So, lately I've been thinking about what makes a novel (or other work of fiction) "good." And, by extension, what makes a work fail to be "good."
Thinking about the way works are discussed in various times, places and settings, it seems like maybe there are a variety of criteria one might judge. Summing up my perception of those criteria...
Prose that is one or more of the following:
- Eloquent
- Clever
- Beautiful
- Entertaining
- Readable
- Erudite
- Etc.
- Entertaining
- Likable
- Deep
- Realistic
- Possessed of a notable growth across the course of the work
- Exhibiting a lesson to the reader
- Admirable
- Deplorable
- Etc.
- Instructive
- Educated
- Allegorical
- Filled with symbolism
- Possessing natural foreshadowing
- Neither too simple nor too complex
- Making a statement about humanity, the world, history, society, etc.
- Deemed "of value" (whatever that means)
- Etc.
Obviously, even those lists are filled with vagaries, redundancy, repetition and incompatibility. Which is partially a symptom of the fact that I don't often think about what makes a work approved of as "good" and partially because it's been a very long time since I took a literature course. 😅
Part of the reason I've been thinking about this is because I know that any and all academic criteria would say that Frankenstein is a better book than Dracula (which I read for Halloween) and yet I also know that no matter how many times the choice is put before me to read one of those two books, I would always pick Dracula because it's much more pleasant to read, in addition to being considerably more satisfying as a story.
But by extension of all this, there's the fact that I long ago abandoned any pretense of pursuing the idea of making my own writing "good" by these social standards...and I kind of wonder if that makes me somehow a weakling or quitter or something. Like, I have never written (and undoubtedly never will) anything I would want to share at a family reunion or tell former classmates about. Is that a failing on my part, or just a reflection of my innate sense of inner privacy?
Is anyone else ever plagued by these kinds of questions?
That's an interesting question to raise. First, I think that a book needs to have several of the qualities from each category to be "good." Secondly, I think that "good" has a number of possible interpretations. There's the set of literary qualities that may make a book become a "classic" or somehow more worthy of classroom discussion. But there's also the "that was a good read" concept, which focuses much more on the reader's enjoyment. And that's not always going to go with deep themes and the like, but IMO is just as valid and valuable.
ReplyDeleteI think its worth mentioning that when Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, she wasn't trying to write a great work of literature or even a good work of literature. She was just having some fun telling spooky stories with her friends. I suspect most of the supposedly "great" writers were doing much the same: just having fun. So don't worry much about what academia might think, or what your family or former classmates might think, or what anyone else might think. Write what you think would be fun.
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