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Imagine if Danielle Steel or any other author who churned out entertainement books by the dozens became literature in a few hundred years. I'm pulling my hair out already (hope I don't offend anybody, but most airport literature doesn't appeal to me)!
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Heavens! I don't think anyone's suggesting this... But to do the opposite, ie, say "real literature must at no point have been available on the magazine rack at your local gas station" (where I must say I picked up a
very affordable copy of RoTK the other day [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] ) would rule out things like Shakespeare (although he was before gas stations).
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yes, [Shakespeare's] plays did have great public appeal when they came out, but I'm going to stick my neck out and say that it was as much, if not much more, for their entertainment value as for the people standing on the floor in the globe to go into the theatre and have all manners of catharsis and food for thought.
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How many of us loved Tolkien first for the deep literary themes and catharsis? It's quite possible to read good literature for its entertainment value without destroying its literary merit. In fact, I probably wouldn't read it if I didn't find it interesting... There are simply too many Russian names in Dostoevsky for me to tackle without the amazing storylines. Good literature should be interesting.
And as for someone pointing out Tolkien's inconsistent tone or other flaws, again, consider established classics, like Dostoevsky (I'm on a Russian novelist kick, just now). The Brothers Karamazov could hardly be called structurally tidy and sound. Classic? Beyond a shadow of a doubt.
So I have so second The Saucepan Man's assessment:
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looks to me to be a poor justification for intellectual snobbery.
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Sophia
[ April 15, 2003: Message edited by: Sophia the Thunder Mistress ]