Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Realmfighter]

To be honest the majority of A* work is just pulled right out of your ass.

[Vector]

You could say this all of this about any genre (except literature itself, if that counts as one).  Sci-fi has its modes of titillation, other genres have theirs.

Yes, exactly.  I'm not saying "non-Literature" is bad, I'm saying that like it or not, that's how we usually characterize a country's literary output.  We don't say "Canada writes science fiction" because generally, that isn't what Canada writes.  You don't have to be a Canadian to write sci-fi.  It doesn't seem like any particular environment (other than Not France) provokes good science fiction.

Meh.  Half the books on my "have finished reading" shelf are sci-fi or fantasy.  I own a disturbingly large amount of manga.  It's good stuff, but I'm not going to pretend it's literary just because I enjoy it.

She's doing the whole deepness/importance angle. To me that's always an attempt to make them feel more learned than whoever they're talking with.

...

Alrighty, then.

[Cthulhu]

So have we defined Big-L Literature objectively yet?  Maybe I've missed something but so far I'm getting a "From 1800s, ten thousand pages, impossible to read" vibe.

[Schilcote]

For me, if a book does not have at minimum five explosions. two deaths and one fake deaths, then it is unreadable.

And a robot. Or a wizard. Or DEATH

So have we defined Big-L Literature objectively yet?  Maybe I've missed something but so far I'm getting a "From 1800s, ten thousand pages, impossible to read" vibe.

Literature=Bookz. That's my official instructions opinion.

[dragnar]

Literature=Bookz.

That tends to be my definition. Any work of fiction falls under literature to me. What is "literature" if not a well written book? Some books focus on action, some on character development, some on metaphors and deep meanings. Why should any one form of writing receive the title "literature" if the others don't? I know vector isn't saying other types of book can't have any value... but what does it mean for a book to be literature if the quality of the writing has nothing to do with it?

Also: DEATH IS AWESOME.

[KaguroDraven]

I got sad today becouse I saw yet another form of entertainment, game specificly, utterly fuck over greek mythology, which I am a fan of.

[Vector]

That tends to be my definition. Any work of fiction falls under literature to me. What is "literature" if not a well written book? Some books focus on action, some on character development, some on metaphors and deep meanings. Why should any one form of writing receive the title "literature" if the others don't? I know vector isn't saying other types of book can't have any value... but what does it mean for a book to be literature if the quality of the writing has nothing to do with it?

... In my point of view, literature really just means "exceptionally good fiction that people of all walks of life can read and find something in."  There is of course different opinions on this, but really... that's it.  Fantasy often has the drawback of really freaking bad characterization in favor of Dragonz (I'm talking about stuff like "The Green Unicorn" and the gimmickry of the Xanth series).  Plus, there's the barrier of the fantasy universe.  Similar thing for sci-fi, historical fiction, and so on.

Meh.  I like a lot of books, and you're right--the question of "what makes something Literature" is a difficult one.  I feel that usually, it's when an author does everything you said correctly.  The setup is interesting.  The characters are well-developed.  The metaphors are elegant, the frame well-chosen, etc., etc.  I don't know why this doesn't happen more in genre fiction, but it doesn't.  Maybe it's because well-turned metaphors can get hard to slog through after a while, and often times the "best word" is not one everyone knows... or because an emphasis on the "throbbing member" of the hero is interesting to one audience, and overblown (... teehee) to most.

So have we defined Big-L Literature objectively yet?  Maybe I've missed something but so far I'm getting a "From 1800s, ten thousand pages, impossible to read" vibe.

That completely ignores Sartre, John Irving, Faulkner, and Homer, to mention a few... not to forget Exupery and so on.  It doesn't need to be 10,000 pages or impossible to read.  Gotta admit, though, I was always a sucker for the confusing ones.  They're like a puzzle.

[Realmfighter]

Oh god I'm having flashbacks of a book where the main character was going to die somehow, and the author did some weird metaphor shit instead of finishing the scene.

That really pissed me off.

[Heron TSG]

I got sad today becouse I saw yet another form of entertainment, game specificly, utterly fuck over greek mythology, which I am a fan of.

I absolutely hate it when movies are made from Greek Mythology. Or at leas the ones I've seen. All of them include things that never happened, such as someone slaying a beast someone else killed generations ago.

[KaguroDraven]

That's bad but for some reason the two things that annoy me most are
1)Makeing Hades into an expy for satan, even though he was the closest thing the greek god had to a 'nice guy', a jerk but better than the others by alot
2)Makeing all gorgons monsters

[Schilcote]

Meh, Fun>Plot. Though it would be nice if someone actually tried to make things accurate.

[Aqizzar]

Dammit, everyone's talking about literature and books and stuff.  I've barely written anything, and I have books stacked up from this time last year that I haven't even opened yet.  And I've got too much shit to do to read them right now.

Ah who am I kidding, I'm not going to do that stuff anyway.  I might as well read.

[Cthulhu]

Dammit, everyone's talking about literature and books and stuff.  I've barely written anything, and I have books stacked up from this time last year that I haven't even opened yet.  And I've got too much shit to do to read them right now.

Ah who am I kidding, I'm not going to do that stuff anyway.  I might as well read.

But you won't, will you?  You'll stay right here.  I know you, man.  We are basically the same but you have a beard.

[Schilcote]

Dammit, everyone's talking about literature and books and stuff.  I've barely written anything, and I have books stacked up from this time last year that I haven't even opened yet.  And I've got too much shit to do to read them right now.

Ah who am I kidding, I'm not going to do that stuff anyway.  I might as well read.

YOu should totally read my fanfiction. Then tell me it sucks.

[KaguroDraven]

Dammit, everyone's talking about literature and books and stuff.  I've barely written anything, and I have books stacked up from this time last year that I haven't even opened yet.  And I've got too much shit to do to read them right now.

Ah who am I kidding, I'm not going to do that stuff anyway.  I might as well read.

But you won't, will you?  You'll stay right here.  I know you, man.  We are basically the same but you have a beard.

And as he has a beard he is obviously suppirior to you.