/lit/ - Literature

I don't like any of those books, so... couldn't give a shit.

Harry Potter alone puts the top row ahead.

Obvious troll is obvious; bottom four are obviously better.

You can go back to /b/ now, OP.

I've read all four on the bottom, I have only read one of the top four.

I liked them all

If it ain't got a sequel, I don't want to read it.

You ever think that the bottom row was pop lit back in its day and there were people like us who sat around and complained how pleb they were?

Because this is a lame thread that'll amount to nothing interesting, allow me to hijack it to ask:

for those of you who've read "War and Peace," how does it compare to "Anna Karenina"? I'm reading AK now (about 35% in) and I'd heard Tolstoy wrote AK after writing to a friend (about "War and Peace" that he will "never write such wordy trash again!"

I've heard "War and Peace" breaks off to describe things like lineages and farm life in great length, but I can see some of that in AK.

Anyone read both of these and can give me some insight to what sort of revelations Tolstoy had between the writing of the two?

>Dystopian setting
>Wizards
>Vampires
>Conspiracies

What are things the bottom row doesn't have?

I haven't read any of them.

Hunger Games - 8/10
Harry Potter - 10/10
Twilight - 4/10
The DaVinci Code - 7/10

To Kill A Mockingbird - 9/10
Ulysses - 6/10
The Great Gatsby - 6/10
War and Peace - 7/10

Top - 29
Bottom - 28

they're different kinds of books and appeal to different people for different reasons.

in other words, OP is a faggot.

>>2538254
Agreed.

>>2538172

lol

hunger games: 8/10
harry potter: 8/10
twilight: 6/10
da vinci: 9/10

tkamb: 8/10
ulysses: 9/10
gatsby: 8/10
war and peace: 10/10

i mean come on, im being pretty realistic here.

the bottom are groundbreaking and will last forever. the top are cliched and won't be widely read in another 50 years.

fuck this subjectivity bullshit. at some point you just have to admit when something is objectively better. some of you people would drive all artistic endeavor to the point of nihilism with your subjectivity.

hurrr durr iit's all subjective, all this tripe about boy wizards and gay vampires is as good as intricate pieces of language that reveal the heart and soul of mankind---HURRR WIZARDS AND VAMPIRES.

>>2538144
I've read DaVinci and HP from the top, Mockingbird, Ulysses, and Gatsby from the bottom; they were all good-to-great at what they were trying to do.

please shut the fuck up with these 'culture war' threads.
some books require intellect to read. some books are just mindless. that is fact. we need both because not everyone is of the same intelligence and occasionally people like to branch out beyond their spectrum.

inb4 liberal equality hippies try to tell me its all the same thing and everyone is as smart as everyone else.

Wait, is this a serious discussion?

>>2538538
By creating books that appeal to the less intelligent, we're pandering to their "needs" and creating a cycle of unintelligence.
There should be only books for moderate and above levels of intelligence, thus forcing the unintelligent to strain themselves and rise above their level.
If they can't do it, then they can't read, and that's no big loss. They gain nothing from reading such mindless dribble anyways.

>>2538555
That's some stone-cold shit right there.

>>2538555
You're getting utopian with this "should" business, pal.
Crap books get sold because crap books sell, not because the anyone is under the illusion that one can gain something from it.

>>2538533

harry potter is the best selling book series ever, and you think it won't be around in fifty years? lol @ u

>>2538533
Yeah, I agree. Looking at all the best-selling authors...

Agatha Christie
Barbara Cartland (dirty girl books)
Danielle Steel (more of above but with more illness, death, crisis in the formula)
Harold Robbins (of carpetbaggers fame)
Sidney Sheldon (same dude of I Dream of Jeannie)

Yeah, what is popular isn't necessarily what is good. These writers basically latched onto a formula for their writing that their fanbase expected, and milked that formula for their own financial gain.

Think of the Great Automatic Grammatizator of Roald Dahl.

>>2538555
of course they gain smething even if its simply progressiokn like you would with your elementary school reading books. we need to accomodate both to fully appreiate and understand human intelligence. the best thing to do is give people the option because even academic elites like to relax with simple lit. disregarding one makes it seem like we know what we're building towards with regards to our sapience. the only aim of education is to expand opportunity and enhance social life, not for any instrumental regime like space colonisation, technological enhancement, refining rationality. we need to aware of who or what distinguishes different cultures or orders them by academic merit, but that isn't to say that we shouldn't do it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vq5Wku5B7QA

>>2538569

The bestseller list is like a toilet. Shit goes in, shit gets flushed. But then, more shit goes in the next year. Occaisonally, instead of shit, there will be this nugget of gold in the pot. On this rare occurance, it is scooped out and saved for a hundred years to be pawned when the rent gets too high.

Other than that, shit goes in, shit goes out, new shit goes back in.

Nobody remembers a shit they took in April 10 years back... unless it was a gold nugget.

>>2538533
I'm just curious... how does the bottom row better express the human condition compared to the top?

I don't mean to imply that I disagree with you... but how are you making this case? Subjectively OR objectively.

>JUST LOOK AT THEM
Isn't an argument.

>>2538582
Is that the sole purpose and criterion that we judge literature? To express the nebulous "human condition"?

>>2538585
If you're judging the value of Ulysses, (ignoring prose), I think that's what you'll be focusing on.

>>2538555
mindless dribble?

>Drivel

Mindless dribble is the phenomenon that happened when my brain oozed out of my nose after reading that. It's further accentuated by the pomposity and huge quantities of ass in your post

>>2538590
I'm sorry, I don't think I understand you.

Are you implying that Ulysses isn't/ignores prose?

>>2538585
Is it?

I'm not trying to be a dick here... but honestly ask yourself if this is the sole criterion.

If that's the case, is describing the human condition more thoroughly the method to judge "good" literature from "bad"?

So, do psychology and sociology texts which describe a VAST array of human experience, behavior, emotion, etc. serve as outstanding examples of literature?

Is there something more?

And how does the top row of books fail to describe the human experience as sufficiently as the bottom row?

I'm just playing devil's advocate here. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you.

I've read 2 on bottom, 1 on top.

I prefer bottom, but only because I'm a sucker for the 20s.

>implying harry potter isnt the best book there
>implying to kill a mockingbird isnt highly overrated by pretentious pseudo-intellects
oh hi /lit/

>>2538603
Well, we could look at Horace and say that the nature of poetry (let's expand this to include literature as a whole) is to delight and to instruct.

bonus dormitat Homerus. Sociological and psychological texts do indeed instruct: that is their purpose. But do they delight?

What makes literature delightful? We can go into Aristotle's aesthetics, or any other school of study, and see that words put together in such a way produce pleasure. This can be from many different sources: the sounds of the words, the connotation, allusions, maybe the very etymology of them. This produces the "play" that keeps literary theorists in business. As new works are produced, the available play increases: paying homage to the cultural cornerstones of the "Canon" = doesn't necessarily mean it's good literature, but it establishes a bit of credence to the work. An author that does his/her homework at least shows the reader he tried.

Innovation of this play can produce good works. Formulaic applications to this play produces a "copy" of something once great.

>>2538609
Let me guess, the two on the top are The Davinci Code and the Harry Potter book?

>>2538592
Mindless dribble.

I imagined Kobe just going half brain dead and just mindlessly dribbling on some court for the rest of his sad existence.

>>2538622
or the post-orgasm dribble of semen/vaginal discharge after orgasm, while the mind is still reeling from the sensation.

Literally cumming until retarded.

That is until escape goat comes along: the feeling that you don't want to be around her/him anymore and you have to find a goat to escape on.

>>2538618

The one on the top is Harry Potter.

I have plenty of dystopian lit in my to read list before I check out Hunger Games since I've already had most of it spoiled to me by a friend of mine.

Also The DaVinci Code seems only somewhat more appealing than Twilight, and I'd read the Illuminatus Trilogy before that anyway.

>>2538602
I was trying to talk about what Ulysses talks about, not how it talks about what it talks about, but I didn't present that very well.

>>2538626
Never change, /lit/.
10/10

>>2538629
But a huge, I don't know, call it a conceit (can't think of the word right now), of ulysses would be the how it talks about... probably at times even over the what it talks about.

Each chapter written in a different form/techniques/language/politics/sex. Clearly a lot of thought went into it... but I admit, it probably is a bit overwritten.

Imagine two roads. One is a boring double-lane highway to your destination. It will get you there quickly, but it won't be fun and you won't see anything there. But, it is the most efficient, utilitarian way there. It simply gets the job done.

Then you have the other road... and its name is Ulysses.

>>2538619
>Well, we could look at Horace and say that the nature of poetry (let's expand this to include literature as a whole) is to delight and to instruct.

I like this, it's at least a definition of "good" literature that can be used to compare two works.

Of course, "delight" may very well be subject to the whims of the reader.

It does leave a bit of a glaring question, though.

Why?

I mean... why is this the nature of literature? It seems awfully a priori, right?

Why isn't the purpose of literature to "confuse" and "horrify"? Isn't there some merit to works that achieve this? Or are even these qualities (confusion and horror) only merits by contrasting with the stated goals of "instruction" and "delight"?

Why these two qualities? How do you justify them?

Lastly... to those arguing one row over the other: how does one row fulfill these qualities better than the other? Surely the majority opinion would say the bottom row is "better"... but doesn't the top delight?

Is a People magazine, which informs and delights millions more than... say... Ulysses good literature? You might say that the word play is not as complex or nuanced.

Fair enough, but if "delight" is the goal then a case could certainly be made that the masses are more delighted by the prose of a People magazine than Ulysses, which is more likely to evoke frustration and boredom.

If "instructing" on the human condition is the goal, then People magazine certainly has all of the elements that you could ask for: commentary on relationships, love, tension, conflict, desire, hopefulness, envy, schadenfreude, etc.

To kill a mockingbird is a piece of shit

>>2538635
to go further, without all the fun involved, we can say the plot boils down to

Bloom is being cheated on, knows he's being cheated on, but won't do anything but feel guilty, and everyone shits on him because he's Jewish (but not really, his mother was Protestant and he's uncircumcised) but he loves Ireland, and Stephen, who's got some daddy, religious, guilt, and money issues, that wander around ireland, eventually get drunk, hallucinate some shit, almost... almost have a beginning to a meaningful relationship... but then don't (trademark of Joyce with those epiphanies... he withholds them like Orgasms from his slutty little farty-bottomed Nora) and that all takes the course of a day. One day within 700+ pages.

Top four is better. I don't have activate too many brain cells in order to read them.
use your brain more => die faster & be more depressed

Escapist garbage
Deus ex machina: The Book
A combination of the worst of fantasy and romance
Incredibly shit writing

>>2538639
Indeed, to delight and to instruct are present in "confuse" and "horrify"

When one is confused, one knows that it needs to learn more. All kidding aside, it's okay to be confused. Being confused isn't apathy... not caring. Not knowing and not caring are two different things. And when one is confused, they usually learn something about themselves, or go out to seek the knowledge that is causing conflict.

Also, in the Ars Poetica (not sure if you read it), it also states that Comedy, while seemingly more "delightful", takes second chair to Tragedy. Why is this the case? Catharsis. There is a feeling of release upon witnessing tragedy, especially wrought out on the stage. It is a cleansing of the audience.

And again, I'm using an age-old dude. There has been tons of work since then that you can pick out, all with different theories of literature.

>arguing over young adult fiction and pop lit

Not even worth my time.

I hope one day these authors are publicly ridiculed as Michael Bay is, they deserve it.

>>2538650
Yes. I like this explanation of how "delight" and "instruct" may, in fact, encompass all literature to some degree.

Is anyone/are you willing to take a stab at my other questions?

>>2538652
I'd hardly call Ulysses and War and Peace popular...

I don't know many people who have truly read them. Flipped through the pages, yes, but not read them to the extent that they could be read.

>>2538657
Well, you can only truly use Horace for gauging Western Literature... you can still do it to some other forms of literature, but there are others that it just doesn't fit.

It also doesn't really fit with Homer... who was a poet/group of poets that were still in the oral tradition, and was really before the "catharsis" was a big thing. However, the influence of Horace is huge. Shakespeare's plays, for instance, are usually 5 acts: this was stated by Horace to be the sufficient number of a play.

I think of literature as evolutionary. As other aspects of our culture grew, so did our literature. We began by witnessing our "literature": dramas, songs, and poems played out on the stage (not everybody was literate, and therefore even the plebs wanted a good show).

We wanted to see things that were good and pleasing... and at the same time, things that we could take away from... even if that was only a feeling that we had for the last 2 minutes of a Tragedy, a lesson about fate, or whatever.

As literacy/printing presses grew, so did literature. I think of each era's literature building upon another: with each era, you have a tome of rich allusions and stories to draw from and build your own. Much like civilizations have been built on top of others, our own democracy/republic from greeks/romans. Every bit borrowed and used again. This is our literature.

>>2538659
when I said pop lit I was referring to The Da Vinci Code, or James Patterson type shit

>>2538639
>Lastly... to those arguing one row over the other: how does one row fulfill these qualities better than the other? Surely the majority opinion would say the bottom row is "better"... but doesn't the top delight?
What is one trying to do vs. another? Is Harry Potter trying to do the same thing as Ulysses? Or, better said, was Rowling setting out to do the same thing that Joyce was setting out to do w/ Ulysses?
No. Rowling was trying to write a children's story. She did, she sold millions. Joyce was trying to write a new modern epic, using history and a reservoir of literature, philosophy, and language studies as a source for his novel.
Simply put: each book on the list has different aims, and to compare them generally and come up with anything interesting and complex is pretty much impossible. That's not to say that parts of them can't be compared to different parts. The wordplay, the styles, the devices, etc.: that forms the grist of comparative lit.

>delight?
What's the difference between "delight" and "entertain"? Not any, ostensibly. And so, as it's been said, it all comes down to entertainment, although the more you study lit and the more and more serious you get about it, the more it takes to entertain you. I'm trying to curtail that shitty D&E subjectivism image here.

>>2538666
>>2538700
Thank you both. I'll give what both of you have to say some thought.

I'm not a lit crit, so I appreciate being educated by people who do study it.

/lit/'s defense of children's literature as existing on the same level as adult literature or is not inferior to adult literature

further proof that everyone on this board hates this board and hates themselves and hates eachother

Literature is dead, so stick solely to reading things written no later than WW II

>>2538721
Levels don't exist. They're a lie thought up by the zionist literature-kabal.

>>2538736
Go to bed capsguy.

>>2538743
:(

>>2538736

Post-WWII has some of the best literature, imo. It was alright before that, but it seems like the malaise brought about by such a conflict was beneficial to literature as a whole. Suffering is one of the most potent fuels.

>>2538762
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight

There was less suffering before Word War II?

>>2538769
Yes.

>>2538769

We don't care about the suffering before WWII.

>>2538762
you have to be kidding

>>2538804
Are you using cliché sitcom lines now? In that case:

Ya think?

ITT pseudointellectuals and ITS POPULAR THEREFORE I DON'T LIKE IT.

Books on top are better than average teen books.

Books on bottom are better than average adult books.

All there is to say on the matter.

>>2538817
da vinci code is not a kids book. it was nev marketed towas children.

and the only thing any of these books have achieved is marketing, whether its through the publishers or academe

>>2538817
>Books on top are better than average teen books.
>Twilight
>better

Ok, I know I'm gonna be called a Pleb, but War and Peace is fucking unreadable and dull as hell. The other books on the bottom row I either haven't read or are decent. Top row, decent, save for fucking twilight.

Top row: commercial fiction

Bottom row: works of artistic merit

If you can't understand why the top row aren't works of artistic merit, you lack an appreciation for the art of literature and simply don't understand the artistic elements employed by the authors of the books below.

tl;dr, it's like comparing pop music with fucking classical or jazz. They're both music, but they're not both art (despite belonging to the same "art form")

>>2538144
Shit books vs shit books.

I don't get it.

ACtually, that's a lie, Gatbsy is okay.

>>2538144
>hey guys nicki minaj vs opera

They both suck when consumed exclusively. One because it is often uninteresting because it is directed to as wide an audience as possible and is therefore often too simplistic for those who seek more out of such a work.

The other is horrible because of the whole clothes of the emperor thing. As soon as something gets defined as high brow the leeches cling to it. Identifying yourself with such classics is no different than doing so with pop culture. You just try to attach yourself to the most banal definition of high culture.

I'd rather be a filthy hipster than both of these things. But posing to /only/ like obscure shit is tiresome too, so I reject it all. Problem solved. I'm cool with watching Jersey Shore and reading Wittgenstein during the commercials and afterwards listening to a little Mahler or Odd Future or Taake. I enjoy the enormous variety of culture accessible to us these days and just run with it.

>>2538846
>I'm cool with watching Jersey Shore and reading Wittgenstein during the commercials

Yep, you're a hipster.

Let me guess, you only like Jersey Shore ironically because anyone with half a brain realizes it's complete and utter shit, right? How about enjoying what you enjoy?

>The Hunger Games
I read about 1/3 of the first book recently and found it unbearably irritating and dull.
>Harry Potter
Read this series as a young teen and enjoyed it, although it's a pretty superficial kind of enjoyment, and even at that age I identified lots of flaws in it.
>Twilight
Haven't read; don't want to.
>Da Vinci Code
Haven't read; don't want to.

>To Kill a Mockingbird
Kind of ham-handed and juvenile, in my opinion. I consider it YA fiction, albeit better YA fiction than HP and THG.
>Ulysses
Have not read yet. I am, however, in the middle of 'Dubliners' at the moment and it's beautiful.
>The Great Gatsby
Brilliant book, loved it.
>War and Peace
Haven't read, but I have read a few of Tolstoy's shorter stories, which I thought were very well written but kind of dry.

>>2538851

>How about enjoying what you enjoy?

But if he enjoys Jersey Shore 'ironically' he IS "enjoying what he enjoys". The source of the enjoyment is irrelevant.

>>2538857
If you're enjoying something "ironically", that means you're fully well aware that it's not something you actually enjoy, but you cling to it anyway because the irony that someone as high and mighty as you could be seen watching such a shitty show brings you amusement and pleasure. It's the epitome of pretentiousness.

>>2538842
False dichotomy. Miles Davis was a fucking hustler for example. How would one defy what a "true" work of art is then? The amount of pretentiousness of the artist? Or perhaps of the consumer?

>>2538851
How is it shit? It's funny people doing dumb things. I normally don't talk about watching it, I just watch it. So I am enjoying what I enjoy.

>>2538858

I may have misunderstood what you meant by 'enjoying it ironically'.

It seems your definition doesn't really even include enjoyment being derived from the product itself but from the outside world or some shit.

>>2538859
>>2538859
>How would one defy what a "true" work of art is then?
Taking some classes on music theory or literature and actually understanding what the fuck you're talking about is usually a good place to start. There's a reason jazz and classical are seen as objectively superior musically to pop music, and it has nothing to do with the artists themselves, but the sophistication of the music that they create. And no, sophistication is not interchangeable with complexity, or self-indulgent technical playing and wankery that plagues many pseudo-sophisticated genres like a vast majority of metal.

>How is it shit? It's funny people doing dumb things. I normally don't talk about watching it, I just watch it. So I am enjoying what I enjoy.
If you legitimately are entertained by it and aren't watching it just to scoff at the fact that you're watching it, then I concede my argument. It's just the way you proudly declared yourself as a hipster set off a red flag in my mind.

>>2538858
If you're enjoying something "comedically", that means you're fully well aware that it's not something you actually enjoy, but you cling to it anyway because the comedy that someone as serious and businesslike as you could be seen watching such a funny show brings you amusement and pleasure. It's the epitome of pretentiousness.

>>2538863
I've studied literature academically and came to the conclusion that academics are rather lousy at justifying the superiority of their choice of art. Sophistication is no argument for the superiority of a work of art. I wouldn't even know how to define sophistication except for pretentious complexity. The dictionary does a fine job however:

so·phis·ti·cate (s-fst-kt)
v. so·phis·ti·cat·ed, so·phis·ti·cat·ing, so·phis·ti·cates
v.tr.
1. To cause to become less natural, especially to make less naive and more worldly.
2. To make impure; adulterate.
3. To make more complex or inclusive; refine.
v.intr.
To use sophistry.
n. (-kt)
A sophisticated person.

>If you legitimately are entertained by it and aren't watching it just to scoff at the fact that you're watching it, then I concede my argument. It's just the way you proudly declared yourself as a hipster set off a red flag in my mind.

I didn't declare myself a hipster, I just stated that I would rather be a hipster than someone who only consumes popular or classic art/media. Also, I'm indeed legitimately entertained by it. Sure, a part of that has a certain 'watching caged animals and laughing about them' feeling to it, but that is how shows like Jersey Shore are meant to be as far as I know. Not many people who watch it truly identify with the romantic struggles of miss Snooki.

War and peace really? On the most painfully dull books I have ever had the misfortune to read.
The other three on the bottom are brilliant.

Harry potter is the only one on the top that I would consider very good but that's probably because I first read them as a child. I very much doubt that if I read them for the first time now I would get the same enjoyment. The hunger games is alright the other two are drivel.

>>2538874
>mfw I just realised "sophisticate" is derived from sophistry and was actually an insulting term all along.

>>2538876
>War and peace really? On the most painfully dull books I have ever had the misfortune to read.
>Harry potter is one that I would consider very good
>The hunger games is alright
I can tell the opinions of an educated fellow when I see them

>>2538880
but sophist is derived from sophos meaning "wise/clever". So it all comes around and around.

>>2538883
Being seen to be wise or clever aren't necessarilly good in and of themselves.

>Harry Potter has a ghastly writing
>Twilight as well
>Dan Brown writes, apparently, with his ass
>never read The Hunger Games
I read all the other three because people bothered for me to read them so I could draw my own conclusions.

I don't really like any of those books.

2KaMb sux comparred 2 Hunger Games