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The Forum > Article Comments > The new Oz lit - superficial, politically correct tomes > Comments

The new Oz lit - superficial, politically correct tomes : Comments

By Greg Barns, published 27/4/2006

Slick young marketers in publishing houses cater to a public who have the attention span and intellect of a sheep.

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to pursue litertature in the first place you are at odds with the society you are in.

lots of people have the capacity to write well, but why would we waste the time and effort with our head in the clouds when we have pressure do make things happen.

It is a reflection of society thats all.
Posted by Realist, Thursday, 27 April 2006 9:30:03 AM
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Mr Barnes you write a convincing piece. And as you point out, the ordinariness and mediocrity stretches across all the arts. Perhaps this is postmodernism. If it is, I don't like it. Anything passes for "art" these days. Even Big Brother will probably be studied in secondary schools soon as "literature", if indeed it is not being studied as such in universities right now.

It's a tragic thing. Just another sign of the decline and fall of Western culture. I seriously doubt that Western culture will see out the century. Hopefully, Asians might bring some inspiration and creativity to the world of art. Who knows? For the present, we can only but sigh.
Posted by Maximus, Thursday, 27 April 2006 10:28:31 AM
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"The attention span of a sheep". Pft. How can we prove otherwise? I've read "War and Peace" and "A Suitable Boy" (longest novel written in English apparently)- does that make me able to comment? Oh sorry, they were not AUSTRALIAN.

Do I like novels by Australian authors? Sure, if they catch my attention - the origin of the author has never been an issue in my decision to purchase or read a book. Nor should it be.

This article seemed utterly bitter-spirited
Posted by Laurie, Thursday, 27 April 2006 11:05:17 AM
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A bit away from the book scene, but .............one only has to read the latest "newspapers" to really see the abysmal decline in Australian literary standards.

From yesterdays news warmed up for tomorrows (or the next day's) headlines, to juicy exposes of the current "Big Brothers" breast implants on 19 year olds (how does one sadly shake one's head here...?)

But then again there are so many of the "sheeple" who dote on every word printed as gospel truth in the tabloids, that one really has to wonder if the end has already passed by - and we are just being forced along with the vacuum?

I had often wondered why newsprint was no longer used to wrap my fish and chips ........ I thought it was the ink in the paper, but no, it was just that with the decline of education, the words were just too hard to swallow.
Posted by Kekenidika, Thursday, 27 April 2006 2:25:00 PM
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Pfftt, whinge whinge, plenty of people still read books, even long ones. And people still study philosophy, literature, think about the meaning of life etc. Get over it Greg.
Posted by hellothere, Thursday, 27 April 2006 6:25:55 PM
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"Pfftt, pfftt" - whatever that post modernist literary statement is supposed to mean, who knows? It certainly isn't in the Oxford Dictionary -

Ask Oxford - "pfftt"
http://www.askoxford.com/results/?view=searchresults&freesearch=Pfftt&branch=&textsearchtype=exact

Whatever, "...people still study philosophy, literature, think about the meaning of life etc."

But do they have the requisite knowledge to analyse or evaluate what they read against the rich tapestry that has preceded them?

Do they have a classical understanding of the forefather's thinking so as to see the compassion and the pain that built civilisation - or are they assessing meaning by values as cheap as burgers, Coke, university degrees and tabloid journalism?

Without depth of values, the banal becomes exquisite. Without depth of knowledge, that which has gone before, wisdom, becomes gobbledegook. A naive acceptance of the current. The contemporary is ignorant. It is by nature primitive. Ordinariness and mediocrity prevail whilst buffoons struggle to reinvent the wheel claiming intellectual breakthroughs that privileged scholars of the Renaissance would have thought trite in their time.

Think about it.

Poor ol' Gen-X has been given the shaft by academics. The sad part of it all is that they don't even know it and they fight to defend their own ignorance. That's what's really shocking. They "bought the farm".
Posted by Maximus, Thursday, 27 April 2006 8:32:46 PM
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This looks like an article written in haste as his deadline at the Mercury was looming:- it essentially says bugger all. At the very best it is a poor imitation of the true enemy of the grants funded writer Andrew "I'm still not Sorry" Bolt.

What Barnes was really trying to say - but dressed it up as a critique of contmeporary writers - was a repeat of his diatribe a few months ago where he labled Australia a rascist back water and a pig sty.

In this article he has merely refined his focus bagging young writers and sneering at the population at large who he seems to hold in some contempt. What's worth though is Barnesy actually gets paid - at least by the Mercury - for this kind of drivel.
Posted by sneekeepete, Friday, 28 April 2006 10:24:27 AM
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An interesting article that unfortunately stomps worryingly into generalisations about who we are and what we read.

I'm sure that there were at least some critics of James Joyce who noted that he was "no Homer". And there were certainly others who simply didn't understand his writing. Similarly, Patrick White and Xavier Herbert had their detractors. Were these detractors merely idiot spoilers? Perhaps.

I agree that to render all important philosophical messages into a Dr Phil-style 10-word catch-phrase is diddling society out of the complex thoughts of great thinkers.

But I also can't help but think that some of our greatest literature is very, very hard work that has required not only its writers to have a broad classical education, but also its readers.

There are fascinating contributions being made to Australian literature - Elliot Perlman's 'Three Dollars' is a good example. I found that novel to be profoundly disturbing and uncomfortable - challenging in the ways that good literature should be.

I don't agree that the Australian public has the attention span and intellect of a sheep - the recent ABC ranking of our favourite books featured alongside pulp fiction like 'The Da Vinci Code' and 'Harry Potter', important literary works like 'Wuthering Heights', 'Nineteen Eighty-Four', 'Crime and Punishment' and 'The Catcher in the Rye'. And if everyone who voted for The Bible had actually read it (and UNDERSTOOD it), I'm heartened that the intellectual state of our country is not nearly so parlous as some might have us believe
Posted by seether, Thursday, 4 May 2006 12:51:11 PM
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I agree with everything Barnes has said.

Creative writing classes just waste the time of poor dopes who seem to believe they can be taught to become interesting. If you've nothing to say in the first place how can you be taught it?

Maximus makes some good points: "Without depth of values the banal becomes exquisite."

Well I've seen University humanities lecturers on this internet all excitedly discussing the latest goings-on in Big Brother. And all enthralled by it. So what hope is there?

Maximus, again: "Even Big Brother will probably be studied in secondary schools soon as literature, if indeed it is not being discussed as such in universities right now."

Exactly.
Posted by R.H., Tuesday, 30 May 2006 7:15:54 PM
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