/lit/ - Literature

2deep4me

I don't think pulp makes an effort to differentiate itself from or even make intrumental use of a particular genres established constituents

>Symbolism?
no

>Higher themes?
no such thing. just themes

>Obscure references to respected texts?
intertextuality when consciously and properly applied is a mark of technical proficiency, otherwise no

>How do we judge this?
technical virtuosity, demonstrated by the masterful use of literary devices in the text

>Who's to say?
literary critics, ideally ones that know what they're talking about (rare as they may be)

I was discussing something similar with a friend recently. "pulp" can be considered "literature". the difference maybe should be between self-conscious and artistical lit. and lit. created to be received massively. the most easily recognizable differences between them maybe are in the level of complexity and care in techniques used for composition.

>>1734837
>technical virtuosity, demonstrated by the masterful use of literary devices in the text

So you're saying if it sounds pretty, it's lit? Ahem.

>>1734854
>if it sounds pretty, it's lit?
Of course not

>>1734846
>define the word "literature" much more broadly
>need new term to describe a concept akin to what literature meant

Welp, looks like we got this problem licked.

>>1734869
Then you're going to have to elaborate.

> What separates pulp from literature?

Pulp's the stuff that assholes like you try to defend your addiction to with dumb bullshit like this, fucko. Literature's the stuff you fear, the stuff that finds you wanting, falling short.

Generally, it comes down to how well the craft was executed.

It's the same way one judges whether a grandfather clock is worth 40,000 or 400. How well was it crafted? Is the detail intricate? Who made it, and why?

>>1734869
People who read garbage shouldn't be allowed to respond in this thread, in my opinion. They're like idiot fratboys loudly professing that "Bud Lite is good enough for me!" as they down the watery sludge.

Only people with refined tastes about the written word, please.

>>1734876
>technical virtuosity, demonstrated by the masterful use of literary devices in the text
By this I mean the manner and extent to which a text is composed of literary techniques (metaphor or alliteration for example), for literary techniques are the only legitimate means of evaluating a text.

You don't critically evaluate a movie by its story or whether you played it on dvd or when to the cinema to see it

you don't critically evaluate a game of chess by the look of the chessboard

you don't critically evaluate a literary text by its themes

This is an incredibly reasonable way of evaluating anything, namely by the things that make it what it is in the first place, it just so happens that people confuse aesthetic judgments with critical ones, and such critical judgments actually require an understanding of that which constitutes the object of critical evaluation, which most people do not have.

the easiest way to tell is if the prose is prose is good. say whatever you want about the prose of Franzen or DFW, but many agree that they have a good writing style. Stephanie Meyer writes like an idiot and Nick Hornby is too simple to be stylish. Good writing and deep characters are the most essential characteristics for "literature"; if a novel has both, then people will find symbolism and themes and meaning. A novel without good writing and characters may have a good point in it somewhere, but no one is going to waste their time on it.

>>1734916

hahahaha. and what do you consider "refined taste about the written word"? i'm curious.

>>1734934
"Graphic novel" reader detected.

>>1734926
I see your point, anon.

Though I recall not being able to read Heart of Darkness because of an (IMHO) horrific writing style. I just couldn't do it for the life of me. However only a fool would denigrate HOD from lit to pulp.

And yet, here I am. So this brings taste into it I suppose. I really don't want to turn something that should be objective into a question of taste but the evidence remains

>>1734916
>>1734916

Although you are the complete opposite end of the spectrum as the frat boys you speak of, you are easilly just as bad, if not worse, than them on the asshole scale. Die in a fire.

>>1734934
Rand

>>1734940
yeah, I have read graphic novels and lots, lots of other things. what about you?

>>1734955
Get out of here, everyone knows that erudition requires that you only read what other people tell you is good! The less you read, the more literate you are.

Time.

>>1734960
>erudition requires that you only read what other people tell you is good

I lol'd.

>>1734960

Oh, c'mon man, let me stay! I swear i'm enjoying myself very much. changes something if I say Oprah is my reading guru? :D

>>1734962

>>1734941

"Denigrate to pulp"? Maybe you'll be surprised if I tell you that great authors as Flaubert and Tolstoi were in their time the same thing as much pulp is in our days: girls' literature.

>>1734991
Cite?

>>1734991
If you weren't so busy being a faggot and feeding the Anonymous troll you'd know TrumanCapote and I agreed that time is what makes lit. Now get out. The thread's over.

>>1734997

Any encyclopedia or history of 19th century literature.

>>1735004

oh! so it was "time" after all. if I only knew! ...

>>1734977

Only sure way to tell, imo. Do you think people will be talking about Stephenie Meyer or Bret Easton Ellis in 100 years?

Real literature is timeless.

>>1735052
Ellis yes but solely fro American Psycho

<spoiler>mfw Less Than Zero</spoler>

>>1735065
fuck.

>>1735067
[ not <

>>1735068
Right, thanks. Never done it before. My typo wouldn't have helped anyway.

>>1735052
so then your saying you cant tell yourself and you need to wait for it to be considered literature by society?

>>1735067
>>1735067

Use [spoiler1] , minus the one and leave a space between the text you want to hide and the code.

I also know that feel about less than zero, although everyone i've talked to about it inexplicably prefers it to American Psycho.

>>1735076
Not society. Time. It even works on an individual scale. You may like it when you read it, but if you don't remember it in a year's time it musn't have been very good.

>>1735076

That's the thing.

Society will change over 100 years, but Kafka/Shakespeare/Tolstoy etc will still be appreciated.

Real literature transcends societal value and ephemeral style.

>>1735088
also this

>>1735088
i didnt mean it in the sense you took it as i meant more like when "scholars" ,if you will, consider it literature

>>1735088
>implying that reading will be legal and not considered a thought crime by then.

>>1735098
You were maliciously implying that we get our opinions from other people and we knew exactly what you fucking meant.

>>1735088


you were correct until you called style ephemeral.

>>1735107
lol chill i wasnt even talking to you, you act like your one person with the other tripfag

>>1735103
hi. i replied to you in the other thread.

>>1735088
Well, it's true. but now i'm thinking about "Infinite Jest" and "Twilight". It doesn't take much time to realize that both are deeply different. The same goes to Franzen's "Freedom", people didn't needed much time to appreciate it more than other books.

>>1735110
Sorry, I'm still a little upset (UMAD) with the Anonymous troll thing.

>>1735114
its cool wasnt trying to troll you though

>>1735098

You think 'scholars' continue to keep Shakespeare as popular as he ever was 400 years since he wrote his plays?

Who are these intellectual illuminatus and where is the incredible propaganda they must have used to bluff the artists of western civilisation for four centuries?

>>1735109

see pic.

>>1735113

But for now Twilight is far more popular than Infinite Jest. The same will not be true in a decade or so.

>>1735139
no but i think true scholars that know whats up havent changed much in their thinking of his works as literature, maybe they have changed in certain other thoughts about it but they have almost always for sure regarded it as so, the only thing that would change is their perception of literature and that would only be affected by societys influence on the scholars themselves

>>1735139
also, i dont know what popularity would have to do with it being literature, popular culture for the most part doesnt even read literature but it still is literature right?

yeah guys i guess it must be time after all.

Now all we have to do is sit around for 50 - 100 years before we get the verdict on Infinite Jest, good stuff.

>>1735145

Except society can change drastically in 10 years, and what never changes can be called human nature.

If a piece of writing never stops being popular throughout many years (sometimes many centuries) then you can say that something about that work appeals to the real nature of humans without the need for certain a social/fashionable/idealogical environment.

Thus the critics attitude, using your own logic, should never change.

>>1735164

The final verdict: yes.
The evidence which may permit us to believe a certain outcome: no.

>What separates pulp from literature?

>>1735165
what are you trying to say here you just repeated what i said true literature will always be literature in the sense that we perceive what literature is, even though society might change it cannot change the fact that it is so, unless they change their perception of what they consider literature(i dont see when or why this would happen) it will always remain

>>1735167
>subject to time
>final verdict

You can't have a final verdict if you make evaluation the subject of time, because time is always changing. This isn't the same as saying evaluations change over time; everything changes.

I mean are you guys making a point in this thread beyond the very basic point that nothing stays the same i mean come on

all we are doing here is deferring judgment instead of judging a piece on prior historical contexts along with our own standards; this is all any generation can do.

>>1735180
yea well like i said true literature is so from the day it is written and will only not be considered literature when the perception of what literature is changes

>>1735174

>i dont see when or why this would happen

Well in thousands of years we will inevitably evolve into a species which may be very similar to our own but with an altered nature, and that is discounting the possible advancements in biotechnology.

>>1735191
true by then though i doubt we will be reading at all

>culture changes over time
>concepts change over time
>language is dialogic

mind = blown

>>1735180

>that nothing stays the same

i never said that and I don't agree with it.

Human nature hasn't changed and shows no signs of changing.

Everyone on this thread is wrong.

See next post.

The difference between pulp and literature is clear. Retrospectively classifying whatever was most popular a hundred-and-fifty years ago as pulp is unhelpful. The truth is, there is a smaller and smaller level of overlap between the educated classes and the literate population. Once, these were essentially one and the same - the educated were the literate, the literate were the educated. Now we have a literate society without literature that still enjoys reading.

>>1735200
so truman what's human nature

(cont.)
The pop fiction of a hundred years ago was for the light entertainment of a populace who, generally though not exclusively, were composed of people who read literature - books designed for those who did not were not merely low entertainment, but were a seperate underclass altogether, described in terms such as 'shopgirl's romances' - they were untouchable books for the lower orders, books whose titles remained unknown to any but their target audience. The pop fiction of fifty years ago was for people who knew literature existed, though they didn't encounter it as often as they once might have, and appreciated a gesture towards the junior status of what they were reading - the sensationalism of most paperback originals at that time made no bones about their status. Now, pulp IS literature for most of the reading populace, and to allude to another sort of literature is to allude to the past - in Twilight, Bella and Edward like Wuthering Heights, an old book, but the idea that they might read a serious novel of their own time (shared time, before someone tries to be smart about Edward being a vampire 'n' shit) is more fantastical than vampirism - literature is dead to them, is a word used to denote 'old entertainment'. This is also how many on this thread are choosing to parse it. Wrongly, I'm afraid - no amount of 'words mean what I want them to mean' will change the fact that your nineteenth-century equivalents wouldn't even have been *in the room* for conversations about literary merit, and by the time your descendants are able to 'assess' Meyer's reputation, the notion of literature will have passed beyond their purview altogether. We're living in the brief interregnum between the end of literature as a force in the lives of the majority of literate people, and the death of its appeal as a concept, as something to be said for a work.

>>1735195

sure language changes over time but ideas can be expressed in any proper language and as long as we have understanding of old english or latin or whatever then we can translate those ideas and they will still be relevant.

>>1735206

Read Shakespeare if you want to know.

>>1735207
so you're basically just saying what i said that peoples perception of what literature is changes over time?

>>1735208
>ideas can be expressed in any proper language
wow guys ideas can be expressed in a (proper is unnecessary here) language, did you guys also know that language can be used not only to express ideas but to showcase them?

>and as long as we have understanding of old english or latin or whatever then we can translate those ideas

>we can translate those ideas
try to get around to quine some time in college truman or anything vaguely related to new historicism

>Read Shakespeare if you want to know.
But that's just appealing to an idea's status at one moment in historical time truman

>>1735224
i mean popular cultures idea of what literature is not what the learned consider literature

>>1735224

No.

>>1735227

Not quite that, either.

>>1735226

does 400 years count as a 'moment in time', d&e?

>>1735229
>>1735231

These replies could seem snarky, but they weren't meant to be.

>>1735226

Stop misreading what I said, I said that ANY idea can be expressed in ANY language, the doesn't have to be gradually worn out through the cultural progression of language as your post >>1735195 seemed to suggest.

>>1735229
then you're saying that popular culture read pulp and that is what pulp is what popular culture would read because real literature is dead to them and literature to us now will die in future generations?

>>1735244
'the concept doesn't

>>1735234
You'd think with that raging hard-on you have for absurdism you'd have some appreciation of the relativity of time and space

>>1735250

I do, but that's beside the point.

Moment in socio-historical time, if you want.

>>1735252

What is it with you and historicity?

Pulp is usually easy to read and available in mass market format. These days they're known as "airport novels".

Literature is usually more complex, topical and expensive.

>>1735246

In future, I think they'll read pulp, just as they are now, but they won't try to garland it with the status of literature, because that concept will no longer have any meaning for them.

>>1735244
>ANY idea can be expressed in ANY language
Hey Truman explain to me the concept of śûnyatâ directly and without drawing on your idea of that idea, or any of this perspectival western rationale we all have.

>the concept doesn't have to be gradually worn out through the cultural progression
might want to read 'on truth and lies in a non-moral sense' some time

>>1735256

>expensive

Count Of Monte Cristo: $9.95 from Penguin.

Da Vinci Code: anywhere between $25 and 50 new.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmkay bro.

The difference between pulp in literature is that pulp is printed on cheaper paper. Hence, pulp.

>>1735257
im sorry what your trying to say is not clear to me im a little slow i guess, you're trying to say that we regard pulp as literature now, falsely, and in the future they wont try to make it seem as such?

>>1735260
>moral-sense

Wtfamireading.pdf

>>1735260
hey ive never seen you put your own thoughts into a thread(granted, i havent gone to this board for long), you always seem to try to point out other peoples faults in their posts, why is that? it seems to me you are afraid to get called out yourself, dont take it personal btw just wondering

>>1735282
>hey ive never seen you put your own thoughts into a thread(granted, i havent gone to this board for long)

you haven't been in this thread for long either I guess

>>1735287
lol exactly what im talking about you didnt give an explanation or say "here this is what i said" or "this is what i thought", is it that you dont feel like you need to give an explanation because you're a badass or what?

>>1735294

You haven't been in this thread for long either I guess

>>1735260

So perhaps there is no specific word to convey the meaning of Śūnyatā and the closest we have is 'void' or whatever, we can still grasp the idea but it may take us longer and with more words. Similar situation with l'Etranger.

Anyway I don't believe buddhist teachings should be considered literature. I should have stated that books which are kept popular through artificial means such as religion cannot properly be judged as literature as they have cheated time by piggy backing on totalitarian ideologies.

>>1735298
lol..

>>1735269

If I can simplify what I'm saying without misrepresenting it, essentially what I'm saying is that the 'we' has changed to the point that a readership that has no equivalent up until comparitively recent times is engaging in a kind of critical discourse that has no equivalent up until relatively recent times about books whose equivalents were for a differently-constituted readership. People who have read no contemporary literature are arguing about the literary merit of pulp books, and they're not doing this because they care about literature - they're doing it because they want to give the books they love the highest status they can imagine. Eighty years ago no-one involved in the discussion about literature would have cared about the opinion of someone who read nothing but pulp and a few old 'classics'. Eighty years from now no-one in the market for pulp will care about the idea of literature.

>>1735298
>Implying anyone could match the 100+ hours per week you spend "in threads"

>>1735302
>we can still grasp the idea
But we're not talking about grasping an idea truman, we're talking about expressing an idea, and by your own admission we have no means of expressing that idea, only an approximation.

>books which are kept popular through artificial means such as religion cannot properly be judged as literature as they have cheated time by piggy backing on totalitarian ideologies.
this conversation just gets fucking weirder and weirder.

>>1735302

This only makes sense if you're sixteen.

>>1735310

we havent changed though because millions of people still appreciate and read literature.

Go back to sucking huxley's dick in bb's bnw thread.

>>1735310
ok thats fair, but i still think, although i dont know what would classify it myself, that you can classify what people call pulp and what people call literature and it wouldnt change, although i think there would be books in the margin which could ruin my whole argument

>>1735302
Stop telling the truth. They might flog you!

>mfw I made a successful thread on /lit

>>1735335
>successful thread
>me babysitting truman for half an hour while he works on his bullshitting technique

Nevermind I gave the best answer like two hours ago. I'm going to bed.

>>1735319

A reasonable and effective approximation.

Also this barely happens in English because we have the largest vocabulary in the world.

and I tend to lose coherency at around 5am

ITT: D&E being rational, reasonable, and making sense.

The end is nigh.

>>1735327

I must stress that last sentence - no-one *in the market for pulp*. I think literature continues, absolutely, I just think that the desire a lot of people have to attach the term as an honorific title to entertainment will fade. Fewer and fewer people will ask 'what separates pulp from literature' because fewer people in the market for either will care about the other.

>>1735348
>me babysitting truman for half an hour while he works on his bullshitting technique

I lol'd really fucking hard

>>1735348
all you said was masterful use of literary devices, poor definition, it would also have to last through time and have many other qualities(plot, word usage, etc.)

>>1735349

> Also this barely happens in English because we have the largest vocabulary in the world.

Nooooo... because a far greater proportion of people whose first language is not English speak languages other than their first one. If you were born in an English-speaking country, your effective vocabulary is quite likely to be smaller than that of someone born in a non-English-speaking country, as you're much more likely to be monolingual.

>>1735364
>all you said was masterful use of literary devices, poor definition,
No, it's perfectly fine. I never said that masterful use of literary devices does not change over time nor are they relative.

>it would also have to last through time
Not it wouldn't, because nothing lasts through time. No literature is universal or timeless, all literature is relative. This does not mean that progress or regress is impossible.

>have many other qualities(plot, word usage, etc.)
these are taken for granted

going to bed now

>>1735367

Yes but because of it's unique past the English language has the largest vocabulary out of all other world languages. I wasn't talking about the average vocabulary size of a person who speaks exclusively English.

>>1735353
well if they dont care about the other thats assuming they have classified what is the other, saying this for the sake of discussion cause thats all it really furthers, a productive(for lack of a better word) argument, but what you seem to be saying to me is that its all subjective cause if they went into the bookstore and knew what was pulp and what wasnt without being able to classify it then that would be subjective if i understand correctly

>>1735382
>nothing lasts through time

This is demonstratibly false

>>1735391
Obviously the person you responded to has never been in an astronomic black hole. What a loser.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_fiction_authors

This list is relevant to my general argument.

>>1735391
Oh come on Truman

>>1735382
you said you were going to bed in last post, to answer though about time there is literature thats somewhat timeless in our recorded history for sure i wont give any examples, im not saying it will last FOREVER but i think it would always be considered literature if in no other way then as archaic literature(in the distant future)

>>1735404
dont be scared away by the first part of my post saying that you already said you go to bed just to prove that you can get off here for some time

>>1735402

False I say.

>>1735391
I think he means on a scale that goes beyond our species. Yes works from 100s of years ago were products of a society with a different culture but they were still people who deep down wanted alot of the things all people want.

>>1735390

No, what I've said doesn't assume they've classified the other, nor that it's at all subjective. They won't make a distinction between pulp and the 'other' that lies out of their purview. People who read pulp now don't call it pulp, generally, unless they're 'defending' it from the notion of literature; they certainly won't use that term once that notion is out of sight.

>>1735422
>never heard of Entropy

Given long enough,everything is forgotten.
Literature just lasts longer

>>1735384

Interesting and surprising if true. How has this been calculated?

>>1735428
ok, but subconsciously they would have had to made that distinction or how would they know if they would like what they are choosing, without the distinction between the two they might choose something thats not in accordance with their taste, dont answer if you dont want im probably totally misunderstanding you

>>1735432
Just read entropy by Pynchon—
now everything EVERYTHING is entropy

>>1735432
Are we talking physics or the ability of literature to appeal to humans as they are now?

Of course I am not suggesting that literature will exist in a billion years, but as long as humans as we know them exist then Shakespeare will be admired.

>>1735436

Generally, literature isn't advertised where pulp audiences would see it, and vice versa. In the same way, word-of-mouth gets around within genre/readership lines.

>>1735433

*watches this never get acknowledged*

I'm curious if you guys would call Valley of the Dolls pulp or literature. Everything I've read about it gives the impression that it has 0 literary value, but I thought that its scope, character development, and themes on gender and fame gave it at least some significant literary depth.

Also I last read it in 9th grade. Shit I liked that book. I'm going to put it on hold at my local library.

>>1735467

You thought wrong, it's a turd.

>>1735450
good discussion man, gotta go though, i still have to say there could be a clear cut classification system, even though it would be flawed almost without a doubt( i guess you might be saying that)

>>1735458

It's the assumption of many linguists due to the creation of English as a mixture of Latin and Germanic and it's colonial history means it has readily absorbed new words.

Obviously it's impossible to compare vocabulary size to languages like Finnish where a word can be constructed of indefinite length giving an infinite number of words.

ITT elitistfags.

>>1735493
Yes I'm here. How Can I help you sir?

>>1735482

I think we've been talking slightly at cross-purposes, but yes, it was interesting.


>>1735484

Yeah, I thought it sounded doubtful.

truman capote i like you better than d&e because you are less of a jerk and your definition wasn't just a purple circumlocution but why are you on a literature board if you don't know the difference between its and it's why why

>>1736157
Yeah, Capote has more humility about him.

But even Hitler had more humility about him than Derp+N'derpy does.

A lot of shit posts in here, but I think some people are getting at the issue in a roundabout way

literature is allegory,
pulp is shallow, it suggests nothing important in its events

literature is a teacher and pulp is the classroom clown

A Princess of Mars, Tarzan and Conan were all considered Pulp at the time of their original publications but they are considered literature now.

>>1736175
You would describe Capote is humble?
That's a new one.
In Cold Blood was "un-put-down-able."

MY PENIS RAMMING YOUR ASSHOLE LITERALLY CREATES SHITTY PULP

>>1736175

>>1736195
>Nietzsche
and then I lold

>>1736157

I do sorry it was very late when we were talking.

'It's' is the abbreviation of it is, 'its' is teh possessive adjective.

>>1736195

Nick Hornby is shit. End of that.

is symbolism not a literary device?

>>1734808
Where does the critic stop and the meaning start?

>>1735404
>to answer though about time there is literature thats somewhat timeless in our recorded history for sure i wont give any examples, im not saying it will last FOREVER but i think it would always be considered literature if in no other way then as archaic literature(in the distant future)
moronic post, idiot tells me there are "somewhat timeless" (lol, either they are or they aren't bro) works of literature, and then he says he wouldn't say they are timeless. Fucking dolt.