/lit/ - Literature

>>16449332
My guess is snobbishness, since genre fiction is for everyone that can read and can be enjoyed both on surface and deeper level.

>>16449332
>>16449455
This, and also works that are considered 'true literature' usually focus on the human condition: our struggles, feelings, vices, lusts, stuff like that. Most genre fiction doesn't focus on this (it focuses more on the world, or technology, etc.) and when they do focus on characters, they usually don't go as deep as most works considered 'true literature' do.

>>16449332
Because it's self limiting
Not that some don't connect the dots and color by numbers better than others

>>16450931
How is confining your writing to be about the modern world not equally self limiting?

Now I know there’s a difference between theory and practice, but wouldn’t it in theory be less limiting if you can write about anything?

>>16449332
Look at Horror or Fantasy as a genre. 99% of it is trite rehashed ideas that are ultimately on the same tier as fan-fiction, and then there are a few books/authors who can actually elevate the genre, but at that point it's because they often abandon old tropes and take a more generalized view than just sticking within the genre's boundaries.

>>16450951
But one doesn't confine oneself with respect to subject matter only, but with respect to stylistic possibilities as well. I personally like noir, adventure, and historical novels but recognize that the atmosphere of each is already predetermined by either what's come before or the historical record. On the contrary how to present or represent modern times is wide open, is still in the process of being figured out, takes more art to discern than what's already been established. I don't mean to suggest that some genre works don't pass into literature because clearly some do. War and Peace, for instance. Hope this makes sense.

Because it's formulaic writing pumped out with the goal of marketability and making money.

I wonder the same thing all the time, it's like /pol/ being douchebags about art in my opinion, going "surrealism and abstract aren't real forms of art." I don't want to just look at portraits and landscapes all the time, I want to look at shit that's fantastical or unrealistic sometimes. I want the medium to be used in ways that only that medium could do justice. Landscapes and portraits are done just as well through photography as they are through paint, so why not inject style into it?

>>16449332
I think it's because most truly effective literature is plausible. Most genre fiction isn't really plausible. Or, if it is, it's shallow.

>>16449332
Because it uses clunky pedestrian prose and rarely explores the human condition in any depth.

That wasn't the case prior to the 1950s.

Sometimes authors use genre fiction tropes to explore literary themes in an accomplished manner but it is very rare and is better treated as an exception rather than an argument for grouping all genre fiction in with "deep" literature.

It's somewhat interesting to note that detective fiction is a big outlier and has been done by all sorts of literary authors to various degrees. This is probably mostly a result of the time when it was popular.

>>16452388
One part snobbishness another part the fault of things like the pulp industry. Gene Wolfe himself said that though you could find real gems of entertainment & sometimes even literary art it had to be *found*, it was hidden in a sea of dreck- so SF&F got a reputation for being purely "escapist" or the realm of soft erotica.

Literature has ambition in some form.genre fiction sticks to formulaic tropes and its all about the plot.a lot of lit straddles the genre fic line

>>16449332
Jealousy

>>16452504
I'm pretty sure "envy" is the concept being expressed in this cartoon

>>16449332
Because /lit/erati hanker for the days of serfdom when the peasants couldn't read.

>>16452570
>implying that's wrong
>implying the il/lit/erates don't despise fantasy because they hate the middle ages
>implying it's somehow obviously good for everyone to be able to read.

>>16452380
>explores the human condition in any depth
No fiction is deep

>>16452667
It's a matter of degree. Genre fiction tends to involve simple archetypes going through the motions to advance a plot.

>>16452380
>>16452667
Swimming pools are deep or shallow, deep is a physical property. Calling a thought "deep" is no different than calling it "wicked sick" it's just that "deep" is the form of pidgin English used by gays who hang out in coffee-houses.

>>16449332
It's not, the only ones who do that are pseudos on /lit/ and some salty authors.

>>16452826
Quite deep

>>16452667
>No fiction is deep
>No, fiction is deep!
t. Lionel Hutts, attorney at law

>>16449455
i would disagree with the second part, there's a lot of more traditional literature that matches that description, but snobbishness was my first guess

>>16449482
that seems arbitrary to me, why would the human condition be more meaningful than something like nature, or technology?

>>16452438
based off of this, my theory is that the world basically got a bad first impression with really shitty pulp magazines and public opinion hasnt really caught up with it yet.

>>16453004
>why would the human condition be more meaningful than something like nature, or technology?
because it is. you are a human, therefore your life centers around you being a human, thus being a human is the most important aspect of your life.

>>16452570
God if only.

>>16452826
Nobody is talking about "deep thoughts", retard.

Think about it, you are literally wasting your time reading about dragons and wizards and spaceships and robots and vampires and other such banal inanities.

>>16452826
It's a metaphor, retard.
Calling a thought deep is to say it is voluminous, as in there is potentially much to explore within it.
If you were not Jewish and you had normal spatial intuition this would be immediately apparent to you.

>>16449332
When it's good enough genre fiction is regarded as literature. Look for example at Cormac McCarthy's Westerns. But when it's bad it remains in the lowly genre fiction category.

Today's canon is yesterday's pulp.

>>16453204
ultimate midwitism

>>16450978
It’s not all the same.