If We Choose Crap, Then Crap Is Good

So . . . I like to read, you know, books.  Sometimes this makes me feel old, but really it's just an enjoyable experience that pales in comparison to reading from a screen (in fact, it is as pale in comparison as the complexion of someone who stares at a screen all day).  My taste in books (and TV, movies, and music) is quite eclectic; it isn't that I am not discerning (I'm not literature whore) but rather that my interests span a wide variety of fiction genres and non-fiction topics.  And recently I was presented with an interesting question (found, where else, in a book): how do we decide the merit of something like a book?  The answer (kind of) after the jump.

Most of the time I read obscure stuff, or non-fiction on nerdy topics (like physics and behavioural economics), or so-called "literary" novels.  Occasionally, though, I get sucked into reading the bestseller du jour, such as the Da Vinci Code (I'm surprised that Sophie did not get pneumonia from the number of times I read "Sophie shivered") or the Girl With the Whatever It Is She Did Now.  I read this last one (the first in The Girl trilogy) pretty recently, and followed it up with a book you've never heard of called How I Became a Famous Novelist (spoilers ahead).  The latter is essentially a skewering of the publishing business and bestsellers in general.  The protagonist wants to impress an ex-girlfriend, so he studies bestselling literary novels, finds the elements that seem to be prevalent (e.g. widows, clubs, life lessons, etc) and cobbles together a book.  He gets it published, it's a best seller, and then he admits that it was all a fraud.

The interesting question, though, posed by a literature professor towards the end of the book, is how do we judge merit in a book?  To point at certain books as being the best is arbitrary, and such a decision rests with a select few experts such as literature professors.  According to the professor character, the only true barometer of a book's worth is how it has performed in the marketplace.  So Moby Dick isn't a classic, because it did not sell well when released, but Melville's now-unknown Typee is a top book, because it did.

Such thinking goes against most people's conceptions of what quality art is, in that art is supposed to be separate from commerce.  That's why the Oscars is not the People's Choice Awards.  But which is more representative what society holds to be valuable - the votes of 6000 people, or the collected actions of millions?  If we believe that The Hurt Locker is better than Transformers 2, why did thirty times as many people plunk down hard-earned money to see Shia LeBoeuf's crapfest?  Is that we irrationally select what is of less value?  Or is it that we compartmentalize value into "value I admire but won't pay for" and "value I will pay for but don't admire" (or, put in a way that you're more likely to hear, "I hear it's really good but I'd rather see something fun").

Is the true Western Canon comprised of the Da Vinci Code, the Harry Potter books, and Anne of Green Gables (yup, one of the top 20 selling books of all time)?  Is Thriller the best album ever?  In the past 30 years, only four winners of the Best Picture Oscar were also the highest grossing film of that year (can you guess them?  Put your guesses in the comments).  This seems wrong, but it's far more objective than deciding somehow which films are "best" by some vague criteria. 

What it comes down to for me is that we can all have our personal preferences, which both lead to action (i.e. we choose to read/watch/listen to what we think we like best) and are revealed by action (i.e. talk is cheap - it doesn't matter if you say you think Precious Based On the Novel Push by Sapphire is great, it matters if you choose to go see that instead of Confessions of a Shopaholic).  And things like bestseller lists and the Billboard 100 are just the revealed preferences of society as a whole.  So Ben Harper may be good music, but we wants our Ke$ha.