/lit/ - Literature

>>3953847
Poorly written
Mass appeal to the detriment of quality
Poss. suffers from ADD and seems to add random sex or violence once he feels the talking has gone on too long
Fantasy ghetto
Not literature
>>>/book/
>>>/reddit/
>'Hodor,' said Hodor
Super grimdark
Super edgy
Television show is perfectly serviceable and 5/10 where the books are also 5/10 so there is nothing to be gained from spending more time reading than watching if for whatever reason you like the story
Taking many books to essentially do what Marquez did in one

But that's, just, like, my opinion, man.

Because he writes an uninteresting fantasy soap-opera

>>3953852

Define "literature".

>>3953855
When taken without context, 'literature' refers to anything using words. Within /lit/ however, we usually mean prose fiction. Which is precisely why we have >>>/book/, but nobody seems to even know about it.

I'm not speaking as /mu/ in general here. This is just my own opinion:

Fantasy suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks

>>3953858

Isn't ASOIAF technically prose fiction?
It's better than F. Scott Fitzgerald's early 1900's soap operas, anyway.

>>3953860
This is a bad generalisation. Most fantasy sucks, like most literature sucks. The difference is that fantasy fans elevate their most mediocre works, like GoT, while far more worthy fantasy books languish in obscurity.

>>3953862
It alternates between pretty standard prose and purple as all buggery prose. There is nothing really innovative or technical about it. The objective qualities that would qualify it as literary prose just aren't there.

>>3953847
I, for one, greatly enjoy A Song of Ice and Fire. As far as traditional epic fantasy goes, there aren't many better series, particularly in the last twenty years or so.

>>3953866

Now, just because you don't consider it "good" doesn't mean you shouldn't consider it literary prose. I could say, for example, that Shakespeare isn't a particularly good playwright, but I can't say Shakespeare wasn't one at all.

Derivative of Tolkien style high fantasy, but instead of articulating a set of honest values and moral themes (as Tolkien does) GGRM exploits late 20th century-early 21st century degeneracy through excessive and salacious sex and violence, without actually communicating anything of value.

On top of that, the prose is very average, the genre itself has largely excised itself from acceptance into a cateogry of writing which holds literary value.

You can read the books if you like, but anyone reading them should be aware that they could be expending that mental/intellectual energy on much better texts that exist.

>>3953852
But Marquez didn't do backstab soap operas!

>>3953876

I don't understand this logic. Define "better". How can quality be quantified? Tell me.

>>3953854
This.

>>3953847
Basically because /lit/ finds more value in prose and themes than characterisation.

>>3953890
I never understand why /lit/ throws out plot. It's like watching a film and only paying attention to cinematography.

>>3953881
Well, I suppose it can't really be quantified because quality is subjective. But I think that the weight of criticism can develop somewhat of an objective measure of literary quality.

This may sound like an appeal to authority, but consider a person who may not have read any Mark Twain, any Shakespeare, any Greek Classics (for example). They would be missing out on texts that have the weight of history resting on their credibility as valuable texts of learning and culture.

Therefore, they have some level of objective quality as literature. And yes while this remains individually subjective and impossible to quantify in any numerical sense, there does exists an undeniable difference of quality between the aforementioned texts and GRRM as there is a valid objective disparity in quality by way of perception, that is derived from cultural and academic value that certainly would exist in some texts, and would certainly not exist in others.

>dodge the draft like a bitch to get outta vietnam
>write series of fantasy novels about honour and war
lol

>>3953893
Why do you think Blade Runner is considered on of the best movies?

>>3953959
NO retard, grrm is historical fiction with a little spark of fantasy

he writes about

-how retarded is war and how soldiers always end up committing atrocities

-how solider are mere pawn to "higher" causes (nobles, protecting the realm),

-how society always find a way to make plebs fight (drafting, conscription, manipulation, criminals send to the wall) while high born men only play at war for status and power, rarely die,and are instead taken hostage and then released for jew gold.

read the AFFC part about PTSD sufferers ("lost men" or something like that)

You'll then understand that nothing change, that plebs & loser like you are the ones tricked and sent to irak and vietnam and are the one that are killed, injured, or suffer ptsd coming back home, while bush and cheney enjoy they champaign bathes every morning.

but, yaknow, thank you for your service i guess

>>3953847
>Just need a quick, concise answer on why.
His prose is amateurish. His characters are bland, plots cliche, and the whole thing is filled with laughably immature sex and violence.

>>3953860
Goddammit fellow /mu/tant why do you feel the need to declare your origins?
Fucking /fit/ does this too. All the fucking time.

>>3953847
It's popular

>>3953847
/lit/ didn't really shit talk GRRM before HBO made the show, and when ASOIAF came up, it was normally to say that they are better than average fantasy books that focus on characterization and a surprising plot as opposed to nice prose.

I mean, they are fine. They are entertaining. The world creation is actually pretty damn good, in my opinion.

>>3954096
The reason /lit/ "didn't really shit talk GRRM before HBO" wasn't because /lit/ has changed its mind. It's because back then, people who thought fantasy was shit weren't posting in threads about books they'd never read or heard of. Now that HBO has made them super mainstream, everyone, even people who are disgusted with fantasy have been exposed to them.

>>3954082
>autism

>>3954082

This post is an attempt a comedy right?


...right?

>>3953863
>while far more worthy fantasy books languish in obscurity

By who's metric are we determining value?

>>3954134
Oh, I completely agree with you. The people who used to talk about ASOIAF were a very small minority.

The books' popularity is directly related to how much discussion goes on here about them, and the negative reaction is pretty expected.

>>3954194
>by who's metric
>by who is metric
Not yours.

My main criticism is this:

His books are about anticipation. You rarely marinate on a single scene, and usually the reason you can enjoy that scene is because it has had build up - it is a pay off. But that's all the book is really, build up and pay off. It's all a creation of anticipation. Actually good literature is the type where you can put down the book at certain parts and think about what has happened, enjoy a single scene in and of itself, and even if you feel inclined to rush towards the end, you feverishly read every word diligently. With mediocre fantasy, particularly GRRM, the trees are lost for the forest, and it is easy to find oneself skimming battles or various shit that you know is ultimately unimportant so you can reach the pay off, the what happens next.

None of that would be a very strong condemnation (because it's true of most of the entire genre) IF the series was finished. But it's not finished, so we're being asked to give credence to a story which is entirely based on "what happens next" that is not even finished.

His name's fucking annoying. GRRM. Fuck you, this AMERICA GOD DAMMIT, and in AMERICA we use a first and a last name. Special fucking snowflake things he deserves extra initials, fucking faggot.

I actually enjoyed the series, until the third book. At that point I stopped reading.

GRRM clearly did not fucking plan--he didn't fucking think before he started writing. That's my main criticism: he didn't plan, and his work reflects that. After an interesting beginning, the story quickly spiraled into chaos, with several sub-stories going on and little to no direction. Martin has no fucking clue where he's going with his story.

That's why it comes off as a medieval soap opera. It emphasizes character and character conflict, which is good, however there's no sense of direction. The characters (and, Christ, their children!) can continue to come into conflict for literally forever at this rate, like a soap opera.

/lit/ hates anything popular unless obscure as fuck.

The reason is pic related.

>>3954354

>Martin has no fucking clue where he's going with his story.

That is simply false. He has known where the story is going for over a decade. It has just become much more complicated and by extension longer than he thought, partly because of his standards for realism (he can't just cook up bullshit that makes no sense to quickly teleport the story to the end).

>>3953863
example of obscure fantasy worthy of more popularity pls?

>>3954438
More obscure than GoT?

Black Company

>>3953847
Because unlike pic related, he's fat, old, and only write fantasy, not deep books about human issues.
Also, Martin's books are exploitive to women.

>tried to read A Game of Thrones after finishing the third season
>Wow this blows
tbh, I'm not a fan of fantasy outside of Tolkein and some Pratchett

I got as far into the first book as a sentence that read something like "After seeing his comrade cut down, the rider on the horse suddenly remembered he had an important appointment elsewhere and ran." After that, the book lost all appeal.

>>3953870
>ASoIaF
>traditional epic fantasy

deluded cunt

so what does /lit/ consider to be the best fantasy novel(s)? excluding tolkiens work.

>>3954088
/sp/ does this the most

>>3954462
This. The Black Company is comparatively a masterpiece that had a huge impact on later fantasy authors.

Also worthy of note: Book of the New Sun.

>>3953893
that's not nearly as retarded if you're interested in film, as opposed to how massively retarded it is to do so if you're interested in literature.

in fact, only paying attention to plot in books is equally retarded as only paying attention to plot in movies. GASP

>>3953893
It's because they're stupid. The point is that good literature has to be a mix of good prose and good plot. Some philistines misunderstood this and now spam 'plot is not important le le' whenever plot is mentioned.

>>3954911
This.
Joyce, Proust, et. al. are known for their in-depth plots.

>>3954916
>joyce
>proust
>known for their plot

nigger you BEST be fucking trolling

>>3953876
And Tolkien wrote an extended spinoff trilogy of The Hobbit in almost-earth with half-explained lore and the "morality" you speak of being pure black or white with no exceptions and where racism isn't wrong, it's 100% right every time. Literally everything that happens is a result of deus ex machina and Gwaihir the Windlord could've dropped the ring in the volcano from day one.

That being said, I loved LotR and I eagerly await the next book scrawled by George R.R. Martin's greasy fat fingers.

>>3954888
Wait, what?

>>3953854
this one here, too much of a soap opera to be good fantasy.

dragons are kinda done to death as well, no magic and add some dragons in? boring and cliche together at last.

>>3954082
>see two replies
>assume 2 other anons posting to agree with you
>find out that neither even began to comprehend you point

How did I end up on this board again? I am /lit/erally surrounded by plebs.

>>3955146
That is an unfair appraisal of Tolkien. Where is this black and white morality you speak of? The moral of LotR is a rejection of the fetishisation of power, as power is always corrupting, and the idea that the little people are the real heroes, the ones who never wanted power anyway (though even they can fall).

The racist accusations are pretty dubious as well, projecting a view of race that wasn't around at the time onto his works. Tolkien didn't really consider the Orcs to be people, in as far as they were a race, they were one who had been robbed of their humanity. You can draw out latent racism in that world view, but he certainly wasn't saying anything about any group of people with it. He was more arguing against fascism, and in support of what he saw to be English sensibilities.

But the idea that LotR is more black and white than ASoIaF is just ridiculous.

>>3956632

>no magic

The hell are you on about?

Tolkien is on a completely different fucking level from GRRM. GRRM is working within a genre that originates from a comprehensive misunderstanding and underestimation of Tolkien. He's probably the best writer to have worked within that genre, and there's a lot of ways that his work is interesting and decent, but Tolkien's writing is of a different echelon.

From the perspective of their morals, though, I think it remains to be seen what the moral landscape of ASOIAF is but I do think that LotR is ultimately more black and white than ASOIAF is going to end up being. That doesn't mean that LotR is worse, or less nuanced; it just means that Tolkien believed in and was representing in his work a more absolute morality than I think Martin finds plausible.

>>3954363
Do you often save caps of your own posts?

>>3956805
Where is the nuance in ASOIAF? It is literally pure evil bastards vs saintly naive figures who get fucked over.

>>3953874
That's the point of the dichotomy of literature/not literature, art/not art, prose/genre trash, you tard, it's a qualifier. Look up "genre fiction", that's what GRRM is as opposed to "literary fiction". It's not just categorized based on the subjective quality of the work, by certain recurring tropes and signifiers.

>>3956911

>pure evil bastards

Like who?

>>3956805
>GRRM
>He's probably the best writer to have worked within that genre

just get the fuck out, please

>>3956936
Joffrey, the bastard of Bolton Wanderers F.C, etc. Also evil hordes of ice-zombies, Littlefinger, the list goes on.

>>3956911
its not tho.

fr instance, which category does jaime fall into

>>3956981
who is better?

keeping in mind that by "that genre" i'm referring to epic, multi-volume high fantasy. not fantasy in general. there's a few other guys in the genre that you could arguably say are better writers in the genre, but i think GRRM has a strong case. it's not that meaningful because it's mostly a pretty bad genre but still.

>>3957071

>Joffrey, the bastard of Bolton, Littlefinger

Yes, those three. And this is out of over a hundred significant characters. Your post made it seem like these (and purely good people) are the only types of characters when in fact they're quite few.

>Also evil hordes of ice-zombies

We don't know what the motivation of the Others is yet so calling them evil is silly.

>>3957082
Name some pure evil LotR characters then.

I'll never understand why so many flocked to the ASOIAF series when the superior Malazan series has languished comparatively.

>>3957090
LOTR is much more black and white than ASOIAF. I love both, they both have an amazing mythos and world, LOTR is much better in terms of its writing but I prefer the characters and plot in ASOIAF.

Most of the time characters in LOTR can be called good or bad, there are a few exceptions but they're not that important. Most of the time characters in ASOIAF cannot be labelled so easily, there are no protagonists, no good vs evil (could be with the others but we have to wait and see, certainly the varying noble families cannot be called a good vs evil conflict)

>>3957081
>who is better?

Wolfe, Cook, Bakker, to mention three. GRRM is nothing amazing, you are just displaying your ignorance.

it's just mediocre

nothing particularly wrong with it (female characters aside) but nothing really worthwhile except for a quick read and light entertainment, whereas /lit/ goes for something with a bit more depth or at least pretends to

>>3957091
Malazan is still pretty popular, but it does have some, uh, aspects that actively repel readers:

>Half the appeal of the series is figuring out what the fuck is even going on
>Plot lines and characters move in and out of view, most ending up unresolved
>Series leaps from (apparent) power level-saga (book 1) to military fantasy (books 2-4) to descriptions of tribal cultures and vague criticisms of debt-based economies (books 5-7) to depressed cunts wandering across featureless wastelands (books 8-10). Most people are only interested in one or two of these versions.

I love Erikson, but it doesn't have the same mass appeal.

>>3957137

What's wrong with the women characters?

>>3957158
they are all GRRM's mother, or his sister who he wants to fuck.

>>3957098
You keep repeating it, but without any proof. How is, say, Ned Stark a more morally ambiguous character than Boromir? He isn't.

The nearest any LoTR characters ever get to pure good is probably Frodo, and even he almost falls by the end of it. Aragorn has a very heroic role, but it is more a side-note to the main story, and it is well understood that he couldn't be trusted with the most important task of all.

ASOIAF seems to be exactly as black and white, from what I can see, just that normally the bad guys tend to win. That's the only difference I can discern.

>>3957098
>certainly the varying noble families cannot be called a good vs evil conflict

Yeeyup, nothing good vs evil about the Starks Vs the Lannisters, oh no siree

>>3956721
You're right about LOTR in relation to power and especially 'English sensibilities' he was incredibly regressive in his views of industry but LOTR is certainly more black and white than ASoIaF, there is a clear good and evil. I'll take this back if all of humanity just puts aside its struggles and irreconcilable hatred of each other to fight the Others. But until that happens ASoIaF certainly cannot be called black and white.

This is just a bunch of pseudo-intellectual snobs wanting to discredit something incredibly popular. GRRM isn't Dan Brown.

>>3957182
>GRRM isn't Dan Brown
that delusion

>>3957171
That's the first I've said of it. Boromir is one of my favourite characters in LOTR precisely because of his corruption. Aragorn is white, Gimli and Legolas are, Gandalf may as well be, Sam absolutely is.

On the other side Sauron's agents are just mindless slaves of evil, along with Sauron himself

I want to add that LOTR is one of my favourite books, it's phenomenal and is certainly better prose than ASoIaF I don't think anyone would argue that. But it is very black and white, this is just a representation of Tolkien as opposed to Martin.

>>3957173
There isn't. In fact it's made abundantly clear that all the noble families do is inflict so much suffering upon the poor. The closest thing to good is Beric's Brotherhood without Banners. The Stark's may be the epitome of noble and honourable but they pillage the land and the soldiers rape Westerlands women at the same rate as the Lannisters do. They aren't good and the Lannisters aren't bad, later series Jaime is more good than any of the Stark's ever were

>>3957186
You obviously haven't read ASoIaF or went in with the mindset that you'd hate it because it's so popular and cool. Quit being such a narrow-minded arse

>>3957203
Au contraire, I have read all five novels and the three novellas, too. Just because I enjoy the plot and appreciate the detail of the setting doesn't mean it's anything more than suspense fiction.

>>3957205
Just because it isn't the greatest work of all time doesn't mean it isn't very good. ASoIaF works because it creates a very believable and deep world, gives you complex characters on all sides and removes moralising. With how much I know of the history of the world just by reading 5 books and 3 short stories I'd say it's very successful at that and I view it as a segment in the history of Westeros rather than a grand tale with a world created for it.

It's immersive and the detail of background myths makes it read like you're a part of that world which is no mean feat. I've read lots of fantasy and most failed to really do that and most were also worse prose too. He isn't Tolkien and that isn't a fair comparison.

>>3957196
Aragorn, Gimili and Legolas are just a few characters doing the best they can, they have heroic deeds but it is well established they would have fallen just like Boromir if they were given the ring.

Sauron's agents and himself are pretty much not characters, they are more of an existential threat, like the white walkers in ASOIAF.

Most of the most important characters are differing shades of grey, on different levels of susceptibility to the Ring. Gandalf is certainly not pure, he knows this himself. He's a Merlin character, someone who is extremely powerful but already knows he can't be trusted. The central conceit of the entire series is the ring and its effect on Middle Earth and its people: in is an EXTREMELY morally charged book that is trying to tell the reader something, and contradict the idea of might is right, or the worship of power.

>>3957198
The Stark family themselves, not their soldiers. You get just the same thing in LotR, with the amount of corruption and betrayal you see in both Rodan and Gondor's elite. It is clear at all times that everyone is equally capable of evil.

The nearest you get in AsoIaF is just people making stupid decisions/notbeingsneakyenough, and paying the consequences. Naivety is not a moral flaw, there are plenty of characters that GRRM writes that are practically angelic, in comparison to the men of LotR.

>>3957182
What's wrong with Dan Brown

>>3957221
>With how much I know of the history of the world just by reading 5 books and 3 short stories I'd say it's very successful

Precisely. You have learnt a load of completely useless information. As you say there is no moralising, GRRM has _nothing to say_ about the human condition, or history, or culture, or anything at all really. It's only saving grace could be if it described realistic humans, which is the one thing he absolutely fails at worse than anything else. His characters are all pitiful caricatures who speak like they are LARPing teenagers.

>>3957230
I don't think using susceptibility to the ring's corruption is a very good way of measuring black and white morality though. If you want to say that LOTR is just a story of how power corrupts then yes absolutely there is no one immune to its influences but that isn't really as complex as LOTR is. I just worry that the reaction of this board and elsewhere to ASoIaF is exactly that of the reaction to LOTR at first, which was dismissive at best.

And the Stark family aren't angelic. You cannot remove the fact that their actions lead to outright war and destruction from their characters just because they don't personally rape the smallfolk themselves. And it isn't just naive people being screwed over either, plenty of sneak characters get royally buggered. No one in ASoIaF could really be called good, Undead Beric maybe and later Jaime possibly but no one is good, the show is a different kettle of fish.

>>3957235
It isn't useless, it's essential to understanding the book. He has little to say of the human condition besides a slight hint of existentialism as there is no unifying goal of all individuals and they measure themselves by their own standards though whether that was planned or not is different. He certainly makes claims about culture and history seeing as how many civilizations have quite obvious historic parallels.

>>3957233
You can't be serious?

>>3957260
Seriously, what's wrong with Dan Brown?

>>3957258
He has interesting things to say about those cultures, yes, but they don't exist. Everything you learn is of no use to you whatsoever once you put the book down.

Which is closely linked to why people love to defend it so much online. You are justifying the amount of your life and your imagination you have given to this shit.

>>3957269
The historical inaccuracies all while bullshitting that it's true pisses me off, but his books are like Adam Sandler movies, they're formulaic. All of this ignores the fact that he likes to tell rather than show a lot, which is a cardinal sin of writing.

>>3957269
This is what's wrong with Dan Brown.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/6194031/The-Lost-Symbol-and-The-Da-Vinci-Code-author-Dan-Browns-20-worst-sentences.html

>>3957270
I get that but in all honesty I can't discuss a lot of what I've read in real life simply because my friends don't read the same books as me. I know no one else whose read War and Peace or Brothers Karamazov. Hell not even anyone who has read any Umberto Eco whose books I could discuss for days.

Obviously the fact that these relate to real events makes them easier to draw from, especially Eco but what about Tolkien. Besides the influence of power that is all imagined, there are no Elvish cultures.

>>3957251
Youa re still just bleating out the same lines everyone says about ASoIaF, and it's nonsense. Gandalf, Aragorn, even Frodo in LotR make huge mistakes that lead to the suffering of others. Those are not moral faults.

GRRM paints pure good vs pure evil, he just makes evil win half the time. ASoIaF is divided up between completely selfish characters who will do whatever they think is necessary (often extreme immoral cruelty) to get what they want, and also characters with completely pure intentions, who tend to fuck up. That isn't shades of moral grey.

There are also a few grey characters. But just the same amount as in LotR, more or less.

>>3957278
Tolkien was explicitly writing LotR as a mythic allegory for the moral values he thought were great in Britain. The entire thing is an allegory, telling a very specific morale story through imagined myth.

>>3957279
But they aren't mistakes in ASoIaF, they're judgements made by alledgedly good characters. People mistakes reading the Stark's viewpoint first for them being good, this isn't the case at all. Martin may not be Dostoevsky but he is nuanced enough to have viewpoints give alternate values to actions. The Stark's perceive their actions to be good, as do the other houses when we get their view.

There is no pure good in ASoIaF and the pure evil hardly wins (Gregor Clegane died possibly the worst death of the series) not to mention that it isn't finished yet which makes any message more difficult to discern.

Tell me about these so called pure intentioned characters? I could understand Eddard but it ends there, Brienne too but the latter almost completely swaps values with Jaime after two books of being with each other. Nearly everyone is grey, tell me about someone like Jon Connington or Bowen Marsh.

>>3957278
Don't worry, I know that feel, anon. I've spent similar amounts of time on fantasy, and realised that I was just obsessing over something non-existent. You have to agree it is totally different to, say, Karamaov and War and Peace, that speak to both an incredibly vivid human experience, and the historical reality of 19th century Russia, those books are like portals to other worlds and other minds.

A Song of Ice and Fire, in the meantime, is just pure, mindless fun. And there is nothing at all wrong with that.

>>3957282
What about the Silmarillion or any of the other tales of Middle Earth?

>>3957292
All the same, different attempts at using myth as a narrative device. It was completely ground-breaking at the time, and he was only half aware that he accidentally stumbled upon something that has such a huge appeal. I'm not sure escapism was what he was going for though, I think it was more an idealised, fantasised world where moral issues from our world could be projected, and explored in a different way. Tolkien's fantasy is basically Sci-Fi, only using myth in place of science.

>>3957291
I don't think you can compare any ASoIaF to something like War and Peace, and part of that is because any measure of fantasy has to include the world building. And that is where ASoIaF really succeeds, so much of that genre has to be devoted to understanding the world whereas this isn't the case with War and Peace. I mean before picking up either everyone knows something of the Napoleonic wars and Russia.

>>3957302
I catagorically disagree. What Tolstoy was doing was world building, the entire book is using every technique (many of which he was inventing) to paint a complete picture of Russia at that time. He was building a fictional version of Russia, in order to reflect the real one of his grandfather's generation, as to help us better understand that.

>>3957301
I think you're right in that Tolkien certainly wasn't aiming to create the genre of fantasy which is why it isn't a great comparison for modern fantasy.

>>3957287
>But they aren't mistakes in ASoIaF, they're judgements made by allegedly good characters.

Let's use two obvious examples from the Starks, the bitch mum who I can't remember the name of trying to sell Jaime off, and her son's whole war, and marriage.

They were acting both out of 100% pure intentions, in both cases love (either for their captured family, or their lover). Due to these, and some naivety, they paid a heavy price. Naivety and poor judgement are not moral categories.

>>3957305
Not in the same sense as modern fantasy writing. It very obviously isn't the real world Russia, I mean they didn't just flip between Russian and French all the time and it isn't exactly real but I don't think they're comparable in scope

>>3957315
>I mean they didn't just flip between Russian and French all the time

Um, yes, they did. W&P speeds up the process of moving away from that to JUST speaking Russian, but they really did use to do that.

>>3957308
I don't really think you can say that. Catelyen's selling of Jaime was a complete betrayal of her immediate family (Robb). If you're going to say trying boost your family is 100% pure regardless of context then all of Tywin's actions are 100% pure.

Robb broke social convention in a massive way, reneging on contracts is really bad. And to move on how about Arya being a murderer or Sansa's complicity in Littlefinger's plots, Bran's cannibalism and mindraping of his carer etc.

>>3953847
I like GRRM
The only reason why the fedoras on here don't like him is because he's famous and people know who he is while they continue to write shit short stories.

>>3957321
They actually used a unique dialect to the Russian aristocracy. It wasn't just both french and russian.

>>3957328
Right, but that included lots of french words and phrases. I remember reading somewhere that some of them actually did have to start taking Russian lessons during the war.

>>3957323
"Breaking convention" for TRUE LOVE is hardly a "shades of grey" act. In the romantic tradition, it is the purest, most WHITE thing a character could conceivably do. Likewise, Catelyn just wanted her children to be safe, she was a scared mother acting to protect her kids. That isn't really shades of grey, just shades of stupid characterisation.

>>3957340
But these are single acts, they aren't the only thing they do. I mean we could say that certain acts by Boromir in LOTR were pure and truly good but that isn't the entirity of Boromir. If there is one message in ASoIaF it is that people aren't defined by one act, the morality of an individual is the sum of all their acts (which is why Jaime comes across as one of the best characters).

Catelyn was pretty brutal to Jon and Robb was instrumental in creating a war which ruined and ended so many lives. He is someone that tries to do the right thing as often as possible but screws up a lot, but all the characters think they're doing the right thing nearly all the time.

>>3957334
It included French but it wasn't just French and Russian. They originally spoke French and it sort of incorporated a lot of Russian until it became its own language almost, it was neither French or Russian. Tolstoy's dialogue is a bit of a simplification.

>>3957356
Those are the worst things they morally do, pretty much.

Catelyn is a possible shades of grey character, I'd admit. Robb was just fighting FOR WHAT WAS RIGHT like we would expect any hero in his position to do. Comments like
>all the characters think they're doing the right thing nearly all the time.
are just ridiculous. Yes, that is the case with every book ever written, I would expect. No-one does stuff that they THINK is evil, silly.

>>3957367
Isn't that precisely the point though, Robb thinks he is doing what is right but not everyone would agree. Do you think all the people who die in the war agree?

More importantly you're ignoring that these aren't the only people in the story. If LOTR has Frodo (and I'd argue Sam moreso) then why isn't ASoIaF allowed Robb if you insist he's so angelic? What about the hundreds of other absolutely grey characters?

>>3957378
Pretty much every single character is morally grey in LotR. There are a few exceptions (Wormtongue, I guess).

You still don't seem to understand the difference between a good morale act and a foolish one. You can act righteously, but there be terrible consequences. That is literally the only thing GRRM has to say. This is a distinct point to moral ambiguity in the character. ASOIAF is just a series were bad things happen to good people.

I haven't read the whole thread in detail but I kind of feel like people are mis-characterizing the moral landscape of Lord of the Rings.

I don't think, for instance, it's right to say that Boromir is a morally grey character or ambiguous. Tolkien's whole moral perspective is different. Boromir isn't defined by morally good or bad, by hero or villain; Boromir is a hero who has deep flaws which ultimately consume him. Tolkien's moral schema tends more towards the heroic/classical/epic (especially when it comes to men; the situation is rather different with regards to Hobbits, and different again with regards to dwarves and elves) rather than the relatively modern, realistic interioristic good-evil moral sensibility. His characters are complicated and nuanced, but the method of representing reality and especially moral reality and human character is not the same as the one used by Martin.

>>3957474
Right, but the point I was making was that Martin uses this exact same schema. He writes hero-archetypes and villain-archetypes in the expected fantasy style, he just makes the bad guys win, and the hero's actions have terrible consequences. But the books never leave the same moral universe, they just remove the normal framework of retribution/punishment we come to expect. That's it.

>>3957492
I don't agree. It might be the same archetypes, but the portrayal of the characters, their motivations, their character is totally different. Martin writes, basically, modern novelistic characters transposed to a fantasy world; they're realist, interior characters, with the same kinds of temptations, beliefs, thoughts, and moral calculus that our literature tends to present as the nature of man, all of which we're privy to. Tolkien does not write characters like this, or at least not the men of Numenor, of Gondor, of Rohan. Tolkien's mode is much more classical in depicting these characters - they are represented externally, they have a character that they're fundamentally composed of.

I don't think there's anyone in ASOIAF who's presented the way that Tolkien presents Boromir or Aragorn.

I just read the entire thread and would like to voice my opinion on the whole Tolkien and this black and white vs morally gray characters debate.

I think the main misconception is that the capability to be corrupted by the power of the ring is being equated with evilness. This is rather a measure of a characters ability to resit temptations, specifically those of power. Galadriel is clearly a good character and so is Gandalf but both must refuse the ring when offered it because they understand that it would corrupt them. They would be unable to control themselves due to the immense will power contained in the Ring itself (This innate 'will' is put there by Sauron himself to make the ring a device of such utter control over the other wearers of rings of power.) Most of the characters I can recall were acting either on the side of absolute evil like Sauron, Sarumon, and Melkor or were acting on behalf of good like Sam and Frodo. All the characters with higher status and power (the less humble ones) before contact with the ring are portrayed as having greater susceptibility towards its corrupting nature. Hobbits are depicted as feeble and essentially very humble in relation to most other characters. Thus the idea of Good and Evil in LOTR is more about alignment with Eru Iluvatar or Melkor. Eru = absolute good = christian god. Melkor/Morgoth = representation of Evil because he has went against Eru = lucifer/satan.

In LOTR i say the idea of good and bad is replaced with the idea of a completely pure godly figure that made everything wholly good as opposed to those who misuse their free will and give in to temptation towards bad things like abusing power and power for power's sake. I'd say that even melkor/morgoth isn't entirely evil because Eru Iluvatar created him and knew he would disobey him.

I have a lot of feelings

Every time /lit/ discusses asoiaf, I'm reminded how much I can hate this board. Each one of these threads is full to the brim of criticisms for these books that makes my jaw drop in disbelief. I will never comprehend how such an accessible, plot-oriented, albeit incredibly detailed work can go over the heads of so many fans/students of literary fiction. The only genuine critique that I've probably ever seen here is aimed the author's writing.

>>3957091
the malazan book of the fallen is at least five times better

>>3957919
>accessible, plot-oriented
you say these like they're good things
the first one isn't necessarily a good thing, and the second one is often a bad thing

now, i haven't read the book, and i'll admit that. but from the kind of people that like these books, and from what i've seen of the show, it's gimmicky.
it's gimmicky in that it lets terrible things happen to people who don't deserve it, and thinks that alone is a move forward. it's gimmicky in that it uses violence and sex to present a world that seems mature, when really it is juvenile. it's gimmicky in that plot supersedes character.

this book is nothing great, and i am certain of that. it might be alright, but it's not great, it's not innovative, it says nothing worthwhile. it is a revelation only to those who still find the truth that life can be sad sometimes relevatory, who still pat themselves on the back for seeing past the saccharine illusions of children's movies. these books say nothing to grown ups.

>>3957982
>you say these like they're good things
No I don't lol. What made you think I considered them inherently good? They're not inherently bad either. I was referring simply to the tendency of accessible and plot-oriented books to be more easily perceptible and digested, and yet asoiaf, which is definitely such a work, still somehow gets grossly misinterpreted here.

>now, i haven't read the book
Which means that the rest of the rubbish you typed is shitposting. Enough.

>>3957982
>these books say nothing to grown ups.
oh god forbid

GENUINE CRITIQUE
My main problem with these books is the way the characters are. This character is good, this character is bad, this character is an enigma, blah blah. There is no character development. Albeit I never read past halfway through the second book I hated it so much.
Things are so stereotypically lucky. It's like in Dragonball z when the bad guy is at his most powerful, and it seems like all is lost, the good guy discovers some inner strength and his powerlevel goes over supersayan 9000 actually I don't know all that much about DBZ, but yeah, shit is too lucky, and you always know that certain characters won't die...these books are genuinely bad. I may not be great at explaining why, but they suck. And I'm no elitist, I think harry potter is pretty great, (Infinite jest is still my fav), and I like to read war novels occasionally.
Tl;Dr these books suck

So which is better lit?

Black Company or Malazan Book of the Fallen?

I'd also like to nominate my favourite Esslemont book Stonewielder, as I feel it echoes cook better than anything Erikson has ever written.

>>3957982
what's ever bad about interesting plots? the reader might not be bored to death from flights of fancy and allusions to other works for once? Unless you have a massive hard on for literary devices, none of that is interesting to the common pleasure seeking reader. His books are intended to be read for pleasure. But because /lit is filled with all too edgy tryhards it contains a critical mass of so-styled patricians with discriminating taste in literature. There's a difference between a literary work like Ulysses or Moby-Dick and a book that is literature like GRRM's work or anything by dan brown.

Literary works are good because they extend past the words on the page to effect the reader's life and be influenced by culture and previous literature. Non-literary literature is anything else with words typically self-contained. LOTR was literary fantasy because it had a moral theme and was a biblical allegory. GRRM writes self-contained Fantasy genre-fiction stories intended to bring pleasure to the audience of readers. It shouldn't be judged on how well it alludes to paradise lost or on how cool his sentence structure and vocabulary is. It should be judged on how happy the audience is because they tried to read it. And his audience is happy. They like the story and its popularity is evident.

Saying if it's great/good or not is implying that there's any objective standard upon which all books can be judged, which there isn't, not yet at least. It had the goal of selling a lot of copies because readers would want to read it. Since it sold lots of copies it was successful. And since only hardcore lit nazis who can't let go of their precious attachment to their "nonliterary < literary" mentality.

essentially your opinion =/= objective truth. who gives a fuck if it in no way informs anyone's life after reading. If it was a fun way to spend your time it was good. Get over yourself. You probably think reading a lot of good books makes you intelligent and thus a better person but I can tell you that it doesn't. Reading Ulysses all the way through is only fun if you like all the crazy inserted allusions and vocabulary. But if you like something that doesn't make Google and the OED a prerequisite to reading it, heaven forbid you spend your leisure time reading slightly above average prose and a captivating plot.

This may be slightly off topic, but why is world building considered so important to literature? It seems like a misapplication of the medium, like a voice over in a movie. If anything, video games seem to be the medium for presenting a world.

>>3958021
I have never read a more god awful post in my life.

>>3958021
If you think that the "good guys" are immune from everything you obviously haven't even read the first book you absolute dunce. Most of the praise given to this series is due to the "complicated" characters.

>>3958045
It isn't considered important unless it is conducive to the goal of the work. If we are talking about proper literature, then I don't think there are many instances of world building.
World building is generally just for fun and is mostly found in genre-fiction.

Video games are the best medium for presenting a world because they are the only medium that can actually create a proper world. That's common sense.
Whether or not they do anything "literary" with it is arguable and the answer is, of course, no.

>>3958026
>Saying if it's great/good or not is implying that there's any objective standard upon which all books can be judged
No its not. Its saying "I (don't) like this thing" but also conveying a mote of coercive force by way of human herd behavior. That's what good and bad mean.

>>3954354
He's Catholic. Catholics get a second middle name for their confirmation or whatever. It's the same reason JRR Tolkein is JRR Tolkein. Holy fuck. How can you be this ignorant?

>>3958117
>World building is generally just for fun
When done well, then at the very least credit is due to the skill involved in creating that world. And in the case of ASOIAF where that world is not only very rich and complete but is used to build upon and explore a theme/moral viewpoint, then I think 'just for fun' is a bit dismissive.

>>3958149
>tfw i forgot my confirmation name

>>3958155
I said generally, buddy. There are exceptions and you are free to determine what those are.

>>3958149
Not everyone cares about the deranged paganisms of the mary worshipping idolters.

>>3958161
Hey man, I'm not going to defend the heretical practices of the Papist apostates. There's only one name I care about: Jesus.

>>3958161
>>3958164
u heretics wanna tussle? i'll fuck u up i swear on me rosary

>>3958172
Don't you have to consult your priest to ask your bishop to query the archbishop who has to send a letter the cardinal's college to consult with the pope who needs to drag his balls across a ouji board before you can take any drastic action like that?

>>3958180
n-no ;_;

>>3958023
Both have their ups and downs. They are really quite different works, though (even though TBC heavily influenced Malazan).

I mean, Malazan has a lot of slog. TBC has the Murgen books. It's a toss-up.

P.S. the end of Return of the Crimson Guard is my favorite Esslemont work.

>>3958184
Don't feel too bad. Us Christians, we need to stick together. Except for Mormons and Swedenborgians, who are pretty much the walking damned.

>>3958186

What is the wurms of blearmouth? I've actually never even heard of it before.

>>3958186

Yeah the ending to it is brilliant. My favourite part about stone wielder was how all the players seemed real. Erikson has more 'epic' characters (even characters like Fiddler or Udinaas are capable of astounding insights into human nature). I was surprised how much I sympathised with that necromancer character in stonewielder. Manask is genuinely funny as well.

>>3958186
There is some 15 years difference in publishing they are from completely different era's. Gardens of the moon is 1999 and Black Company is 1984.

If you are under 25 chances are you will prefer erikson, if you are over 30 chances are you will prefer cook. either way its a fairly pointless comparison, standing on the shoulders of giants etc

Why is it always those who hate asoiaf the first to show up in asoiaf threads? Are they that desperate to shout their disapproval?

>>3958367
Of course? It's like that on every board with every thing.

>>3953852
really, tv show is 5/10? curious what is a 10/10 show for you. how do you feel about breaking bad, for example?

>>3956632
i know right? its like really, dragons again? fuck...

>>3958301
It's the fifth necromancer novella. It's only available in an overpriced hardcover for the moment.

>>3954084
>His characters are bland, plots cliche
0/10

>>3953847
this board used to love the shit out of ASOIAF until GoT came out. I f you enjoy great plots and characterization and don't care about the quality of his prose or fantasy you will love it.

>>3956632
the dragons work as a device in the story. Why do you even care about other fantasy cliches? It's a fictional universe, why is it so wrong that there are flying dinosaurs who spit fire?

I hate the whole fantasy thing (magical swords, maidens in peril, badass dragons for the sake of badassery) but I love ASOIAF. I like stories with huge plots and well developed characters, like The Wire and Legend of the Galactic Heroes, and I don't care about the little fantasy stuff in it.

>>3953876
But most people who read ASOIAF just do it for entertainment and not literature apreciation because that's what those books are for.

>>3956707
>>3954082
they are americlaps in denial

>>3954308
you are right, but all this anticipation and buid-up is actually filled with character development and setting up that may not appear important at the time you read it but is necessary for future events. That's why ASOIAF is so great on rereads, you find a lot of new stuff that takes a whole new meaning and everything is there for a reason, except the long food descripcions.

>>3954354
>GRRM clearly did not fucking plan--he didn't fucking think before he started writing
that's wrong. You can actually see foreshadowing for book 5 events in the first 2 books. He knows how the story ends but he has trouble finding how to get there.

>>3954870
you didn't like it because you saw the show first and you already know what happens. Also watching GoT is more pleb than reading ASOIAF.

>>3958807
asoiaf obviously isn't read for literature appreciation in the narrow sense of quality prose, but it does have significant emotional involvement, skill in its many characters, complex plot and rich world, and an impressive thematic approach about morality, cause and effect, and people at the mercy of societal forces. Even though the writing is unimpressive, is that not more than entertainment? When does something cease to be merely entertainment? I really hate using that as a gauge for literature. It's too simplistic and restrictive.

>>3954266
>who is

absolute dumbfuckery on your part.

>>3954906
>only paying attention to plot is retarded

Not if that's all there is to a piece.

>>3956632
>too much of a soap opera to be good fantasy

Personally I think that's exactly why it's better than most fantasy. You actually get a proper sense of these people in their universe, and it's not just a mashup of 'epic fantay' cliches. But maybe that's not appealing to the type of people who actually like generic genre fiction.

>>3957235
>GRRM has nothing to say about human condition, history or culture

He doesn't need to either.

It's like some of you people just can't wrap your heads around the concept of storytelling for its own sake.

>>3953852
Alla this.

ITT people hating the overall genre because /lit/ stigmatizes fantasy as inferior, and hipsters want to hate anything that's popular

>>3961282
Not trying to be snide, I'm genuinely curious. Do you actually believe that writers like JRR Tolkien and GRRM rank well against so-called literary authors? Because honestly, I've never met anybody who makes that claim unless they don't read much outside genre fiction

if these empty critiques have taught you anything it's that people here against asoiaf like the idea that the literature they enjoy helps create their identity. they don't feel nearly as special when the tv show based off the books becomes one of the most popular spectacles in contemporary times. but shit what else do you expect from people 16-23 years of age?

>>3961293

Not that guy, but from what I've read here Tolkien is considered in a class of his own when it comes to fantasy and is near universally considered literature.

Authors like Erikson and Cook are very highly regarded but probably not given the same status that Tolkien is given. Its perhaps a time thing and they'll be accepted as literature in due course - but I doubt they'll ever breach Tolkien status (Cook's stuff is less controversial than Erikson - I know some people who still hate erikson's later books with a passion).

Then you've got a whole swathe of authors like Guy Gavriel Kay (who, incidentally, I rate extremely highly and equal to erikson), Brandon Sanderson and Robin Hobb, who all write excellent fantasy yet fails to equal the literary greats.

The other thing is that its all opinion and some people might love hobb over erikson or whatever and thats all very well and good. I personally think fantasy is an extremely juvenile genre at this stage and just needs time. Martin has brought it into the edgy teenage period - it will hopefully outgrow it and become more mature and sophisticated as time goes on.

>>3961293
Not so much defending GRRM's work as the epitome of "good literature", but just that people dismiss the series and can't give credit/criticism where it is deserved respectively.

I don't know man... I've tried to get into the series, but I just can't. My brain goes numb and I can't take anything in.

>>3961293
>Do you actually believe that writers like JRR Tolkien and GRRM rank well against so-called literary authors?
Tolkien _is_ a 'literary author', you moronic dipshit.

If you haven't read his works, at least try reading his biography.

GRRM is just a pulp author making a quick buck writing soap opera, why in hell have you ranked him together with Tolkien??

>>3957982
>plot is a bad thing
clearly a /lit/ tryhard.

it's gimmicky in that it lets terrible things happen to people who don't deserve it
So you want predictable stories where good characters get happy endings and evil ones get punishment instead of realistic stories?

>>3958021
-10/10

>>3957071

>people think Joffrey, Littlefinger and Ramsay are pure evil characters

>>3961545
no it's just try hard in the way it does it to nearly every character, it makes you feel but people get attached to and come to love characters and killing them off is like killing too frequently is like killing parts of the story

>>3958021
What the fuck was that. You just got everything categorically wrong.

>>3958856

There obviously are "literaturistic elements" which are worth discussing. Something that at least elevates the series over general pulp.

>>3961740
>Something that at least elevates the series over general pulp.
There is nothing (let me spell it out: n, o, t, h, i, n, g), _nothing_ in ASoIaF that elevates it above 'general pulp'.

In fact, 'general pulp' is a masterpiece of style and substance when compared to ASoIaF.

I've haven't heard shit about terry brooks though

>>3961776
Terry Brooks isn't great, either.

His Darth Maul novel was terrible.

>>3953959
SRS, just shut up. It is letters on paper. No real people, animal or tumblr feminists was hurt.

>>3954694
>implying that the Vietnam war was justified

>>3961308
Yes, because Tolkien's world is laughable. Both his and Martin's worlds are conservative. Things. Happens. Slowly. If. Ever.

But the hobbits are so "unstreet" that they are borderline retarded. Violence is something that happened to other people in the past. Shire is basically England grafted into the past. But if the hobbits have a postal system, how come that no other people have it? Do they make and grow everything they consume? Isn't there any kind continental trade? Or did Tolkien in his conservatism equate traders with invading armies, because of the lowest common denominator "strangers moving about"?

>>3961488
Yeah, he's so literary that he just wanted a fictional world to dump his made-up languages on.

>>3961950
>But if the hobbits have a postal system, how come that no other people have it?
It doesn't say that no other people have it.

>Do they make and grow everything they consume? Isn't there any kind continental trade?
The answer is 'who cares'. Tolkien wasn't into your retarded AD&D flavor of 'worldbuilding'.

>Or did Tolkien in his conservatism equate traders with invading armies, because of the lowest common denominator "strangers moving about"?
Again, the answer is 'who cares'.

>>3962007
True, but the description of Shire IS world-building porn.

And "who cares" doesn't cut it. Because you can ask the impossible, but not the improbable.

>>3961995
>Yeah, he's so literary that he just wanted a fictional world to dump his made-up languages on.
No, he didn't. Read his letters to his editor, he explains why and what he wrote exhaustively.

Stop receiving your information from Rebbit, it's clearly rotting your brain.

>>3962015
He was a stodgy old linguist. Period.

>>3962013
>True, but the description of Shire IS world-building porn.
No, it isn't. He's not 'building' any world.

>And "who cares" doesn't cut it.
Yes it does. This is why it's literature, not an AD&D manual.

>>3962017
>He was a stodgy old linguist. Period.
Is this supposed to be an insult? I think I've been trolled. Nobody is really dumb enough to think that calling an author a 'linguist' is a valid insult of his talent.

>>3962020
He started building a world but got tired when he was done with Shire.

Also: A total lack of context.

Of course linguist is a valid insult. Martin is honest that they *are* speaking english in Westeros. Tolkien is having some kind of human centipede-reasoning by saying that they really are speaking another language, so Shire's real name is Tuttknull and Bilbo's real name is Tjockfet or something.

>>3962024
>Tuttknull
>Tjockfet
swede detected

>>3953876
Ayn Rand, go to bed, you are dead. Metapedia, go be butthurt someplace else. Like on Metapedia. Go. Just go.

>>3962053
Tolkien is best when read in fonts from TarmSaft Font Factory.

>>3954916
9/10

>>3957230
>LOTR
>most of the most important characters are differing shades of grey
Wahahaha

>>3954888
>Insulting him without explaining your opinion.
You're what's wrong with everything.

>>3962093
I was in a rush. I had to leave for work.

>>3953847
Because I have 350 fantasy books in my library.

Ulysses is a shit novel, very third rate.

>>3962176

It really is though, it's just a bunch of hidden references to other intellectual things, so when elitists read it they can spot a reference and feel good about themselves, then circle jerk with others about it

>>3962237
I agree. Modernism really is shit, a morally and artistically bankrupt movement.

>>3962304
>Implying Virgina Woolf isn't accesible while being also rewarding for more educated people
>implying she didn't revolutionise writing
>implying she's not GOAT
>implying her books are morally and artistically bankrupt

Do you even read? Seriously, reading like a page of Jamba Juice's Ulysses doesn't give you the right to hate on all modernist writing. Modernism is fucking awesome, you just need to know where to look.

Why A song of Ice and Fire is great.

Let’s begin with the setting, it’s large, very large and very diverse, yet consistent and thought trough. This allows for many different kinds of conflict, many kinds of morality, and many kinds of different situations. It allows for a plot to grown in complexity, and provide the reader with one heck of an experience.

Not only is it grand in scale, it has depth. We experience this world as lords, as fighters, as outlaws, as refugees. We see their concerns, we see the same situation form different sides.

The last point explains why people believe ASoIaF lacks a theme, it doesn’t seem to have an overarching one, it has many smaller ones. And that’s not bad, in fact the whole idea of building a story around a theme diminish it. A theme is only impactfull when it relates believable to the real world, when we can imagine it happening, when it makes us wonder about the world.
Moreover themes, and values flow naturally form exciting events, it is one of the reasons why we are so interested in them, these events are the catalyst to a better understand of our nature.

The characters are put through a large variety of situations, which provides opportunities for them to grow and change over time, each of these situations flow logically and organically in to one another, and is usually concurrent with a plot twist or some kind of expositions, that would be interesting all on its own, even without the character development. Good examples of this are Jaimie losing his hand. Not only does it provide for good character development, it also has a logical and clever reason for being done.

Characters are not just supposed to be smart, powerful, and devious, they are smart, powerful or devious. We don’t have to take it for granted little finger is smart, that he is a schemer, he proves it. Same goes for Tywin Lannister, or Cercei, Tyrion etc… They prove dammed well why they have the power they have. GRRM doesn’t just tell us this, he shows us.

The story defies our expectations, normally this ends up creating plotholes, or angers people. Books are forced to follow an artificial route, one only made interesting by the little variety or uniqueness the author manages to put between predictable start and finish. GRRM can kill of important characters, and can do other drastic stuff, and still keep it coherent and interesting.

Martin, neckbeard supreme, begins writing a series of books about a woman rallying an army of dragons and soldiers to end the frozen zombie threat and then focuses on who's getting a piece of whose ass. This is my criticism.

>>3962429
Troll harder, Mr Martin.

>>3962428
Sorry, how did Woolfe revolutionize writing?

>>3962526
bcz I sez so
just believe, muggle
also, Woolf*

Even so, okay, forget about the revolutionising-writing thing, what about the rest of the list?

>>3953847
A blimp who would be patrolling walmart in a fatmobile if he didn't have to travel around and show what a non-old non-uncool guy he is through writing politically correct fantasy fiction for the MTV generation.

>>3962428
>>implying her books are morally and artistically bankrupt
They are. She's better than Joyce, but she carries the same disease.

Also, while we're at it: Faulkner is also shite. He's the lit-professor's Quentin Tarantino.

>Modernism is fucking awesome, you just need to know where to look.
No it's not. Modernism is the stinking corpse left after real art died.

>>3962680
How the fuck are her books morally and artistically bankrupt? seriously. You could argue on the moral thing I guess because it's quite subjective, but artistically bankrupt? Her writing style is unlike anything I've read before, very innovative, brilliantly paced, it feels like a flowing river. She has an incredible talent when it comes to jumping from one character to another without disrupting the flow at all. She goes inside their minds for seconds then drifts off someplace else only to switch back again and somehow her works don't lack cohesion. Her use of metaphor is absolutely amazing and she can create incredibly poignant and moving stories without even a real plot. She was a fucking genius and she's by far the best writer I've ever come across when it comes to looking into people's minds.

When did art die, according to you? What is real art then?

Just after I finished typing that, I realised you're probably just trying to rustle my jimmies. If that's the case, touché is all I can say.

>>3962508
>then focuses on who's getting a piece of whose ass

Well there are other things that happen between the major events. This isn't a movie where you need to wrap everything up in 2 hours.

>>3962677
>politically correct fantasy

>rampant murder, pillaging, and a healthy amount of incest

What's your definition of politically incorrect fantasy?

The Malazan books have incredibly interesting world-building. But Jesus fuck, the character dialogue is fuckin awful and weird in the earlier books. Everyone talks all business all the time, with no sign that they have any personality or life beyond the current subject matter being discussed.
The Bridgeburners are incredibly uninteresting characters that Erickson put in as a fanfic insert of the Black Company. Kruppe eventually becomes a mary-sue self insert.

/lit/ you guys always make me lel. I recommend you guys try something real quick
>take a deep breath
>walk away from the computer
>come back in a bit, read a few comments (including yours) and think about how... god damn fucking pointless they are. It's amazing how pointless all of this is. None of you have given a good argument with page references to any books or ANYTHING. It's pretty... it's pretty lulz. nvm keep being high-schoolers in your first ethics class LEL

>>3958374
Oh come on. Breaking Bad is good, but its far from a 10/10 series. Everything apart from the making and selling drugs is just mindless soap opera filler full of "emotional connections" and "human interactions". Even when the characters should be badasses they have bullshit moral dilemas like it's an after school special.

>>3954308
I actually completely agree with you. 100%. I find myself skimming bad fiction because it tends to feel like filler on the way to an explosive (and usually predictable) scene; whereas good fiction I am interested in the scene that is occurring and may not be sure what could possibly happen next.

>>3963301
How about advocating far-right views and shitting on cultural Marxism?

>>3963288
But it's oh so clever to bait readers with dragons vs zombies and then put 40k pages of boning and backstabbing in front of it. I felt cheated, in a way.

haters gonna hate. GRRM is awesome. Fuck every other thought on the subject. J.K.Rowling can be all right, too. We're talking about stuff that appeals to a wide range of audiences, not high art literature.

>>3957274
Vonnegut told us more than he showed

It can be worked around

>>3957230
The thing is that Gandalf already can shoot lighting bolts from his ass. So why doesn't that power corrupt him?

>>3957291
Seems like we live in different worlds, and I can respect that.

Because I see numerous similarities between ASOFIA and IRL.

>>3953852
>2013
>reading a book series.
seriously guys. don't do this.

>>3962429
THIS

>>3954911
It reminds me of something I recently read in a book by an art professor. Somthing along the lines of "people who start to get some education in the field of art start to understand that not all that is interesting or valuale has to be pretty, nice, or conventionally pleasant to the eye. Unfortunately, some of them start from there to believe that enjoying art for its niceness or its conventional pleasantness to the eye is a sign of a lack of education, and as a consequence they refrain themselves from expressing any admiration towards the most pleasant and easily accessible of our masterpieces. I'd be appalled to be the cause of such a misunderstanding."