/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23020431]

I'm convinced that to be a true classic being genuinely good isn't enough, a book also needs to be ironically good. All of /lit/'s top 20 books are absolute classics with deep characters, thought provoking themes, and beautiful prose, but they are also books caked in irony that you can enjoy at a meta level. moby dick, ironic homo book. lolita, ironic pedo book. ulysses, ironic pseud book. if the only way a book can be enjoyed is completely sincerely it can never be popular because most people are insincere all the time.

[Anonymous No.23020458]

There's an idea that in the 80s or 90s we went through a period of irony where being sincere was seen as uncool or dumb, so everything was mean shows like Seinfeld and mean books like American Psycho, which cruelly commented on the human experience. Then in reaction we entered a period of "new sincerity" where everything became achingly honest and vulnerable. But now we're in a period of post-sincerity that's basically halfway between, where media comments on the human condition in a humorous, but only semi-detached way, where we feel with the characters while laughing at the characters' flaws, which we share. This mix is more like laughing at ourselves, as we go through painful, beautiful, and ridiculous situations. An example of this would be The Office, where the characters are goofballs we laugh at, but who we still care deeply about.

Which is all to say, maybe this reaction to literature is a consequence of our own post-ironic culture we're in.

[Anonymous No.23020520]

>>23020458
maybe, but I don't feel like this attitude is new. maybe it existed in the past but culture goes through cycles

[Anonymous No.23020602]

>>23020458
I personally wouldn't reify vague cultural theorist terms like "New Sincerity" into periods especially with such recent cultural history. There's a lot of somewhat nonsense terms like "metamodernism" and popular memes like "post-irony" but I don't think you can identify them as authentic cultural moments. It's also a difficult topic to discuss because it's arguable that the flagship for so-called New Sincerity DFW, despite his agon with Barth and other ironic postmodern predecessors, never escaped postmodern irony -- claiming sincerity (and I'm being completely, 100% sincere when I say this) cannot escape the flaw of being susceptible to ambiguity and irony. The relationship between sincerity and irony is paradoxical which DFW's fiction embodies but arguably the oft-quoted theory of E Pluribus Unam glosses over (or was it only ironically glossing over the paradox?). I don't think you can identify moments in recent history of great cultural shifts from to sincerity or irony or back again -- and The Office would certainly be a bathetic example of the mediation between the two. The features you identify (laughing at the characters but still caring about them) are rather broad and surely could be applied to most comedy in general no matter the period.

[Anonymous No.23020674]

>>23020431
It's funny how "chad" posters are always the most brain dead shit eating retards. Literal clowns trying to live vicariously through the internet and "upvote" themselves.

[Anonymous No.23020685]

>>23020674
You got a problem with that?

[Anonymous No.23020688]

>>23020674
This poster is secretly enslaved to big chad poster cock

[Anonymous No.23020692]

didn’t read, hang yourself soijakposter

[Anonymous No.23020704]

>Moby Dick is ironically gay

[Anonymous No.23020708]

>>23020704
>Reading a book called mo' big dick
Sounds pretty gay desu

[Anonymous No.23020762]

>>23020431
Can we get a /tv/, /v/, and /co/ variant of this post?

[Anonymous No.23020786]

>>23020674
Retard-kun...

[Anonymous No.23020789]

>>23020674

[Anonymous No.23021130]

>>23020674
this post is amazing
anon says so much about himself and yet he doesn't even know he's said it