Xopher @ 568: Interesting. I like his prose. And his characters are engaging for me. But there's something about the experience of having a happy ending artificially wrenched out of a story that obviously wanted to go somewhere different that leaves me with a strange sort of spiritual miasma--like, all of the efforts of everyone were meaningless.
I think Spider Robinson is the most depressing writer I've read, which probably says more about me than about him.
heresiarch @ 416: "I'm waiting for the military drama where the hero cleverly follows orders and uses the regulations to achieve her goals. Not holding my breath, though."
Oh, man. Jim MacDonald could kick ass on that! Can I do a cover blurb?
MacAllister & Lisa: I think I was reading things into it you weren't saying. I accept the distinction between "reading stuff that's good for you" and "reading stuff that isn't," and that this distinction has been attempted to be made for a long time.
1. It seems to me that the distinction between "fiction for the masses" and "literature for the elite" is a 20th century aberration.
2. Is the above the same as the distinction you were making? It seems different.
MacAllister @ 352: "There is a long, long, VERY long tradition of sorting written stuff into what we're supposed to like, vs. stuff that's fun and "trashy" and we're supposed to be embarrassed about reading."
Um. Are you sure? Does this tradition pre-date the 20th Century? Can you point me at anything that indicates that it does?
Tim @ 294: I agree. If you haven't tried Machaut's Messe de Notre Dame, you don't know if you like single malt scotch.
I've always had the impression (based on zero evidence) that the insult "jerk" was from soda-jerk, implying someone generally unfit to get a "real job."
Teresa @ 247: Oh, HOWL. Oh, Gasp. Oh, OOK OOK SLOBBER DROOL!
Excuse me. Must recover.
*wipes eyes, clears throat*
Now then...
I have a question for those familiar with That Stuff Some People Call Contemporary Literature (henceforth, TSSPCCL. Or not).
My question concerns experiments in form and voice. Personally, I love playing games with form and voice (within, of course, my limits). But to me, doing something unexpected with form or voice (or structure, or...) must always serve the story, not be an end in itself.
The impression I have (from comments about it) is that in much of TSSPCCL (god, that's ugly) the experiments become the end in themselves. Is that true? If so, that would seem to me to be a weakness in those works.
Sean:: Same here, and you're on.
Sean: Put that way, I don't think we have a disagreement. Alas. :-)
It should be added that, to me, a good book ought not to *require* labor on the part of the reader; but it ought to *reward* labor on the part of the reader.
Well, I certainly agree that it is worth discussing; otherwise, I wouldn't be discussing it. The issue is not that I don't like it, the issue is that I think it's wrong. With this latest clarification you made, perhaps instead wrong, I ought to say that it is a valid observation from a seriously flawed perspective.
Let me explain.
I cannot speak for the litfic community (if there is any such thing). But it would seem to me that to create any artifact intended for others with no concern or care for whether others get anything from it is not to be a top, it is to simply be a bad artificer. Are the works of what we've been calling the litfic community intended for others, or merely for the personal satisfaction of the author? If the latter, why on earth would I care why, how, or if they do it?
If your point is that genre writers care if readers enjoy their stuff, then, sure, I agree. And if "litfic" writers (or should I say litfic "writers"?) don't care, then that is a valid difference and one worth mentioning.
The reason I consider the top/bottom analogy to be wrong-headed is that, indeed, there is such a thing letting the reader control and determine what and how one writes. To me, a work is good insofar as it reaches, moves, delights, influences, and especially ephiphanizes as many people as possible over as wide a spectrum of humanity, across time and culture, as possible. With that definition of "good" in mind, the goal is to make it good. If a writer were bottoming to the reader (and, without doubt, some do), his goal would be to make it pleasing. Do you see the difference?
Sean Sakamoto: I still take issue with (if I understand correctly) the notion that a or the distinction between what we call genre fiction and what many call contemporary literature lies in the attitude of the writer toward the reader: in the former case it being one of service to, where in case of the latter this relationship is reversed.
There are several problems with your formulation. For one, it requires knowing what is going on in the head of the writer. This is a problem because many writers won't talk about what is going on in their heads, and the rest lie about it (often very sincerely, no doubt).
Next, it requires knowing what is going on in the head of the reader. Same problem, although perhaps less acute. To be sure, there are readers who will loudly and passionately berate a writer who is not producing what the reader wants, or is not producing it fast enough. But exactly because such readers are so loud that they drown out the rest, we cannot know how ubiquitous they are. Moreover, we cannot know to what degree writers actually pay attention to them (see above). I know for certain many genre writers have a visceral "fuck off" reaction to being told such things. No doubt others react more submissively, but have you reason to believe the latter are in any way the standard for genre writers?
To be sure, there is work-for-hire, and there is ghost writing, and there are media novelizations, but I think those can safely be excluded.
Finally, assuming you're right, and there is this massive layer of genre writers who set in to work with the idea of submitting to the desires of the reader, I'd like to know how they go about it. Do they take a poll? Take direction from their editors (who are, presumably, taking direction from marketing, who takes direction from the jobbers, who take direction from the chain managers)? What's the mechanism here?
I really think that writers (a generally cantankerous bunch, and that's one of the few generalizations I'll dare) tend, over-all, to aim their writing at their own tastes. At least, the good ones do, no matter what part of the bookstore the book ends up in.
I have no objection to the d/s metaphor; I'm all for d/s metaphors. More d/s metaphors, say I. I just want to snap my crop at the notion that genre writers, as a class, write what they think readers want. I have no doubt that there are writers who think in those terms, but for the most part what readers do is go hunt out and find writers who appeal them; while the writers are busy writing stories they wish someone else had written because they want to read them. Genre writers do not, as a rule, willingly place themselves in the fur-lined handcuffs of trying to guess what readers like (other than, insofar as possible, "good").
(P.S. Didn't anyone get my Hemmingway free verse? Or was it just not funny? *sniff* *lip quiver*)
Sean Sakamoto@59: "With genre fiction, the author is the bottom. The reader is the top. The author exists to serve and service the reader."
Christ Jesus.
Send not to know
For whom the earth moves
(Did it move
For thee too
In Spanish boxcars with machine guns
Tearing apart
Large fish?)
Decrypting codes of
Behavior
I saw
Maleness
And Dorthy liked
it.
Patrick, just read the interview you linked to on the sidebar. Good stuff.
Wymann@49: Nitpicking for no good reason at all: HUAC stood for "House Committee on Un-American Activities."
No one has mentioned the polls, which gave the incumbent (I'm not going to try to spell his name) a greater than 2:1 margin before the election; is the assumption that those were rigged, too? I would think it easier to rig a poll than an election, so that isn't unreasonable, but I haven't heard it said.
Mousavi, as I understand it, wanted to end various social assistance programs; if that's true, it would seem reasonable that the poor voted for the incumbent in spite of ethnic differences.
What am I missing here? I mean, they're both right bastards, and neither seems to be any fan of democracy as I understand the term. Mousavi wants more of a free market system (on account of that's been working so well for us, I suppose); is that why Fox news has been crying "Fraud!" since twenty minutes after the results were in?
I hated the direction. I hate fight scenes where you get so many close-ups you can't actually see what's happening.
Also, I must be missing something because no one else remarked about it, but: The older Spock was waiting on that frozen world for a long, long time. He is surprised when Kirk arrives ("How did you find me?"). There is a mining colony not far away. So...why was he sitting in that cave all that time doing nothing?
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 22 |
| 2008 | 16 |
| 2007 | 12 |
| 2006 | 84 |
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