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Old 06-16-2011, 11:07 PM   #46
Ransom
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Can you not see how ridiculous that demand is?
No. You said, "thought-structures beyond the means of conventional storytelling." You didn't say "thought structures beyond understanding." The only thing ridiculous is your absurdity and the childishness of your multiple loser-names. But then, you are still just a college kid. I don't expect much from you till you've had time to grow-up and gain the wisdon it takes to doubt yourself.

I shot down all of the following items that you ignorantly claimed were specific to literary fiction.

Literary fiction may discard an advancing plot..., specific characters

or even spelling and syntax... operating by its own rules.

It requires more effort of interpretation from the reader

but it can convey thought-structures beyond the means of conventional storytelling.


Now, if you have an actual argument to make instead of hurling insults and throwing a tantrum, I'm listening.

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"Most other people" don't have a definition of literary fiction, but just a vague sense...."
It would appear at this juncture that the only thing vague is the worth of your education. Perhaps when you're my age and have spent another thirty years reading something of actual value, we can then have a pleasant conversation. Actually, the one thing anyone over fifty can tell you if they're well-read at all is that you don't need to read a lot of books. You just need to read the right books, and you need to get the right things out of them. There's a singular golden thread that connects the right books, and a person of the right character will see it and follow it through to its logical conclusion. The hints will all be there weaving in and out of both fiction and non-fiction from Homer to Plato to Virgil to Pseudo-Dionysius to Dante, and there the thread intertwines where Helen of Troy; Beatrice; and the Holy Other become one symbol of that which is always sought for but never attained (one wishes Cabell had understood it better), and then on to St. John of the Cross and his "Great Sea"; to Donne and Milton; the uneducated brilliance of Bunyan; the illumination of Novalis; the hard truths of James Hogg; the "feeling intellect" of Wordsworth and "far Ancestral voices" of Coleridge; to Adam's house of slumber in George MacDonald; the all-encompassing head of Sunday in Chesterton's Thursday; to the primordial reality behind the world in "the City" of Charles Williams; and finally resting at the foot of Lewis' cave in Perelandra where Aeneas, Kubla Khan, and Lewis' hero join metaphors. There are dozens of other writers in the meshes adding a little salt here and there as well, but it's here at Lewis' cave that the thread lies buried until another worthy of it picks it back up. It's very doubtful that someone from the LF basement will be the one to continue the line since absolute garbage like Gaiman's American Gods is the norm among the LF crowd—a book I tossed in the can after 80-pages like all reasonable people do.

And when you're very, very old it may be hoped that you'll at last be able to realize and embrace this sane and simple fact: that reading is all about finding meaningful truths, and the greatest truths of all lie within those faerie tales you left on the nursery room floor. Until then you've got your Greek, your Latin, your German and your French to learn and innumerable connections to make, and when you've discovered the wisdom of Berkeley and Kierkegaard over against the folly of Hume and Schopenhauer, then we may have something to talk about.
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Old 06-16-2011, 11:11 PM   #47
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From reading this exhausting thread, I have reached two conclusions:

1) I am very pleased that more than half my reading is non-fiction.

and

2) The difference between "literary" and "genre" fiction is rather subjective.
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Old 06-17-2011, 01:35 AM   #48
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2) The difference between "literary" and "genre" fiction is rather subjective.
Subjective enough that there need be no distinction at times.
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Old 06-17-2011, 02:52 AM   #49
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Like Diap, I get a little peeved with some of the inverted snobbery around giving books a 'genre' or a label - I'm a philistine with regards to all my interests.......'I know what I like, and I don't care whether it is intellectually cool or not'
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Old 06-17-2011, 03:09 AM   #50
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Originally Posted by Ransom View Post
I shot down all of the following items that you ignorantly claimed were specific to literary fiction.
  1. I made no such claim.
  2. Your examples were irrelevant to the respective traits I did describe.

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Originally Posted by Ransom View Post
It would appear at this juncture that the only thing vague is the worth of your education. Perhaps when you're my age and have spent another thirty years reading something of actual value, we can then have a pleasant conversation. Actually, the one thing anyone over fifty can tell you if they're well-read at all is that you don't need to read a lot of books. You just need to read the right books, and you need to get the right things out of them. There's a singular golden thread that connects the right books, and a person of the right character will see it and follow it through to its logical conclusion. The hints will all be there weaving in and out of both fiction and non-fiction from Homer to Plato to Virgil to Pseudo-Dionysius to Dante, and there the thread intertwines where Helen of Troy; Beatrice; and the Holy Other become one symbol of that which is always sought for but never attained (one wishes Cabell had understood it better), and then on to St. John of the Cross and his "Great Sea"; to Donne and Milton; the uneducated brilliance of Bunyan; the illumination of Novalis; the hard truths of James Hogg; the "feeling intellect" of Wordsworth and "far Ancestral voices" of Coleridge; to Adam's house of slumber in George MacDonald; the all-encompassing head of Sunday in Chesterton's Thursday; to the primordial reality behind the world in "the City" of Charles Williams; and finally resting at the foot of Lewis' cave in Perelandra where Aeneas, Kubla Khan, and Lewis' hero join metaphors. There are dozens of other writers in the meshes adding a little salt here and there as well, but it's here at Lewis' cave that the thread lies buried until another worthy of it picks it back up.
I'll just leave that right there.

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It's very doubtful that someone from the LF basement will be the one to continue the line since absolute garbage like Gaiman's American Gods is the norm among the LF crowd—a book I tossed in the can after 80-pages like all reasonable people do.
If American Gods is your idea of a work of contemporary literary fiction, I rest my case. It's urban fantasy, by an unabashedly and exclusively genre author, and not his best work. Whatever phantasms the words "literary fiction" conjure in your mind, it's not what the rest of us are talking about.

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Originally Posted by Ransom View Post
And when you're very, very old it may be hoped that you'll at last be able to realize and embrace this sane and simple fact: that reading is all about finding meaningful truths, and the greatest truths of all lie within those faerie tales you left on the nursery room floor. Until then you've got your Greek, your Latin, your German and your French to learn and innumerable connections to make, and when you've discovered the wisdom of Berkeley and Kierkegaard over against the folly of Hume and Schopenhauer, then we may have something to talk about.
There are fields of interest other than philosophy (or really, you seem more concerned with theology), and wonderful authors who are not dead white men.

Also, my formal education ended a decade ago, whereas my reading did not.

And you might enjoy Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, Narcissus and Goldmund and/or Steppenwolf.
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Old 06-17-2011, 05:09 AM   #51
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Conclusion: Some people think "literary fiction" is a helpful and informative way to describe a book, while some other people think it is an unhelpful and uninformative way to describe a book. I'm in the latter camp, but hey, whatever helps you get your read on. Okay? Chill?

I just prefer specifics. "I'm looking for something a bit challenging with an experimental narrative structure. I want every word worth mulling over with a more pensive tone. Plot optional. I want it set in the future, invented or parallel worlds are fair game." <-- that beats "genre" vs. "literary".
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Old 06-17-2011, 10:18 PM   #52
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I made no such claim.
Very well, but you did say that LF "may discard" all those things while saying just before it that LF was "idiosyncratic." If it's not the discarding of those traits that sets LF apart, then just what exactly is so individualistic about this so-called genre?

Quote:
Your examples were irrelevant to the respective traits I did describe.
Oh come now.

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If American Gods is your idea of a work of contemporary literary fiction, I rest my case.
Why not tell the truth about this? I said: "...garbage like Gaiman's American Gods is the norm among the LF crowd...." This is true. It's part of your crowd's mindset—not mine. You'll seldom see a conversation about this trite work that doesn't include the term LF even though it certainly is entirely fantasy, and if you'll search reviews for the book, you'll find it listed as LF time after time.

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"...wonderful authors who are not dead white men."
I can't think of many since 1960. Arthur C. Clarke has written some fine things, especially 2001 which was indeed wonderful and much better than the movie, but his finest work was a couple of decades earlier. Susanna Clarke has written the only other piece of fiction I've read since 1960 that I would refer to as wonderful although the first 200-pages of her 800-page masterpiece were very slow, and her fictitious footnotes got to be very draining. Some of Orson Scott Card's books have been quite good even though he's the best example I could give if I wanted to exhibit the inherent problems within stream of consciousness writing. His stories are good—his writing is not. However, good is not wonderful. Patrick O'Brian has some fine stories, but he's not wonderful.

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And you might enjoy Hesse's The Glass Bead Game, Narcissus and Goldmund and/or Steppenwolf.
I gave up on Hesse after he butchered both Hinduism and Buddhism in Siddhartha. He now joins my list of 20th century lightweights alongside of Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, M. R. James, and Norman Mailer. Not that they all didn't have their moments (except Mailer), but their overall output is quite overrated.

The great misfortune of our generation is that there are few, if any, writers who know how to write for men anymore. This is where Twain and Chesterton ruled the literary world. No one could write for men like they could. Again, Patrick O'Brian is not bad in this regard though.

And you might enjoy this article in the (gulp) Guardian titled "Is speculative fiction poised to break into the literary canon?" They make such enlightened statements as: "Over the same period, the fashion of literary fiction writers borrowing ideas from SF has continued." And of course, American Gods is mentioned once again.
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Old 06-17-2011, 10:39 PM   #53
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Originally Posted by jgaiser View Post
I didn't start this thread to bash 'Literary Fiction'. I'm not sure *anyone* actually read the article.

Part of the first paragraph:



The author (and I agree) believes that the label Literary Fiction is being used to separate the Good Stuff™ from the great unwashed.

Just because it's labeled Literary Fiction doesn't make it good. Just because it's labeled as Genre Fiction doesn't necessarily make it bad.

See: Sturgeon's Law
The problem is that often the "great unwashed" is later seen to have more acceptance by the majority than what is considered to be 'literary.' And what is thought to be genre junk by one generation of literati often rises to Classic status later on. I'm sure there were those who felt the works of Charles Dickens were junk writings because he wrote for the masses and yet now they teach college courses with his works being held up as examples of how to write. The literary treasure of one generation often becomes the forgotten of another generation down the line.
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Old 06-18-2011, 03:44 AM   #54
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Susanna Clarke has written the only other piece of fiction I've read since 1960 that I would refer to as wonderful although the first 200-pages of her 800-page masterpiece were very slow, and her fictitious footnotes got to be very draining.
People warned me about that book's slow start, but I found it delightful from the get-go. I even enjoyed the footnotes. Well, most of them.
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Old 06-18-2011, 09:15 AM   #55
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I gave up on Hesse after he butchered both Hinduism and Buddhism in Siddhartha. He now joins my list of 20th century lightweights alongside of Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, M. R. James, and Norman Mailer. Not that they all didn't have their moments (except Mailer), but their overall output is quite overrated.
Sometimes people of brilliance display a level of arrogance that is breathtaking, but they are forgiven this arrogance because of their brilliance. Other folks are just arrogant without anything to be arrogant about. Now, I know nothing about you, but where do you get off dismissing major figures of the 20th century literary canon? It certainly seems to put you in the second camp.
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Old 06-18-2011, 12:01 PM   #56
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where do you get off dismissing major figures of the 20th century literary canon?
Didn't your mama ever tell you anything about jumping off bridges just because others do it? The day you start worrying about making your own outlook match those of others is the day you may as well stop reading because you're incapable of thinking for yourself. Last I heard, the majority is just as often wrong as they are right. A thousand years from now people will still be quoting Lewis, Twain, and Chesterton. I doubt very much that anyone in AD 3011 will know there ever was a man named Hermann Hesse.

"Public opinion is a flitting thing, but truth outlasts the sun...." ~ Emily Dickinson
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Old 06-18-2011, 12:15 PM   #57
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Didn't your mama ever tell you anything about jumping off bridges just because others do it? The day you start worrying about making your own outlook match those of others is the day you may as well stop reading because you're incapable of thinking for yourself. Last I heard, the majority is just as often wrong as they are right. A thousand years from now people will still be quoting Lewis, Twain, and Chesterton. I doubt very much that anyone in AD 3011 will know there ever was a man named Hermann Hesse.

"Public opinion is a flitting thing, but truth outlasts the sun...." ~ Emily
Dickinson
I do not make a habit of jumping off bridges but I do tend to give initial credence to the opinions of experts in their field - like doctors, car mechanics or literary theorists - people who have spent a considerable time developing their expertise - until and unless I have a specific reason for dismissing or arguing against them. What I don't do is display my arrogant ignorance by making stupid statements dismissing the history of literary criticism or making unsupportable and ridiculous predictions that are less that worthless.
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Old 06-18-2011, 12:29 PM   #58
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but I do tend to give initial credence to the opinions of experts in their field - like doctors, car mechanics or literary theorists - people who have spent a considerable time developing their expertise -
You have to admit... there's really not a whole lot of subjectivity regarding triple-bypass surgery or carburetor rebuilds.

"Always listen to experts. They'll tell you what can't be done and why. Then do it."
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Old 06-18-2011, 03:15 PM   #59
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You have to admit... there's really not a whole lot of subjectivity regarding triple-bypass surgery or carburetor rebuilds.
Well, I certainly acknowledge it. Are you claiming that professional literary critics and theorists have no more expertise than you or me or the bloke down the pub. We have, after all, all read novels, so we are all equally qualified to think analytically about them, is presumably the thinking, (to stretch the meaning of the word), going on with this kind of argument.
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Old 06-18-2011, 03:53 PM   #60
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Are you claiming that professional literary critics and theorists have no more expertise than you or me or the bloke down the pub. We have, after all, all read novels, so we are all equally qualified to think analytically about them, is presumably the thinking, (to stretch the meaning of the word), going on with this kind of argument.
That's all on you, man. I'd never presume anything of the sort. But I do reserve the right to assume that there just may be a handful literary critics (and doctors and mechanics, too) out there who are full of shit up to their eyeballs. Stands to reason, right? Their background, education and expertise only guarantee that I'll listen to their assessment... not kneel before it and accept it as gospel.
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