What constitutes good literature?

I have often seen people pointing to books and exclaiming that was the worst piece of literature ever written. A large number of persons I know say that books written by Chetan Bhagat, Stephanie Meyer (Twilight series), E. L. James (50 Shades series), R.L. Stein (Goosebumps series) and Dan Brown are absolute trash. Yet each one of these series have gone on to sell millions of copies worldwide and many have even been converted to motion pictures. So I thought it would be worth exploring what good literature means to most people.

When I did a google search on “What is good literature?” the first answer that I got was – “Great literature is a story that encapsulates the time period in which it was written, while maintaining universal themes regarding human existence.” Some of the other responses were “good literature is timeless and placeless”, “good literature will allow me to see myself more clearly and/or see my fellow man (or woman) more clearly.” So if I were to take these attributes and sum them up, we would have timeless, universal theme, broadens horizons and creates a better understanding of fellow man. Armed with these attributes I’m now going to carry out my analysis in two different ways. The first would be to look at the books I’ve read and is considered good literature and see if it meets these criteria. The second would be to look at stuff that isn’t considered good literature and see if they fall short of these criteria.

Some of the books I’ve read and are considered to be good literature are 1984, Brave New World, The Great Gatsby, Catch-22 and the Lord of the rings. Did Brave New World and 1984 have a story that encapsulated that time period? No, I don’t think so. It is after-all based on a utopian view of the world which has still not happened. Universal theme? Not so sure about that. Timeless? Most certainly! Better understanding of fellow man? Yes I would think so. These books were definitely able to do that. Catch-22 in my opinion ticks all these boxes despite having such a “silly” storyline. The Great Gatsby was certainly able to capture the essence of that time but according to me it isn’t timeless. The Lord of the Rings comes under the fantasy genre so I guess it doesn’t tick any of those boxes.

Now for the other lot. Most of these have been written recently so I’m not going to comment on whether it is timeless or not. Chetan Bhagat’s books are most definitely contemporary though. They do deal with some of the very real problems that a section of India faces. He keeps stuff simple and doesn’t use flowery language. 50 Shades provides the much needed erotica that many these days crave for. The Twilight series is again fantasy and romance…again, something that our generation seems to crave and this is very evident by the popularity of the Mills and Boon books. Does Twilight have the same chance of being timeless that Harry Potter has? Maybe. Do they help us understand our fellow human beings better? Not really. But does every good book need to provide that? Can’t it just provide a good story?

I think it’s very dangerous for us to get into defining what really constitutes good literature. Tastes vary because of the various circumstances that we come from. We relate to some stories more than others. We yearn to live in some fantasy worlds more than others. When we discourage someone from reading a particular book simply because we don’t consider it great literature we run the risk of discouraging the person from reading itself. I would conclude by quoting from a Neil Gaiman speech that I really love. What he said in the speech was for children but I feel it holds just as true for adults as well. Here’s what he said –

“I don’t think there is such a thing as a bad book for children. Every now and again it becomes fashionable among some adults to point at a subset of children’s books, a genre, perhaps, or an author, and to declare them bad books, books that children should be stopped from reading.

It’s tosh. It’s snobbery and it’s foolishness. There are no bad authors for children, that children like and want to read and seek out, because every child is different. They can find the stories they need to, and they bring themselves to stories.

It’s tosh. It’s snobbery and it’s foolishness. There are no bad authors for children, that children like and want to read and seek out, because every child is different. They can find the stories they need to, and they bring themselves to stories.

Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child’s love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian “improving” literature. You’ll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant."