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Topic:
SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
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Reverend_Duck
Registered:
Feb '05
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 3:42am
Subject:
SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
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For my English class today, we had been given homework to prepare a book report. I had read Shatterpoint, which was the second time I read a Star Wars novel for a school assignment. Now, my teacher argues that Star Wars is not "real," or "proper," literature, because according to her it is solely for entertainment. The books she thinks are suitable for school assignments are classics and modern books with more "serious" tones.
I don't agree with her, of course, but I need some arguments for the next time we discuss Star Wars and similar literature--arguments that validate Star Wars literature as real literature. So I thought you on the boards could help me.
Have you discussed the same thing with your teachers? What are your arguments in favor of Star Wars literature? Of course, if you think that Star Wars literature is indeed intended solely for entertainment compared to other books, write your opinions as well, if you want to--it could lead to some discussion.
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Excellence
Registered:
Jul '02
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 4:10am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
- Date Edited:
4/19/05 4:37am (2 edits total)
Edited By:
Excellence
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Now, my teacher argues that Star Wars is not "real," or "proper," literature, because according to her it is solely for entertainment.
She damn right, but you can't generalise an entire series. The Bantam boys had substance and actual storytelling to them. The Del Reyan is largely superficial. The chap is probably referring tot he movies, and why Natty's hair and makeup is picture perect even when rolling down sand dunes, pah.
However, most english teachers were brought up never to write certain sentences the way we do now; to think and speak in mindsets. What do those immalleable minds know? Further more, science fiction, a term coined as back as 1940, is still viewed disdainfully as a dorky concept; yet they'll dig in the soapy romance mags anyday.
Or the legal, medical and police dramas saturating TV when "reality" garbage like transgenderal dating is the "new fad".
Indeed, there's a wider world than how fast you can hand write three yr12 essays 40 mins each. Or analysing every sentance of a poem's stanza for mystical meaning. Poetry---ridiculous nonsense! that education systems call pieces of art. By Ragnos' holy breath, nobody's poetry can be less than your fellow's, your own, that you need to study so studiously a faceless person's under examination.
Anyone read Maestro? It was sithful of wet dreams and masterbat**ing and yep, we had to study it. That's what they called masterful writing.
You could call The Time Traveller possible literature. In a primative day and age, when all our fancy wording and technology was unknown then, the way you wrote books was dramatically different to now. That's why I'm enjoying Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula. His age when penning it and the society of that time necessitated you focus on the emotional and characterisation of your main player, not like Star Wars' obsession with X-wing dogfights and corny Allston humour attempt. Okay, so Time Traveller is a boring read, but whaffling on and on about a speculated society speaks to the imaginative depths good literature can be.
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Thrawn McEwok
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered:
May '00
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 4:26am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
- Date Edited:
4/19/05 4:45am (2 edits total)
Edited By:
Thrawn McEwok
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Well, the question is - what defines 'real' literature? The only all-embracing objection that I can see is that SW novels are 'unoriginal', in that they use/adapt already-established situations and characters...
The obvious defence is that Mallory, Chaucer and Shakespeare did exactly the same, but there's still a stigma - it's seen as 'hack-work'...
You could argue in reply that a 'used universe' brings with it demands and dynamics of its own, making it more interesting - compare it with the need/expectation for accuracy and/or mood in a historical novel...
Beyond that, of course, each novel should stand or fall on whether it's actually any good...
What else do you read, out of interest?
EDIT: there's also the objection that it's 'genre' writing, of course - not 'real' literature... 
But sci-fi (eg, Stanislaw Lem's Solaris), 'period' (eg, Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose), and fantasy (harder to distinguish from 'period' or 'sci-fi' - but South American magic realism is maybe a good place to start) are all currently legitimate idioms for 'serious' and 'credible' writers, including some who also write outside those particular boxes (Pynchon, Vonnegut and Roth spring to mind)... and (as Verne, Kafka, and Dumas show) they have been for quite some time...
Obviously, work written by an unarguably high-quality non-genre author for a contemporary franchise 'used-universe' is harder to find - Kingsley Amis's James Bond novel, Colonel Sun, comes to mind, but I've never read it, and it's generally thought to be not as hot as it might have been.
A specifically SF&F writer who's done great things with a franchise contract is John M. Ford, whose Star Trek novels, The Final Reflection and How Much For Just the Planet are one of the best things that mythos ever produced...
You can certainly play up the celluloid/prose demands of Star Wars - though maybe that's too 'un-literary'; I guess the question 'what are the unique potentials of a book' is more valid...
- The Imperial Ewok
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A/T = OTP  "To write one Solo twin as an angstbunny, Master Skywalker, might be considered unfortunate. To write BOTH that way looks like carelessness."
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LastOneStanding
Registered:
Nov '04
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 4:39am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
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I think the concept that Star Wars novels are not real literature probably comes partly from the fact that they are based off of the movies. But to say that Star Wars is not real literature because it is meant for entertainment is short-sighted.
I remember when I was in high school and college, I had to read two other highly entertaining works, Out of the Silent Planet and Brave New World. Both were great reads and made you really think about the human condition. Much the same could be said about Star Wars novels...they are entertaining, but they also make you think about the balance of good and evil, light and dark, right and wrong.
I'm not saying that the above argument would change your teacher's mind, but, from my perspective, you have every right to write a book report about a Star Wars novel...
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Palp_Faction
Registered:
Feb '02
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 5:01am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
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I'm afraid I largely agree with your teacher. I am often finding spelling and grammatical errors in the SW books. With that aside, some are dreadfully written (Jedi Trial). They are pulp fiction and should be treated as a fun read.
"Real" literature consists of texts written by an author who uses the English language skillfully and is recognised as such. If you wish to read fantasty or sci-fi, how about Lord of the Rings? I doubt your teacher would have any objections to Tolkein.
I'm sorry if this sounds snobbish, but the fact of the matter is the SW books are mass-marketed and churned out nine to the dozen and, I believe, it shows. I think your teacher would prefer it if you read books which the author has slaved over.
I'm sure there are thousands of modern authors whom your teacher could recommend instead of having to read old-fashioned texts.
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Excellence
Registered:
Jul '02
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 5:18am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
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Ah, Palp Fiction, I could point out two acclaimed non-SW books with a mountain of typos.
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lightsaber_wielder
Registered:
Jan '02
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 5:27am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
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Your teacher is right, to a degree. Most of the Star Wars books are, for all intents and purposes, just like the films in that they are intended as creative, enjoyable entertainment. Of course many of them fail to achieve even this simple objective, but for the most part they are just "fun" reads; I know that, if it were not for my general love of the creativity of Star Wars, I would certainly not be reading them.
Where your teacher's opinion fails, though, is in regards to the three Star Wars books by Matthew Stover. People can go on all they want about how Dark Rendezvous is a mature and serious read (despite my lack of respect for it, I will admit that it does have a serious main theme), but Traitor, Shatterpoint and Revenge of the Sith are the only Star Wars books to date which have shown true literary creativity and mature depth.
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"Show me the books he loves and I shall know a man far better than through mortal friends." - Dawn Adams "Music is the vernacular of the human soul." - Geoffrey Latham "A good story is any story you like." - Karen Traviss 
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Thrawn McEwok
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered:
May '00
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 5:44am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
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Oh, obviously, common consensus is that some novels are better than others; that's true in any genre - but it is, ultimately, a subjective analysis... sales figures would suggest that the most mediocre of Star Wars hacks is 'better' than a lot of 'serious' novellists, wouldn't they? 
- The Imperial Ewok
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A/T = OTP "To write one Solo twin as an angstbunny, Master Skywalker, might be considered unfortunate. To write BOTH that way looks like carelessness."
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Jon_Bidinger
Registered:
Sep '03
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 5:55am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
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Who wrote Maestro?
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Ke nu jurkad sha Mando'ade, burc'ya! Ib'tuur jatne tuur ash'ad kyr'amur.  Proud Winner of a Golden Ewok™.
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Excellence
Registered:
Jul '02
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 5:56am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
- Date Edited:
4/19/05 6:02am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Excellence
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Sales figures . . . like the bestseller every 2nd SW has on the front? Or how TV announcers call every movie about to be aired "blockbuster smash"?
Or how they out an author's one-sentence encouragement on the covers of most books these days. It's all promo. And last week local news pointed out, are those gold-labelled wines really top vintage? So many wines ahev that label.
I found this reprint of Maestro . . .
Peter Goldsworthy, Paperback Format B, 172 pages, ISBN: 0732281482, Price (Aust RRP): $22.95, 13 October 2004
Against the backdrop of Darwin — that small, tropical hothouse of a port, half-outback, half-oriental, lying at the tip of northern Australia — a young and newly arrived southerner encounters the 'maestro', a Viennese refugee with a shadowed past. The occasion is a piano lesson, the first of many ...
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Master-FatBurt
Registered:
Jul '03
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 6:31am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
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I however wouldn't have an issue of using a SW book for a report.
I think the arguement that because a book has been written for entertainment is complete tripe as all books from Shakespeare to MWS wrote their books for an audience that would find them entertaining.
One of the issues we have in this day and age is that too many people are quick to watch the TV (usually crappy soaps or reality TV) which doesn't expand the mind or introduce anyone to a larger and more intelligent vocabulary which reading usually does, but how are you to get someone to read if the material they are reading is not considered to be entertaining.
I'll be honest, I hated English Lit at school as I really disliked the books I was made to read (Lord of the Flys, To Kill a Mockingbird, Of Mice and Men etc...) and as a result I failed English Lit, however the students in the class that enjoyed these book excelled in the lesson and all got very good grades.
In a nutshell I think it's poor if your teacher is trying to put restictions on whta you are reading, reading should be something to enjoy not something to labour over and in my experience I find I do best at something I enjoy.
If however your teacher is adamant that SW books are not suitable for his class then I would agree with Palp-Fiction and see if they would be agreeable to LOTR (Number 1 best book ever in the UK) or one of my personal favorites is The Magician by Raymond E Feist (this was in the high 80's) and has been largly regarded by my friends as a deep and engaging read which covers aspects of philosophy and mysticism through to the horrors of war. You can but give it a try.
Oh I also liked the way Excellence managed to get his Natalie "perfect hair" jibe in....Well done
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Soontir-Fel
Registered:
Dec '01
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 6:38am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
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Of course it's real literature.
It has like pages and words. And sometimes even chapters and stuff.
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Master Chbel
Registered:
May '00
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 7:00am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
- Date Edited:
4/19/05 7:02am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
Master Chbel
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I'm sure Gone with the Wind may be considered literature--but it's such a awful book...very boring.
One man's literature is another's junk.
Ulysses is considered one of the great novels (works of literature)--yet a grad student wrote his thesis (PhD?) on how a chapter had been switched...no one had noticed. (He was correct too).
Literature is often *assumed* to be older, serious writings.
In life one can read the books one wants--to make it through school you have to read the books the teacher wants.
ps If a book is not fun to read, why bother? (Unfortunately, see the previous paragraph.)
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Thrawn McEwok
Title: TFN EU Staff
Registered:
May '00
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 7:34am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
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Non-linear narrative?
How... Joycean?
- The Imperial Ewok
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A/T = OTP "To write one Solo twin as an angstbunny, Master Skywalker, might be considered unfortunate. To write BOTH that way looks like carelessness."
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CeiranHarmony
Registered:
May '04
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 7:37am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
- Date Edited:
4/19/05 7:45am (1 edits total)
Edited By:
CeiranHarmony
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there are multiple ways to differentiate literature. and lots of reasons that star wars literature is not the classic literature. but..
if it comes to the way how teachers deal with litereature, they are one and the same. because teachers examine stories, characters, their evolution and changes, their decisions, consequences. philosophy, moral etc. all that what can be learned from a tale. this is not only in the literature the teachers prefer, but also in star wars literature. of course adult novels feature this even more than youth reader stuff. f.e. Traitor would work well as example. so much to discover and analyse in there, no matter if one likes it or not. I loved it. so I loved shatterpoint.
The thing is, the literature that is called classic has only few advantages if it comes to that:
-they are usually older, centuries old maybe, so lots of stuff is there about them, you could research. the newer stuff, no matter if starwars or other literature, has to be read and reread by the teachers to understand it, they, like the class, would need to be filled in with the starwars themes and feeling, maybe know and understand the movies, to comprehend the language and way of star wars literature. but most teachers don´t want, or don´t have the time for that efforts. though, this is the major difference.
-another advantage of classics is, that the literatur, or parts of it, are choosen or prefered because of the cultural influences, philosophical traditions etc. in real life, they evolved in and helped to further. the same does star wars in a more modern way, but maybe only in many years to come someone will look at it that way. most people first realize these influences when some time has passed and you forget the confusing other parts of society, concentrating just on several points and influences. classic literature they choose to teach students the norms they want to be furthered, though the next generation might not want it. its a thing about traditionalism.
fact is, star wars serves as well the same points as classic literature does, only the effort to work with it the way you do with classics is just a little bit higher for those not involved into the starwars myth and magic. many don´t see beyond the horror-vision of a toy-loving fanboy who loves its fandom without questioning it. though they miss that there are many fans who discuss, question, analyse everything etc. maybe even better and deeper than they would normal classic literature that is sometimes, or well, often annoying to our generation. depends on authors.
maybe you introduce your teacher to this board, showing her excerpts of some essays, articles etc. that she might understand with only minor star wars knowledge. that might convince her that she can give sw literature a chance^^
Hope I could help ya, I had the same problem.
I hope I didn´t sound too sociologic.. if I start doing this in my free time, too, please shoot me.
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Lightblazer
Registered:
Mar '05
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Date Posted:
4/19/05 7:42am
Subject:
RE: SW literature: Not considered "real" literature?
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Well, a lot of people actually consider anything Sci-fi (perhaps with the exception of 1984) to be litterary garbage. The thing is, litterature is fundamentally what the people of a generation choose to read. For instance Alexandre Dumas' books were considered garbage by the critics in his own time, but today they are classics.
In a 100 years the litterature people will be studying will be by writers like Stephen King and Michael Krichton, which is to say sci-fi, techno and fantasy litterature.
However, if you want to write a book report on something Star wars'ish, id suggest something a little more conservative like Asimov's Foundation-series. Teachers, like critics, have a tendency of not liking contemporary Popular litterature.
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