/lit/ - Literature

>>19882055
What is 'serious literature' to you, and what boundaries are you setting for it? I have't read the book, so I don't know the full context of that extract, but similar conversations happened in Normal People so I sort of get the idea. Rooney is writing typical young and immature characters, and in order to show these characters in a sincere light, sophomoric musings on pop academia are necessary. Whether you like it or not that is what young people today are like. To me reading that extract it seems you are supposed to cringe at the characters, they are supposed to come off as arrogant and misinformed, and in that sense Rooney has done her job well. When you read a novel you need a certain amount of self-awareness to separate the author from the characters, and you can't dismiss a writer because one her characters did cringe.

>>19882094
I've read plenty and I have an English degree to show for it, thank you very much.

>In this case, yes, they are.
Yes, but in this case they are written through the words of other people. I just looked up Conversations with Friends on Goodreads and apparently the main characters are early twenties. That means the views of the 30 year old woman, Sally Rooney, are being translated into the words of an early twenties girl. Do you see what I mean when I say it isn't a direct representation?

>>19882105
Sorry, do I know you?