Questioning great literature's nature

By Andrew Hibschman
Collegian Reporter
February 28, 2007

Throughout high school, “great literature” was shoved down our throats so that we would become cultured and well-rounded. These works, from Beowulf to Romeo and Juliet, were intended to show us what great writers could do and what great literature should look like. My question is, why didn’t anyone stop to ask us what we considered to be “great?” I know that generations of literary experts can’t be wrong, that there must be something present in these works that makes them great, but what about modern works? Why are only books tested by time allowed to be called great? I define great literature as that which moves you, something that evokes an emotion in you that would not otherwise have been touched. Some of these works are easily overlooked, but hopefully the books found here will show you how truly great literature can be.

The situations found in some commonly read “great” works of literature are completely foreign to the average reader, and how can a novel make you feel anything if you cannot relate to what the characters are going through? A book I recently finished, Maybe a Miracle by Brian Strause, contains characters to which anyone can relate. This work is great in a much more modern sense than anything Shakespeare wrote. Maybe a Miracle has no doomed lovers or insane rulers, no long soliloquies or rhymed couplets, all of which stop a modern reader from getting close to the main characters of a novel or play, but has only a story that could take place in any city, with characters that could constitute anyone’s family. Maybe a Miracle contains that which is truly necessary to make literature great: a storyline that not only involves that reader, but allows him or her to slip into the life of the main character and to truly feel with the narrator in the storyline that arises. I dare you to read this book and to not feel something. You couldn’t. Maybe a Miracle leaves the reader laughing, crying and wanting more. If that isn’t great literature, then I don’t know what is.

The best “great” fiction is grounded in reality, without which the reader has no chance of ever understanding or appreciating the characters presented in a novel. Great fiction takes reality, throws in some characters that don’t exist in real life, but could, and makes the reader feel for them. Maybe a Miracle does this, and so does Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a novel by Jonathan Safran Foer. This second novel is incredibly well-written and speaks to anyone who has ever lost a loved one. It is great not because of structured and archaic prose, but because it has a message it wants you to hear, and allows you to hear it without forcing that message upon you. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a powerful and moving piece of great literature; it leaves you breathless and crying, but hoping for more.

The best way of determining the greatness of a book is by noticing the lasting effect that it has left on your mind. A great book leaves you unwilling to move onto another book, for fear of wrecking the images and emotions it left you with. This book shows you a glimpse of real life, while still giving you the ability to escape into a world that is not your own.

hibschmana1@lasalle.edu