[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original posting 23 March 2010

Writers Digest, June 2006, page 12 has a short article by Jack Clemens with the title, "Re-labeling Classic Lit." It raises the question what if the classics had been lumped into catchy pseudo-genres? They suggest a few:

Pip Lit: any tale of troubled ragamuffins, orphans and otherwise downtrodden yet spirited children. Includes Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Hard Times.

Leisure Lit: tales concerning the leisure classes, high society lifestyles, and the tensions arising therein. Includes The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James, and the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Stink Lit: books that reveal, in graphic detail, the underbelly of a particular locale, time period, or culture. Poverty, dyspepsia, and general squalor are common elements. Books include A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell.

Liz Lit: any form of literature created in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, especially poetry and works written for the stage. Includes the works of William Shakespeare and Christopher Marlowe.

Twit Lit: any novel in which the main character (or characters) are foolish, ill-advised, or excessively silly. Includes A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain.

Quip Lit: works that feature fine language, sharp wit and wicked humor, presented in lines that are easily quotable. Includes The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, and Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward.

Critter Lit: any story that centers on a lovable, possibly ill-fated animal. Also known as "Lassie lit" or "sob lit," based on this genre's tendency to make readers, especially children, weep inconsolably. Includes Lassie Come Home by Eric Knight, Old Yeller by Fred Gipson, Charlotte's Web by EB White, Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, and Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls.

Chin Lit: fiction written by and for exceptionally masculine personalities. Occasionally referred to as "swagger lit," this style of writing concerns stubborn, square-jawed men who struggle with, or destroy, themselves and their surroundings. Includes the works of Ernest Hemingway and Mickey Spillane.

Okay, that's the suggestions from Jack Clemens. We might argue a little about some of the characterizations -- I'm not so sure that these categories work all that well, but let's leave that aside. Instead, consider first of all how some of your favorite books might fit into these categories. Secondly, make up some categories of your own. What are the categories that enclose your favorites, or perhaps the categories that hold those books that you don't like?

For bonus points, go ahead and take either Jack's categories or your own and write a short story, a scene, or even a whole book in that genre! Hey, if Charles Dickens could do it, you can too, right?
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original Posting 14 Jan 2010

An easy one for the weekend. Take one or more literary folks -- Shakespeare, Milton, Papa Hemingway, whoever you pick. Now, assume that they are living now, and are looking at the wonderful world of wriitng as we know it -- publishers pulling their hair out, blogs and other online outlets running rampant, the Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest looking at 10,000 submissions in a month, videogames, movies and all that jazz.

What would they do? Would Shakespeare post his sonnets in a blog? Would Leaves of Grass be a podcast? How about the music video Inferno by Dante?

Go ahead and dream. How would the masters of olde deal with the media of today and tomorrow?

You might even want to give us some examples of what happens when literary luminaries hit the modern stage?

Write!
[identity profile] mbarker.livejournal.com
Original posting 1 Dec 2009

The e-mail newsletter from Penguin books includes a short bit about their recommendation for the 10 essential Classics. Being curious, I went to check out what they thought were essential Classics. Here's their list:
  1. The Inferno by Dante Alighieri
  2. Walden by Henry David Thoreau
  3. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
  4. Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
  5. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
  6. Hamlet by William Shakespeare
  7. The Odyssey by Homer
  8. Pride & Prejudice by Jane Austen
  9. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
  10. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
http://www.us.penguingroup.com/static/pages/features/tenessentialclassics/index.html

Actually, I seem to have numbered them backwards -- the last shall be first and the first shall be last, a countdown instead of a count up?

It's an interesting list. Exploring hell, living by yourself, dysfunctional family relations, fantasy, whale hunting, the play's the thing..., search for a golden fleece, a romance or two, and a couple of drifters in the Great Depression. More or less?

What do you think about Classics? Do you read them? Do you remember being forced to read them in school? If you had to pick out a list of five or 10 top books that you recommend people read -- in particular, the writers gathered here on the list -- what would they be?

Or perhaps you'd prefer to make a list of five books in your genre? The Classics of science fiction -- that's harder than I really want to work right now. Dune by Frank Herbert? Maybe the Lensmen series by E.E. Smith? Heinlein? Ender's Game by Card? Drat, that's four, and there are so many good ones still to choose from.

Oh, well. Classics? What do we learn from the classics for our own writing?

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