My English teacher believes Tolkien has no literary merit....

[Ginkasa]

...as well as any other fantasy or sci-fi author.

I take AP English Literature and Composition. We've been looking at different promps used for past AP tests, and we've noticed that every single one has said that we have to choose a book of "literary merit." Someone asked exactly which books would have literary merit and how would we know what they were.

So my teacher answers by saying something along the lines of, "I'm sorry if you read science fiction or fantasy, but they don't have literary merit. Harry Potter, Tolkien, Stephen King; they are certainly fun reads, but they have no literary merit." That's not an exact quote, but its pretty darn close.

Once she said this, my respect for her completely disappeared. Quite frankly, if she can so quickly dismiss a book or author as having no literary merit just because of the genre, then she should not be teaching a class about literature. Not to say I'll slack off in her class or ignore her, however. I'm sure I can pick up some stuff about hwo to please AP graders and overanalyze the written word, but it will be a chore to come to her class, not a pleasure as my English classes have been for the past two years.

And it wasn't so much that she classified sci-fi and fantasy in general as having no literary merit, its almost expected, but that she singled out Tolkien himself. Its not that she's read the wrong books, but that she's just biased and ignorant...


/me shrugs and walks away

[DarrenMcLeod]

I hate Tolkien's writing style.

I'm sorry, the man had an interesting concept and idea, but i'll be damned if he didn't get too descriptive with environments and other things.

Literary Merit probably means something along the lines of Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, etc.

[Ginkasa]

Yeah, I have never been able to get through even half of The Lord of the Rings a second time, but that's not what I was talking about. Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter is just as bad if not worse than The Lord of the Rings, and it still has literary merit.

It has nothing to do with how good a book is or if there is too much description, it basically has to do with whether some English professor decides if its worthy or not. That my English teacher just decided that the whole of the science fiction/fantasy genre is unworthy for no reason that it just is really ticks me off.

It can't be because its a relatively new genre, at least in its current incarnation. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, just released in 2000 or something, has literary merit (I would also like to note that one of the things my teacher said made this such a wonderful book was the changing of perspectives each chapter, something that has been in two fantasy/sci-fi novels that I can name before).

Its just irks me.


/me shrugs and walks away

[Vampyr]

My english teacher thinks the EXACT SAME THING. She LOVES Lord of the Rings, but she claims that it doesn't have "literary merit". I hate people like that, who think that the only literature that can be deep and symbolic is the kind about people killing each other or going to war or about some black family who was mistreated. I am so god damn tired of reading about mistreated minorities.

Anyway, just to prove you're teacher wrong: A good friend of mine took the AP English test a few years ago, and on the essay question asking about a book with "Literary Merit" he chose to write about Ender's Game.

The english teacher I was talking about nearly choked him for it.

He got a 4 on his test.

So screw all the people who say fantasy and sci-fi don't have literary merit.

[BlueFire]

I remember reading somewhere than you shouldn't use books like LOTR and Harry Potter in the AP exams.. I guess it doesn't flow well with the Collegeboard. I probably wouldn't use those books in my essays anyways. I think thats what your teachers mean... :P Perhaps she chose the wrong words.. :P

[Ginkasa]

No, she was pretty clear in that she believed they had no literary merit herself. I've also heard several stories of people who have used sci-fi or fantasy novels on the AP test and still gotten 4s or 5s. Even if she did mean they simply wouldn't be considered to have literary merit by the AP graders (of which she is one, BTW), then she's still wrong.

I would also like to point out how one of the first things she told us about essays was that we should focus more on the overall meaning than small things like super correct punctuation (she was more in the perspective of grading an essay than writing one). She heavily stressed that overall meaning is the most important part of the essay, but it seems that, to her, choice of novel would be more important...


/me shrugs and walks away

[Crash]

You telling me Michael Crichton has no MERIT????

damn, i hate those people... everyone sucks who isn't Emily Bronte....

Bull**** I say

[GameMaster]

Hmm...sounds like your English teacher is bitter. Doesn't want to give the popular books the credit they deserve. Maybe she has something against novels turned into movies. Or perhaps she failed as a writer herself and takes out her anger on being merely an English high school teacher upon her students and the material they tend to enjoy.

[Xantar]

While I certainly don't agree that fantasy or sci-fi novels have no literary merit just because they're sci-fi/fantasy, I do have to say that authors in the genre my and large aren't making it very easy for me to argue otherwise. All too often, I think they concentrate too much on gee whiz bang stuff. "Look, I created an entire world!" or "Look! I conceptualized a new technology!"

A case in point is Ringworld, Larry Niven's novel which is considered by many sci-fi buffs to be a "classic," mostly because it envisioned a world in the shape of a ring around the sun (just like Halo). That's all well and good, but the story itself consists of some explorers wandering around the place and looking at things. That's not only boring, it tends to make the book into something more like a technical exercise rather than a work of literature.

It's an unfortunate fact that because of the genre, sci-fi/fantasy authors think they can get away with mediocre characterization and story development so long as they present us with lots of cool gadgets or spells or something. I'm not saying that books to match Dickens don't exist in the genre. I hear Song of Fire and Ice is pretty good (though I haven't managed to get a hold of it). And I personally think Guy Gavriel Kay's Sarantine Mosaic makes very good jabs in the right direction.

But, sci-fi/fantasy is a very popular genre, and like anything where a lot of product is produced, the vast majority of it will be crap.

On the other hand, some people seem to think that if you dared to enjoy reading something, it must not be literature. There's stupid people on all sides, I guess.

P.S. Sorry, but Harry Potter really isn't great literature.

[Stonecutter]

It's an unfortunate fact that because of the genre, sci-fi/fantasy authors think they can get away with mediocre characterization and story development so long as they present us with lots of cool gadgets or spells or something.

*Cough*TOMCLANCY*Cough*

[Krypton]

Tim Dorsey is my favorite author.


the book "Cadillac Beach" is a classic.

[DarrenMcLeod]

Krypton - Every Time I Die kicks ass.

Also, I'd love to see someone use The Da Vinci Code on an AP Test. They'd get destroyed.

[Ginkasa]

While I certainly don't agree that fantasy or sci-fi novels have no literary merit just because they're sci-fi/fantasy, I do have to say that authors in the genre my and large aren't making it very easy for me to argue otherwise. All too often, I think they concentrate too much on gee whiz bang stuff. "Look, I created an entire world!" or "Look! I conceptualized a new technology!"

A case in point is Ringworld, Larry Niven's novel which is considered by many sci-fi buffs to be a "classic," mostly because it envisioned a world in the shape of a ring around the sun (just like Halo). That's all well and good, but the story itself consists of some explorers wandering around the place and looking at things. That's not only boring, it tends to make the book into something more like a technical exercise rather than a work of literature.

It's an unfortunate fact that because of the genre, sci-fi/fantasy authors think they can get away with mediocre characterization and story development so long as they present us with lots of cool gadgets or spells or something. I'm not saying that books to match Dickens don't exist in the genre. I hear Song of Fire and Ice is pretty good (though I haven't managed to get a hold of it). And I personally think Guy Gavriel Kay's Sarantine Mosaic makes very good jabs in the right direction.

But, sci-fi/fantasy is a very popular genre, and like anything where a lot of product is produced, the vast majority of it will be crap.

On the other hand, some people seem to think that if you dared to enjoy reading something, it must not be literature. There's stupid people on all sides, I guess.

P.S. Sorry, but Harry Potter really isn't great literature.


Yeah, I realize that most sci-fi fantasy ins't really all that good. Mostly my anger was at including Tolkien specifically.

And I was just quoting her words; I realize Harry Potter is not great literature.


/me shrugs and walks away

[BlueFire]

You telling me Michael Crichton has no MERIT????

damn, i hate those people... everyone sucks who isn't Emily Bronte....

Bull**** I say
Wuthering Heights is awesome.

Sorry, continue.

[Xantar]

Also, I'd love to see someone use The Da Vinci Code on an AP Test. They'd get destroyed.

I can see it now...

When I read the subject for the essay question on this exam, I found my mind totally blown. I couldn't believe the shocking revelation I had just had. The idea was revolutionary. It was going to turn the world upside down. And all the clues had been sitting there right in front of me all this time! How could I not have noticed it before?

It was clear. The clues were planted right there in the text. Obviously, the test writer was trying to convey an important message using the medium of one of the oldest and most respected standardized tests in the nation. But nobody had ever noticed it before. Now the world was never going to be the same.

But time is against me. I have to make sure this message gets out or else a terrible secret will be lost forever. I have to work as fast as I can now to let the truth be known. We've been duped for all this time! It's crazy! But I have to stop now and focus. There's just five minutes left in my time!

What am I going to do now? How am I going to deal with these shocking discoveries? How can I live my life in the world now knowing what I know? People have probably died protecting this secret. Surely they will stop at nothing now to silence me. Maybe you'll find it too hard to believe once I tell you, but it's absolutely true. Every description I give is accurate, and all the dates from history are real. This is what happened!

But time has just run out. I'll just have to wait until my next AP exam to talk more.

[DarrenMcLeod]

I can see it now...

When I read the subject for the essay question on this exam, I found my mind totally blown. I couldn't believe the shocking revelation I had just had. The idea was revolutionary. It was going to turn the world upside down. And all the clues had been sitting there right in front of me all this time! How could I not have noticed it before?

It was clear. The clues were planted right there in the text. Obviously, the test writer was trying to convey an important message using the medium of one of the oldest and most respected standardized tests in the nation. But nobody had ever noticed it before. Now the world was never going to be the same.

But time is against me. I have to make sure this message gets out or else a terrible secret will be lost forever. I have to work as fast as I can now to let the truth be known. We've been duped for all this time! It's crazy! But I have to stop now and focus. There's just five minutes left in my time!

What am I going to do now? How am I going to deal with these shocking discoveries? How can I live my life in the world now knowing what I know? People have probably died protecting this secret. Surely they will stop at nothing now to silence me. Maybe you'll find it too hard to believe once I tell you, but it's absolutely true. Every description I give is accurate, and all the dates from history are real. This is what happened!

But time has just run out. I'll just have to wait until my next AP exam to talk more.
Brilliant.