/lit/ - Literature

Good evening, /lit/. We need to have a talk about the nauseating and repetitive argument of subjectivity versus objectivity, which has flooded our board of late and consumed many of our otherwise reasonable discussions. I am going to be as brief as possible for the sake of understanding. However, I need to explain first that I believe that true appreciation and understanding of life comes from establishing oneself firmly in the middle, between subjectivity and objectivity. Once you understand and appreciate the places that both of them hold, you can at least approach any argument rationally.

Speaking of rationality, I will address those who believe in objectivity first. Complete belief in what is objective is a childish and irrational way of thinking. By assigning value to everything based on an objective scale, which you cannot possibly understand, you are defeating all discussion based around anything at all. Some things are better than others, but only in certain contexts. Ulysses is better literature proper than Twilight, but the latter is undeniably better young adult fiction than the former. Neither is “better.” They each serve a purpose in their respective genres. This is not subjectivity, this is context. Nabokov’s prose is not always “better” than Hemingway’s. It depends on the context of the argument; what you are looking for. If you cannot understand this, you need to read more.

Most of the people complaining about the bullshit in literature classes are the same people who cannot for the life of them grasp the subtleties of text. There were many of these people in high school; practical-minded young men and distracted young women who squinted with concentration when they learned of a 'hidden' metaphor or symbol in a novel. They would leave class denouncing the subjectivity of 'English' courses, in much the same way as when they received a bad grade on an examination or an essay.

When I got to my first year of university I assumed that all of these people would filter into the sciences or into business and management disciplines, but I found a new breed in the pseudo-intellectual misplaced literature student who, still a hopeless literalist at heart, will proudly claim that only he is able to see that the author meant nothing more than what is explicitly said in each passage, and that the rest of the class along with the far more educated instructor are wrong.

My message to all of you who fit this description; and you do know who you are, even if your pride prohibits your admitting it; is that if you refuse to explore literature along with all of its nooks and crannies and subtleties, then you have no place in the study of literature.

I know we're all sick of Gatsby.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/ct-ent-0620-great-gatsby-essays-20120619,0,31736
8.column

Julia Keller claims that Gatsby is not, in fact, a critique of the American dream, but rather a celebration of it.

>Is "The Great Gatsby" a rousing homage to the American dream or a disillusioned takedown of that same dream? If Fitzgerald, who died in 1940, were alive today, would he be clinking champagne glasses with CEOs and hedge fund managers or pitching a tent at an Occupy Wall Street outpost?

>So what is "The Great Gatsby" really about? It's about the American dream — which is celebrated, not undermined, in the novel. There. Simple as that. Any other reading is a coarse distortion of Fitzgerald's work.

>Those who see the author as a closet social critic — and who interpret "The Great Gatsby" as a denigration of wealth and the baubles it buys — are missing not only the point of the book, but the source of its beauty. The novel is about the magic of making plans and working hard. It's not a democratic magic — no one is guaranteed success — but no one succeeds who doesn't first believe in the power of that dream.