{"id":41,"date":"2005-09-12T23:47:19","date_gmt":"2005-09-13T03:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/2005\/09\/12\/the-lathe-of-heaven-and-the-blurring-of-high-and-low-culture\/"},"modified":"2005-09-12T23:50:50","modified_gmt":"2005-09-13T03:50:50","slug":"the-lathe-of-heaven-and-the-blurring-of-high-and-low-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/2005\/09\/12\/the-lathe-of-heaven-and-the-blurring-of-high-and-low-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"LeGuin and the Blurring of High and Low Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some people have addressed the sci-fi aspect of <em>The Lathe of Heaven<\/em>.  Jules begins with the caveat that she\u2019s never really been much of a science fiction fan, as it isn\u2019t a genre taken seriously by many critics of Literature-with-a-capital-l; and then Chris, it seems to me from his scathing critique, feels the novel is pulp sci-fi.  But this raises the postmodern issue of the blurred line between high and low culture.  Harvey explains that some feel \u201ccapitalism, in order to sustain its markets, has been forced to produce desire and so titillate individual sensibilities as to create a new aesthetic over and against traditional forms of high culture\u201d (63).  Chris points out the cartoon bad guy and how the hero gets the girl; and there are clearly other formulaic components present in the novel.  However, it seems to me that LeGuin has co-opted a traditionally \u201clowbrow\u201d form of entertainment to create a philosophically complex text, thus working against the traditional literature (and its critics) who eschew science fiction.  She is using sci-fi aesthetics, but the novel\u2019s underlying issues could certainly stimulate discussion among \u201chighbrow\u201d readers, if only they\u2019d deign to read it (with an open mind).  <\/p>\n<p>I remember seeing an interview with Quentin Tarantino where explained that, in his films, he uses violence merely as an aesthetic; thus he\u2019s co-opted filmic elements that have traditionally been used to satisfy \u201clowbrow\u201d viewers to create some of the most influential and critically-acclaimed films of the \u201890s.  As Dr. Sample pointed out in class, <em>The Lathe of Heaven <\/em>belongs to the group of books on our syllabus that one might take to the beach.  Thus the novel appeals to a \u201clowbrow\u201d audience, and indeed a less discriminating reader could zip through <em>Lathe <\/em>for some cheap entertainment; but the novel also addresses a variety of complex issues \u2013 from schizophrenia to environmental degradation \u2013 that a beach reader wouldn\u2019t think twice about.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some people have addressed the sci-fi aspect of The Lathe of Heaven. Jules begins with the caveat that she\u2019s never really been much of a science fiction fan, as it isn\u2019t a genre taken seriously by many critics of Literature-with-a-capital-l; and then Chris, it seems to me from his scathing critique, feels the novel is &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/2005\/09\/12\/the-lathe-of-heaven-and-the-blurring-of-high-and-low-culture\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">LeGuin and the Blurring of High and Low Culture<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/fall2005\/660\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}