377 replies to this topic

[Screaming Turkey Ultimate]

I've been thinking about this topic a lot recently after visiting the literature board on 4chan. Never have I encountered a more squalid cesspool of elitist reading habits and self-satisfaction. They seem to only recommend and commend the books and authors that English professors and the literary establishment celebrates: Joyce, Pynchon, Kafka, Dostoevsky, Melville, David Foster Wallace, among others. And some poetry as well. Everything else is trash to them, especially "genre" fiction.

What is your stance on this? Are we just wasting our time with books that aren't considered to be in the highest echelon of literary achievement? Obviously most of you will disagree with their stance, due to this being a forum dedicated to a fantasy series and all, but is there anyone here who does hold their view? If so, can you elaborate? Cheers.

[Serious Callers Only]

4chan has taken trolling to unimaginable strata, so you shouldn't be surprised that the forum mostly known for posting porn has a snob lit forum and yayoi/yuri/lolicon/morepervertedthings side by side.

Edited by Serious Callers Only, 22 August 2012 - 10:56 AM.

[Screaming Turkey Ultimate]

Serious Callers Only, on 22 August 2012 - 10:54 AM, said:

4chan has taken trolling to unimaginable strata, so you shouldn't be surprised that the forum mostly known for posting porn has a snob lit forum and yayoi/yuri/lolicon/morepervertedthings side by side.

Yeah, I know. But they're serious about their literary tastes. And their various boards are massively different. You can't judge the entire site based on /b/ for instance.

[Serious Callers Only]

Serious my ass

[Sci-2]

This is like judging people for being unable to understand complex math proofs, run a marathon, take a punch to the face...

eta: Now, I do think it is valuable to have critical reading/writing skills, but it's hard for me to find an argument as to why artistic taste should be a priority in the world.

I know a paramedic who loves Diablo tie-in novels. He's a pretty big guy as well. If some actually actual shit went down in my life, well, I'm not calling the scarf wearing Pychon fan...

And for the record, I do like lit-fic.

Edited by sciborg2, 22 August 2012 - 11:07 AM.

[Screaming Turkey Ultimate]

Serious Callers Only, on 22 August 2012 - 11:04 AM, said:

Serious my ass

You sure proved me wrong there.

[Zach H]

I like literary, pulp adventure, and fiction that exists somewhere between those two styles, so I don't really concern myself with the one true way posturing and snarky back-patting.  I'd rather read a book.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Screaming Turkey Ultimate, on 22 August 2012 - 10:50 AM, said:

What is your stance on this? Are we just wasting our time with books that aren't considered to be in the highest echelon of literary achievement?

Why should what someone considers to be in the highest echelon of literary achievement affect what anyone else enjoys reading?  I read for enjoyment, and could care less whether it is considered literary, noteworthy, important, or whatever.  I read McCarthy's "The Road", which is supposedly considered high-brow genre.  Hated it.  Uninteresting, nihilistic drivel as far as I was concerned, but that's not an opinion on its "literary merit".  It's just a subjective view as to why I personally didn't enjoy it.

To cite to a book that is not considered a great "literary achievement", there was a line in Zelazny's Courts of Chaos that really has stuck with me.  Corwin is heading to the Courts to try to stop the annihilation of reality, and he runs into this crow who starts lecturing him about the ultimate futility of life, existence, etc..  Corwin debates him for a bit, but then eventually says "you insult me by assuming I have not considered these footnotes to sophomore philosophy."

Corwin's statement really is the core response to all those eggheads out there, in whatever field, who assume the rest of the world really needs to be lectured to, whether by rhetorical brilliance or "literary achievement".  Perhaps people in general really do understand some great underlying truths without applying fancy labels, debating them endlessly, and reading about them.  Not to turn this into a Bakker thread, but that's what I find utterly annoying about his work.  He beats people over the head with his philosophical points as if we're too stupid to simply grasp them, or perhaps even understood those concepts even before reading his books.  It is ultimately condescending as hell, which is the same category into which I'd put all those high-brow critics ripping on genre fiction.

Fuck 'em.

Edited by Former Lord of Winterfell, 22 August 2012 - 11:37 AM.

[sperry]

I read to be entertained.  Many of the literary "classics" are some of the most dense, dull things I've ever tried to force my way through.  Maybe I'm just too stupid to get it, but I've tried several times and failed to find what is so wonderful about Ulysses and Moby Dick.


From taking high school and some introductory college English classes, I've also come to the conclusion that these books have been so overanalyzed that people just start to find things that aren't there in the books, and attribute that to the author's "greatness."

[Screaming Turkey Ultimate]

Former Lord of Winterfell, on 22 August 2012 - 11:36 AM, said:

To cite to a book that is not considered a great "literary achievement", there was a line in Zelazny's Courts of Chaos that really has stuck with me.  Corwin is heading to the Courts to try to stop the annihilation of reality, and he runs into this crow who starts lecturing him about the ultimate futility of life, existence, etc..  Corwin debates him for a bit, but then eventually says "you insult me by assuming I have not considered these footnotes to sophomore philosophy."

This made me chuckle. I'm interested in this book now.

[Lexicon Devil]

I read basically what I want. I would seriously not worry about what 4-chan people have to say about your reading habits. I read lots of SF, fantasy, crime fiction etc.

On the other hand, I have read and enjoyed novels by all of the "highbrow" authors you list. I also enjoy poetry (some of it anyhow) I don't see how enjoying one genre, which is really what literary fiction is, should preclude you from trying out and enjoying another genre.

[Brendan Moody]

Engaging with blanket dismissal of any mode of literature is a waste of time. If you're going to concern yourself with fiction-as-art, rather than simply reading and enjoying what you happen to enjoy, your goal should be to cultivate analytical skills that allow you to develop and clearly state text-based arguments for the quality or lack of quality of particular works and tropes. That's the only way to make a real contribution to any literary debate, rather than the non-contribution that is the equal and opposite cries of "genre is trash"/"literary fiction is boring."

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

Screaming Turkey Ultimate, on 22 August 2012 - 11:50 AM, said:

This made me chuckle. I'm interested in this book now.

It's the last book of Zelazny's first Amber series -- 5 books.  They're all easy reads, and I think it's a really entertaining series.  My favorite Zelazny work is Lord of Light, a standalone novel with a Hindu/Buddist, science fiction/fantasy theme.  Really well done, IMHO, and it did win the Hugo.  A short description from Wikipedia, that contains another quote (bolded) that has just stuck with me as well:

'The protagonist, Sam, who has developed the ability to manipulate electromagnetic forces, is a renegade crewman who has rejected godhood. Sam is the last "Accelerationist": He believes that technology should be available to the masses, and that reincarnation should not be controlled by the elite. Sam introduces Buddhism as a culture jamming tool and strives to cripple the power of the gods with this "new" religion. His carefully planned revolt against the gods takes place in stages: "An army, great in space, may offer opposition in a brief span of time. One man, brief in space, must spread his opposition across a period of many years if he is to have a chance of succeeding."

[A Song of Hound and Wolves]

Screaming Turkey Ultimate, on 22 August 2012 - 10:50 AM, said:

I've been thinking about this topic a lot recently after visiting the literature board on 4chan. Never have I encountered a more squalid cesspool of elitist reading habits and self-satisfaction.
*snip*

What is your stance on this? Are we just wasting our time with books that aren't considered to be in the highest echelon of literary achievement? Obviously most of you will disagree with their stance, due to this being a forum dedicated to a fantasy series and all, but is there anyone here who does hold their view? If so, can you elaborate? Cheers.

Former Lord of Winterfell, on 22 August 2012 - 11:36 AM, said:

Why should what someone considers to be in the highest echelon of literary achievement affect what anyone else enjoys reading?  I read for enjoyment, and could care less whether it is considered literary, noteworthy, important, or whatever.  I read McCarthy's "The Road", which is supposedly considered high-brow genre.  Hated it.  Uninteresting, nihilistic drivel as far as I was concerned, but that's not an opinion on its "literary merit".  It's just a subjective view as to why I personally didn't enjoy it.

To cite to a book that is not considered a great "literary achievement", there was a line in Zelazny's Courts of Chaos that really has stuck with me.  Corwin is heading to the Courts to try to stop the annihilation of reality, and he runs into this crow who starts lecturing him about the ultimate futility of life, existence, etc..  Corwin debates him for a bit, but then eventually says "you insult me by assuming I have not considered these footnotes to sophomore philosophy."

Corwin's statement really is the core response to all those eggheads out there, in whatever field, who assume the rest of the world really needs to be lectured to, whether by rhetorical brilliance or "literary achievement".  Perhaps people in general really do understand some great underlying truths without applying fancy labels, debating them endlessly, and reading about them.  Not to turn this into a Bakker thread, but that's what I find utterly annoying about his work.  He beats people over the head with his philosophical points as if we're too stupid to simply grasp them, or perhaps even understood those concepts even before reading his books.  It is ultimately condescending as hell, which is the same category into which I'd put all those high-brow critics ripping on genre fiction.

I agree with everything FLoW writes, including the intent of his closing thought which I snipped out.  I frankly find that the more the literati go on about the merits of a new piece of fiction, the less likely I am going to like the book.  For this reason, I read almost no new literature, except genre literature.

I have been thinking about this and have concluded that genre literature has become the last bastion of storytelling, which is why I read fiction in the first place.  Sure, there are bad stories, but there are many many excellent stories as well.  Take ASoIaF as a primary example.  GRRM is driven by the story - at least so far in the first 5 books.

Modern high literature, on the other hand, is not driven by the story.  Usually it is driven by the outcome, and the story seems to just be the means to get to the outcome.  Some egghead is sitting around in his East Coast highrise, Soho digs or Ivy League classroom, and thinks to himself (herself), "ooooh, a really shocking end to a book would be X...how can I set that up?"  Or even more common is the writer who wants to lecture and opine on some cultural or societal behavior or a civilization and writes an entire book whose whole purpose comes down to lecturing and re-educating the reader that prejudice / stereotypes / bigotry / chauvinism / whatever is wrong.  And that's the whole book.  The entire plot just becomes a means to getting to the lecture slash education.

I cite as an example the terrible novel, A Year of Wonders, which got univeral praise from the literati.  It was very well-written, but in the last 40 pages I realized that the entire beautiful story that had engaged me for hundreds of pages was written just to come to the Switch-a-Roo at the end (no spoilers) that basically negated everything good you had just read about the people for 200 pages before.  And the ending wasn't in the least bit historically possible, but did any reviewers complain about that?  No, because the "message" of the book was in line with modern thinking -- it delivered a modern slap at men and Christianity -- so it was praised for its relevance, even though it was written as a historical memoir that was not in the least accurate to historical sensibilites.

So I'll stick to my genre books, so many of which tell stories-- really good stories -- that conclude organically and not artificially to re-make my opinions into those of the author.

ETA: And I should add that it is often those genre works of fiction that are telling really good stories are the ones that make me investigate my own viewpoints.

Edited by A Song of Hound and Wolves, 22 August 2012 - 12:33 PM.

[A Song of Hound and Wolves]

Screaming Turkey Ultimate, on 22 August 2012 - 11:50 AM, said:

This made me chuckle. I'm interested in this book now.

me too

[Sci-2]

I actually do think there is value in modern literature, when it allows us to, in a removed sense, live other lives. I think genre has gotten stale in that regard, and lit-fic is better at examining such things.

I think the issue is that the classics are just as questionable in that regard as the modern. Things like quality and rhythm in prose are worth examining in terms of a hobby, but judging others for it is like a triathlete judging people for not being able to do an Iron Man.

[Mr. E]

Former Lord of Winterfell, on 22 August 2012 - 11:36 AM, said:

I read for enjoyment, and could care less whether it is considered literary, noteworthy, important, or whatever.

Now, see, FLOW, you obviously have not read enough lit-fic, because otherwise you wouldn't have made this mistake. Lit-fic solves all ills.

In all seriousness, this is one of my favorite points to argue, as any form of elitism from literary to educational to ironic is one of the few things that really hackles me.

But from the lit side of things, I can't tell you how many times fellow students of mine would condemn a book as beach reading, as if that was some damning pejorative. Fact is, while good writing is awesome, good stories stand the test of time much better than good writing--which is the main concern of "lit-fic." And there's nothing wrong with that. But story really is everything, which is where the divide begins between the "literary elite" and the "mainstream." The latter wants a story, the former wants the writing and debases the latter for not understanding the genius of stream-of-consciousness.

[Former Lord of Winterfell]

A Song of Hound and Wolves, on 22 August 2012 - 12:14 PM, said:

I agree with everything FLoW writes, including the intent of his closing thought which I snipped out.

You have no idea how rarely that sentiment is expressed in this Board.... So permit me to repay that.

Quote

I have been thinking about this and have concluded that genre literature has become the last bastion of storytelling....Modern high literature, on the other hand, is not driven by the story.  Usually, it is driven by the outcome, and the story seems to just be the means to get to the outcome.  Some egghead is sitting around in his East Coast highrise, Soho digs or Ivy League classroom, and thinks to himself (herself), "ooooh, a really shocking end to a book would be X...how can I set that up?"  or even more common is the writer who wants to lecture or opine on some culture or society or civilization and writes an entire book whose whole purpose comes down to lecturing and re-educating the reader that prejudice / stereotypes / bigotry / chauvinism / whatever is wrong.  And that's the whole book.  The entire plot just becomes a means to getting to the lecture slash education.

I absolutely love that, particularly the first sentence.  Some folks' identity/self-image is too caught up in convincing themselves (and everyone else) how much smarter they are than the masses.

Quote

So I'll stick to my genre books, so many of which tell stories-- really good stories -- that conclude organically and not artificially to re-make my opinions into those of the author.

Ditto.

Edited by Former Lord of Winterfell, 22 August 2012 - 12:46 PM.

[A Song of Hound and Wolves]

sciborg2, on 22 August 2012 - 12:27 PM, said:

I actually do think there is value in modern literature, when it allows us to, in a removed sense, live other lives. I think genre has gotten stale in that regard, and lit-fic is better at examining such things.

I think the issue is that the classics are just as questionable in that regard as the modern. Things like quality and rhythm in prose are worth examining in terms of a hobby, but judging others for it is like a triathlete judging people for not being able to do an Iron Man.

sciborg2, on 22 August 2012 - 11:05 AM, said:

This is like judging people for being unable to understand complex math proofs, run a marathon, take a punch to the face...

Um, Sci?  are you feeling a bit...metaphorical today?

everyone else CHIME IN:

Sci being metaphorical is like _________

[Lexicon Devil]

A Song of Hound and Wolves, on 22 August 2012 - 12:38 PM, said:

Um, Sci?  are you feeling a bit...metaphorical today?

everyone else CHIME IN:

Sci being metaphorical is like _________

Two in the bush?

Ah, man I'm not very good at this.