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

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Mel Mudkiper posted:

We all know where I stand

I don't

Wait poo poo nice new av mel

# ¿ Mar 17, 2019 00:35

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 12:48

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Doctor Faustine posted:

Imo the real differentiating factor is thematic weight.

I'd suggest it was depth not weight, depending on how you define weight of course. Literature can take repeated passes of thought and reveal more meaning each time, but I know nothing so

# ¿ Mar 17, 2019 01:21

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onsetOutsider posted:

The one criteria by which every novel should be judged... is it a "smasheroo"?

dammit, beaten

# ¿ Mar 17, 2019 02:03

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Mel Mudkiper posted:

Or, if you are Eagleton, "how much does it make us want to smash the system"

Just came across this line in Eagleton's book that seems on point

"Some texts are born literary, some achieve literariness, and some have literariness thrust upon them."

# ¿ Mar 17, 2019 04:11

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FactsAreUseless posted:

Yeah sorry, I'm not always great at expressing my thoughts w/r/t books.

new forum title please

# ¿ Mar 17, 2019 06:36

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Has anybody said that "entertainment value" does not equate "artistic quality" yet? Because that is also a consideration.

I mean would you consider Dan Brown "artistic"?

# ¿ Mar 19, 2019 03:08

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Mel Mudkiper posted:

Would you consider dan brown entertaining

Not particularly no (Eco wrote that story better earlier), but the argument above was that "entertainment" = "cash dollah" and thus this current quagmire

# ¿ Mar 19, 2019 03:11

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Sham bam bamina! posted:

The ability of a "bad" work to entertain in spite of its deficiencies is itself a positive quality, whether it's down to pacing or tone or sheer audacity or any number of things.

are you saying the ability to entertain is artistic?

# ¿ Mar 19, 2019 03:21

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Bilirubin posted:

are you saying the ability to entertain is artistic?

Thinking about this more, I suppose it could be following a definition of skillful--not everyone can entertain. But I usually think of art as enabling us to perceive the world from a different perspective. Perhaps I am making a definitional error.

Sham bam bamina! posted:

The entire idea of a guilty pleasure is that something is good enough in a few specific ways to outweigh for you all the many ways that it's bad. You wouldn't like something if it didn't have something worth liking about it.

Agreed.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2019 03:25

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The_White_Crane posted:

See, that's interesting to me, because I'd argue that many works of art in fields like painting and sculpture absolutely don't serve that purpose. If you look at, for example, something by Jackson Pollock, how on Earth can you use this

to see the world from a different perspective? I mean, I find some works of abstract art beautiful, but I wouldn't say that they're meaningful, certainly not in the sense you're suggesting.

Hmm.
I suppose, just spitballing on the spot, I might contend that art is the creation of a work which intends to produce an emotional effect in the consumer, and that the quality of a work of art can best be judged by the extent to which it succeeds in producing the desired effect.

Sometimes art challenges and is uncomfortable to downright repulsive. In Pollock's case he was trying to capture on paint the action of his body, which I'd argue he succeeds at quite well (a sale of 200 million smackeroos? good lord), but may not if you aren't appreciating the metacommentary of the piece--to a more casual observer (not consumer--other than 200 mil boy, see Mel and Sham's argument above), a painting is supposed to be OF SOMETHING. Lots of art challenges this central premise. Sometimes it takes time and consideration to elevate one's appreciation (see pop opinion now on Mapplethorpe's photography vs back in the 80s).

That said, I agree with your spit balling.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2019 14:51

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

what's wrong with keys I ask?

So you would take it the further step that the emotion provoked (because some art does do this immediately) leads to further contemplation?

I think of my personal feeling about van Gogh. I would see his paintings in a book and never got why he was such a celebrated artist. His work just looked, well, accomplished but juvenile. Then I visited the Musee d'Orsay and saw his work in person--I literally turned around in the middle of the (crowded ) room and his paintings leapt to life. It was thrilling and awe inspiring. What meaning is there beyond "holy hell how did he manage to animate a painting"?

But I accept that can be my own failing not being well educated in art vOv

# ¿ Mar 19, 2019 15:01

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Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Then Finnegan's Wake isn't art, bam

I find myself more and more leaning towards art as performance rather than as meaning. I'm not sure meaning is necessary, so long as there's a sufficient demonstration of technical skill involved.

Surely it can be multifaceted? Like, there is the perfect execution of a skill, which another practitioner of the skill can appreciate in elevated terms, and also a poorly technically executed thing done with emotion (*insert favourite garage rock band here*) can be transcendent to the right listener?

# ¿ Mar 19, 2019 15:28

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The music without lyrics thing was just a weird thing to say

# ¿ Mar 19, 2019 15:43

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I for one am really glad everyone is posting this seriously as I am learning a lot. "First understand, then criticize" was an adage a buddy of mine and fellow veteran of "ARGUING ABOUT EVOLUTION ON USENET" would frequently quote, which I wish a whole lot more people would apply it to their own lives. But, education is one of those commodities (if I can take a capitalist reading here

) that folks will buy and then take extreme effort to avoid getting their money's worth.

I now have a hardcopy of the introduction to literary criticism text Hieronymus posted earlier and will start my Lets Read on it when I get a chance.

Mel Mudkiper posted:

If I let a bunch of people arm chair theorize about art without chiming in with actual sources, it creates this idea that critical theory is not an academic field but instead a sort of unimportant diversion that anyone can take part in without taking it too seriously, like croquet on a sunday afternoon.

Whoa settle down before you say something you can't take back. I mean I swear, first key jangling, now croquet, is nothing sacred to you?

# ¿ Mar 19, 2019 17:45

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Mel Mudkiper posted:

Oh nooooooooooooooooooooo

I expect you to rep the post-structuralist position in the face of the Marxist horde

# ¿ Mar 19, 2019 18:17

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Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Now who's hidebound by authorial intent, hrm?

loled

# ¿ Mar 20, 2019 17:01

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Flesnolk posted:

The thread can be fun.

It just needs content in it, instead of complaining.

Complaining can be content

# ¿ Apr 6, 2019 20:12

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Lex Neville posted:

11312

17776

actually that is serious, go read it now

# ¿ Apr 7, 2019 01:26

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Hieronymous Alloy posted:

https://twitter.com/nkjemisin/status/955935985199714304

I am reading When is Black Future Month right now and she has now written a reply to "The Ones Who Walk Away" called "The Ones Who Stay and Fight" which was really excellent

# ¿ Apr 9, 2019 02:39

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killer crane posted:

Ugh, I borrowed the book just for this story because of this post. I love Omelas; it's a thought experiment about how nearly everyone accepts human suffering in some way to live the way we do. Omelas is only loosely described, and usually in hypothetical terms, because maybe your utopia is different, and it doesn't matter what it actually looks like. It gets to the point that if you don't want to accept this suffering you can't accept the society that created it, in Omelas or wherever you are now. It's self-reflective.

This story, as a response to Le Guin, is painful. It browbeats you into accepting that Um-Helat (Jemisin's answer to Omelas) as utopia... It's not a bad utopia, but it very much matter to the story, to the thought experiment in the story, what type of utopia it is, and that you must accept it as the better utopia. It holds this utopia in front of you, saying "if you accept my thesis this could be yours," and misses that Omelas represents our current luxury.

I really hoped it wouldn't do what the title explicitly said it was going to do. She ends it saying "So don't walk away. The child needs you" and i just couldn't. The story ends with some policetypes killing a man because he let hate in, and then having to indoctrinate his child so she doesn't hate. The last page says war might be necessary to attain this utopia... As a response to Omelas it's saying "let's not walk away, let's stay and cause suffering, but let's make sure we're causing suffering for the right reasons: so we can live in utopia." Maybe that's the point, but it seems like a lovely point, cause it's just taking a side of the Omelas thought experiment.

I haven't read Omelas in a long time so I should do so soon. But I read this very much as a reflection on the nature of suffering and how no matter how perfect a society there will always be those outside. Suffering is always present. What is just? Taking a straight reading from the narrator who is obviously a convert to that utopia would miss that, but perhaps the narrator was meant to be instructional? In which case I agree it is horrible, but really hamfisted and obvious writing, which doesn't match with my impression from the rest of the book (so far).

So maybe not so much a response to but a different take on Omelas would have been a better way to put it in my original post.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2019 14:48

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The_White_Crane posted:

Does match my experience of Jemisin though.
To make sure she was being properly sledgehammer-subtle with her metaphors in the Broken Earth series, her oppressed group are "Orogenes", offensively nicknamed "roggas".

Edit: Oh god, I didn't even notice until I had to type it, but "orogene" is an anagram of "negro" with a couple of extra letters stuck on.

Orogene vs. Aborigine is another take on that. But I had had a chat with Heironymous on Discord yesterday and he shares your opinion of Broken Earth.

I'll consider the hamfisted hypothesis further, but also note there is something about her that cranes don't like

# ¿ Apr 9, 2019 15:14

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Mel Mudkiper posted:

I am not sure what his last words were, but they were probably overlong and tedious

NO YOU ARE FINISHED NOW. PUT DOWN THE LAPTOP. SERIOUSLY. I HAVE THINGS TO DO.

# ¿ Apr 18, 2019 04:49

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Sham bam bamina! posted:

Here a consumerist vision of reading is presented as a form of anti-elitism. The quaint use of “intelligentsia” suggests a suspect class of self-regarding intellectuals with an echo of Cold War red-baiting. And then a fantastic fictional character: the casual reader who disdains literary books but is eager for, say, the New York Times to tell her which nonliterary books to read when she isn’t busy watching HBO or listening to podcasts. And what does “full-court, blogosphere press” describe but hastily written, barely edited, cheap, and utterly disposable online jetsam? Such is the nature of the new “books coverage.” I was aware of the trend. Two months before Eichner’s story ran, my contract to review books at New York magazine was dropped. I had been told that although its books coverage would be expanding, what I did—book reviews—had “little value.”

[/quote]

The internet makes us stupid

# ¿ Apr 24, 2019 16:25

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Sham bam bamina! posted:

Surly and Cotillion sound like Annie Proulx characters.

Or China Mieville characters

# ¿ Apr 28, 2019 18:58

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Jaxyon posted:

Ya know I anticipated this response and I'm fascinated by the idea that you think I'm not doing something I enjoy doing, knowing death is certain and I have limited time.

I also sometimes eat at Arby's while having all of the food options of Los Angeles at my fingertips.

Life is futile; death certain.

Eat Arby's.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2019 04:32

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Eugene V. Dubstep posted:

# ¿ Jul 2, 2019 18:05

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Jaxyon posted:

Jokes on you episode 9 will have Clone Paalpatine who will use the force to make the EU books canon again.

Will he team up with the top or bottom half of Darth Maul to do it?

# ¿ Jul 4, 2019 16:16

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Laughing at terrible stuff is something the forums are pretty good for

# ¿ Aug 6, 2019 01:11

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nankeen posted:

the botl ban was legitimately ridiculous but i do get that people were getting angry enough to start a mass off-site exodus in protest of having their favourite media randomly slandered by a cantankerous finn. the fact they were that angry is totally unreasonable and not botl's fault, but it was still an issue. oh who am i kidding i'm a fraud. i'm outside the finnish embassy as we speak. i' mdressed as a holy fool and i haven't stopped drinking since the day i was born. i'll kill you all! i'll burn this whole drat kingdom to the ground

this is a pretty dece post

# ¿ Aug 6, 2019 02:57

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

what has even happened to this thread

# ¿ Sep 2, 2019 07:08

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Sham bam bamina! posted:

~~Coin Locker Babies~~ Babysucker

# ¿ Sep 12, 2019 01:47

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Sham bam bamina! posted:

I haven't read Jemisin and don't plan to, but I'm more inclined to believe the person who actually knows her name.

I read When is Black Future Month and it was a perfectly entertaining short story collection. Not high lit but gently caress, better than a lot of poo poo that gets recommended in the scifi thread.

The story of people who become manifestations and agents of their cities was really good I thought.

# ¿ Oct 15, 2019 03:04

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

I think its hilarious that nobody gets that your gimmick is simply "don't pretend lovely books are anything but lovely", with a dash of "hey try one of these real good books sometime", filtered through years of forced labor in the posting mills of SA

# ¿ Oct 18, 2019 19:27

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Strom Cuzewon posted:

Genre fiction is always gonna be plot-focused, but loads of fantasy really likes to obscure bits of the plot behind weird hints and insinuations. So instead of enjoying the writing on an aesthetic level it's written to be pored over, sifting it for every detail. Especially in the decade it takes most series to end.

It's like if Agatha Christie waited 2000 pages to tell you whodunit

So two takeaways here:

1) Wheel of Time blows
2) Internet nerds need to read Gravity's Rainbow so they get both aesthetic, glorious prose AND minutia to pore over

# ¿ Nov 21, 2019 05:46

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

I've never heard of it before this thread :smug:

# ¿ Nov 23, 2019 07:34

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chernobyl kinsman posted:

it is deeply weird when people in their twenties and beyond invest much energy and enthusiasm into children's entertainment and it betokens severe personality disorders 100% of the time

It harkens to the wisdom of our greatest thinker of the 80-90s, Yoda, who said,

# ¿ Dec 10, 2019 02:30

Bilirubin: Feb 16, 2014; The sanctioned action is to CHUG

Of course I have someone's published dissertation on gender and sexual politics in Star Trek: The Next Generation on the shelf :negative:

# ¿ Dec 10, 2019 02:32

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chernobyl kinsman posted:

nice. i learned two languages for my MA

hahaha

Ok I need a wildcard, lay one on me

# ¿ Dec 11, 2019 07:01

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thank christ it wasn't klingon

# ¿ Dec 11, 2019 20:30

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 12:48

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Patrat posted:

To be fair, even if I was the least woke person in the universe I would be tremendously wary of misgendering a dragon.

Because dragon.

Yeah I'd skip right over finding pronouns and go straight for "Great and Mighty"

# ¿ Dec 24, 2019 02:38

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

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