Looking forward to what you have to say about types of story. I personally don't think there should be a sharp division between "high" literature and "low"; It all exists on a continuum, and sometimes a work of "low" or "popular" fiction will exhibit the same stylistic grace and narrative richness that usually characterizes Great Literature (and sometimes, the Great Literature is just utterly boring and not worth reading even if it is "high art").
As to pulp magazines . . . George Orwell wrote a brilliant essay, "Boys' Weeklies", where he critiques the current state of the pulp magazine in 1940s England. The essay is dated, to be sure, but it is a splendid piece of in-depth analysis and my personal favorite example of what literary criticism can achieve. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/boys-weeklies/
Thanks for your comment. Did I differentiate between the two? Perhaps you are reading my ambivalence as I wade into wider ranges of literature for the first time. I have been writing on art for twenty years but always held back from writing about literature, which seemed to me a musty and old fashioned activity. With the forced isolation of the last couple of years I have been rediscovering books again, and writing actively on them, both as a subject and individually. I have at least two book musings forthcoming, one on "Ironweed" by William Kennedy and "Our Souls at Night" by Kent Haruf.
Looking forward to what you have to say about types of story. I personally don't think there should be a sharp division between "high" literature and "low"; It all exists on a continuum, and sometimes a work of "low" or "popular" fiction will exhibit the same stylistic grace and narrative richness that usually characterizes Great Literature (and sometimes, the Great Literature is just utterly boring and not worth reading even if it is "high art").
As to pulp magazines . . . George Orwell wrote a brilliant essay, "Boys' Weeklies", where he critiques the current state of the pulp magazine in 1940s England. The essay is dated, to be sure, but it is a splendid piece of in-depth analysis and my personal favorite example of what literary criticism can achieve. https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwell/essays-and-other-works/boys-weeklies/
Thanks for your comment. Did I differentiate between the two? Perhaps you are reading my ambivalence as I wade into wider ranges of literature for the first time. I have been writing on art for twenty years but always held back from writing about literature, which seemed to me a musty and old fashioned activity. With the forced isolation of the last couple of years I have been rediscovering books again, and writing actively on them, both as a subject and individually. I have at least two book musings forthcoming, one on "Ironweed" by William Kennedy and "Our Souls at Night" by Kent Haruf.