Unravelling themes, symbolism and other such literary stuff

[direstraits]

With Palindrome Hannah I wanted to do something unique by incorporating palindromes throughout the entire novel (some of the character names, street addresses, expenditures, and, of course, the novel as a whole becoming a palindrome) but did so in a subtle way, so that the reader would not be annoyed by palindromes in general.

This is the part I find interesting. You said that the incorporation of these elements in a story or a novel is what differentiates 'great literature from the mediocre.' Yet you consciously made sure you didn't put in 'too much.'

Even Stephen King has themes, like his Carrie, whose theme is blood, yet he is not considered very much talented. He sure has his fair share of symbols... yet he isn't considered by critics to have high literary value. What then are good themes, symbols, elements and what are the bad ones?

Also, what are the things that casual readers should look for in a novel of any stature? How can a reader identify them, and go 'Ah, watch out for red'?

ds

 

[novella]

Hi ds,

I see you are right-side up again and looking very studious. I hope that's a good sign.

The art of using referential elements in writing is more than just sticking a symbol in here and there, or even throughout a work. The 'greatness' of a work depends on how the entire piece holds together.

Take Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The story, as a whole, is metaphorical, for one thing. There are references and allusions on every page, in every scene, probably in every paragraph, and most of them are particular to Lewis Carroll and his times. Some are political, some are cultural, some are personal. It's impossible to separate the intentional from the incidental.

The Caucus Race, for instance, is overtly political. But what does each runner represent? How about the pool of tears?

It's not as simple as looking out for a number of items from a list of important symbols. Besides, many times those items appear without reference to anything.

As Freud said, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. (But the Empire State Building is always a phallic symbol of male-dominated capitalist hegemony!)

 

[Shade]

Even Stephen King has themes, like his Carrie, whose theme is blood, yet he is not considered very much talented. He sure has his fair share of symbols... yet he isn't considered by critics to have high literary value. What then are good themes, symbols, elements and what are the bad ones?

As novella says, I don't think it's a case of counting the symbols. Obvious symbolism itself would put me off. It's hard to prescribe what is needed because if we could do that, we'd all be writing classics - but it is possible to identify 'it' when it's present. All sorts of factors can enhance a book - structure (eg Patrick McGrath's Asylum, which takes place over the period of a year, with the climate reflecting the mood of the book at each stage), allegoryl (Animal Farm's 'fairy story' depiction of the eruption of Communism in Russia), or analogy (Lolita, said by some to parallel old Europe's 'rape' of America to refresh its cultural palate). Or many more.

I haven't read any Stephen King so all I can offer is what others I know have said about him (people, that is, who enjoy his books as entertainment but don't rate them as literature), which is that he can't write well, on a sentence level. For me a good book has to be written well on this level, whether this means witty or fluent or subtle or double-layered or poetic or just pleasing to the ear. It means no clichés or clumsy phrasing or lazy metaphors or anything like that. Maybe that's why King ain't got it.

 

[StillILearn]

ds, DeLillo's Underworld (more than 800 pages) is a good example of what you're talking about. The entire novel is about waste -- waste in every sense of the word.

"The more hazardous the waste, the deeper we tried to sink it. The word plutonium comes from Pluto, god of the dead and ruler of the underworld. They took him out to the marshes and wasted him as we say today, or used to say until it got changed to something else."

Come to think of it, in a sense, Cosmopolis might be said to be about the exact same subject... only, in this book, the theme is senseless self-destruction.

Having read three of his books, I may have had enough De Lillo to last me for a lifetime.

 

[direstraits]

I see you are right-side up again and looking very studious. I hope that's a good sign.

Hah!

Eyeglasses on a banana
and a wand to boot
Means without a doubt
he's up to no good!

And that didn't take me very long too. I'll give a signed copy of any book (yours, of course, not mine) for anyone who can tell me what the symbolism is in that poem.

The art of using referential elements in writing is more than just sticking a symbol in here and there, or even throughout a work. The 'greatness' of a work depends on how the entire piece holds together.

Yes, of course it isn't the number of references that count. I think we'll all agree a work of enduring beauty doesn't necessarily depend on a scorecard.

But I seriously doubt that people like King are just 'dumping' references into their works like one would pepper seeds in the soil - without careful planning and reasoning.

Shade, with your obviously profound reading skills, I'd suggest picking up a King book, read it and tell us what *you* really think. Wouldn't take you more than a couple of days (pick a thin one), and see if your statement on King still holds, or if others have really skewed your perception. I doubt it'd change much, but give it a try anyway. Personally I like him more as a writer than as a storyteller, and while I don't like all his books, there are certainly some that I'd say are pretty well written. He is guilty of some of the criteria you mentioned, but at the very least nobody I know who have read King says that he 'can't write well'.

And dear StillILearn, DeLillo sounds a little too lively and upbeat for my tastes. I think I'm gonna drown me in some Hogwarts goodness instead (after Saramago's Blindness, which is turning out to be blindingly (Aha! A simile!) good).

ds

 

[Shade]

Well I've got a huge pile of books-waiting-to-be-read, direstraits, but if you suggest a good one, I'll be happy to give him a go at some point.

 

[direstraits]

Well I've got a huge pile of books-waiting-to-be-read, direstraits, but if you suggest a good one, I'll be happy to give him a go at some point.

Huge TBR you say?

Unfortunately, Shade, I'm a huge genre reader, and my best King thus far has been his Dark Tower. I've not gone all the way yet to the conclusion, but the first 3 books were pretty good. Double misfortune, as I think the latter books are better than the first one, and since I'm recommending you to read one, starting with Gunslinger wouldn't do King justice.

Ah, I know! Read his shorts. Get his Different Seasons, which collects stories such as Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, and The Body (Stand By Me the movie is based on this).

ds

 

[Shade]

OK ds, I've ordered Different Seasons from Amazon Marketplace for the princely sum of 14p!

 

[Shade]

...I'm not sure though that it will give me a flavour of the 'typical' King that comes in for criticism from literary types. From the reviews and comments it seems to be very atypical of his work, as of course he's best known for horror blockbusters, so these are what the majority of people judging his books will have read...

 

[direstraits]

That was princely!

Now, since you don't mind buying to try, there's this chap who's bloody good, writes novels with all the stuff we've been talking about (good themes, symbolism like you wouldn't believe!), and there may be an uncommon creature tucked in a corner here and the use of magic there, and his name is Guy Gavriel Kay...



ds

 

[direstraits]

...I'm not sure though that it will give me a flavour of the 'typical' King that comes in for criticism from literary types. From the reviews and comments it seems to be very atypical of his work, as of course he's best known for horror blockbusters, so these are what the majority of people judging his books will have read...

Don't worry about that. It's his writing we're talking about here, not his stories, and for 14p I'd say it's hard to argue if you've found a good read (or not!).

He writes roughly the same way for this horror stories too, and he doesn't scare me.

ds

 

[StillILearn]

I thought On Writing was his best book. Also, it's as autobiographical as can be, and funny?

The Shining is classic King. And Misery. But The Dark Tower series seems to be his most beloved. I can't wait to hear what you have to say, Shade.

ds! I thought for a moment there you said, "Eat his shorts."

And, lastly, ds -- DeLillo -- upbeat? I don't think so.

 

[novella]

I've never read any negative criticism of King's writing ability. I think he's generally considered a massively talented, fluent, and funny writer (even by literary types).

 

[sirmyk]

I have read all of King's work (a fricken motherload!) and I would say that aproximately half of his work could be considered Literary, and the other half mainstream (maybe it's more like 1/3 vs. 2/3). And yes, the Dark Tower series does rock yellow banana! Although, I think it's a fustercluck of genres. I was going to post something in response regarding "counting symbols" or "symbol placement" but the above few posts stated everything on my mind.

 

[direstraits]

Uhm... StillILearn, I thought On Writing was his worst. Sorry, but if there ever was a book that reeks of cashing in on his popularity, this is the one. If it wasn't for his retelling of his accident (which was very nicely done), and the short story winning entry at the end, I'd have eaten the book. His thoughts and lessons on writing seemed a little too haphazard, like a clumsily cobbled-together collection of essays. Like he wasn't even serious.

And I was kidding about DeLillo, Still!

 

[novella]

novella: I'm not convinced that Brave New World and Never Let Me Go would have much to say to each other. BNW is firmly in the whither-society mould, like Nineteen Eighty Four, a novel of social interest (and in my view much more fun than Orwell); Ishiguro's novel, although it takes a future dystopia as its springboard, is really much more about individual lives and how we each cope with mortality. At least that's my take.

I was thinking about the common themes of manufacturing life for practical reasons and what the implications of that are for the individual, both of which are at the heart of BNW and Never Let Me Go and are pretty relevant today. Also, I think that there's an interesting contrast in Huxley's rather clear moral high ground and Ishiguro's (more modern?) softness and fuzziness on the issue.

In a way, Ishiguro takes the quandary one step further, i.e., how much control over the individual is good for society, and what does 'good for society' mean? There's also that distinct tang of the 'English' futuristic about them, which -- as an American --- I see as a societal acceptance of overtly misguided authority and an individual subversion of authority.

But I've only read an excerpt of Never Let Me Go. I read When We Were Orphans, which was on similar cultural turf. So, I may be off base. Maybe when I've read both I will have better thoughts on this.

(apologies for off=topicness, but as we have diverged into Stephen King, too, I won't feel so bad.)

 

[StillILearn]

. Maybe when I've read both I will have better thoughts on this.

And I will have to reread Brave New World. I think I read it when it was new, and Aldous and I were both taking LSD.

 

[Shade]

Now, since you don't mind buying to try, there's this chap ... and his name is Guy Gavriel Kay...

Now let's not go nuts!

 

[Sitaram]

I just now stumbled across this thread while doing a SEARCH on CLASSIC to see where I should post this link to various classics (including Plato's Republic).

http://classics.mit.edu/

I would like to return to this thread, read it carefully, and post some more.

I am very interested in symbolism and deconstructing works.

It was in my Sophomore year of high school that I had for my Literature class a graduate of Yale, David Baumgartner. He is retired now. He was the very first to open my eyes to the possibility that literature my possibly be "psychoanalyzed", and that there might be something quite subtle going on, either through the conscious effort of the author, or through as an expression of the author's subconscious. It was a very exciting year for me. Fiction was transformed into something completely new and different.

Attending the St. John's "great books" program for four years intensified my desire to analyze and deconstruct.

Paul Vallery wrote an essay about one of Pascal's Pensees (Meditations), calling it "the perfect poem", because it's form and structure imitated the notion which it expressed:

Le silence eternel de ces espaces infinies m’effraie.

The eternal silence of these infinite spaces terrifies me.

Vallery pointed out that the m'effraie, (the I or self), is out side of the eternal silence and the infinite spaces. It is this "outsideness", the exile, isolation, that is frightening to the self.

It is Vallery who said, "A poem is never finished, only abandoned."

 

[direstraits]

Ah, it's alive once more!

Sitaram - say you just started reading a new book - any work of fiction. What would you look for in terms of symbolism and themes? Do you try to read between the lines all the time, or do you just wing it, soak it in and enjoy, and let the themes come to you as you read?

My contention is that some of the tougher works of fiction has layers upon layers of meanings and subtleties that only those who have been trained to wean them out would be able to enjoy them. Mere mortals can only hope to get what scraps of double meaning that gets flicked off the table by the author, intentionally or not.

How then, can the mere mortal readers among us pick up the nuances of literary fiction?


ds