Trashy Fiction

It was while sitting comfortably on the train travelling into Stratford-upon-Avon last week that I began a conversation with the dear friend sitting next to me about the man so infamously born at the site of our destination on approximately 23rd April 1564 - William Shakespeare. How surprised (and disturbed) was I then to hear him say the following words to me.

'I wouldn't know much about that: I only read trashy fiction.'

Naturally, I felt obliged to explain that there were really only a few things which could be described as 'trashy fiction', but if it is written well and, above all, entertains the reader, it is somewhat difficult to label it as 'trashy'.

But it got me thinking: who exactly has the right to decide what is worth reading and what isn't? And, furthermore, what makes something 'trashy'? And (an even more pressing matter), why is it that so many people feel they cannot tackle the 'classics', due to a belief that they are either 'boring' or 'too difficult'? After all, a recent news report from the BBC suggested that some children struggle to read at school because they see reading as 'boring' and 'nerdy', and it seems they receive no encouragement to pursue the subject (the report can be perused here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-18644811). I personally, feel this is very sad - after all, the popularity of reading is as high now as it ever was, and the classics even more so... so why are some people so afraid of them?

I suppose the issue of what is worth reading all derives from the literary canon. For those of you who don't know what I mean by this phrase (and, to be honest, not knowing its meaning myself before coming to university suggests that most people who aren't English students will likewise and understandably be completely oblivious), the canon is, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, '[a] standard of judgement or authority; a test, criterion, means of discrimination' - that is, which authors/works are 'worth' reading, therefore systematically un-trashy and, according to http://www.victorianweb.org,

'It means that the works in the canon get read, read by neophyte students and supposedly expert teachers. It also means that to read these privileged works is a privilege and a sign of privilege. It is also a sign that one has been canonized oneself -- beatified by the experience of being introduced to beauty, admitted to the ranks of those of the inner circle who are acquainted with the canon and can judge what belongs and does not.'

Now, I personally am not entirely convinced by the idea of the canon myself. After all, what makes a work canon, and why is it instantly worth reading and better than everything else if it has this great status inferred upon it?

Of course, the classics are classics for very good reasons, and I do not mean to decry the idea of a 'literary prestige' entirely; and yet, it would be remiss of me to leave the readers of this article believing that everything in the canon is accessible and 'better' than the more 'trashy' fiction out there.

One of my own literary idols, the legendary George Orwell, in a 1945 essay entitled 'Good Bad Books' mused upon this same topic. In his discourse, he interestingly suggested that 'the "good bad book" [is] the kind of book that has no literary pretentions but which remains readable when more serious productions have perished', including within this category the Sherlock Holmes stories (1887 - 1927) and Bram Stoker's magnum opus, Dracula (1897), both of which have undoubtedly gone on to achieve 'classic' and, more importantly, 'canon' status today. He goes on to ask the question of '[w]ho has worn better, [Sir Arthur] Conan Doyle or [George] Meredith?' I think we all know the answer to that one.

'Good Bad Book', or literary phenomenon?

The point of including Orwell here is clear: the suggestion outlined above is that even one of the most prominent figures within the literary canon personally repudiated the idea of the classics being the be all and end all of what makes 'good' literature, a belief I clearly share. As an English student, many would expect me to be a reader solely of canon works, and yet will confess to having read (and, indeed, thoroughly enjoyed) the works of such 'brutish' writers as Andy McNab and Ian Fleming in my time, the latter of which brings me on neatly to my next point.

The vast majority of classic writers, it would seem, were never good enough to be considered so in their own day - sometimes, this is inexplicable, as Edgar Allan Poe, while never having been able to make a good living off his work during his brief lifetime, remains undeniably a master of the gothic horror genre (who doesn't know 'The Raven' or 'The Fall of the House of Usher'?), and John Keats, who was even unable to marry his sweetheart, Fanny Brawne, because his poetry wasn't earning him enough money; some were respcted in their day, and are raved about as the best writers of all time, and yet in reality aren't all that good - Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway (1925), for example, is one of the most boring narratives of all time; other writers, hugely successful in their time, are now scarcely read at all (such as in the cases of  Aphra Behn and Jane Barker, of whom I am only aware because of having chosen to study Women's Writing in the Long Eighteenth Century next semester); and some, like the aforementioned Fleming, are very curious anomalies, concretely situated within the canon and widely read as classics, yet still considered by many to be trashy fiction.

Well-rounded character, a timeless storyline, and a downright dark closing line ('The bitch is dead now'),
Casino Royale (1953) is the first in a literary series despised by many scholars... yet it laid the foundations
of one of the most successful film franchises of all time.

Why would this be, I ask? The answer, after much consideration, seems obscenely simple: the more entertaining, 'mainstream' fiction just isn't good enough for the canon, and it is for this reason that, when deciding what book to buy, the canon has very little bearing upon what I choose to purchase. Of course, I have become very enamoured with canon authors through my studies in literature, and if I were to look at the gothic I would be far more likely to buy a copy of Dracula than Twilight (and have done, for obvious reasons); but it is important for those of you out there, like my friend, who don't feel they can read the classics to keep this in mind: just because it is a classic does not mean it is boring and difficult - after all, Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels (1726; revised 1735) and Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers (1844) must be great stories, because numerous film versions throughout history have been so popular that we all know the stories, and are not even put off by Swift's original rather surprising groin-grabbingly intimidating title for his work (Gulliver's Travels: Travels Into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships); but, likewise, it does not necessarily mean it is brilliant and breathtaking. All classics are classics for a reason, but not all for particularly good reasons... and they are not necessarily so because of what Italo Calvino decided - 'classics are not what we say we are reading, but what we are re-reading'. No, Italo, that isn't the case at all. In fact, there are some classics you will never wish to look at twice...

Yawn... I blame the translator (not)

The fact is that some novels are classics for historic reasons. Daniel Deoe's Robinson Crusoe (1719), for example, was the first English novel, but despite being a great story is for the most part a torturous read; similarly, Samuel Richardson's Clarissa: or, The History of a Young Lady (1748) is the longest novel in the English language, and as a result has only been finished by a handful of people, and certainly not by me or anybody I have ever met. That said, not all classics are this bad: the majority are some of the best stories you could ever follow, and it shows when you read such greats as John William Polidori's The Vampyre (1819), classic for the fact that it brough the vampire into the contemporary public consciousness, and a thrilling read because of it, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), a great introduction to the Romantic anxieties surrounding the growth of modern scientific knowledge.

But just because a particularly good writer is respected and canon does not necessarily mean they are perfect. Shakespeare has remained incredibly popular since his arrival on the London stage scene in the 1590s, with the Globe and Royal Shakespeare Company almost selling out at every performance, with amateur groups and schools even getting in on the the act, and being very succesful at it - I myself was taught to star as Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream (c.1595) at primary school when an amateur dramatics society visited one afternoon and got us all to join in a production of one scene. Following on from that, I was highly enthusiastic at my studies of Macbeth (c.1606) and Romeo and Juliet (c.1595) in English at school, and even starred as the Duke in my GCSE drama production of Measure for Measure (c.1603-1604), so much so that I am now specialising in Shakespeare as part of my dissertation. But the main issue people have, I feel, is that the plays they are forced to study at school are in no way Shakespeare's best. They are great works, yes, but not as good as others, and the way English is taught at school is, for many people, enough to put them off for life; but there is so much entertainment to be had - go and see a production of my favourite play, King Richard II (c.1595), or the greatest of the tragedies, King Lear (c.1605 - 1606) or even the fantastic comedy that is Twelfth Night (c.1601) - even if you can't understand Shakespeare on the page very well, a good theatre company like the RSC or Globe will easily be able to make you see the comedy to be had even if you can't find it on your own: its all in the delivery, after all. And yet, Shakespeare has, in fact, written a handful of plays which are downright rejected by scholars, critics and the public alike. The King Henry VI trilogy (c.1590 - 1591), Titus Andronicus (c.1591-1592), Timon of Athens (c. 1605 - 1606) and Pericles, Prince of Tyre (c.1607) have all fallen victim to the phrase 'Shakespeare couldn't have written this tripe!' It seems shocking, I know, but there is so much arrogance surrounding the man that some scholars will not even accept he wrote them. Just because a writer is considered the greatest of all time doesn't mean he didn't write some naff stuff; we all have our off days, although how you could dislike such witty Marxist content as this is beyond me:

Fisherman 3: Master, I marvel how the fishes live in the sea.

Fisherman 1: Why, as men do a-land: the great ones eat up the little ones.

(Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Act II, Scene 1)

A truly touching, often funny, highly witty tale of a father and his daughter,
Pericles has for years been rejected and often loathed by 'experts' and audiences,
and yet it remains one of my favourites.

So the best plan of action seems to be to get people involved in the classics earlier, but that does not mean that it is impossible to do it if you are older. And so, here is a list of the top ten 'classics' which, I feel, could provide a thoroughly entertaining, accessible starting point for anyone who wants to read less 'trashy' fiction but has been indoctrinated to be somewhat pensive about the challenge, or worried they will be a bit 'above' them.

 

 

1) Charles Dickens, Hard Times (1854) - One of his shortest and simplest works, this contains all the trademarks of Dickens' fiction: hard, edgy, social commentary and great historical realism. He een goes easy on the often mind-numbing descriptive passages here.

 

 

2) Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) - A gothic classic, we all know the story from the films, but they often over-emphasised the homoeroticism. There is much more on human nature and the dark side of desire in the original.

 

 

3) Bram Stoker, Dracula (1897) - Another gothic classic. As above, if you've only seen the film, you don't know the real story. Pulling off your nipple and letting a woman drink the blood while you're doing the nasty? Its all in there.

 

 

4) Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1901 - 1902) - Undoubtedly the best of the novels, it retains the detective elements while experimenting with a gothic/horror infusion which works incredibly well. The language isn't at all archaic or convoluted - the way Conan Doyle wrote, it might as well have been written last week.

 

 

5) F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (1925) - The ultimate American novel. Don't see the film and let Toby Maguire's acting ruin it for you until you've given the book a chance.

 

 

6) Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (1932) - Again, written in a style which is very up-to-date and contemporary, and a story which is as relevant now (with all our repid technological advancement) as it was in the 1930s, when the Nazi Party was just coming to power in Germany.

 

 

7) P. G. Wodehouse, Thank You, Jeeves (1933 - 1934) - Classic comedy. If you're worried the classics might be a bit heavy, its always good to be able to have a laugh. Written as a critique on the 'idle rich' who dominated England in Wodehouse's day, you could almost be reading about junior members of our current government...

 

 

8) George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945) - This allegorical novella is the shortest of Orwell's fictional works, and contains all of the trademarks of his fiction: political rebellion, social parody and a heavy dusting of satire. The first true post-war novel, Orwell had a very hard time trying to get this published, due to its blatant criticism of Stalin and the Soviet Union and their relationship with Britain at the tome, but its a good thing he managed it, because it remains one of the greatest works of fiction of all time, and one of my personal favourites. At only ten chapters it could be read in a day or two - just don't make the mistake of thinking this is in any way a children's book.

 

 

9) Graham Greene, The Quiet American (1955) - A first-rate thriller, set in 1950s Indo-China. It became a great film with Michael Caine and Brendan Fraser, and is a great exploration of the darker sides of forced friendship miles from home.

 

 

10) Ian Fleming, From Russia with Love (1957) - Undoubtedly the best of the Bond novels, and simultaneously classic fiction and trashy fiction. One of John F. Kennedy's favourite books, and the one closest to its film adaptation, you may as well forget waiting for Skyfall to be released - this is classic espionage as it should be.

And so, I send you forth to rediscover the classics, and not to let yourself be intimidated because the snobs at Oxbridge have tuck their noses in the air and decided that only a fictional social elite should be able to read these texts. Nothing is too hard to read if you have a mind to do so, and nothing is trashy if its well-written enough for you to enjoy.

Although, the same cannot be said for Fifty Shades of Grey...

 

 

William D. Green