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started reading don quixote again. read part 1 a few months back and then wanted to take a break. part 2 starts very strong
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Nov 28, 2023 01:12
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Do alexandre dumas and wilkie collins count as 'real literature' or does the fact that they were nineteenth century mass-market fiction writers disqualify them This is not me baiting, I am genuinely interested in whether that sort of thing is something this thread discusses. Most of the older fiction I actually enjoy reading was at one point a bestseller and I would be interested in recommendations for other writers of sensation novels, for example
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Nov 30, 2023 18:14
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sharkmafia posted:Do alexandre dumas and wilkie collins count as 'real literature' or does the fact that they were nineteenth century mass-market fiction writers disqualify them There are two categories: literature, and books with wizards in it. These categories are mutually exclusive. You would think this means _The Tempest_ is junk, but that's a play, not a book, so different rules. (The distinction between "high" and "low" art is both false and real).
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Nov 30, 2023 18:22
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some people are so talented that they make art accidentally, even though they were trying to please the masses.
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Nov 30, 2023 18:32
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Whether or not something with wizards (or spaceships) in it can be 'high art,' i had pretty well sussed that this was a no-wizards-allowed zone. it's as true now as it was in 2014 that most of the threads on the front page of this forum are about genre fiction and alright cool
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Nov 30, 2023 18:39
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I used to assume anything published by Penguin Classics can be discussed here, but I just looked it up and they have a line of classic marvel comics, so now I don’t know what to think, except that classic Spider-Man could beat up classic Hulk.
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Nov 30, 2023 18:56
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:There are two categories: literature, and books with wizards in it. These categories are mutually exclusive. everyone laugh at this loving idiot who hasnt read wizard of the crow
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Nov 30, 2023 19:06
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If it's well-written, it's literature. If it's not, it isn't. As with all such distinctions, "well--written" is mostly subjective, but for the vast majority of books we can establish some kind of broad consensus, one way or the other, even for works that were authored a long time ago (provided we are careful to judge it against the standard of its time; comparing Cervantes to, say, Cormac McCarthy would be mostly worthless).
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Nov 30, 2023 19:35
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:There are two categories: literature, and books with wizards in it. These categories are mutually exclusive. Are you saying Myrddin Wyllt in Porius isn’t a wizard or that John Cowper Powys doesn’t write literature? Tread carefully now
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Nov 30, 2023 20:21
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I just finished my first Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians. I can’t believe the barbarians never made it to the dang fireworks factory. Really good stuff. It’s straightaway going on the endless, evergrowing list of books to be revisited someday. If I had insomnia I’d read everything twice; rereading is better imo. Next up: Kate O’Brien I was reading Jerusalem but I seem to have given up around the halfway point. I keep reaching for other books instead with a feeling of relief…
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Nov 30, 2023 20:53
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Lobster Henry posted:I just finished my first Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians. I can’t believe the barbarians never made it to the dang fireworks factory. To me Coetzee seems like a person who is so so much more intelligent than me (not a high bar to pass but anyway) who writes in a way that even my dumb rear end gets it.
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Nov 30, 2023 20:56
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Are there any other Coetzee books you’d particular recommend? I know disgrace is the most famous one. I’ll stick ‘em on the list along with all those literary westerns I for the most part still haven’t gotten around to
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Nov 30, 2023 21:22
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need to cross stitch this or somethingTree Goat posted:gonna decide that the very question "does author [x] count as lit" inherently places you in a relationship with the author and their work that presupposes its own answer
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Nov 30, 2023 23:43
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I mean, I wasn't asking because I personally was unsure whether those authors count as literature, obviously I think that. the count of monte cristo is my favorite book. I was asking because I didn't want to post about stuff that people didn't want posted about in here
sharkmafia fucked around with this message at 23:54 on Nov 30, 2023 |
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Nov 30, 2023 23:51
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You can post about The Count of Monte Cristo all you like but be warned I'm going to tell you that I don't think it's very good
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Nov 30, 2023 23:55
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I am kidding of course. Its fine. I just don't have any strong opinions of it either way
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Nov 30, 2023 23:59
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lmao, that's fine, i don't care insofar as I had a specific follow up question I wanted to know what people thought of dumas's bibliography outside of the extremely obvious stuff like that and the three musketeers books. ive never read any of it and it's pretty extensive, what is the good poo poo
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Dec 1, 2023 00:00
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sharkmafia posted:I mean, I wasn't asking because I was unsure whether those authors count as literature, obviously I think that. the count of monte cristo is my favorite book. I was asking because I didn't want to post about stuff that people didn't wanted posted about in here gotcha, but i still think it applies. like if you want to post about dumas here it's because you want to discuss him in a literary context and/or because this thread is the closest fit in your head, so you're already set. i don't think there's a list of books that are or aren't off limits to discuss if you take that mindset, just a narrowing of ways of talking about books that is easier for certain types of books rather than others but i've had a headache for going on 36 hours now and barely post in any event so who knows
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Dec 1, 2023 00:01
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Tree Goat posted:need to cross stitch this or something But you're not necessarily using the author's name as a way to identify the historical person who is credited with whatever corpus you're talking about. You could be, but you might be using the name as a category by which people understand certain texts to have some relationship or relationships that could involve all kinds of things. "Pynchon" means a who bunch of things when people use it to talk about novels, very little of which is encompassed by any claim about a specific guy from Long Island. There's this concept from the 70s called the author function that hits pretty close to how people talk about corpuses a lot of the time, and it's worthwhile to consider no matter what you might think of the guy credited with first describing it.
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Dec 1, 2023 00:03
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right, and i'm suggesting that by posing the question in the way it is usually posed you have already performed much of the work of defining your relation to the authors or the corpora or whatever the relevant subject is. but please do not make me talk about foucault or barthes while my head hurts
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Dec 1, 2023 00:11
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The Count of Monte Cristo is the second longest book on my "you were supposed to read this years ago" list after the gigantic two part Ramachandra Guha Gandhi biography. Also I haven't read War & Peace but I don't own a copy so it doesn't feel urgent
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Dec 1, 2023 01:20
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I don't think hair splitting over what is or isn't literature is useful, rather you should ask yourself if you can or cannot draw out something from the text that deserves a deeper notice or discussion than one can find in a genre thread. Love The Count of Monte Cristo. Probably my single longest uninterrupted reading period was the last half of the book. Dumas could make a compelling work that's for sure. Where the actual interest from a literature perspective comes in in my opinion is the rather harsh look at what restoration France looks like. For not being a diehard Republican or Bonapartist you can see from Dumas writing already the rot that would set the stage for the collapse of both the restoration. Viewing it that way Sentimental Education is a sort of sequel to the work, an idea I find entertaining
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Dec 1, 2023 01:39
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Yes, although I'd add to that that edmond dantes/the count also has a historically significant origin. He was based on alexandre dumas's father, thomas-alexandre dumas, the son of a marquis and a black slave who became the most decorated black officer of the french revolutionary era. The most direct comparison, i've heard, is with the main character of Dumas's earlier novel Georges, but that character in turn directly inspired Edmond Dantes. Dantes is white, but his creator's mixed race also constantly played into the reception of the book at the time. The count's merciless revenge on those who had betrayed him was seen as a scandalous thing for a black author to write about white characters. I'll level with you, I mostly just like the book because it's an engrossing revenge story. But if you want to read it through this lens, someone I know clued me into The Black Count, a biography of Dumas's father that draws much more thorough connections between General Dumas's life, the way his son viewed him, and the characters he inspired. sharkmafia fucked around with this message at 03:02 on Dec 1, 2023 |
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Dec 1, 2023 02:59
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sharkmafia posted:Do alexandre dumas and wilkie collins count as 'real literature' or does the fact that they were nineteenth century mass-market fiction writers disqualify them "literature" is literally a made up term just read what you enjoy who cares
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Dec 1, 2023 03:10
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Yes yes all words are made up. Deciding what they mean is an important key to communication though
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Dec 1, 2023 03:22
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thehoodie posted:"literature" is literally a made up term just read what you enjoy who cares Hate posts like this
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Dec 1, 2023 03:22
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Tree Goat posted:right, and i'm suggesting that by posing the question in the way it is usually posed you have already performed much of the work of defining your relation to the authors or the corpora or whatever the relevant subject is. Yeah if you're saying that asking if something falls within a certain category requires that you have already assumed a definition for that category, I agree.
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Dec 1, 2023 04:20
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thehoodie posted:"literature" is literally a made up term just read what you enjoy who cares *smacks ur hand*
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Dec 1, 2023 04:23
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I AM GRANDO posted:Yeah if you're saying that asking if something falls within a certain category requires that you have already assumed a definition for that category, I agree. that is emphatically not what i am saying (like if somebody asks "is a hot dog a sandwich??" we don't presuppose they have a concrete definition of a sandwich before they asked), i'm saying asking if an author or a book or a genre is "really" lit is a question that, by the act of asking it, provides an answer or at the very least most of an answer in a way that similar questions like "is a spider a bug" or "is two a prime number" do not.
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Dec 1, 2023 04:55
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are you saying that, if someone thinks something might be lit that means that it is? i don't think that's true at all, especially in the context of the guy who started this discussion, who was literally just trying to find out if this was the right place to talk about the books he mentioned.
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Dec 1, 2023 05:40
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“term” is literally a made up term, just hoofogle teh maggayker eafily, donce.
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Dec 1, 2023 07:47
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The sage smiled and said, 'The true question is not whether a book 'counts as literature' or not, but how reddit a book is'
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Dec 1, 2023 10:26
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Lobster Henry posted:Are there any other Coetzee books you’d particular recommend? I know disgrace is the most famous one. It is? I always thought it was Life & Times of Michael K but actually, how would I know? Anyway that's what I'd recommend.
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Dec 1, 2023 10:31
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Fillippo Tommaso Marinetti's Mafarka the Futurist is mostly exoticist pornography about creating a large mechanical son with wings out of pure masculine willpower, and it's also Literature. and the son is named Gazourmah
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Dec 1, 2023 10:51
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3D Megadoodoo posted:It is? I always thought it was Life & Times of Michael K but actually, how would I know? Anyway that's what I'd recommend. You might be right, I guess I just know that disgrace won the booker, and it happened to be the only other one I could name off the top of my head. But how would I know either? Thanks for the rec - I’ll add that one to the list!
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Dec 1, 2023 13:48
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Lobster Henry posted:You might be right, I guess I just know that disgrace won the booker So did Michael K!
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Dec 1, 2023 14:11
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3D Megadoodoo posted:So did Michael K! Oh lol, well, there we go. I gotta do some research if I want to become a fully paid up member of the Coetzee coterie
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Dec 1, 2023 14:46
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I picked up The Summer Book and Fair Play by Tove Jansson. Halfway through The Summer Book now. It's really lovely. There's a sort of dignity and equal regard that the writing gives to the natural world--while not quite being "nature writing"-- that I find compelling. The closest comparison I can think of (which some of the jacket blurbs mention as well) is the way nature is treated in Hayao Miyazaki's works. It's also interesting to read a book by an experienced visual artist, because so much of the language of the book is carefully-constructed imagery. can't wait to read her lesbian artist love story next.
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Dec 1, 2023 18:26
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the only coatzee id heard of was disgrace, because it was the quintessential 'professor sleeps with student and experiences ennui' book, i loved it as well as barbarians, but those are also the only two i've read/heard of
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Dec 1, 2023 19:40
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derp posted:the only coatzee id heard of was disgrace, because it was the quintessential 'professor sleeps with student and experiences ennui' book, This is kind of the reason I’m more intrigued by Michael k, and also took such a long time to get round to Coetzee, tbh Admittedly it’s a snap judgment, but jeez, I’ve got a lot of books to read! Gotta thin the ranks somehow if I want to make time for quality posting too
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Dec 1, 2023 22:36
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