There is an excellent article in the latest Atlantic that touches on this. It's a review of Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons" and discusses the relationship between literature and entertainment.
IMO Gene Wolfe could be quite popular if he was better known.
The St. Robert Southwell Institute is trying to jump-start such a literary revival. We'll see what happens.
A great debt is owed by many of today's popular novelists to folks like Flannery O'Connor, Graham Greene, etc. - though they may not admit it or even realize it.
The real problem is that there is a reluctance (to say the least) on the part of today's publishers to print anything overtly Catholic. As Ron Hansen says in the article, most reviewers didn't even *get* Atticus, but Christian readers do.
The reader wrote to Mark, "I think we are in far more need of Catholic pop culture." I'd suggest we start by giving our support to the Catholic writers who're currently trying to write from the POV of their faith. The article names some & I'm sure others could mention their favorites in this thread. (Like St Blog's own Kathryn Lively.) Buy their stuff & read it. Talk about it. Encourage others to do the same, rather than waste their time on the Dumb Vinci Code. Most bestselling books don't sell on the level of Brown's tripe but in far smaller numbers. If we support those authors who are writing Catholic culture (pop or not) into their works, it seems to me we'll be able to take good lit back from the control of the upper crust literati Mark mentions & make it ours again. And, in doing so, the publishers might get the message that this is what folks want.
But you've got to want it & support it first.
Also, we could support books in print that hark back to that Golden Age of Catholic culture that Loyola Press is releasing now. The series editor is Amy Welborn. There are some classic works like In This House of Brede, Edge of Sadness, Helena, Mr Blue, Last Catholic in America, etc. Support for these books will also cause the publishing world to stand up & take notice.
I think everything is in place. We just need to make the decision. Do we continue to support & buy & read & recommend what's on the NYT bestseller list 'cos those books are the first things we see when we walk into Barnes & Noble or do we dig deeper & shake things up? (I speak generally since folks that post here tend to do this already, it seems.) I think the power's in our hands now. So let's use it.
One thing that I'd like to see, in addition to works by Catholic authors, is a re-interpretation of EXISTING works by Catholic authors. By that, I mean that existing pop culture figures should be re-interpreted to be seen as informed by Catholic teachings. I was thinking the other day, why they heck don't they do that with regards to the new Superman movie? I mean, that trailer where Brando says "they can be a good people, they only need the light to show the way... for this, I have sent you, my Only Son." I mean, that trailer was the perfect example of what I think can be done on a much, much, larger scale. It seems innocuous to the larger public, but when viewed through Catholic teaching, it becomes very powerful. I'd love to see that on a grand scale. I hope that the whole movie is infused with that sort of thinking.
I'm sure that this could be done with many aspects of pop culture.
Gene Wolfe is an old friend and a highly gifted writer but he's hardly pop culture material! Even within the sf world, he's yet to win a Hugo, which is voted on by the fans (as opposed to the Nebula which is voted on by the pros, which he has won.
There are positive works that make acceptable pop culture, such as THE INCREDIBLES (although it underperformed)and the Catholic touches in LOST, but overtly Catholic works are unlikely to get a hearing from the public. Best bet would be mysteries, where Catholics do exist among the bestselling authors (Patricia Higgins Clark for instance)and Catholic ideas can appear in historical settings at least.
Gene Wolfe is greatly admired in SF circles even my the most die-hard atheists. He writes quality stuff. But he's scarcely read outside the SF/Fantasy community.
I can't confirm it, but I'd be shocked if at least one of the writers on LOST is not Catholic.
Honestly, my biggest problem with so much of today's "Christian fiction" is that, honestly, most of it isn't very good. Gene Wolfe is a notable exception.
I've never heard him confirm or deny it (because I've never seen anyone ask him), but I have a suspicion that the Mystery/Thriller novelist William Kent Krueger is either Catholic or was raised Catholic. Definitely R-rated in parts, but his main character is a fallen away Catholic who isn't so fallen away by the end of the third book.
Then there's Max Allan Collins' Road to Perdition that has a very Catholic sensibility to it. (They blew it in the movie - don't they always. Or mostly always.) A great read & very, very effective.
BTW . . . I refer to the graphic novel version illustrated by Richard Rayner.
Gene Wolfe is an old friend and a highly gifted writer but he's hardly pop culture material!
Gene Wolfe is a Catholic? This is very cool. I've never read anything by him, but I think my brother is a big fan. I don't think he knows Wolfe is an RC.
overtly Catholic works are unlikely to get a hearing from the public. Best bet would be mysteries, where Catholics do exist among the bestselling authors.
One Catholic SF/fantasy writer I highly recommend is Tim Powers. I interviewed him a year or so ago for the St. Austin Review, Joseph Pearce's magazine. Very interesting fellow! His best-known work is The Annubis Gates, winner of the Phillip K. Dick award, which I have not read. I have read The Drawing of the Dark, a book about how a special, magical bock beer saves Vienna from the invading Turks (the book takes place during the first siege of Vienna, not the second). Good stuff.
Catholic literature is in the thick of pop culture. Think of the movie Lord of the Rings, the Narnia movies, the Man with the Iron Mask, the Passion of Christ...
Tim Powers' masterpiece is DECLARE, the best Catholic novel of recent yeras, winner of both the Worldfantasycon and Horror Writers' awards. It's a Cold War spy novel crossed with the Arabian Nights.
I've known Gene Wolfe for 36 years and he is quite definitely a Catholic, who converted when young.
Some other Catholic sf writers past and present: Fred Saberhagen, RA Lafferty, Anthony Boucher, Walter Miller (briefly in the Church), and Julian May. Cordwainer Smith and Zenna Henderson were overtly Christian sf writers, though not Catholics.
I'll have to go out and get Declare then. Thanks for the recommendation.
May we also mention cinema? One young director to pay attention to is Scott Derrickson. He directed and co-wrote last fall's The Exorcism of Emily Rose. My interview with him will be in the next issue of Gilbert Magazine. He is not Catholic, but he is a very well-read Chestertonian and hence is strongly orthodox in his Christianity. Watch for more good things from him.
Hey, you guys - check out Oregon author Debra Murphy's first novel _The Mystery of Things_ at www.idyllspress.com. A cracking good read of a mystery, and full of JPII's Theology of the Body. She's won a couple local awards for this book, and her articles appear on Godspy and other Catholic website regularly.
I am all about Catholics engaging with pop culture - since I was young, I've felt it to be my vocation. Believing, practicing Catholics need to continue infiltrating the world of pop music as well, and it's my prayer that we'll avoid the pitfall of the CCM/evangelical "Christian ghetto" that characterized the Christian music industry in the '80s and '90s. (Visit my blog at http://
www.kathleenlundquist.blo...st.blogspot.com for more of my thoughts on this.)
Wherever humans are, art is. Wherever humans are, Catholic artmakers must be.
It seems to me that one of the effects we can expect from a Catholic approach to story-telling (whether of the gee-shucks or the highfalootin variety) is a narrowing of the gap between "pop" and "high" literature. Catholics, by faith if not by instinct, pay attention to the high and transcendent desires of the everyday person, no matter how "low" his or her condition. So Catholic high literature will not eschew the need to engage and entertain the senses and emotions; and Catholic pop literature will not neglect the deeper and higher themes of human purpose and dignity. In other words, a Catholic approach to story should be a more human approach to story -- exactly insofar as a Catholic approach to the human person is accurate and true.
You can also add Mike Flynn ( author of the Firestar series and The Wreck of The River of Stars ) to the list of Catholic SF authors, though I can't say as to how much his Faith informs his work.
As for becoming a "Catholic Steven King", I'm dancing as fast as I can, folks. 
Julian May's Catholicism is pretty obvious, but her envisioned future overlooked Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.
Hey, Miller's overlooked VII.
For those of you conscious in 1964, Help Is On The Way. Otherwise, Don't Worry, Be Happy, or whatever the latest pop psychology nothing phrase is these days.
I identify the current slump in "Catholic Literature" with a number of factors, chief of which are
1) The idea (unfortunately linked with Vatican II somehow) that anything explicitly Catholic is a definite Bozo Nono, and
2) The notion that using modern methods of marketing and distribution, not to mention basics of sound business is, somehow, immoral.
The reaction, e.g., Dr. McInerney's observation that a lot of "Catholic" novels are so good they're bad, hasn't helped any.
There are signs, however, that things may be turning around. If I have my druthers, we'll see something before the end of this calendar year. I have Secret Sources.
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