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/lit/ - Literature

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16537709 No.16537709 [Reply] [Original]

Why have novels tended to be more culturally significant than actual, nonfictional accounts of events? Perhaps this is just due to my poor education but the only first person accounts I can recall that had much relevance that I learned of, were Night, Anne Frank and the Narrative of Frederick Douglass. The rest is fictional novels. Granted they may be about serious topics or their time period, but they are still just fictional stories. I would kind of expect that real accounts would have a mass impact on the public; real accounts of wars, of depressions, of being detained. If anything I would expect novels to not have that much cultural significance in general.

>> No.16537724

>>16537709
Cuz okies can't write

>> No.16537742

>>16537709
Most humans love storytelling, not just cold hard facts like autists.

>> No.16537748

Non-fiction authors are not very good writers in general. They are smart, of course, but most don't have the sensibility of poets.

>> No.16537782

Mythology predates history.

>> No.16537800

Because novels are aimed at a lower common denominator than non-fiction.

>> No.16538020

>>16537709
One is boring most of the time, the other isn't most of the time.

>> No.16538036

>>16537748
Good non-fiction writing is a completely different style from poetry or prose fiction. A good historian aims for concision and precision. Relying on connotations, sounds, stresses, or any other poetic technique to produce meaning would be garbage historical writing. Of course, there's still some art to good historical writing, but you'd better be pretty damn confident to try anything outside of the usual professional standards.

>> No.16538042

>>16537709
Life just isn't that interesting compared to narrative. People like slavery narratives for their fantasy world in their which relates to their politics. Katniss Everdeen or 1984 or Harry Potter is much closer to their view of reality of slavery than Frederick Douglass

>> No.16538050

>>16537782
Organised mythology is different from stories, dumbass.

>> No.16538105

>>16537709
the diary of anne frank is not a fictional story. im sure there's no agenda behind you claiming otherwise

>> No.16538218

>>16538020
i almost feel its the opposite. if i hear that someone was in a horrible situation and wrote about it, i am immediately interested. on the other hand, if i hear that a random author, who never experienced it, crafted a story about this time in history, it seems inherently less interesting to me.