/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18724450]

How come literary writers can't write a good story or something that is fun to read, and genre fiction can't write something that is deep?

[Anonymous No.18724459]

>>18724450
Stendhal, Tolstoy, Cervantes

[Anonymous No.18724461]

>>18724450
>literary writers can't write a good story or something that is fun to read

[Anonymous No.18724469]

>>18724450
Oh and Jules Verne and Lovecraft for genre side

[Anonymous No.18724473]

>>18724450
No country for old men

[Anonymous No.18724482]

>>18724450
the iliad

[Anonymous No.18724501]

I think it’s because of the breakaway into literary modernism and realism. The post-modern novel is uplifted above all else and the sort of story you might have found in common with Homer or von Eschenbach is now resigned to the ghetto of genre fiction, for a lack of “literary merit”, which really is nothing more than an attempt by academics to legitimize works of technique at the expense of works of genius. I think you’ll like the fiction of Ernst Jünger and you might find his philosophy identifiable.

[Anonymous No.18724515]

>>18724501
what the fuck are you talking about

[Anonymous No.18724525]

>>18724501
This; a clear example is how "plot" has been turned into a dirty word in regards to literary fiction, whereas most pre-Modernism works of literature were very much focused on plot and story and character more or less.

[Anonymous No.18724536]

>>18724515
it's okay to be a pleb now as long as your excuses sound trad enough

[Anonymous No.18724553]

>>18724450
Henri Bosco, Borges, Ramuz...

[Anonymous No.18724607]

>>18724515
>>18724536
It’s pretty simple so I don’t know if you’re feigning ignorance. In the 20th century especially you had a ballooning interest in fiction as a work of technique, and increasing hostility towards anything labeled “genre fiction” and uplifting of anything that’s “realism”. The end result of this is the post-modern novel, especially the American post-modern novel, that we all know about today. Meanwhile, your average “low brow” genre fiction writer, the sort who would never be discussed in the halls of academia like a Pynchon would, has far more in common with early writers of Western canon classics than any of them. That’s not “trad”. It’s plainly obvious. There’s a clear preference where books that emphasise technique and realism are celebrated, while those that don’t are resigned to the genre fiction ghetto. Had Beowulf been written today, it would’ve been denigrated as Ya trash by both academics and /lit/.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.18724624]

>>18724450
Try some Gore Vidal

[Anonymous No.18724671]

>>18724450
this distinction is bullshit and you know it

[Anonymous No.18724677]

>>18724624
That's YA/genre fiction.

[Anonymous No.18724678]

>>18724525
In my view, it’s not so much about plot vs. another element. I personally believe it’s a matter of how the institutional culture views literature. We live in a world that is divorced from mythology, or at least, it tries its hardest to be divorced from mythology. Literature now is an exercise of technique, the same way a golfer engages in an exercise of swing mechanics. It’s a matter of writing mechanics, how the thing is written, the prose, the vocabulary, the technical aspects. You see it all over too. Just look at the authors which are celebrated, especially after the wars, and what you see is a striking emphasis on the technique of storytelling, rather than story telling. It’s this perpetual cycle then where aspiring authors want to be the next Pynchon or Nabokov, but not the next Malory, who’s writing is no doubt studying as a matter of technique in some academy somewhere. That’s why I suggested Ernst Jünger. He was aware of this and wrote fiction as a matter of commentary on it, and in some instances, escape from it.

[Anonymous No.18724700]

Literary fiction is only boring to read if you're a complete moron. Reading the greatest novels of all time is most often an incredibly pleasurable experience. You people don't seem to get that using your brain is actually enjoyable to those whose soul hasn't been deadened by childish pop culture.

[Anonymous No.18724723]

>>18724515
imagine being filtered by a 4chan post

[Anonymous No.18724730]

>>18724700
>try to read literary fiction
>It's about intersectionality, feminism, women issues, marxism, leftism, anti capitalism, pro gay rights shit

[Anonymous No.18724738]

>>18724730
>>try to read literary fiction
Plotfags, unite!

[Anonymous No.18724749]

>>18724678
Technique has always been at the centre of literature: it is what distinguishes Leonidas of Tarentum from a fellow who writes the inventory of a carpenter's workshop or Aratus' Phaenomena from an astronomy textbook. What is valued today in not technique but originality for it's own sake.

[Anonymous No.18724755]

>>18724730
Oh no, did the scary books challenge your reactionary worldview? How horrific

[Anonymous No.18724765]

>>18724755
To be fair, literature is extremely pozzed if you look at the book awards or any "writer's fest" events. Not a single bro or any man with a hint of a bicep in sight. All obese women, gays, and betas.

[Anonymous No.18724781]

>>18724755
I rather watch anime porn for the story than that garbage.

[Anonymous No.18724787]

>>18724450
This is untrue

[Anonymous No.18724853]

>>18724607
>pynchon
>realism
I want to live in your reality.

[Anonymous No.18724863]

>>18724749
>echnique has always been at the centre of literature
I just fundamentally disagree and I would propose it only looks that way in retrospect because of the cultural glasses we look through.

[Anonymous No.18724868]

>>18724853
I did not say Pynchon was a writer of realism. I alluded to Pynchon because he’s the epitome of the post-modern novelist.

[Anonymous No.18724892]

>>18724868
i win

[Anonymous No.18725094]

>>18724863
Well, there is plenty of good literature that is technically excellent yet not outstanding content-wise, but nothing that I can think of in the opposite camp which we could deem a literary achievement. Indeed, if Virgil had written the Aeneid in shoddy prose, he would probably non be so highly esteemed as a writer and his work be considered a part of literary history; literaty critique, certainly, philosophy, maybe, but the only thing that makes literature, that allows us to distinguish between original and summary, is technique.

[Anonymous No.18725371]

>>18725094
You can’t think of it because you live in a culture of technique and every angle you view the canon from is contextualized by that. Homer becomes an author not of the hero or the genius, but of epic poetry to us. We will inherently view every work of literature through that lens.

[Anonymous No.18725406]

>>18724730
>try to read literary fiction
>it's all cuckoldry all the time

[Anonymous No.18725425]

>>18725371
the reason homer is so great is because of both his story and themes which are still beautiful, and also his aesthetic (technique is a poor choice of words). great artists are always aesthetically beautiful and give us themes and stories of humanity

[Anonymous No.18725895]

>>18725371
But this culture is most certainly not recent: at least ever since writing became so widespread as to be systematically put to the service of art (that is, ever since we can properly talk of literature) this culture of technique has been the lens through which everyone saw the matter. If we are then even to use the concept of literature we cannot but see it through this very same lens.
Homer, having been born at a time when the Greek world was just beginning to become literate again, of course did not see things this way; but like all beginnings that of literature has traits that would later not be considered part of it (how much of Herodotus' work can we really call history, despite him being the father of the subject?). Even then, however, we can imagine that the tales Homer told would be told by others too -say, in slurred speech from the lips of a drunkard - were we then to record both, which would be held in higher regard, which would go on to begin literature? Doubtless then they would have said the one that was divinely inspired; but if the travels of Odysseus are the same, what does this divine inspiration materialise into if not in the way this matter is arrangend and told, in the technique of the author?

[Anonymous No.18727182]

>>18724450
Genre but deep: Book of the New Sun
Literary but fun: Finally, Some Good News

[Anonymous No.18727221]

>>18724450
Umberto Eco for both fields

[Anonymous No.18727327]

>>18724450
Because it is hard. Like trying to unite classic physics with quantum mechanics

[Anonymous No.18727340]

>>18727327
People are literally more rewarded in life just by purchasing real estate or investing in meme stocks than to do the incredibly time-consuming process to complete a novel that attempts to have a greater meaning while simultaneously being a fun, lively read.

[Anonymous No.18727520]

>>18724450
It's about time someone changed that

[Anonymous No.18727733]

>>18724461
Where's this from? I like pinball.
(Here's a pinball machine based on a novel.)

[Anonymous No.18727754]

>>18727733
filename

[Anonymous No.18727760]

>>18727340
?

[Anonymous No.18727801]

[Anonymous No.18728195]

>>18724730
>reading contemporary
blue haired agents ruined humanity

[Anonymous No.18728683]

>>18724755
look at this cuck lmao

[Anonymous No.18728685]

>>18727340
what in God's name are you talking about?

[Anonymous No.18728703]

>>18728685
Maybe people who could have been skilled writers went into some of the much easier paths to modern wealth?

[Anonymous No.18728711]

>>18724450
>How come literary writers can't write a good story or something that is fun to read
So fucking cringe and sad. You have no taste.
>this is getting serious replies