Great Books and Strike Possibilities
Are the Rowling-Galbraith novels Great Books, great books, or neither?
I recently had the great honor of being one of the guests for a series on The Chronicles of Narnia for the Great Books podcast from The National Review. The show has been running for the past few years, with a new episode each week, but each one starts the same way, as host John Miller asks, “Why is __________a Great Book?” I
was prepared for the question and had a response ready for the question, “Why is The Silver Chair a Great Book?” In fact, I could have spent the entire podcast on just that one question, as the fourth book in the Narnia series is, in my opinion, both a great book and a Great Book.
I’ve enjoyed listening to the other podcasts in the series, as well as others from the show, and it is interesting to ponder the responses different guests provide in reference to a wide array of books. Those answers have provoked some thoughts on that question in regard to the Strike Books, which I doubt will be featured on that show but which we certainly consider worthy of study. If we had to field the question of what makes the Strike Books great books/Great Books, how would we answer? Would they all qualify? Would only some make the cut?
Let’s consider the definition of Great Book and ponder the possibilities of including the Galbraith novels in their ranks.
Great Book versus great book
It’s astonishing the difference a capital letter or two can make. There is a big difference between a white house and the White House, for example. Having recently been in Washington, D.C., where I noticed serious security measures in place from across the street, I can confirm that one does not simply walk up to the White House and ring the doorbell, as one could at the white house down the road from mine. In similar fashion, there is a difference between a great book and a Great Book.
The definition of a Great Book varies, even among the schools and colleges that offer Great Books curriculum. While Encyclopedia Britannica offered the Great Books of the Western World as its version of the Harvard Classics in the 1950s, the concept of a Great Books course of study continues to expand and change over time. Each list of “the” great books is different, as each curriculum takes its own approach, but there are some “standards,” of course. When Miller asked me about other books I would like to discuss, I perused the list of previous shows to see which of my favorites had not yet been covered. Unsurprisingly, I saw most of the “usual suspects,” from The Odyssey to Jane Eyre had been claimed some time ago. Yet, there are books on the list I might not have immediately considered, and there is still room for more. Academic programs that use the Great Books are frequently limited to the number of texts that can be covered in a specific amount of time, so choices have to be made. Fortunately, there are far more Great Books than could be covered in a semester or even over four years of study, and though the lists vary, there are some general characteristics that we associate with a Great Book, beyond just a great book.
1. A Great Book is part of the on-going literary conversation.
Many of the Great Books are those that provide the underpinning of our culture and thought; thus texts like The Epic of Gilgamesh and the works of Plato are obvious members of the Great Books club, works that have influenced the warp and weft of our cultural fabric. But Great Books are also those that draw on other Greats, participating in the web of influence that is the literary world. While we cannot classify any of our Denmark Street adventures as Great Books that serve as pillars of culture and society, these are literary texts that draw upon uncontested entries on the Great Books category. With texts like Edmund Spenser’s unqualified Great Book, The
Faerie Queene, providing chapter epigraphs, story scaffolding, character templates, and other elements, the Strike stories clearly engage with those texts that ae considered central to the foundations of literature and Western Culture. With Dylan Thomas already confirmed as a member of the literary team for The Running Grave, that on-going conversation with the Great Books is all but assured (although I do wonder myself if there will also be Bob Dylan references, a la the 1995 film Dangerous Minds and the Dylan/Dylan contest the harried inner-city teacher employs to spark learning in her reluctant students).
2. A Great Book stands the test of time
With the Strike series on-going, it remains to be seen what the long-term impact of the novels will be. Certainly, many books that were considered great (lowercase g) when published are no longer classified as even great, let alone Great. In like fashion, some books that received little original attention are now among our Greats. For example, Moby Dick, which had the sad misfortune of being published without its final chapter, was a huge commercial and critical failure in its original printing. No one understood how we even have a story without that last chapter to explain the rescue of narrator Ishmael as the sole survivor from the sinking of the Pequod. The Great Gatsby, that staple of high school Great Books reading lists, was not widely popular until it was included as one of the texts in the World War II Armed Services Editions of books issued to American servicemen.
We can hope Strike continues to engage readers even long after cultural references to specific soccer games and current public figures are things of the past, but only time will tell.
3. A Great Book provides layers of meaning.
While there is nothing wrong with simply reading “for grins,” such experiences do not reveal a host of layers for readers to explore. Like cotton candy, they are tasty but ultimately lacking in nutrition, substance, and nuance. The Great Books, however, can be enjoyed on a variety of levels. One can simply have fun reading the sea-faring adventure that is Moby Dick, or one can plunge into the deeper layers of allegory and meaning, which, like ocean waters, each yield rich discoveries.
As our posts here doubtless demonstrate, the Galbraith novels do certainly provide meaning at various levels, far beyond their surface stories and the crimes Strike and Robin seek to solve in each installment.
4. A Great Book stands up to repeat reading.
Those layers are one of the primary reasons that careful readers can continue to find Great Books interesting upon repeat reads. Even though we know “how it turns out,” we still read again, and again, each time finding something more. This repeat reading trait is one specifically outlined by C.S. Lewis in his brilliant work of literary criticism, An Experiment in Criticism. He points out that repeat reading is one of the primary qualities of good literature and of the practice of reading it. Books that don’t make the cut are not worth reading once we know the outcome of the plot. Many detective stories would fall short, as no one cares to read them again once the crime has been solved, the murderer punished, the victims identified.
However, the Strike novels do stand up to repeat reads. Each time we revisit them, we may find more, as those layers continue to unfold and those literary connections continue to be revealed. Unlike many popular crime or detective stories, the Galbraith novels have rich soil for cultivating deep thoughts upon each read.
5. A Great Book inspires a reader to thought and further studies.
One of the wonderful things about the Great Books is that they do not stand alone. Upon reading one of these texts, we find ourselves wanting more. Perhaps we are like C.S. Lewis, who famously claimed that Jane Austen’s novels (which he re-read every year) had two damning flaws: they were too short and too few. A Great Book, as a text that does not exist in a vacuum, is a book that will inspire readers to seek out other books, perhaps others by the same author, but just as likely the Great Books that may have inspired and encouraged the author. I don’t know that a huge crowd of Galbraith readers have flocked to reading Spenser or Victorian female poets, but some have, and those who do are not only struck by Rowling’s brilliant use of those texts, but they are also inspired to experience these Great Books for themselves. I foresee an uptick in interest in Dylan Thomas this fall.
So the question remains, are the Strike novels Great, great, or neither? Only time will truly tell, of course, but, in the meantime, perhaps we must merely settle for calling them great with the potential to be Great. Until we know for sure, I’ll keep hoping John Miller will let me discuss them on his show.
Elizabeth, I was so excited to see your name pop up again here at HogPro!!! And I completely lost my head when you brought up the Silver Chair because I had to go rummaging to find it so I could reread it, which meant it was a while before I could attempt to answer the question you posed. Now that I've had my Marshwiggle fix, I have a reason to suggest that the Strike books are Great Books.
They are great because, just like Puddleglum, Robin and Cormoran are complex characters full of irritating, comedic, tragic and heroic qualities that endear them to the reader. Just the title was enough to make me a little frantic I'd forgotten the special place I'd given a series I'd sobbed through the first time I read it over 40 years ago.
The Strike books also have winsome characters whose traumatic pasts have dealt them significant challenges for their present situations. They make mistakes, take infuriating risks, and yet never lose their sense of humor or knack for seeing what others fail to see. And that is down to their creator, a legendary author in her own time.
In short, Great Books have endearing characters created by Great Authors.