Does High Brow Fantasy Exist...

[Bond]

When it comes to determining the quality of things I often find the "test of time" referred to. It is probably the most objective method but I do think it is a flawed test. It's like saying what is is. Some works might impress a majority of people but with less force than another work that may impress only a minority of people but with greater force leading to the creation of a cult following.

Also there are institutions that focus on certain aspects and adopt certain works as models. Once these institutions do so those works have a chance of being propagated for a longer time. Models from what I've seen value simplicity and clarity. One theme handled very well at a time. But in such a world multi-volume works are probably at a disadvantage. In that context are we to say the shorter book is greater than the longer more detailed one because it is more usable?

These questions are important. I find myself wondering sometimes if the perceived drop in the appreciation of books by the recent generation is due to the faulty representation of books in schools. If I was younger and had not the good fortune to start reading a few books I enjoyed thoroughly I might have dropped reading entirely if only given the ideas I was given later in high school about what makes a book good. How many kids left wondering after reading a book "If that was one of the 'best' books out there--and I hated it--why should I bother to read anything else?" Perhaps those ideas taught in high school ring more true for writers but I do not feel it is quite the same for readers. I think it is no coincidence that movies in the last century have become so prominent as a source of entertainment. They are marketed better for starters.

On a side note. Jane Austen I agree is the epitome of incessant Victorian female matchmaker chatter. I can imagine how from a writer's point of view she is skilled. It is surprising how she can give the effect of an indignant woman without resorting to phrases like "flea-brained lummox" or "cotton stuffed wool-head" in dialogue. I find she can be more trying than Jordan. Hmm...could it be Jordan looks to Austen as an inspiration?

[ezchaos]

The dictionary definiton of highbrow:

Of, relating to, or being highly cultured or intellectual.

So, as an example, most people would agree that Tolkien is highbrow and most of the D&D novels aren't. But, like anything, it all comes down to the reader's opinion, I guess.

I guess I'll shut my trap for now.

[kegasaurus]

Originally posted by Caldazar
Burn in hell all you literary snobs!

Yeah!

[Bardos]

Originally posted by Caldazar
Burn in hell all you literary snobs!

Eh?... Inviting us to your house again?

[Holbrook]

Actually.... I think folks here are acting a bit like "snobs" no offense meant.

A book is a book, and it is only personal opinions that make it "High Brow" or "Low Brow"

I have always thought it's not what you read that is important, but the fact that you "do" read that is....

I know so many children that don't even read a comic... *sigh*

I also think publishers try to shove work into little boxes......

My first book, (long may it rest in it's mantle of rejection letters) was rejected by one publisher because the language was too "ornate" for them. Though, they admitted it was a strong story, well thought out......

"shoved in a little box"......

[Shanoncia]

Actually.... I think folks here are acting a bit like "snobs" no offense meant.

HEY!

[SusF]

The reason I didn't describe "high brow" is because it is a pajorative term. No one really uses that term to describe the books they read. Caldezar used the term to describe books that someone else reads.

Why don't I describe what "high brow" is? Because it isn't a term applied to a fantasy genre. The term is meaningless as a genre category.

There IS a term called High Fantasy. That is fantasy with elves, dwarves, magic, etc. We usually call it Epic Fantasy these days, but it describes the same type of book. I suppose it sounds better to a lot of people. Tolkien, Jordan, and Salvatore are High Fantasy.

One could only HOPE, Bond, that Jordan looks to Jane Austen for inspiration. However I doubt that is the case. His characters might show a bit more depth if he did. Also, Austen is not a Victorian writer, she lived before the Victorian age, but I digress. Her novels are satire, not romance, though there is romance in them.

Yes, I think the test of time rule is used in order to be as objective as possible. It is hard to point to a book and say that's a classic, that will last. In 20 years no one might ever have heard of it.

Susan

[jfclark]

I don't consider "high-brow" to be a pejorative term. I'm proud to read high-brow fantasy novels, just as I'm happy to read other fantasies as well.

Have you read any of E.R. Eddison's fantasy books (sadly out of print in the U.S.)? They are *definitely* high-brow. In fact, I don't think anyone could deny it. And I love them.

[swampfaye]

"High Brow" is what people who think they are "fantasy experts" call their favorite novels. It has no basis on anything, not even education - since as many college professors dissagree about the genre as we do here. I do think the term (or the attitude) is used to keep newbies (and those "low brow" types) from coming onto the scene and making comments.

I recall a thread on Tolkien-Movies.com where one of the older members (older in terms of time spent at the board, not age) was slamming newbies for "drooling" over ELijah wood and telling them to get lost... LOTR wasn't for Droolers... he said - I think this is a common attitude - meant to try and circle the wagons... not let outsiders in. But it defeats the purpose of the media of writing and movies - which is to reach as many as possible.

I think there are several types of fantasy: dark fantasy, epic fantasy,romantic fantasy, pulp fantasy (your D&D type) and horror (which is mostly fantasy)

but I don't like when people who are "high brow" fantasy fans use it to beat other fans (who are probably new to the gnere) over the head and send them back into the juvinile fiction section.....

[Bond]

originally posted by SusF:
One could only HOPE, Bond, that Jordan looks to Jane Austen for inspiration. However I doubt that is the case. His characters might show a bit more depth if he did. Also, Austen is not a Victorian writer, she lived before the Victorian age, but I digress. Her novels are satire, not romance, though there is romance in them.

Well I only started to think of it when it occured to me how Jordan's writing of female character dialogue in The Fires of Heaven and later books start to drive me nuts. Although not in the same way Austen's writing does, the playful male-female conflict is clear and it is done mainly from a female point of view with sarcasm and more a function of power than romance. Not that I think it should be taken as an insightful look into the male-female dynamic mind you

I think I've made that mistake of referring to Austen as Victorian before. Better get it through my thick head she's not Many of the great books of that general time that I've read though seem to focus on domestic concerns that I get them all mixed up. I think I prefer those that display simpler narrative like Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield. Is it just me or is the plot of that book pretty much the same as those by Austen? You know dashing young gentleman takes the town by storm, puts the plain yet solid available bachelors in the shade, causes problems in his wake that in the end makes the heroine realize the frivolity of her previous thinking and causes her to recognize almost too late the virtue of the man she had really been in love with and who was there all that time? Was this a standard convention?

[jfclark]

Originally posted by swampfaye
"High Brow" is what people who think they are "fantasy experts" call their favorite novels. It has no basis on anything, not even education - since as many college professors dissagree about the genre as we do here. I do think the term (or the attitude) is used to keep newbies (and those "low brow" types) from coming onto the scene and making comments.

If I've ever talked about "high-brow" fantasy novels here, it's because I'm encouraging other people to read them, not because I believe they shouldn't be admitted to whatever inner circle you might believe that I think I occupy. So I think you're completely wrong when you say that "high-brow" types are trying to restrict access to discussion. The opposite is true, at when it comes to me.

There is value in encouraging people (including newbies) to read the classics, the challenging books, the "high-brow" books within the genre. True, there's no point in being condescending about it. But anti-intellectualism is at least as problematic for the genre as elitism.

By the way, college professors might disagree about the genre, but they'd never disagree that [insert High-Brow Fantasy Author here] has more literary merit than [insert Fat Fantasy Author here].

[Rob B]

I think this is a pretty good topic. And yes there are different levels of fantasy.

High brow, from what I can tell in this topic thus far, encompasses fantasy that can spill over into literature, Jonathan Carroll (Land of Laughs, Marriage of Sticks), John Crowley (Little, Big) Graham Joyce (The Tooth Fairy, Dark Sister) and may be part of the alternative fantasy group.

I don't particularly think its a bad thing to distinguish one from the other. Sometimes I'm in the mood for a quick read enjoyable, that won't challenge me too much, so I read Brooks.

The only thing I will disagree with is calling Brust light fantasy. His stuff is more than just adventure, though it is that. There is a lot of background in his world and characters and there is a good deal of morality that he tackles in his Taltos Novels.

I think 'High Fantasy' and 'Epic Fantasy' often cross over each other, but there is, in my mind, a difference. High fantasy I always thought of as taking place in a secondary or invented world (Middle-Earth, The Young Kingdoms, Overworld, Nar, Cimmeria, Shannara, etc.), Epic deals with world shaking events.

Am I a Fantasy Snob? Yes, so what. I know what I enjoy reading and I know what I think absolutely sucks, if that makes me a snob, then I am proud of it, BAY-BEE!

[ezchaos]

FF, it sounds like you're part of the vast, high brow fantasy conspiracy that's corrupting the fantasy world! How dare you?

[Llama]

>> The reason I didn't describe "high brow" is because it is a pajorative term. No one really uses that term to describe the books they read. Caldezar used the term to describe books that someone else reads.


I tend to agree. I also suspect the person who asked the original question was confusing "high-brow fantasy", which may have been a throwaway term someone used on another thread, with "high fantasy", which people do tend to think of as a subgenre.

[Llama]

>>But anti-intellectualism is at least as problematic for the genre as elitism.



Boy, I wish elitism was a problem. Anti-intellectualism (together with the sort of bargain basement relativism that leads people to equate Jordan with Shakespeare because they couldn't stomach the latter in high school while the former provided them with a couple of hours of escapist entertainment on a plane) is the bane of the genre.

On a separate matter, I find it interesting that when choosing who could be "high-brow fantasy" the choice seems to gravitate either to the dazzling prosists of yesteryear, like Eddison or Tolkien, or to contemporary slipstream artists like Carroll or Crowley. Whereas I would have thought it to refer to fantasists who are more firmly established in the literary canon, like Kafka or Calvino or Borges or Kobo Abe. Or even Angela Carter, for that matter.