(no subject)
I think the heavy emphasis on beautiful prose in isolation that I've seen in some modern lit-fic criticism may perhaps be misplaced, at least if you're talking about novels. I'm not saying that it's not worth mentioning, because it certainly is - prose quality has a strong effect on the reading experience - but it's not the measure of whether a novel is any good as a novel, let alone if it's Art. Perhaps this is because of my background in fanfiction and role playing games, but I think there should be more critical attention paid to characterization.
What I think distinguishes "the novel" from older literary forms like fairy tales is a certain interest in individual psychology - novels have specific characters with particular histories and particular quirks, that go through character development in response to the events of the story, rather than being staffed by stock figures. Even if a novel takes place in a weird stylized universe full of weird stylized people, their actions should make sense in context. A novel in which everyone with a speaking part is obviously either an author's mouthpiece or a paper doll is not doing its job.
Another reason I think this is important has to do with my belief about the purpose of fiction. I think that, morally speaking, fiction's "job" is to broaden people's theory of mind and increase our empathic capacity by encouraging us to, for the duration of the story, identify with someone whose circumstances may be very different from our own. A work can exist in the most wholesome moral universe in the world in theory, but if none of the characters have believable inner lives, it probably won't do much for the audiences' empathic capacity.
Beautiful sentences are all very well, but if you can create characters that are vivid enough that people can argue about "whether or not Alice would really do that," then you know you've really created something.
What I think distinguishes "the novel" from older literary forms like fairy tales is a certain interest in individual psychology - novels have specific characters with particular histories and particular quirks, that go through character development in response to the events of the story, rather than being staffed by stock figures. Even if a novel takes place in a weird stylized universe full of weird stylized people, their actions should make sense in context. A novel in which everyone with a speaking part is obviously either an author's mouthpiece or a paper doll is not doing its job.
Another reason I think this is important has to do with my belief about the purpose of fiction. I think that, morally speaking, fiction's "job" is to broaden people's theory of mind and increase our empathic capacity by encouraging us to, for the duration of the story, identify with someone whose circumstances may be very different from our own. A work can exist in the most wholesome moral universe in the world in theory, but if none of the characters have believable inner lives, it probably won't do much for the audiences' empathic capacity.
Beautiful sentences are all very well, but if you can create characters that are vivid enough that people can argue about "whether or not Alice would really do that," then you know you've really created something.