Carnival Culture Twitchell Has a Term Paper

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And perhaps worst of all are books like Chicken Soup for the Soul, which are usually given as graduation gifts or gifts given to a person undergoing a difficult emotional crisis, again more like one would give a greeting card than a book full of information.

But Twitchell's other point, that the publishing industry must maintain a clear sense of high culture and guide rather than respond to America's tastes, is more controversial than his suggestion that the book world should re-focus its attention on reading rather than simply selling printed matter. Although some of the best sellers Twitchell despises, like works by Danielle Steel or Steven King, may be without merit one might ask -- has he ever read the cultural critiques found within the pages of a Calvin and Hobbes comic? Why speak of the quality of Salmon Rushdie in the same breath as Steel and King -- or even merge Tom Wolfe's The Bonfire of the Vanities, which is a critique of the commercialism of the 1980s with the excesses of Sidney Sheldon? Clearly, although America may buy bubble gum literature, many best sellers are not simply candy for the mind, but have a few vitamins and minerals along with their popular appeal.

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At times, Twitchell almost seems to regret the invention of the modern printing press -- or at least the ability to sell inexpensively manufactured written products at a high margin. (83) This has made books a subsidiary part of popular culture, he states, and has made the best seller more important than a great work of literature.

However, the influence of such political works like The Federalist Papers were only possible through the use of mass publishing in America's past, and they were both democratic and valuable works of literature. Great works of literature, from Shakespeare on the stage to Charles Dickens in print, were popular without publishers self-appointing themselves the guardians of America's taste. The persons who make the popularity of books that are not designed to be read, like coffee table books, might not buy books at all, rather than turn to less accessible 'great' works of literature if they could not buy such works. Finally, it is certainly possible to enjoy both Leviathan and a Calvin and Hobbes comic -- in fact, one reason a person might actually read the former work is out of curiosity for what inspired the great comic author Watterson to call his….....

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