On the 10th of February, I attended a discussion at the House of Literature in Bergen, Norway. The discussion, titled “What is literary quality?”, was part of the LitFestBergen 2023 - a festival about literature! This year’s theme was rage, but I ended up only going to this one discussion during the festival. (Though the discussion on “The Iliad without anger” was very tempting, I didn’t have the time…)
The conversation was lead by the professor of Nordic Literature at Bergen University Eirik Vassenden, with ex-director of the Edinburgh International Book Festival and literary prize judge Nick Barley, Windham Campbell and Booker Prize judge Michael Kelleher, and director of Aké Arts and Books and publisher of Ouida Books (Nigeria) Lola Shoneyin as participants.
The theme of the discussion was very simple: what is literary quality? To deepen the question one can ask: what does one mean by the term “literary quality”? What or who decides what literary quality is? Are there different types of literary quality?
I took some quick notes on my phone while I sat in the audience (some so vague to me now that I nearly wonder what I meant), which I will try to reflect on in this post. Relying solely on memory and my notes, and some outside research, I won’t be able to convey the discussion verbatim, but I hope you enjoy anyway.
(Thumbnail credit: Photo by Noémi Macavei-Katócz on Unsplash)
What comes to mind?
The conversation started with Vassenden asking what comes to mind when one asks what literary quality is. The participants gave some answers I didn’t find surprising, for I had the exact same thoughts:
Longevity - a book that’s been read again and again throughout generations; perhaps a copy handed down like an heirloom, or a novel set like stone in the western school curriculum, or that you always see on those “100 books you should read before you die!” lists.
Profound experience - a book that is more than just words on a page, but something that moves you deeply and leaves you with a “what am I to do now?” feeling when you finish. Quotes that stick in your mind. A transportation to a whole different plane of existence.
Maintenance - similar to longevity, but more about the maintenance of the book in society. May include film, series or stage adaptations, new translations, new covers or print-runs, long-term social media presence by a fixed group, etc.
Feeling smarter - this may seem elitist, but the western literary canon or otherwise “classics” are often looked upon as a book that will leave you more intelligent than when you started. This can apply to non-fiction too, as it is often about teaching you something; school text books, hobby books, biographies, self-help, philosophy, etc. “This story is didactic” as an ideology, and therefore a mark of quality.
Quality as aspect - a different definition of quality is “a distinctive attribute or characteristic”. By this, the panel and I think not about how culturally significant or popular a book is, but what it contains or is in itself. Is it in an unusual narrative form? Is it a specific genre? Is it written in a made-up, or partly so, language (Finnegans Wake by James Joyce comes to mind)? Is it bound in an unorthodox, innovative way?
Technical quality - is the whole novel made up of one, run-on sentence? Is grammar particularly unimportant for the work? If so, does that mean it is automatically a “bad” book? Is it prose, poetry, purple prose, etc?
Quality is forever?
If you’ve studied literature, history, or social studies in school you might have heard the phrase “we need to look back in time when we read this” or “Time to put on your time-glasses”. History might repeat itself, but the social values and structure changes over time as new generations bring new ideas. The quality of a book might change over time and hold a different meaning to different generations of readers. Therefore, the persuasion of quality is vital in keeping a book alive in the reading public - a persuasion of why it’s worthy of a book prize, or a 5-star review, or to be kept in the school curriculum.
One of the participants in the discussion, Michael Kelleher if I remember correctly, talked for a moment about African-based writer Mongo Beti (also known as Eza Boto). I’ve forgotten how Kelleher came upon this writer - or, the community that praised this writer - but it was clear that Beti had a heavy, momentary or lasting, importance in his society. Writing about colonial realism of and in francophone colonies in Africa in the mid 1900s, Boti’s book was a huge success in his community - but perhaps not so much elsewhere. It was the first and the last time, Kelleher said, he heard of Boti and his writing. Does that mean the book is not of literary quality?
I would argue that no, Boti’s books do have literary quality, even if it is not in the Western literary canon. I argue that literary quality does not only exist in the white, western society. There are many books of great quality, that are classics, from China, Mexico, Brazil, Argentia, Japan, Africa, and the Middle East. In fact, the oldest story we know of - the Epic of Gilgamesh - comes from ancient Mesopotamia, which is modern day Iraq. There are so many books of great quality, so many classics, that originate and exist outside the western canon. We should also read those, and honor and recognize their quality.
How to convince others of quality?
One of the methods to persuade, I already briefly mentioned: book prizes. There are many of them out there, like the Pulitzer Prize, Booker Prize (who are now on Substack, even!) , Nobel Prize in Literature, British Book Awards, National Book Award, and many more. Prizes like these are a tool for recommendation, a stamp of quality in many readers’ eyes.
They work because the readers are used to this “seal of approval” holding the meaning of “this is a quality work. This is a book worth reading. You should read this next!”. It’s great PR for the author, and it can be life changing to have your book short- or long listed for one of these prizes - not to mention winning one! It can give you vast amounts of money, fame, and time. Time which you can use to create yet another, perhaps better book.
And so the cycle goes on.
Other ways to convince someone to read a book, is to give it a good review. “This is a 5-star read!” or “You simply must read this, you’ll love it!”. Many of us take to sites like Goodreads where one can read review upon review of almost every book in existence (or so it feels like). This is part of longevity, as I mentioned earlier. The book must continue to live, so I must successfully persuade others of its value.
What are critics’ own thoughts?
Vivian Gornick is an american literary critic, known for her re-reading of “everyone”. She has even written a book about it (kind of meta, no?). Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader is not a book about literary quality in the sense I’ve already talked about. Unfinished Business is more about the importance of re-reading, of coming back to books you’ve read long ago and see how you - not necessarily it - has changed.
Maybe you have experienced not finishing or liking a book during your first time reading it, but when you come back to it at a later time, it’s like you’re holding a completely different book in which grants a completely different experience?
“Responsible for every successful connection ever made between a book and a reader--no less than between people--is that deepest of all human mysteries, emotional readiness: upon which the shape of every life is vitally dependent. How morbidly circumstantial life can seem when we think of the apparent randomness with which we welcome or repel what will turn out to be--or what might have turned out to be--some of the most important relationships of our lives. How often have lifelong friends or lovers shuddered to think, 'If I had met you at any other time...' It's the same between a reader and a book that becomes an intimate you very nearly did not encounter with an open mind or a welcoming heart because you were not in the right mood; that is, in a state of readiness.”
- Vivian Gornick, Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader (2020)
American literary critic Harold Bloom has, too, written a book. This is his take on the western literary canon, in which he argues for the concept of the western canon by discussion 26 central authors. Reading through the names of these authors, there were only two I didn’t recognise: Pablo Neruda, and Fernando Pessoa. That is probably more on me and my non-existing familiarity with Chilean and Portuguese literature, than it is the unquestionable indicator that they should not be on the list.
Or is it? Does the western literary canon directly indicate literary quality? If so, why? Does it reflect our each and every value as a western (white) society, with each and every book on there being a literary masterpiece, with authors that could do no wrong?
In his The Western Canon, Bloom argues against what he calls the “school of resentment”, in which the likes of feminist literary criticism, Marxist literary criticism, Deconstructionists, New Historicism, and semioticians can be found. To Bloom, the “school of resentment” describes schools of literary criticism that found academic prominence in and after the 1970s, which he believes are preoccupied with political and social activism at the expense of aesthetic values within literature. Largely, Bloom criticises these schools because they want to add works to the western literary canon that come from minority groups “without taking aesthetic merit and/or influence over time” (aspects I’ve mentioned as coming to mind when discussing literary quality), or by taking away works that are canonically sexist, racist, anti-semitic, or otherwise offensive/biased in social values, and therefore holds no place in the western canon. In Bloom’s eyes, the “schools of resentment” are a threat to the western canon, and will lead to its eventual demise.
Philosopher Richard Rorty agrees with Bloom - to a degree. Rorty agrees that the schools of literary criticism Bloom identifies in the “schools of resentment”, by routinely using “subversive, oppositional discourse”, act as an attack on the western literary canon. However, he also notes that “this school deserves to be taken seriously - more seriously than Bloom’s trivialization of it as mere resentment”.
Who is the new critic?
The panel who sat before me and had this conversation certainly seem qualified (see what I did there;)?) to tell the audience what literary quality is and isn’t - two of them are book prize judges, after all. But is it really true that one can be qualified to dictate what books others should or shouldn’t read?
The panel themselves touched on this towards the end of the discussion, talking about how the roles of the literary critic - or gatekeeper, as some might call them - are changing with the influence of social media. They pointed out that, even though book prizes still hold a lot of influence in the publishing and reading world, social media is taking more and more over. If you have been on “booktok” or “booktube”, you might recognize what they mean by this. Or even if you’ve browsed a bookstore, you see hideous, un-peelable stickers like “as seen on TikTok” or “TikTok recommends” slapped on the covers in that glaring blue and magenta - often I see these stands full of books right by the entrance.
These “sides” of social media are specially made to recommend books to you specifically as the viewer; videos will pop up based on an algorithm that remembers what you’ve already watched and is therefore likely to be interested in again. Being on TikTok myself, I often see this split in two: those who like modern romances and fairly erotic (“spicy”) fantasy books, and those who like classics and the dark academia genre.
This is obviously not a holistic view of “booktok”, or “booktube”, but it’s what I have largely experienced. I personally fall into the latter category, as it fits to my personal taste. I get countless videos telling me to “read these if you liked ___”, or these are the “5 classics you must read this year”, or what it might be, most of which I save (though rarely look at again) because those books feel more guaranteed to be my cup of tea. It’s like a review in video format.
By changing who gets to be the curators of the modern reading public - who gets to share or recommend, criticise, open the community to others (or keep them out), and which authors gets to win popularity prizes - the situation changes. Many, though not all, book-influencers get paid for their work (as they should), perhaps not unlike how a critic writing for a newspaper would. There is a new generation of critics on the rise: social media content creators.
Some people don’t like the traditional literary critics because they see them as gatekeepers - someone who chooses what is worth reading or not, and therefore what books are readily available to the public as a whole. In my experience, I don’t see this same type on disaffection with online content creators. Maybe it’s because those who recommend books are often in the same age group as the viewer themselves and therefore feels more friendly, or it feels more casual if it’s in a shorter video format with pretty font titles and a on-theme visual aesthetic - as if the role of the critic no longer includes an air of authority? I don’t know. I wonder if there is a way to know.
What do you think? Please let me know in the comments below!
Thank you so much for reading this week’s post! If you liked it, please consider subscribing or updating to a paid subscription.
That is a great way to help this newsletter out, whether you pay or not! And while you’re at it, why not share with someone you’d think would like the post?
Thank you again for reading and for your support. It means a lot to me.
Love, Kode.
This was fascinating and I especially appreciate learning about Gornick's book -- I am a strong believer in what she calls emotional readiness when it comes to finding a book or letting one find you. I also am collecting thoughts about re-reading which accounts for a healthy percentage of the books I read each year. Some books invite a relationship that evolves over time.
A profound experience is definitely important to me, too, when it comes to what I deem a quality work. Especially when it comes to works outside the western canon, or I otherwise don't think would fit in the canon. And if the story is engaging or thought provoking in some way (intellectually, emotionally), and makes me actively want to keep reading