From Lowbrow to Nobrow
Peter Swirski
McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2005
Written for both academic and general readership, Peter Swirski’s recent
bestseller will enlighten any reader who is fond of popular literature and culture.
As an associate professor and head of American Studies, University of Hong
Kong, Swirski proposes that both highbrow and lowbrow literary cultures have
been interpenetrating each other from at least early in the 20th century, i.e.,
decades before what John Seabrook proposes in Nobrow (2000). Swirski’s is an
interesting and eye-opening must-read about popular literature as art, and is the
best study to date of the rise of that novel literary-cultural formation, “nobrow.”
Swirski begins with some groundbreaking questions about the nature of
popular fiction, outlining and defending an innovative way of looking at it as
“artertainment.” He takes a critical view of the still widespread assumption that
popular literature, though the dominant art in our times, cannot be art (if it was,
it would not be so popular). This makes me recall the memory of when Forrest
Gump, starring Tom Hanks, caused much debate in 1994 after winning six
Oscars. Perhaps through the eyes of the “highbrow” critics, it is popular fare that
should not have won Academy awards. It may be a stereotype that only dramas
or other “highbrow” movies can receive Oscars. Swirski argues that in many
cases, far from thoughtless pulp, “popular literature expresses and reflects the
aesthetic and social values of its readers” (p. 6).
Swirski moves on to present some recent statistical data about the history of
popular fiction publishing and an insightful analysis of “nobrow aesthetics.”
Such numerical engagement with aesthetic problems is extremely rare, to say the
least, and all the more praiseworthy. Both chapters open the reader’s eyes to a
full picture of the rapid expansion and culturally dominating role of popular
fiction. In leading his readers to explore the nature of nobrow aesthetics in
chapter two, Swirski methodically examines the four major types of critiques of
popular fiction, including the negative character of popular culture and its
negative effects on literary culture, readership, and society. With his sound
arguments, in-depth coverage, and colourful illustrations with literary case
studies, Swirski brings readers to a new insight into the stereotypes of popular
culture, and innovatively establishes a significant range of aesthetic qualities of
popular culture.
In a typical moment, he provides compelling arguments and evidence
against the third criticism of popular culture, namely that it has a negative effect
on readership, “produc[es] emotionally and cognitively harmful [effects]” (p.
42). If we turn to Chinese popular culture, the popular fictions written in the
Ming dynasty, such as Jin Ping Mei ( The Plum in the Golden Vase), play a
significant part in ancient Chinese literary art. Though having plots based on
love and sexual