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/lit/ - Literature

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2510134 No.2510134 [Reply] [Original]

/lit/,

Why do any of you think "genre fiction" is a useful classification in terms of literary merit?

>> No.2510135

I don't understand the question.

>> No.2510147

It's not a classification in terms of literary merit. It's just a useful way of deciding what probably sucks

>> No.2510149

It has nothing to do with literary merit, it's a legitimate classification system for genre, you dipshit.

Sci-fi and fantasy are obviously different and contrasted to something set in a normal contemporary setting.

>> No.2510155

It's pretty simple: if it's genre fiction, it doesn't have literary merit.

>> No.2510171

>>2510149

See:

>>2510147
>>2510155


/lit/ is full of this.

If it has merit, it has merit. Plenty of the literary fiction /lit/ likes uses "genre" conventions, but as soon as it is "literary" people either forget or excuse the "genre" elements.

Fiction is either good or bad. "Genre" is not useful in and of itself. There's more bad genre fic than non–genre, but that's because of volume of production, not percentage.

>> No.2510185

>>2510171
>"Genre" is not useful in and of itself.

Yes it is. The worst works of fiction tend to follow genre conventions quite heavily, and most things that can be easily classified in terms of genre, are quite bad..

"All great works of literature either dissolve a genre or invent one." - Walter Benjamin

>> No.2510193

>>2510185

Look around. There's plenty of terrible, terrible fiction that doesn't use genre conventions. It's not hard to get published nowadays if you try hard enough. Go to the "regional interest" section of any bookshop to see the worst examples.

>> No.2510221

>>2510193
I don't doubt that, but they never seem to become quite as popular as certain genre fiction titles (in my experience), so it's less likely for friends who don't read much 'literary' fiction to recommend them. This is what I mean when I say that genre is useful in deciding whether or not a book is worth reading.

>> No.2510245

>>2510171
>If it has merit, it has merit. Plenty of the literary fiction /lit/ likes uses "genre" conventions, but as soon as it is "literary" people either forget or excuse the "genre" elements.
That's because the loudest voices on /lit/ are teenage fucktards who are here to bitch at others for having opinions and to feel superior because they've experienced less of the fiction they dislike than other people have. You'll find that anyone worth listening to on this board agrees with your statement. It's a good litmus test, really. Do they reject entire genres? subjects? movements? Do they hate anything popular (unless it's also an accepted classic) without having read it? Don't listen to them. They're uninformed parrots who don't have the critical thinking skills to discuss literature on any meaningful level.

Sadly, this is 4chan. That describes at least half of the people here. You have to ignore a lot of shit to enjoy the best parts of this board.

>> No.2510273

>>2510221

Being popular or not is irrelevant. You're just going "hurr durr I'm better than my peers".

If your peers were middle aged ladies, would you be slamming non–genre fic?

>> No.2510274
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2510274

>>2510245

I've been here for a while, and I'm aware, I just want to hash this out on a thread. I agree with your comment entirely, though.

>> No.2510283

>>2510245
If you're talking about Deep&Edgy, then I'm sorry, but you're an idiot

>> No.2510280

>>2510134
No genre book is of literary merit, once it becomes of literary merit it transcends its "genre" and becomes merely literature allowing the non-plebeian to pick it up.

>> No.2510302

>>2510280

Isn't that the qualification for /any/ book to be good? All books have a genre, and they have to have "literary merit" when they achieve certain heights.

Also: Many things considered to have "literary merit" were certainly accessible to plebs in their time, and others remain so.

>> No.2510314

I'm not convinced that people complaining about genre bashing aren't just butthurt Song of Ice and Fire fans who got trolled by Deep&Edgy. People who call fantasy crap are just having fun at the fantasy nerds' expense, you guys

>> No.2510338

>>2510314

OP here, I dislike ASoIaF; I read the first three, but gave up in the fourth. Even in those first three, they were just fun, not anything special. I'm not a big reader of "genre" fic at all, really.

>> No.2510398

>>2510245
>Do they hate anything popular (unless it's also an accepted classic) without having read it?
I should briefly address this because it is a pluralist fantasy that consistently gets brought out on /lit/. It's entirely reasonable to have a healthy distrust and suspicion of widely popular works, if you are an accomplished, serious afficionado of the medium concerned. This is because popular works, by and large, are mediocre. They have to be in order to appeal to and be understood by a greater and greater audience. Here is a quick and dirty formula, with a lot of exceptions of course; a work's popularity is proportional and tends to correlate with its quality, higher popularity= higher mediocrity, lower popularity = higher/lower quality. Why is it that lower popularity is correlative with Both high and low quality (this becomes very interesting when you look at innovation)? Because few people (experts, etc) can understand and appreciate a good work, while many will disregard it or even despise it. Absolute pieces of shit are the province of a minority too because most people don't like outright shit, it takes a special breed to buy into that just as much as it does for good works.
1/2

>> No.2510402

>>2510245
This reasoning is necessary, as a mental property of ensured intellectual survival, because it means one doesn't have to read mounds upon mounds of shit books with the occasional great work mixed in. This is suicidal. As an accomplished reader and appreciator of literature, it is simply not worth my time to shovel through piles of garbage for some gems when I have an entire canon of work to get through that has been already verified and endorsed by generations of people who for the most part were some of the best and most knowledgeable in their field. This is all perfectly reasonable and rational. But if you want to keep feeding your own pluralist delusions and enjoying a lower quality of life, who knows, you may have no other choice (perhaps this even justifies your necessity to endorse such ridiculous pluralism), that is your business.
2/2

>> No.2510412
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2510412

>>2510155
Get a load of this guy
>hurr durr so deep&edgy
You obviously too stupid to be on this board if you want to make such a sweeping generalization like that. If you're not that stupid, you obviously have an incredibly small penis because you have to demean things to make your thing look better.
8/10 for making me reply. Jimmies are rustled.

>> No.2510417

I mean, this isn't even a big step from evolutionary principles. It's more resource-smart for an organism to offload tasks and task management to the environment in order to free up energy and processing power for itself. This is just what you do when you defer to expert opinion. That doesn't, of course, mean you're always right in doing so, but all things being equal this is an entirely healthy behaviour. Naive pluralists, with their totally untenable principles, are actually engaging in behaviours that are entropic and lead us down evolutionary blind alleys.

>> No.2510426

>>2510412
oh look everyone, my soapbox is talking back

>> No.2510440
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2510440

>>2510426
If I wasn't as stupid as you, trip, I might actually understand the soapbox thing.

>> No.2510439

>>2510417

you saw the grey, probably because it stars a dirty mick

>> No.2510438

>>2510426

Disregard everything, I suck cocks.

>> No.2510446

Stop talking back bud I'm only interested in what I have to say, not your stupid bitch complaints cheers

>> No.2510454 [DELETED] 
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2510454

>using tripcodes for years
>still can't use them properly and consistently in a thread

sorry everyone my bad

>> No.2510459

>>2510454

Shut the fuck up faggot, accept your fate.

>> No.2510463

is it just me or is /lit/ really bad today

>> No.2510464 [DELETED] 
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2510464

>using tripcodes for years
>still can't use them properly and consistently in a thread

sorry everyone my bad

>> No.2510476

>>2510463
if by "today" you mean "the past 6 months", i agree.

>> No.2510480

>>2510464

what the fuck are you doing you stupid asshole, when you fuck up and delete your shit and repost, the least you could do is change the fucking picture. that dog is now double as gay as it was before.

>> No.2510491

The vast majority of "abstract" and "conceptual" art is simply a willing denial of human nature, which somehow has been conflated with being morally superior to commercial interests or similar nonsense.

Naturally, the literary community has to have its own version of this fad by declaring popular narrative fiction that is successful within the constraints of the market must be morally and/or intellectually suspect.

>> No.2510499

What the fuck is going on in this thread? Dick sucking?
Why wasn't I invited?

>> No.2510529

>>2510499
Oh, what's that? My heterosexuality was challenged? Well, I see the light. I'll surely look down my nose at genre fiction as a lesser art form in the future.

Thank you for that cogent argument.

>> No.2510532

>>2510529
>Thank you for that cogent argument.
Quite in keeping with my history.
You're very welcome.

>> No.2510559
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2510559

>using tripcodes for years
>still can't use them properly and consistently in a thread

sorry everyone my bad

>> No.2510566

>>2510532
get out of here you illiterate.

>> No.2510567

>>2510532
My favorite thing about /lit/ is how they trumpet their intellectualism in neon lights but the moment a sacred cow of the literary community is challenged they resort to grade school snark.

>> No.2510591

>>2510567
That's just Deist. He has a history of this kind of shit. You can ignore him

>> No.2510596

>It's entirely reasonable to have a healthy distrust and suspicion of widely popular works[...]
I totally agree with you, but a "healthy distrust" is different from the uninformed judgement and hate I'm referring to.
>>2510402

>> No.2510604

>>2510402

You could read a ton of shit–books reading non–genre fiction as well. How do you know what to read? You rely on the experiences of others and instinct early on in the work to judge whether or not a book will be worth your time. You're undergoing the same filtering process no matter what.

>> No.2510615

>>2510604
>You could read a ton of shit–books reading non–genre fiction as well.
The whole point of them being called "Classics" is that you couldn't read a ton of shit reading them. You couldn't even read a shit one of them. That is why they are called "Classics". You would have to be super accomplished for it to be possible for there to be shit works within Classic works for you to read. But this would be beyond the point at which the distinction is meaningful. Your distinction is not meaningful, because whatever I get with my choice of reading, I will never get shit books. That is the point, and that is why the filtering process is not there, or if it is, it is nowhere significant to the degree to which it is going on in the example I am concerned with.

>> No.2510690

>>2510615

But you are talking "Classics", which is a different opposition than "genre"/"non–genre". Do you have an argument relevant to the thread, or do you like hearing yourself talk?

>> No.2510695

>>2510690
I was responding to something someone said in the thread mate, your stupid bullshit is about genre fiction or some garbage that i don't care about. so, y'know, start reading the thread or piss off