Novelty Versus Originality?

[waalkwriter]

I am getting back into the threads of discussions here, after really trailing off the last month or so for finals. This is a idea for a discussion that's been knocking around in the back of my head for a while now, and so I will be channeling my inner Eric for this piece of pedantry.

Recently I went off to Borders, the local multi-million dollar bookstore chain, and technically a division of Barnes and Nobles. In this case, (in Flowood, MS, a suburb of Jackson), it's the only non-Christian bookstore around, and it struck me you can tell a lot about an area by what its bookstore carries. Everything of course was divided into genres, with a "Literature" corner with literary and "mainstream" books and a few head-scratchers, (like Nicholas Sparks). I was looking to build up a little Japanese literature section in my library with Christmas money. I found no copies of Yasunari Kawabata, Kenzaburo Oe, Natsume Soseki, Yukio Mishima, nor could I find No Longer Human by Osamu Danzai. There were, however, 13 books by Haruki Murikami. I thumbed through them, Kafka on the Shore, Chasing Sheep or something of that name, and other books. All of them struck me as trite and I wasn't struck enough by any to front up 15 dollars, even though I kind of wanted to buy one and probably will buy Kafka on the Shore eventually.

Afterwards, once back home with my small, but expensive stack of books, (W.H. Auden's collected poems, How Are We Hungry, by Dave Eggers, a Short Story collection which I hope to review soon and introduce people to Eggers, and The Princess Bride by William Goldman, the comical fantasy story captured in one of my favorite movies), I began reconsidering some of my old discussions. We've had plenty of occasionally virulent arguments on post-modernism, that strike me as rather exhausting now.

These often convoluted arguments have a rather simple basis. And there the title of this thread comes in. The counterpoint is novelty versus originality. While many here are more fond of or less critical of novelty than me, (and this is, I suppose a completely valid opinion), but I tend to think writers substitute novelty for talent and originality. The current writing climate, judged by the towers of Academia, hopelessly marred by the convoluted, novelty-loving tastes of pedantic professors, tends to encourage this. But this opens the difficult question: what is the difference between novelty and originality, where does one become the other? The question I've been considering was whether something can be "too original". That's where the demarcation emerges I think, but there is of course the added contradiction that its easier to substitute things like story and character development for stylism and it's easier to be flashy than to have the real substance that marks something that I find truly compelling.

So the question I pose is, what are your thoughts? Do you like novelty, (I find it maddeningly trite and pompous), what do you see as the difference between novelty and originality? Etc etc? I think this is the main problem with postmodernism, obviously, and whether it is all flash and no substance, which are related. In a way, novelty, to me, is something that insults the reader and flaunts the bond and obligations of storytelling.

Anyway, this is the question I'll be taking up again when I discuss Dave Eggers. One of the reasons I appreciate his work is his ability to be fresh and original, without quite descending into novelty, (and How Are We Hungry is the most manageable of his works, as it consists of short stories, which are easier to digest, being small chunks). It's good to have time for armchair debates again, and I hope to post a few new reviews soon.

Frohliche Weihnachten WFL

[hdw]

It's a long time since I studied English Literature at university, but I think the novelty/originality thing is very relevant to pre-Romantic literature, i.e. the Augustans, such as Dryden, Pope and Johnson. There were strict rules about what was fit subject-matter for poetry, and there were rules about how you could express yourself. All of which put an onus on the writer to find a way of being original but not too original within the parameters of what was acceptable and in good taste.

So, if in olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked on as something shocking, now - heaven knows - anything goes, and in literary terms that means a constant search for originality and novelty at all costs. Even within the formulaic field of the Nordic Noir, where it may seem that people are just baying for more of the same, I've noticed how the horror and sadism are gradually being ratcheted up as readers' palates become jaded. I suppose that comes under the heading of novelty.

Harry

[waalkwriter]

I tend to be most fond of Romantic Poets. William Blake is my favorite of the English Romantics, though I am fond of all except Coleridge. I'm a tremendous fan of Arthur Rimbaud and have lately been astonished by W.H. Auden. I love Auden's ambitious tackling of classical styles and big projects and his ability to accomplish those ambitions so greatly. There's something refreshingly simple and unpretentious about his clean, antiquarian prose. He's passed up Dylan Thomas among my favorite English-language poets, and at this rate will soon pass up Eliot and Yeats as well.

Anyway, all this serves to say that you make a good point, and it's something my English teachers and writing confidants often tell me; that is that I have a rather old-fashioned view of writing, though I would disagree. I'm not necessarily conservative, its just there are fairly specific things I think a story or poem should do, (and I can't stomach the stylism/dullness of a great deal of modern poetry). Art, as a general entity, is something akin to religion to me. In general religion never clicked with me as a kid, and it came to be phased out by art and art became my way of coping, (rather than religion). So, a great story is a bit like a religious experience, and in the same vein, that means writing is very important to me, which is why I am sharply critical of insincerity, novelty, triteness, etc, and why I rarely "get" the appeal of postmodernism which even most users here recognize.

[hdw]

I love Coleridge's "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". I have an excellent two-volume biography of Coleridge. I've forgotten the author's name - but Richard Holmes has just come into my head.

I've always thought it amazing that two such different characters as Wordsworth and Coleridge could have become such close friends and collaborators. The attraction of opposites, I suppose. But Wordsworth didn't approve of all the druggy stuff.

I've seen Thomas de Quincey's grave in Edinburgh. Couldn't be more central, just a few yards off Princes Street. He came here because the ruins of Holyrood Abbey- near where the new Scottish Parliament was built - still had the power of sanctuary, as in the Middle Ages, and debtors could live in there without being arrested at the behest of their creditors.

Harry

[waalkwriter]

I never cared much for the Ancient Mariner, of all Coleridge's works the only one that really intrigues me is Xanadu. Speaking of Thomas de Quincey, have you read Confessions of An English Opium Eater? It was recently highly recommended to me, and I've been considering checking it out, but I'm not quite sold on it yet and would like a second opinion.

[Threetrees]

Is novelty not equal to originality or vice versa? Can a new kind of stupidity be a novelty? Sure. Though, I guess, it's the curiosity that adds to the statistics of the best-watched and the best-read and the best-sold ordinary absurdists nowadays. Originality is not favoured. But the desire to be original breaks the records. Originality now can be copied (ctrl+C) or pasted (ctrl+V) or downloaded and substituted with another name and minor alterations at least (I do not do it and do it and do you?). How can "new + original" be saved if no one knows the original maker? The contemporary names are hidden in most cases. Ideas are easily stolen. And there are hackers and literary hacks behind real names.Therefore we talk more of the past in the case of originality. At least Dickens was Dickens, Chekhov was Chekhov. I've learnt the secrets of this originality (though I may seem not to be original here and there) but will never reveal all of them to you to remain original. Sorry. Take it as a joke or a pun (seriously!). Be primitive yourself. And we shall admire of your authenticity and newness. To be or not to be original, Hamlet?