'Real' literature

[Metrodance]

Is this a topic in the GB, right after....."do you floss after you've given head?"

As a representative of the GB, let me say Meow!

Real literature? – Do you earn a living from it? Do you get paid?

Many writers became well knownl ong after their demise or in their later years.
To future generations, you may be Shakespeare.

 

[Liar]

Jules Verne is considered literature...

Which is really weird, when you actually read it, and find the storytelling on par with an Enid Blyton book and not much more in terms of perspective than Spaceballs. I like Verne, I grew up on his tales. But objectively, they are mostly entertainment and have less depth than your average Star Wars franchise fic. If they are considered a measurement of literary merit, your point about the time perspective must be most true.

But generally I think science fiction should recieve an upgrade in the literary status ladder. Quality sf adresses issues much larger than stories about space aliens and technoporn. It's a meta frame in which authors can handle ethics, philosophy and politics in a very aggressive and direct way.

 

[Black Tulip]

LOL

I agree with you, both on Verne and the merits of good sf.
The ones I like best deal with exploring alternative ways of building/running a society. That would meet some of the criteria for being considered literature.

 

[impressive]

What can you say? Literature is writing that can be taken seriously. If you're serious about your porn, if you think about it and pay attention to it (that's another sign of literature to me too. The authors pay a lot of attention to what they say and how they say it), you're trying to write literature.

If you're just tossing off strokers, then you're probably not.

So, people -- what HAS moved you beyond the story being told? Changed your perspective? Improved your life in some way? What is YOUR literature?

 

[Alex De Kok]

But generally I think science fiction should recieve an upgrade in the literary status ladder. Quality sf adresses issues much larger than stories about space aliens and technoporn. It's a meta frame in which authors can handle ethics, philosophy and politics in a very aggressive and direct way.

Shout this loudly from the rooftops, but the closed-brained will still not hear.

Alex

 

[rgraham666]

With all due respect to AH'ers who seem to strive for something more, we're standing in a pile of shit.

The smell of a rose cannot compete against the square mile of manure.

Sincerely,
ElSol

Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety per cent of everything is crap."

Ellison's Corollary: "At least I don't set out to create crap!"

Like Liar, I've found most of "Great Literature" to be boring, pretentious crap. Like that 'post structuralist' that showed up here a few weeks ago, a lot of 'great writers' are too busy being 'great writers' to actually do anything useful, interesting or entertaining.

I have some deep thoughts chasing around inside my head, but it's too early in the morning to realise them.

Still, thanks for all the input people.

 

[Liar]

Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety per cent of everything is crap."

Ellison's Corollary: "At least I don't set out to create crap!"

Like Liar, I've found most of "Great Literature" to be boring, pretentious crap. Like that 'post structuralist' that showed up here a few weeks ago, a lot of 'great writers' are too busy being 'great writers' to actually do anything useful, interesting or entertaining.

I'm a firm believer in the Ciceronian school of what makes a good piece of text. Be it poetry, drama, prose, a political speech, or whatever. A good balalnce between the three oratory duties movere (stir emotions), docere (educate) and delectare (entertain). What some of the high brow school of literature seems to do is to tip the scale too far away from the entertainment factor. An attitude I have often encountered is that some works and authors are too important to stoop as low as to start entertaining. courrse, a lot of what is considered great literature is fantastically entertaining at the same time. But in many of the more elitistic circles, that actual joy of both telling and reading a tale, is somewhat forgotten.

Entertainment and literature is imo not an antithesis, they are an important part of each other. Good entertainment and especially good humor must have a literary depth, and a balance between those three factors.

 

[impressive]

With all due respect to AH'ers who seem to strive for something more, we're standing in a pile of shit.

No, dear. We're standing ON a pile of shit. There's a difference.

 

[BlackShanglan]

Which is really weird, when you actually read it, and find the storytelling on par with an Enid Blyton book and not much more in terms of perspective than Spaceballs. I like Verne, I grew up on his tales. But objectively, they are mostly entertainment and have less depth than your average Star Wars franchise fic. If they are considered a measurement of literary merit, your point about the time perspective must be most true.

I agree on Verne. However, let me put in a good word for Wells' The Time Machine. Interesting little book with a lot to say in a small space.

 

[Kassiana]

Hm. According to what I've seen here, then, the short story I love, "Night Calls the Green Falcon" by Robert McCammon, is literature. It speaks to the human condition and how what we've done for good can live on even when we've given up on it.

So is Woody Allen's "Purple Rose of Cairo."

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Sci Fi is getting a lot more attention these days as the people who grew up on it become respected critics and learn how to discuss it, and there are plenty of college courses given in Sci Fi now. Probably the main critical-humanist knock on the genre--the thing that keeps academics from taking it more seriously as lit--is that it's usually big on Things and weak on Character. There's not a lot or attention given to human relationships in Sci Fi. But since that's the way our culture seems to be going too--more time spent on human-machine interactions and less on human-human interaction--I expect Sci Fi will be taken more seriously by academics. There are some very good authors working in the area now too.

I've seen some pretty thoughtful analyses of Phillip K. Dick's stuff, and Clarke's been an academic favorite for a while. Heinlein always seemed to be more of a gadfly to me, kind of like Twain. He loved to puncture pompous social attitudes, but I never saw where he generated many original ideas of his own. By the time I read Stranger In A Strange Land, those ideas had become kind of common currency, so the book lost much of its punch for me. He always seemed to be kind of a Piltdown man on social theory too: the Ayn Rand of Sci Fi.

One thing about these old classics--Dickens, Austin, Tolstoy and the rest of the academic canon. If you don't like them, then don't torture yourself with them. There's nothing that says they have to work for you, or that the fact that you don't like them makes you a low-brow. I've never been able to read Dickens myself, not since he was forced down my throat as a HS freshman, and Jane Austin puts me to sleep. The stuff they fobbed off on us in high school --or on me, at least--was some of the worst kind of turgid and boring 19th century dreck around. I always had a sci fi paperback in my pocket. It wasn't till I got to college and I wanted to know how these writers did the things they did that I start studying them, and then, luckily, I had good teachers. A lot of this stuff wasn't intended to be read the way we read today. Just like there are different ways of writing, there are different ways of reading too.

Now, I might not choose to curl up with a book of Shakespeare's plays for a little light reading, but I understand why they're considered so great, and I agree. And I've even started dipping back into Jane Austin, just to see how she did things.

 

[BlackShanglan]

All good things require effort.

 

[NoJo]

Which is really weird, when you actually read it, and find the storytelling on par with an Enid Blyton book and not much more in terms of perspective than Spaceballs. I like Verne, I grew up on his tales. But objectively, they are mostly entertainment and have less depth than your average Star Wars franchise fic. If they are considered a measurement of literary merit, your point about the time perspective must be most true.

But generally I think science fiction should recieve an upgrade in the literary status ladder. Quality sf adresses issues much larger than stories about space aliens and technoporn. It's a meta frame in which authors can handle ethics, philosophy and politics in a very aggressive and direct way.

When I look at the "sci fi" books in Borders, or even the sci fi stories here, most of the stuff is actually Fantasy, which is a genre I've never had time for.

Kurt Vonnegut is much closer to Joseph Heller than he is to Terry Pratchett.

 

[elsol]

Sturgeon's Law: "Ninety per cent of everything is crap."

Ellison's Corollary: "At least I don't set out to create crap!"

The unfortunate part to this is that there are different levels of crap... and as long a mediocre grasp of grammar and the ability to use spell check well makes a story stand up, this crap is particularly fetid.

No, dear. We're standing ON a pile of shit. There's a difference.

You're standing ON a pile of shit, Imp... whenever I take the opportunity to read over my past works, there's no doubt in my mind that I'm standing IN it.

The nice this is that my shit at least flushes easily, which I can't say for a lot of stuff out there.

Sincerely,
ElSol