dan Clore
mailto:cl...@columbia-center.org
The Website of Lord Weÿrdgliffe
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html
Welcome to the Waughters....
The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned....
"Hziulquoigmnzhah" (hziulquo...@cykranosh.com) wrote:
> Iqhui dlosh odhqlonqh!
[if you don't send me a cc of your reply to this post, I might not see it]
Arbiter
Jordi Espunya wrote:
> I don't know Lumley's work (again, unfortunately) but I've read a lot
> of Stephen's King (unfortunately, again) and the only book I enjoyed
> was "Jerusalem's Lot" [the vampiric one]. Nothing else I've read from
> him has impresed me. But then, his books are devoured and buyed in
> obscenely large amounts, then movies based on them appear, tv-series,
> you name it... I don't like them, but I'm in minority (I'm a fool,
> then). Most of people also like things that actually slowly kill them,
> so maybe I'm not a fool... who knows?
No reason why being part of a minority should make you a fool. Unless,
of course, you stick to your position out of stubborn pride and
unwillingness to listen to others - and bear in mind, I don't know who
you are, so under no circumstances will I claim that you definitely
are pig-headed or small-minded.
>
> There was upon a time when an artist's fate was to starve till death,
> unless he found someone rich that payed his bills. S.K. could pay his
> bills 'cause he had a job in a university, as a teacher. Then he began
> to write best-sellers, to please his... wallet? I dunno.
>
Actually, in all of the short bios I've seen of King, (he's wrtiien on
the subject more than once), he's always said that his financial
position before selling Carrie was dire. No money, poor-paying job,
(laundromat? he seems to have gone through more than a few employers)
two kids, living in a trailer, etc etc. The one thing that sticks with
me is when he told the story about how he and his wife decided to have
their phone disconnected, rather than wait for the phone company to do
it for them. You have to be pretty desperate to make that kind of
decision.
I'd say that starving, or at least living very much on the short end,
is still an artistic tradition. It's just that some, unlike King,
don't even have the luck to make money while they're alive. Posthumous
success is all very well, but frankly, were it me, I'd rather have the
money while I'm breathing!
Cheers!
--
*****
Everybody's playing the game,
But nobody's rules are the same.
Nobody's on nobody's side . . .
*****
Jordi Espunya
Greetings mere mortal 8)
Arbiter <agau...@ibl.bm> said:
>No reason why being part of a minority should make you a fool. Unless,
But that's what George Orwell wrote in "1.984". A one man minority is
a fool. Or something like that, I don't have the exact quote in handy.
>Actually, in all of the short bios I've seen of King, (he's wrtiien on
>the subject more than once), he's always said that his financial
>position before selling Carrie was dire. No money, poor-paying job,
Maybe. When he wrote 'Jerusalem's Lot' he had a few bucks and a well
paid full-time work. At least, that's what sticks in my memory, I
haven't found the reference where I got this recall.
But that's not the point, and I was using SK as an example...
>I'd say that starving, or at least living very much on the short end,
>is still an artistic tradition. It's just that some, unlike King,
>don't even have the luck to make money while they're alive. Posthumous
>success is all very well, but frankly, were it me, I'd rather have the
>money while I'm breathing!
That's what I also think, and I thought it was clearly enough written.
I'm not against ANYONE making big money while doing what he likes.
That's Heaven on Earth.
But once someone is rich enough to write what he likes... would be the
right thing to do going on writing *only* books to get richer?
wouldn't be better to write anything to be remembered for? [again, SK
is just an example... let's think abstract here, please].
Jordi. Back to lurk!
---
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