On Classics: Literature and Games…
There’s an interesting thread up at Twenty Sided about a guy who modified a few Jane Austen books and submitted them to publishers in an attempt to show that publishers today wouldn’t recognize great literature if it was sitting in front of their faces.
As several people in that thread point out, this is a completely ridiculous (read: stupid) idea, and does nothing to show what he’s trying to prove. Instead, it shows what most of us who’ve been involved with books should already know:
1. Few publishers will look at proposals that don’t come from an agent.
2. Most publishers who see a blatant rip-off of a classic work will reject it.
2.a They’ll often use a canned letter to reject it, since they don’t really want to waste their time pointing out the obvious fact that both of you know (that you’re just ripping off someone else’s work).
2.b If they don’t use a canned letter, they probably just throw it away.
3. Most publishers are looking for certain types of books. If you submit a romance to a publisher that focuses on sci-fi, you’re not likely to get a bite, no matter how good the work is.
4. Getting a book published is hard.
Of course, any conversation about “classic literature” is going to involve some criticisms. Not everyone, it turns out, enjoys reading Bartleby the Scrivener or Pride and Prejudice. Honestly, though, that’s totally fine, and completely understandable.
I think that the problem is that it can be difficult to understand why a work is a great work, or why it’s part of the canon. The line that’s usually trotted out is that the great works of literature transcend time, and that the present universal truths.
Very impressive sounding, yeah?
Personally, I don’t think that’s the case. I think that it’s true of some works, probably. I think that some of the stories that are told do have compelling stories that transcend the time and place of their creation, but sometimes a great work is a great work because of context.
To use a particularly geeky comparison:
I think that there are some similarities between thinking about great works of literature and “classic” games. Video games. When we talk about classic games, we could be talking about everything from Pong to Pac-Man to Sonic the Hedgehog. Some of these are games that are classic because of how popular they were. Some of them are classic because they revolutionized some aspect of gaming. They’re important titles, but they’re not all important for the same reasons.
I think that we can roughly break classics into two groups. There are some classics that reach that status because they’re really great games, regardless of the times. They become classics by virtue of being really fun games. Even when they’re dated, the mechanics of the game and the controls are such that people still play them now.
The other group are games that are classics because of what they did for the industry or for gaming as a hobby. They’re considered classics because they changed the face of a genre, or introduced some important concept, or had a lasting impact on the games that came after them. They might not be that much fun to play now, but they’re still important for what they did.
Super Mario Brothers 3 is a perfect example of the former. Kids who’ve never even seen a Nintendo Entertainment System play SMB3, and love it, because the gameplay is fantastic. It’s a fun game, even now. Sure, it looks a little rough around the edges, but it’s still a blast to play.
Pole Position, on the other hand, is more like the latter. Pole Position helped shape the define what a racing game could be, and the effects are still felt today, but, as a game, Pole Position isn’t really that much fun anymore. It’s not just that the graphics are primative, it doesn’t offer the rich gameplay that people expect from a racing game, and the controls just aren’t that good.
That’s not to say that everyone loves SMB3 or that nobody still plays Pole Position. I’m sure that there are plenty of people who still love playing Pole Position, but I think that it takes a certain type of person; maybe someone who grew up playing it, or someone with a deep love and appreciation for racing games.
That’s because you’re going to have to work more and do more research to understand why people appreciate Pole Position, and not everyone wants to or enjoys that kind of investment. Sometimes people just want to throw a game in and play it. If they don’t have a strong attachment to Pole Position, they may not be inclined to dedicate the time to “get it”.
I think that’s the true for books (and movies, for that matter). In order to really appreciate some of the classics, you really have to work for it. You have to be willing to invest time into understanding why this particular book was important, or what effect it had on the literary world.
It doesn’t mean that old books (or classic games) are crap- it just means that the person who loves those books is looking for something different from the person who prefers more modern literature.
October 12th, 2007 at 4:37 pm
I haven’t read the rest of the article yet, but I just wanted to say Wuthering Heights can suck my meat stick.
October 16th, 2007 at 10:40 pm
I hated Wuthering Heights so much that I chose to not write the paper on it and get a zero for that assignment (in 11th grade).
But otherwise, I usually came to like most of the classic literature I was forced to read in school. Or at least appreciate the genius/cleverness in the writing.
Like Roy said, (paraphrasing here) the classics might not be much fun now, but they’re still important for what they did.
I don’t pick up the old stuff on my own though. I enjoyed analyzing it with a group of people, and the more difficult books were made easier by being able to rant about them with classmates.