The Genres Ablaze: Critical Looks at Sci-fi and Fantasy

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The Genres Ablaze: Critical Looks at Sci-fi and Fantasy

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

Old people who watch soap operas think the greatest virtue of all in drama is "it happens in real life too" and believe that overrules all criticism. Anyway something reminded me of that

# ¿ Feb 3, 2020 10:21

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 10:12

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

I think Mexicans, as a people of 150 million, can probably survive on their own and don't need this mollycoddling about "appropriating their stories", and the real issue is that Oprah viewers want to read misery porn where people and whole cultures are reduced to cardboard cutouts. It's less offensive to Mexicans or POC or whoever, and more to the culture that consistently chooses this dreg and fails to produce meaningful literature

# ¿ Feb 3, 2020 14:28

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

VictualSquid posted:

That novel sounds like it follows in the tradition of Orientalism and euro-westerns and that general fake exoticism.
Where you have a description of exotic cultures written by white people who consider talking to anybody who as ever even been in that location to be a sin against literature.

I used to get recommended a lot of the old stuff by people who really hated S/F. And thus I do expect that people will recommend American Dirt as intrinsically superior to SF pulp.

Can you provide examples of the orientalist literature you've been recommended that you feel ought to be consigned to the trash heap because of their orientalism

# ¿ Feb 3, 2020 17:26

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

Take the plunge! Okay! posted:

Don't worry guys, I'm sure the folks hating on Mishima spend their time on quality Socialist authors like Maxim Gorky or Javier Marias ahahahahaha

Is Marias somehow notably socialist? I've no idea of his personal background but his books seem to suggest no more than a vague liberal cosmopolitanism

# ¿ Feb 6, 2020 19:58

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

There are specific historical reasons behind the current far right movement, sure, and those are a matter of research more than creative writing, yes, but there are also broader psychological elements behind people's fear of the other and the appeal of hate & violence, and those latter are things that we can learn about by reading right wing authors

# ¿ Feb 9, 2020 17:50

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

I obviously never read any of the books they have in the bad sex awards, but usually the bits give me the impression that the text is intentionally comic, but it's framed as unintentionally comic

# ¿ Feb 19, 2020 15:17

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

Flesnolk posted:

So what good authors aren't fascists, if I want to read more Actual Literature but don't want to give human garbage my time of day? Because it sure seems sometimes like the only people who can create good art are monsters of some stripe or another.

I'm pretty sure there's far more leftist than fascist authors in the modern canon and you've just read far too much into people's banter. Start with, idk, Saramago. Pamuk, Calvino, Garcia Marquez. Bola�o, Marias. Primo Levi, Carlo Levi, Natalia Ginzburg. How far back do you want to go? Emile Zola had kids with his maid but believed in the revolution

# ¿ Mar 27, 2020 10:09

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 10:12

Ras Het: May 23, 2007; when I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child - but now I am a man.

I mean those books are not meant for teens, that was her point

# ¿ Oct 24, 2020 10:53

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > The Genres Ablaze: Critical Looks at Sci-fi and Fantasy