[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 29 KB, 400x300, patrick-rothfuss.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
[ERROR] No.2158631 [Reply] [Original]

"The lion's share of old-school literature IS fantasy, they just pretend it isn't. The Odyssey is full of gods and spells. Oedipus Rex has a sphinx and a prophecy. There are witches in Macbeth, faeries in Midsummer Night's Dream, and a ghost in Hamlet. Dante's Inferno? Beowulf? All looks like fantasy to me....

I think a lot of people read and respect fantasy storytelling. A lot of the more forward-thinking colleges offer classes studying it, though they usually call it speculative fiction or magical realism to make themselves feel better. We all know the truth though: it's fantasy.

As far as having my book recognized as literature? [Pat shrugs] Why would I want that? I mean, have you read Great Expectations? Gech. Why would I want to invited into their little club? Give me Tim Powers and Phillip K Dick. Give me Le Guin, Gaiman, and Pratchett. Give me McKillip and Whedon. These are the storytellers. These are our modern mythmakers. Our oracles. Our dreamers. I want to be on that team." 　　　— Patrick Rothfuss

http://www.sffworld.com/interview/224p1.html

>> No.2158636

dante's inferno is a fanfic.

also, it's not surprising a writer of fantasy would think fantasy is the end-all be-all and that literary works are dull.

>> No.2158635

Sadly, he never will be.

>> No.2158643

He makes a good point.

Orwells Nineteen-eightyfour can just as equally be considered science fiction. There books in the literature sections of your bookstore that are pretty trashy and sci-fi fantasy ones that are better than most stuff in literature such as Gene Wolfe. That being said, there are exceptions to the norm.

>> No.2158647

>>2158643

1984 is actually a political horror novel.

>> No.2158660

>>2158647

You can't deny the science fiction elements. Same goes for many great books deemed literature. Philip K. Dick and LeGuin are considered too, I think. Certainly Dick at any rate.

What he says is true. Science Fiction and Fantasy especially get a bad rep despite the fact that they are themese that have always been explored (moreso Fantasy for this point). The thing is, since Tolkien, all fantasy has been tarred with the same brush due to the influx of people riding on his coat tails.

>> No.2158664

>>2158660
the best dick doesn't have sci-fi in it, though, it's just schizophrenic ramblings.

>> No.2158671

>>2158664

I thought that too. VALIS for instance didn't feel like much a sci-fi novel, though there were elements in it of course.

>> No.2158676

I like this thread. It's true. Saying all fantasy and sci-fi is bad literature is a ridiculous generalization. Especially when you look at the current state of traditional fiction and non-fiction.

>> No.2158689 [DELETED] 

>implying the majority of ancient literature wasn't inclusive of fantastical elements simply because supernatural elements were a part of their world view
>implying that this hasn't been irrelevant since the time when western culture stopped predominantly accepting the supernatural
>implying that secular thinking in the modern world hasn't done away with the necessity for bullshit elves and swords and fantasy authors aren't dwelling on the worst elements of the past
>mfw fantasy just got told

>> No.2158695

>>2158631
This manchild is hating on Great Expectations while lauding Neil fucking Gaiman? He thinks Joss Whedon is our generation's oracle?

And people wonder why fantasy is looked down on.

>> No.2158696

>>2158695

Psst.

You forgot the beard.

>> No.2158697

>>2158689
Nah, that's bullshit. Virgil and Dante didn't honestly think they knew what the afterlife looked like. I'm pretty sure 10th century Anglo-Saxons didn't live in fear of man-eating swamp monsters. They were writing fiction, and being creative for the hell of it.

At the same time, you can't conflate the modern fantasy genre with all literature that ever used supernatural elements. Rothfuss's work is a whole lot more derivative of post-Tolkien commercial fantasy than any of the more venerable writers he mentions. It's also hilarious that he takes pride in being a popular storyteller while attacking such pretentious high-falutin' literature as Charles fucking Dickens.

>> No.2158699

Literature isn't a genre. It's not a formula for authors to follow, it's a status which only great novels can obtain.
If a work is remembered and studied for its complexity, thematic depth, cultural value, and artistic worth then is is literature.
This Patrick Rothfuss guy is a worthless hack, and that's why he thinks that genre and literature are mutually exclusive. The authors he listed are mostly authors of literature of the sci-fi variant, he is nothing so important.

>> No.2158700

He's right of course that it's dumb to dismiss a potentially good book because of fantastical elements. But this point has already been made, and much more eloquently, by the likes of Michael Chabon and Ursula le Guin.

>> No.2158705

>>2158695
Considering Great Expectations is probably the worst book Dickens ever wrote that's not exactly a bad comparison.
Not that Gaiman has put out much good stuff either.

>> No.2158707

>>2158700
>Chabon
Has the man ever said anything of worth?
Le Guin on the other hand is far more convincing.

>> No.2158708

>>2158699
>If a work is remembered and studied for its complexity, thematic depth, cultural value, and artistic worth then is is literature.
Except all of that is based on politics, popularity and opinion in the field studying it and no more.
If that's the measure of "Literature" then it's basically worthless.

>> No.2158709

>>2158705
Even if it were the worst book Dickens wrote would you accuse it of being poorly written?

>> No.2158711

>>2158709
Certainly. Most of Dickens work was some very nice, if occasionally purple, prose filled out with tons of wordshitting since that's what paid for his living.
Any Dickens novel could be cut down by a third without anyone noticing.

>> No.2158713

>>2158707
I don't have a link or anything, but I seem to remember he had an article - maybe in the Guardian - that was basically "fuck genre". I thought it was pretty convincing.

>> No.2158715
File: 51 KB, 625x564, jazzy.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
[ERROR]

>fantasy
>good

>> No.2158716

>>2158708
Damn, you think a book's worth might be a matter of opinion? Wrap it up people, the humanities are over.

>> No.2158719

>>2158707
It doesn't have to be of worth to be more eloquent than this guy.

Also:
>lots of literature is fantasy guise
>but fantasy is better

>> No.2158720

>>2158708
>Literary value
>Opinion
No shit, man. That's exactly my point. All literary value is based on quality and popular consensus.

>> No.2158724

I've said it before I'll say it again. Dickens is a fucking chore to read until you get to the amazing ending that validates the book. If you don't finish it you'll just hate it. There are exceptions to this.

Also, his protagonists suck. The only reason anyone likes Fagin is because Oliver is such a twat.

Dickins is wonderful though. Who is this cunt?

>> No.2158726

>>2158711
I've been reading Dickens since I was a child, and perhaps it might just be nostalgia, but I would certainly notice and would care very deeply if any of his novels were cut down by any amount.

>> No.2158729

>>2158724
i don't think he's a chore to read

>> No.2158731

>>2158729
To some extent. I feel that if it wasn't for those cliffhangers every couple of chapters I wouldn't have got through a lot of his stuff.

>> No.2158737

>>2158724

Hm I am not a native English speaker and I started reading A Tale of Two Cities in summer this year. I didn't finish it though, was bussy with exams and all this shit and after a while I just had the feeling that I didn't really know what was going on. Still I liked his writing and I will finish the book soon.

>> No.2158744

>>2158720
It isn't even genuine opinion most of the time.
Hell under the definition up there Twilight would be literature.

>> No.2158748

>>2158724
>Implying Dickens isn't garbage designed to appeal to the bourgeois masses

>> No.2158755

>>A lot of the more forward-thinking colleges offer classes studying it, though they usually call it speculative fiction or magical realism to make themselves feel better.

Magical realism has purpose in its surreal elements. There aren't wizards just cause wizards are cool. Is Toni Morrison a fantasy writer? Don't make me puke on you beard.

Props to OP for interesting quote.

>> No.2158758

>>2158744
If you think Twilight is of some value, then sure. It's interesting to examine the impact which the series has had upon the gothic and romantic genres.
Although I'd hardly say that Twilight is of any quality, even if it is quite popular.

>> No.2158759

>>2158708
Touché.

>> No.2158767

>>2158708

So what? Who cares how they were selected? Whatever elements went into their selection they are still the works that have shaped and defined modern writing in all fields. And since it's not only Lit majors reading Dickens, he has had some impact in many different fields of study and walks of life.

Literature matters, dick.

>> No.2158772

>>2158748
>implying anyone on /lit/ isn't part of the bourgeois masses.

>> No.2158773

>>2158755
>Magical realism has purpose in its surreal elements.
So?
Most Dystopian SF like 1984 uses the techy stuff as a vehicle for relevant to the now, not the actual future.
It's still Science Fiction.

>> No.2158790

>>2158773

Characters flying in Song of Solomon is representative of their freedom, literal and emotional. It's based on a human emotion. 1984 is pushing a political agenda, not a human one. In fact, I've never had a professor list 1984 as acceptable literature. It's an exception to the rule.

>>1984 uses the techy stuff as a vehicle for relevant to the now

Yeah, to our current social and political climate, nothing human or emotional.

>> No.2158803

>>2158790
>current social and political climate
It was written in the 1940s.
>nothing human or emotional.
I can't help but laugh. It's practically all about Winston's feelings.

>> No.2158810

>>2158790
>nothing human or emotional.
Nigga please. What's not human about examining an extremely totalitarian setting? You must be pretty thick if you can't see past the politics. Like all dystopian fiction, 1984 is about examining the emotions and reactions of people who live in extreme social and political structures.
The driving theme of 1984 is freedom versus totalitarianism, and the lengths to which the individual and the state will go to push those mutually exclusive ideologies.
How is that not important?

>> No.2158829

>>2158803

Laugh away. The crux of the story is the political machine that Orwell presents, not the compelling thoughts and emotions of Winston. Ignore the setting and what's the story? Man defies authority out of dissatisfaction then fails to overcome due to lack of internal will.

The story exist solely to show Orwell's dystopian future. Winston is a vehicle for displaying it and how it works.

Also, what emotions does he show? All we see from him are animalistic instincts such as greed (stealing the candy bar), lust (sex with girl), fear (all the time), and anger (toward being restricted by the authority figure). Nothing complex or human.

Also, I think this began by someone mixing up my assessment of magical realism with sci-fi. 1984 is certainly sci-fi, but I'd argue it only stands as literature because of it's total lack of love.

P.S.
>>It was written in the 1940s

I didn't say OUR current climate

>> No.2158842

>>2158810

It is important... politically. And Orwell wrote plenty of essays on such topics. A setting should influence a story, not define it.

>>The driving theme of 1984 is freedom versus totalitarianism, and the lengths to which the individual and the state will go to push those mutually exclusive ideologies.

And where is the human element of this theme? Crushed beneath the weight of politics and ideology.

I enjoyed the book and it is one of my favorites, but it's science fiction, not high literature.

>> No.2158843

Not all fantasy is genre shit.

Just because good fantasy exists doesn't make the generic mass-produced high fantasy bullshit neckbeards like the retard in OPs pic read good.

>> No.2158844

I find it fucking hilarious that people managed to put what was essentially just dramas written for the common crowd on a pedestal and call it Literature.

>> No.2158847

>>2158843

Isn't everything after 1970 just LOTR retold?

>> No.2158849

>>2158847
Not really, and LOTR is just the fantasy tradition before it "retold" anyway...

>> No.2158851

>>2158844

It's what even the upper class was reading. There's a lot of popular fiction that's been left behind and with good reason.

>> No.2158860

>>2158849

True, I guess. LOTR is just Wagner's Ring Cycle which is based on Norse Saga which represents many mythological archetypes. Fuck me.

>> No.2158884

>>2158860
LOTR never pretended to be anything else. It was Tolkien's interpretation of how English mythology would have developed without the Norman invasion. The creatures are from Nordic mythology, Gandalf is clearly Merlyn, etc. Rohan's victory was symbolic of how 1066 would have been different if the English had proper cavalry. Then all this is tied together with markedly English characters, attitudes and settings.

>> No.2158888

Stephen Fry likes The Lord of the Rings. That's all I need to know to be okay with fantasy.

>> No.2158902
File: 19 KB, 480x360, trollfaceproblem.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
[ERROR]

>design novel elitist structure intended to maintain the dominance of the upper class
>co-opt anything that remotely breaks the arbitrary schema into the "literary" wankery-group
>claim an objective system
lol english majors

>> No.2158920

The name of the wind is the worst book I've ever read.

I wish I were trolling.

>> No.2158943

>>2158902

Who did any of that? Grats on being a vague douche.

>> No.2159023
File: 148 KB, 380x1381, Pinnochio Panics.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
[ERROR]

>>2158829
>Emotions are instincts
>Greed, anger, &c. are not human

what

>> No.2159030

man like. i have mad complicated opinions about this but i will boil it down to three points here basically.

1) old-school literature isn't fantasy b/c fantasy as we use the term 95% of the time is a genre developed in modern times. if you consider fantasy as a literary term, than yeah it's fantasy but that's not how we ever use the term and doesn't legitimize works of genre fantasy.

2) some fantasy is super dope, and that includes both magic realism shit and a decent amount of stuff published as genre fantasy. at the same time, a lot of genre fantasy - and often the most widely-read genre fantasy - is pretty bad, or at best well-made but not intellectually stimulating.

3) pat rothfuss, you are not writing the kind of fantasy you are eulogizing here

wow i actually wrote a piece there, but anyway that is just my basic thoughts on this matter (which i think about a whole lot b/c i am a super nerd who cares about this stuff)

john crowley forever

>> No.2159034

>>2158920

I wanted to "get back into fantasy" and relive my younger years so I decided to get Name of the Wind. As I was paying for it the book clerk recommended it highly, saying that if I like fantasy I would really enjoy it.

I got half-way through it before throwing it against a wall. Everything is so derivative. It reads like Harry Potter goes to college. Full of cliches, bad dialogue, and its even got an Oliver Twist sequence except instead of inspiring sentiment and compassion for the main character I just felt indifference and boredom.


>As far as having my book recognized as literature? [Pat shrugs] Why would I want that? Great Expectations? Gech.

>Rothfuss
>confirmed fullretard.

>> No.2159095

>>2159023

So you'd like to read a novel about a dog?

>> No.2159108

>>2159023
>&c.
People actually do that?

>> No.2159126

>>2159108
Yeah. I think it's kind of nifty, though I don't do it myself. It's just as correct, I suppose.

>> No.2159128

>>2159034
>I wanted to "get back into fantasy"
Pick up some old pulp authors.

>> No.2159136

Fantasy vs Real Literature? This shouldn't even be a discussion, yet it is a stock argument for /lit/. OP knows this. He knows that there are a lot of buttangry neckbeards who want the books they read to be elevated to literary status so they have an excuse not to read and and to talk about the more difficult novels they see other anons talking about on the board. Novels that don't have a rape scenes every five pages to fap to, and maybe not even any elven warrior priestesses to fantasize about, or male mary sue mage outcast warrior nobles to use as a stand in for their fat, virgin, basement dewelling selves.

>> No.2159139

>>2159136
Meh.

I'd still rather read than than read something about an artist who can't create and is tormented by it, or people dying slowly in the 1800s.

>> No.2159149

>>2159136
>elevated to literary status
Like Bukowski's moanings on paper, Dicken's a penny a word penny dreadfuls and of course badly translated Dostoyevsky existentialism 101 pamphlets.
Taking /lit/'s opinions on "high literature" seriously is about as bad as taking DeviantArt polls on what is "great art" seriously.

>> No.2159156
File: 36 KB, 322x500, death dealer.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
[ERROR]

>>2159128
>Pick up some old pulp authors.

recently read some Robert E Howard conan shit, loved it.

Anything youd suggest in particular? Im looking for the Death Dealer series

>> No.2159163

>>2159136
You're an idiot. Most genre fantasy is bad, but you're still an idiot.

>>2159156
fritz leiber and jack vance, baby baby

>> No.2159165

>>2159156
The rest of Robert. E Howard's series like Kull, Solomon Kane and the rest are pretty good.
Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are great fun as well.

Hell i'll just copy/paste what I said earlier today on /lit/.
James Branch Cabell, Robert E. Howard, Clark Ashton Smith, Talbot Mundy, Fritz Leiber, Lord Dunsany, Abraham Merritt, Jack Vance, Eric Rücker Eddison, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Poul Anderson, Roger Zelazny, Gene Wolfe, C. L. Moore, Leigh Brackett, George MacDonald, Lin Carter, Ernest Brahma, H. Rider Haggard, Jorge Louis Borges, Fletcher Pratt & L. Sprague de Camp are all worth checking out. Maybe some of Jorge Louis Borges more fantastic works while you're at it.

There are even more but those should keep you for a while.

>> No.2159170
File: 4 KB, 124x159, 1315799106732.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
[ERROR]

>>2159095
>dogs
>greed

>> No.2159174

>>2159170

I have a dog that steals food any time it gets a chance, especially from its companion.

He also steals my weed if I don't hide it well enough.

I sort of hate him but I spent too much money on him to put him to sleep.

>> No.2159176

>>2159165
you have dope taste, man. you ever read any john crowley?

>> No.2159179

>>2159176
Nope. Looks interesting. I'll put him on the backburner.

>> No.2160090

he's not wrong, but that beard is

also man is joss whedon the worst

>> No.2160117

>>2159136
Yeah, because posting stereotypes is so cool.

>> No.2160452

Given the number of elitist tripfags on /lit/ it's fascinating that the only trippost ITT isn't even on the fantasy vs. proper literature topic.

>> No.2160471

The neckbear in OP's post seems to be confusing myth with fantasy.