Agreed absolutely. Elitism gives itself a bad name when it tries to dismiss entire categories of cultural artefact. What it should be about is championing the best of everything, wherever it comes from -- and I think there's a slow-but-sure move in that direction now (e.g. an Elastic Press book winning a major literary award).
I've become less tolerant towards mediocre books, particularly now I have less time to read than I used to. It's changed the way I review: these days, I don't want to write about books that do mediocre things with middling success; I want to tell people about great books that do interesting things. And, by being that bit more selective, I've read so many excellent books this year.
Did you see the brouhaha that came about when Adam Roberts took the Hugo shortlists to task for being -- as he saw them -- mediocre? He got accused of elitism by a number of people, and some didn't seem to like the idea of reading anything challenging. Which is fine, if that's what they want. But... all the best books I've read this year were challenging in their different ways, and enormous fun to read. There's no way I can be satisfied with a diet of entertaining-but-ordinary fiction after that.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-08-15 10:14 am (UTC)I've become less tolerant towards mediocre books, particularly now I have less time to read than I used to. It's changed the way I review: these days, I don't want to write about books that do mediocre things with middling success; I want to tell people about great books that do interesting things. And, by being that bit more selective, I've read so many excellent books this year.
Did you see the brouhaha that came about when Adam Roberts took the Hugo shortlists to task for being -- as he saw them -- mediocre? He got accused of elitism by a number of people, and some didn't seem to like the idea of reading anything challenging. Which is fine, if that's what they want. But... all the best books I've read this year were challenging in their different ways, and enormous fun to read. There's no way I can be satisfied with a diet of entertaining-but-ordinary fiction after that.