/lit/ - Literature

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Anonymous Fri Apr 27 13:18:01 2012 No.2596640 [Reply] [Original]

Interesting article on fantasy here.

http://mollyflatt.co.uk/2012/04/19/fantasy-is-the-only-fruit/

"Grossman’s thesis is that the very concept of novels being split into ‘literary’ and ‘genre’ camps took hold during the 1920s with the modernist project to reject plot and narrative as a valid way of representing the world. Until then, the gothic horror of Dracula, the self-referential experimentation of Tristram Shandy and the romantic comedy of Pride and Prej had been permitted to happily co-exist under the single, unjudgmental category of fiction."

"However, according to Grossman, those boundaries are now dissolving once more. The modernist project was important and immeasurably valuable, producing most of the best literature ever written, but it’s pretty much run out of steam as DeLillo, Franzen, McEwan and co disappear up their own plodding asses. And the most important playground in which this experiment is taking place? Fantasy." "Fantasy is indisputably the idiom people are paying attention to. If Joyce wrote Ulysses now, he’d make it a fantasy. I think any ambitious writer right now would be mad not to be exploring fantasy."

Thoughts, /lit/?

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 13:21:01 2012 No.2596648 An amazing concentration of incorrect or disingenuous statements in only two paragraphs. I'm sure the full article, if I ever read it, which I won't, would be like staring into the tooth mug of Cthulu.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 13:25:00 2012 No.2596656

I also love that he thinks Franzen and McEwan are modernists. And that nobody could tell the difference between shit and clay before the modernists - in fact, they could. I'm always amused by the nostalgia, for a time they never experienced, that you hear from the fantasy constituency. In the world before modernism, the social class that tends to cleave to such stuff wouldn't even have been asked for their preference - they would have been behind the counter or in the factory from 15.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 13:28:01 2012 No.2596661 >>2596640 The website is down, but wow. How many wild, unsupported, risible and hyperbolic statements can you fit in two paragraphs?

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 13:28:01 2012 No.2596663

>>2596656
Wow, fuck you.

>In the world before modernism, the social class that tends to cleave to such stuff wouldn't even have been asked for their preference - they would have been behind the counter or in the factory from 15.

Good taste has nothing to do with class and anyone can achieve good taste for themselves. The wealthy aren't just intrinsically better. They do not have intrinsically superior taste to the rest of us. No.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 13:33:01 2012 No.2596676 >>2596656 Appears to be an elitist, insane prick >>2596663 Is an idiot I'm out.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 13:34:00 2012 No.2596678 >>2596663 Anyone can, but different classes have different forms of bad taste: fantasy novels are lower-middle-class bad taste. If you can achieve good taste, then do it! Don't read fantasy, and don't defend that shit here.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 13:35:00 2012 No.2596680 >>2596678 Not defending fantasy. Arguing against your elitism / classism.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 13:42:00 2012 No.2596691 >>2596678 Why "don't read fantasy" instead of "don't read bad books"? Surely when you speak ill of the genre you do so because it's so saturated with shit books, not because all books in the genre are bad by virtue of being fantasy, right?

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 13:43:00 2012 No.2596697

>>2596680

You have no argument - what I said is simply demonstrable fact. I am no elitist, nor a classist. The class in which an enthusiasm for such tripe is most marked would, before modernism, have had long working hours and little disposable income. They weren't pulling their chairs up to the same table as other readers - the readers of literature weren't thinking of them at all. The entire demographic of late-teen suburban men with part-time jobs or no jobs, in college, living with their parents - this market didn't EXIST before modernism. They're yearning for an Eden which would have had no place for them. These are just the facts.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 13:46:00 2012 No.2596701 >>2596691 > Surely when you speak ill of the genre When you attempt "clever" writing, you sound preposterous, like a kid trying to be old-timey. Genre fiction is worthless, and there is no such animal as the genre reader with good taste.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 13:48:00 2012 No.2596703 >>2596701 why? do you have any argument as to why any book with genre elements must necessarily be bad? i mean, a specific argument for why those things make the work worse? or are you just reeling off dumb shit without any reason?

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 13:53:01 2012 No.2596710

>>2596701

>When you attempt "clever" writing, you sound preposterous, like a kid trying to be old-timey.

I wasn't attempting to be clever, I was attempting to be nice and not assume you are as fucking retarded as you sound.

>Genre fiction is worthless

Why? And what specifically do you mean by "genre fiction"?

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 13:57:00 2012 No.2596718 >>2596703 Genre fiction is not literature.

1/2 Anonymous Fri Apr 27 13:57:00 2012 No.2596720

>Grossman's thesis is that the very concept of novels being split into ‘literary’ and ‘genre’ camps took hold during the 1920s with the modernist project to reject plot and narrative as a valid way of representing the world. Until then, the gothic horror of Dracula, the self-referential experimentation of Tristram Shandy and the romantic comedy of Pride and Prej had been permitted to happily co-exist under the single, unjudgmental category of fiction."

This is only true to a certain degree. A divide still existed in the 17 and 1800's, but it was a different one. It was typically a "this is good moral christian worthwhile literature (these were largely biblical exegeses and spiritual tracts)" and "this is entertaining and a waste of time (most novels and poetry that we now consider high brow fit this camp)".

He's correct that "literary" and "genre" are two relatively new camps. But the divide isn't without its precedents. I'd say he's also justified in his chronology, but assigning things a chronology is always bound to be flawed, as you can almost always come up with exceptions or examples that broaden the idea.

>However, according to Grossman, those boundaries are now dissolving once more. The modernist project was important and immeasurably valuable, producing most of the best literature ever written, but it’s pretty much run out of steam as DeLillo, Franzen, McEwan and co disappear up their own plodding asses.

I don't think any of the writers he mentions are modernist with a capital M, but that's really a tertiary point. I also think he might be mistaken about saying it's beginning to break down now, as it's been being chipped away at by the pomo Pynchon school since the 60s with their mixing of high and low art. Now admittedly this wasn't done without some irony, so maybe that's not satisfying for Grossman.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 13:58:00 2012 No.2596722 >>2596710 Yes you were, you transparent rube. There's no argument, nor is there any mystery, about what genre fiction is.

2/2 Anonymous Fri Apr 27 13:58:00 2012 No.2596723

>And the most important playground in which this experiment is taking place? Fantasy

I'd only like to know where.

>Fantasy is indisputably the idiom people are paying attention to. If Joyce wrote Ulysses now, he’d make it a fantasy. I think any ambitious writer right now would be mad not to be exploring fantasy.

This is where things go horrible wrong. He begins with what I assume is a poorly masked popularity appeal (admittedly, I'm not sure what he means by "the idiom people are paying attention to"). And then he goes on to insinuate that Joyce was somehow interested in popularity or what was popular, which I'm pretty sure is demonstrably false. And then he ends with a meaningless opinion.

Also, you'd think he's mention that Ulysses is a rewriting of a 'fantasy'.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 13:59:00 2012 No.2596724 >>2596723 Horribly* He'd* I should proofread these things.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:00:01 2012 No.2596727

>>2596718
what is "literature"? why does not being literature necessarily imply that a work is "bad"? what elements of genre fiction make it impossible for it to be literature? what would genre fiction have to do for it to be literature?

i hope you will understand that simply stating that "genre fiction is not literature" is not a compelling or a convincing, or even a particularly meaningful, argument - especially in the context of a thread that argues in the OP that the very division between genre fiction and literature which you are invoking dates back only to the onset of high modernism, and is not at all a given element of literature as such.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:01:01 2012 No.2596729 All this stuff ultimately falls into populism, because it's specious argumentation in the service of a business, no different from those 'business intellectuals' who turn out to be Amway pitchmen.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:02:00 2012 No.2596733 >>2596722 Why do you refuse to define what you mean? Is "genre fiction" any fiction that has fantastical or futuristic elements? Or is it something else? If it's the former, how do those fantastical/futuristic elements make it inferior?

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:05:00 2012 No.2596735

>>2596720
>This is only true to a certain degree. A divide still existed in the 17 and 1800's, but it was a different one. It was typically a "this is good moral christian worthwhile literature (these were largely biblical exegeses and spiritual tracts)" and "this is entertaining and a waste of time (most novels and poetry that we now consider high brow fit this camp)".

Well, I mean, the idea of a canon or of ways to divide between different kinds of production is not original at all - it goes back certainly to the scholastics of the Middle Ages, if not further. Dividing things has its precedents; but the specific content of this divide is quite new, and this specific divide is not justified by the division of things in general.

>I also think he might be mistaken about saying it's beginning to break down now, as it's been being chipped away at by the pomo Pynchon school since the 60s with their mixing of high and low art. Now admittedly this wasn't done without some irony, so maybe that's not satisfying for Grossman.

I basically agree with you, but it's not really surprising that this trend is only being noticed when it's well underway - that's just how things tend to work.

>This is where things go horrible wrong. He begins with what I assume is a poorly masked popularity appeal.

I think it's connected to the criticism of Franzen et al - that they're basically disappearing up their own asses and not really producing work that's fresh / interesting / vital. And he's positioning fantasy against that, so it's not popularity in the sense of gross readership, so much as popularity in the sense of accessibility, significance - in the sense of mattering.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:06:00 2012 No.2596737

>>2596727

The OP doesn't argue anything - it just states it. To tickle the fancy of a demographic of hogs, lower than pedophiles.

Believe what you want, the truth will continue being the truth, and the fantasy audience will continue being a good workforce wasted, thinking they can think.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:06:00 2012 No.2596738 >>2596735 In what sense do you think Franzen is a modernist?

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:07:00 2012 No.2596739

>this thread

We'll never move past racism, sexism, and other evils if there is such a damn divide over something so small as book genres and personal taste in entertainment. People judge each other over such small things, how can we be expected to conquer the large problems facing the world?

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:10:00 2012 No.2596746

>>2596729
You are completely fucking ridiculous.

>>2596737
>To tickle the fancy of a demographic of hogs, lower than pedophiles.

You are, again, completely fucking insane.

Do I even have to point out how absurd this is? You literally just called fantasy readers pigs and said they were worse than pedophiles. I mean, come on.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:11:00 2012 No.2596748

>>2596739

No, you haven't understood. Art is not entertainment. The divide between shit and clay, between ideas of merit and ideas without merit, is not trivial, but fundamental to solving the problems you mention. Not for nothing is high fantasy the preferred reading material of white nationalists. It is impossible to be intellectually and morally rigorous if you subsist on a diet of nonsense.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:12:01 2012 No.2596750

>>2596735

>I think it's connected to the criticism of Franzen et al - that they're basically disappearing up their own asses and not really producing work that's fresh / interesting / vital. And he's positioning fantasy against that, so it's not popularity in the sense of gross readership, so much as popularity in the sense of accessibility, significance - in the sense of mattering.

Hm. In that case, I'm not sure I buy an argument for Franzen's lot or contemporary fantasy really mattering.

The school of drab upper middle class white men literature that Franzen is a part of is almost certainly irrelevant even to most students of literature, but as far as I know, contemporary fantasy doesn't really catch their eye either.

Now true, fantasy does have some (popular) cultural importance, but I'm not sure that constitutes a breaking down of 'literary' and 'genre' divides.

On a side note, does anyone actually know what specific works he's referring to when he says that fantasy has become a playground for experimentation?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:13:01 2012 No.2596754 >>2596746 >Do I even have to point out how absurd this is? You don't, actually. You can stop engaging ol' ivory leg any time you want.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:16:00 2012 No.2596759

>>2596750
>The school of drab upper middle class white men literature that Franzen is a part of is almost certainly irrelevant even to most students of literature, but as far as I know, contemporary fantasy doesn't really catch their eye either.

Well, I don't think he's talking exclusively about epic fantasy. I think he's talking more about books that have fantastic or science fictional elements in them. That's an important distinction to make, I think - he definitely doesn't have GRRM in mind here. Also, it's important to keep in mind that we are basing this off quotes from a report made about Grossman's speech. Which I hadn't realized went down when I c/ped it so sorry about that.

>On a side note, does anyone actually know what specific works he's referring to when he says that fantasy has become a playground for experimentation?

The one thing I remember the article mentioning is that Jennifer Egan book that won the Pulitzer last year.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:16:00 2012 No.2596760

>>2596746

No, I'm telling the truth: the kind of academic who says it's all one - in return, invariably, for a fat payout from the publishers of the dreck defended - are precisely the equivalents of Amway hucksters. With every sentence they speak to help you, they're hindering you.

If it were absurd, you wouldn't yourself be pretending not to be a fantasy reader. You'll defend the stuff, but your self-image requires some distance from your fellow devotees. I know and meant what I said - you swallow the same things again and again, like hogs; unlike pedophiles you can't be punished or rehabilitated for the wrong you do.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:18:00 2012 No.2596763 >>2596754 No he can't, I'm still here. >>2596759 Kind of you to back down for him.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:21:01 2012 No.2596765 >>2596759 eg. Infinite Jest

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:22:01 2012 No.2596766 >>2596759 >I think he's talking more about books that have fantastic or science fictional elements in them eg. Infinite Jest

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:24:00 2012 No.2596770

>>2596759

>Well, I don't think he's talking exclusively about epic fantasy. I think he's talking more about books that have fantastic or science fictional elements in them. That's an important distinction to make, I think - he definitely doesn't have GRRM in mind here. Also, it's important to keep in mind that we are basing this off quotes from a report made about Grossman's speech. Which I hadn't realized went down when I c/ped it so sorry about that.

Yes, it would be very helpful if we actually had the speech, rather than two short quotes.

>The one thing I remember the article mentioning is that Jennifer Egan book that won the Pulitzer last year.

That's not a name I know. I'll check her out.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:24:00 2012 No.2596771 >>2596738 >>2596738 >>2596738 >>2596738 >>2596738 Any time you want, riddle me this: how is Jonathan Franzen of the third person narration, suburban settings and concept of the "Contract Writer" a modernist?

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:26:01 2012 No.2596773 >>2596766 lol no >>2596770 I look forward to someone posting the part about how GRRM's not included because his fans would like to turn Grossman into a lampshade.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:26:01 2012 No.2596774 >>2596770 She's been compared to Vollmann and DFW. Ick.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:29:00 2012 No.2596776 >>2596773 >lol no Infinite Jest is a science fiction book. A pretty prescient one at that.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:30:00 2012 No.2596778

Another point, /lit/izens. Observe how often arguments that fantasy readers frame as pleas for inclusion turn out, on reading, to be Genre Uber Alles declarations that their fun is the only game in town.

> "Fantasy is indisputably the idiom people are paying attention to. If Joyce wrote Ulysses now, he’d make it a fantasy. I think any ambitious writer right now would be mad not to be exploring fantasy."

Obey obey, consume consume, it's the survival of the fittest (seller).

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:31:00 2012 No.2596779 >>2596776 1. No. 2. There is no such thing as prescience. We call that "fiction".

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:34:13 2012 No.2596784 >>2596776 In the same sense, I guess, that Erice's The Spirit of the Beehive is a Frankenstein movie.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:35:03 2012 No.2596786

>>2596778

Define what you mean by "genre fiction" already, this discussion is useless if it's not clear what you mean by that. Is it all books that have fantastical/science fiction elements or is it books that cater to certain pre-packaged scenarios and cliches in a particular genre?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:35:03 2012 No.2596787 >>2596779 The book is set in the future and heavily features fictional science, eg. "annular fusion" and the various technological advances.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:35:03 2012 No.2596788 The real idiom that people are paying attention to is the celebrity hardback. If Joyce were around today, he'd have the common decency to be famous.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:38:00 2012 No.2596790 >>2596786 Why are you doing this to yourself? You know what genre fiction is. Why are you trying to waste my time by pretending day is night? >>2596787 Using tropes and ticking boxes are two entirely different things. Also, >>2596784

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:38:00 2012 No.2596791 Just ignore him, jesus christ. Isn't it clear that he just wants attention?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:40:01 2012 No.2596797 >>2596790 >tropes Stop misusing this word pls thx

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:41:01 2012 No.2596800

Well Fantasy IS the big thing now, at least in the world in general. You can thank the Lord of the Rings movies for that. I remember I was in middle school when they came out. Before they came out everybody laughed at me for reading "nerd" books, or reading in general. Soon as FotR came out they all had copies as well and suddenly wanted to be friends.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:41:01 2012 No.2596801 >>2596790 Why are you a coward who refuses to define the words he uses? You are aware words can have different meanings, right? You're the one wasting time here with your childish bullshit.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:42:00 2012 No.2596803

>>2596791

Stop talking to yourself in public. There is nothing you can do to prevent people from telling the truth. I cannot make it any plainer than that. Fantasy is for, as one sci-fi critic put it, "little boys who are not too bright at school". It is not literature. I'm not interested in giving a definition of basic terminology so that some little pissant can grab anecdotal almost-evidence out of his ass for why I'm wrong - the next morning, the dog is a dog, the man is a man. Any thread that promotes the false claims made for this bilge on /lit/ will be answered in this fashion providing I am awake and sufficiently amused. There's no debate, there's no doubt. If you want to bullshit, I will be here to recognize the fact and spoil your pleasure in deceit and onanism. That is all.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:42:00 2012 No.2596805 >>2596801 Is Ahab the same guy who told us that we were shit-eaters for liking Tolkien? I only ask because BOTH of them refused to articulate their position beyond "you know what I mean"

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:44:01 2012 No.2596810

>>2596803
So what you're saying is that you're going to shit on any discussion of fantasy on /lit/ because it's bad and not worth discussing, and you know it's bad because you know it is. It simply is, dogmatically, beyond argument. As a matter of faith, the sure and certain knowledge of the shittiness of anything which might be described as fantasy.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:46:00 2012 No.2596818 Ahab is shaping up to be an adequate successor to Deep & Edgy. Carry on.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:46:00 2012 No.2596820

>>2596801

Yeah, like how you call it 'consent' when most people would call it 'statutory rape'. Cut this Pontius Pilate crap. People who read literature have no need of it, you know.

Here is a definition for you:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genre_fiction

>>2596800

What about celebrity hardbacks?

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:47:00 2012 No.2596822 >>2596810 You articulate my position precisely. Enjoy.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:48:01 2012 No.2596824 >>2596810 Wait, I just read that again: your last sentence appears to be missing words. Still, a good attempt.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:49:01 2012 No.2596826

>>2596820
You are, again, comparing genre fiction readers to pedophiles.

I would submit that this is not the action of a reasonable man.

>>2596822
There seems to be little use in arguing against someone's profession of faith. I would only point out that it is a profession of faith, and ask, in general, whether or not professions of faith are good things to go about making in regards to literature.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:50:00 2012 No.2596827 >>2596805 No. Do you make a habit of posting these kinds of threads, then? I guess if it keeps you away from the playgrounds, that's cool.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:51:00 2012 No.2596829
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I'm sorry guys, but the boundary between fiction/fantasy can never actually disappear. They are literally two polar genres

The fact that it is a popular trend to cross the two does not mean either is dead.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:51:00 2012 No.2596830 >>2596827 Wait, you're not even comparing genre fiction readers to pedophiles, you're saying that genre fiction readers literally ARE pedophiles. Wow.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:52:00 2012 No.2596831

>>2596820

>Genre Fiction, also known as Popular Fiction, is a term for fictional works (novels, short stories) written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.

Good to know, so by genre fiction you don't simply mean any book that has fantastical/science fiction elements.

But then why are you talking about all of fantasy as if it's one big blob of shit?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:55:00 2012 No.2596833 >>2596829 They're only genres as much as we recognize them as such. That's kind of the whole point. The divide hasn't always existed, and there's no reason why we should expect it to carry on forever.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 14:57:01 2012 No.2596837

>>2596826

Again, stock phrases from how people wrote before the fantasy genre began. Sad.

Genre fiction's not being literature is not my homemade creed, it's an established fact. To people who do the "ah, what is truth" bullshit, any belief in empirical fact takes on a religious aspect, and I certainly couldn't be any more fervent in affirming these facts if they were my religion, so I have no objection to your calling my position "dogmatic". To you I must be as incomprehensible as all those children who claim they weren't trying to seduce you. Genre fiction is not literature, and I have as little interest in your idea of what makes a good literary discussion as I would have in your idea of a reasonable age of consent.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:57:01 2012 No.2596838 >>2596830 See any Game of Thrones thread in /tv/ to confirm Ahab's assertion.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:58:01 2012 No.2596839

Fuck these shitty types of threads. Literature as an academic subject is just a ridiculous subject to discuss unless of course you have fuck all else to spout out about that actually matters. Ahab makes me want to kill myself and is single-handedly removing my hope of a better humanity with his oozing drivel. In the words of Professor Quirrell: "There's a troll in the dungeon!"

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 14:59:00 2012 No.2596840
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>>2596833
That is actually a fucking mistake right there buddy.

Reality is not lack of reality. There is a concrete difference right there, no matter what the tendency of literary forms is at the present. Just because there historically has been a crossover does not mean that neither form really exists. It is true however to say that genres are constructs, but this does not mean "stories written about real life" are the same as "stories written about things that are not real life"

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:00:00 2012 No.2596841 >>2596839 Why you should think Ahab is representative of a literary scholar is beyond me. I'm >>2596720 >>2596723 >>2596750 Among a few others. I actually am a literary scholar. Ahab is just elitist, a troll, and possibly insane.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:01:00 2012 No.2596842 >>2596831 Are you literally unable to comprehend the English language? It is one blob of shit. >>2596833 Yes it has! That's the point, numbskull, yes it fucking has.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:01:00 2012 No.2596844 If you feel that Ahab is trolling then report him. If you do not then don't. If you do feel like he is then ignore him and actually discuss the topic of the thread.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:02:01 2012 No.2596845

>>2596837
>Genre fiction's not being literature is not my homemade creed, it's an established fact.

If it is an established fact, it must have evidence. But what evidence does it have? Can I touch the difference between genre fiction and literature? Can I smell it? Is it a physical thing, whose existence I can recognize by the evidence of my senses? It is not. Can it be established by data, by the accumulation of facts? Are there numbers and equations which delineate precisely the character of the difference between genre fiction and literary fiction? There are not. Where, then, is the evidence for this? How is it a fact? If there is evidence, it is the evidence of opinion and aesthetic taste; but evidence of this kind does not and cannot establish something as a fact. It cannot even, by its own weight alone, establish something as a truth. It can prove that people say it; but it cannot prove that it is so.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:03:01 2012 No.2596846 >>2596842 >It is one blob of shit. How come?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:04:00 2012 No.2596847 >>2596838 Well I greatly enjoy fantasy but I feel like GRRM tries way too hard to be GRITTY and DARK, what with all the rape and KILL EVERYONE WHO YOU LIKE. Not a big fan of his.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:04:00 2012 No.2596848 >>2596840 No story is about real life. That's impossible. Even if you were to tell me an anecdote or something that actually happened to you, it would not be 'real life'. It would be a mimicking of it from a certain perspective. No word is the thing.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:06:01 2012 No.2596852

>>2596838

Thanks for the citation.
>>2596840

I wish you luck trying to get through to them, good anon.
>>2596841

Elitism is a meaningless accusation, because it can only ever be an accusation. It's like 'premature anti-Fascist' or 'rootless cosmopolitan'. It's a slur. No, I'm not a troll. I'm the reverse of a troll, if anything. Insane? No, you must be insane if you think anyone who claims to be what you claim to be uses the phrase "literary scholar".

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:07:01 2012 No.2596857

To kind of answer OP's starting question, fantasy as a genre has no limits which provides it with a larger canvas than say, American realism which has dominated "literary fiction" for 60-70 years. However, the problem with fantasy isn't with the conventions of the genre, which are not qualitatively inferior or superior to any other generic conventions, but with the rapacity of the market. One reason why fantasy has become stagnant is due to the frantic repeated waves of novels and series that are interested in only economic transaction. Since, as one anon pointed out, the main demographic for fantasy is white middle class males with disposable income, they are the ones buying the fantasy. The fans of any stagnant genre is just as complicit in the stagnation as the authors. Fans should be demanding more from their authors and vice versa. Grossman is one of few to be doing this, but in a rather limited and frankly disingenuous manner. I personally don't read fantasy, as it's not my cup of tea, but I would never make the outrageous claim that it is a useless or qualitatively bad genre in comparison with any other. The literary camp that Grossman points to has just as many generic conventions as fantasy.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:07:01 2012 No.2596858
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>>2596848
That is completely untrue. If it is about "real life" it follows the physical conventions of real life. Just because we create an abstract story consisting of invented parts, the thing that makes it fiction is that it follow real world conventions rather than creating ones that don't exist

Therefore, there is an immobile divide

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:08:01 2012 No.2596859

>>2596833
Genre fiction actually is an established commercial enterprise. Book companies have defined genres based on what sells. I know for romance novels it's really specific, they provide guidelines for all their subgenres.

It does seem like there must be some fantasy fiction getting published outside of strict genres though.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:09:01 2012 No.2596862

>>2596845
>>2596848

Autism.

>>2596846

Because it's not literature. Everyone is perfectly clear on what literature is, and is not. Only certain people choose to pretend not to get this stuff. You're like Hot Topic atheists, wasting your valuable time running interference on serious discussion.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:10:00 2012 No.2596864 >>2596847 There's hardly any rape depicted in the 5000+ pages that make up the series. Most of it is in book 1 with the dothraki.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:10:00 2012 No.2596865

all fiction consists of representations of reality, numbnuts. to a greater or lesser extent. fiction is by its very nature not merely a mimicking of reality. fantasy fiction strays further from the external details of our reality, although if it is any good at all it will still reflect human realities.

>>2596859
there is. but no one who is criticizing fantasy ITT has read any of it, because they're all idiots or trolls.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:11:00 2012 No.2596868

>>2596858

>If it is about "real life" it follows the physical conventions of real life.

The phrase "I ran to the tree." involves no actual running, no actual speaker, and no actual tree. Therefore it does not follow the physical conventions of reality, does not mimic real life, and therefore makes absolutely no sense at all.

It it a series of five words that stand in for abstract concepts. There is nothing physical about them. They follow no physical conventions at all, besides the ones you thrust upon them with other abstract concepts.

You can it follows the physical conventions of reality? It also follows the physical conventions of the planet Barbuty. What an interesting coincidence.

No word is the thing.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:11:00 2012 No.2596869

>>2596862
>Everyone is perfectly clear on what literature is, and is not.

Well, that's clearly not true, since many in this thread apparently don't get what literature is by your definition.

>Only certain people choose to pretend not to get this stuff.

lollin irl

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:12:00 2012 No.2596873

>>2596862

>Because it's not literature. Everyone is perfectly clear on what literature is, and is not. Only certain people choose to pretend not to get this stuff. You're like Hot Topic atheists, wasting your valuable time running interference on serious discussion.

No, "genre fiction", using the definition you used, is not literature. Fantasy and literature on the other hand are not mutually exclusive.

Genre fiction and the fantasy genre aren't the same thing you imbecile.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:13:00 2012 No.2596877

>>2596858
>>2596859

This is it. Maybe a good epigrammic definition would be that genre fiction is the stuff which is liked less the more inventive it is. Lethem's a good example of someone who had to leave his original genre almost by mutual consent because, as he put it, the stuff he didn't like about SF was what everyone else liked and the stuff he liked was what everyone else disliked as aberrant.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:15:01 2012 No.2596880

>>2596877
if your whole protest was against genre fiction, and if you were willing to accept that fantasy was good as long as it was not genre fiction, you should probably have said so, instead of throwing up your arms like an obstinate child and refusing to define anything. because in providing that definition you probably would have defused a lot of confusion and come off like less of a stubborn, ridiculous ass.

i mean, you would have been a stubborn ridiculous ass either way, but things would have been a lot clearer.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:15:01 2012 No.2596881

>>2596868
Oh the lies people tell. Abstract concepts are inevitable, just because we can have an argument about not knowing the exact curvature of a circle doesn't mean a circle doesn't exist.

These abstract concepts are trying to convey reality in the sense that we are familiar with. They do not try to invent concepts different from reality in the sense we know of it, even if personal perceptions of reality may differ.

Therefore, you are kidding yourself here

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:17:00 2012 No.2596884

>>2596881

>These abstract concepts are trying to convey reality in the sense that we are familiar with.

Trying and failing.

>They do not try to invent concepts different from reality in the sense we know of it, even if personal perceptions of reality may differ.

This is clever. You say that they are trying to mimic reality in the sense that WE(ALL THE PEOPLE!) know it, and then say that every single personal perception of reality is different.

Which is it, smart guy?

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:25:00 2012 No.2596895

>>2596884
Reality exists. That is my assumption, and I believe the fact I can't just make it go away is evidence enough for me. Extend argumentation on the basis that reality exists, and you will find your argument does not hold up. Are people part of reality? Yes. Can we observe the functions of people? Yes. Therefore, even though there may exist differing interpretations of something there is still a definite form to thought as it is material.

So, going back to the argument. Just because people are making abstractions trying to mimick reality does not mean they are engaging in fantasy intentionally trying to create something which does not exist and has no basis for existing. Whereas it is possible to imagine different circumstances of a situation, to actually intentionally choose to create something which does not exist and has not been seen to exist in reality, then the act is fantasy.

An extreme example to prove a point: Ring Wraiths and the world that supports them is different from say, Gatsby in the great Gatsby.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:27:01 2012 No.2596899

>>2596868

Autism.

>>2596873

Stop digging. The fantasy genre is a subset of genre fiction.

Let's see if I can explain this.

The truth is, there is a smaller and smaller level of overlap between the educated classes and the literate population. Once, these were essentially one and the same - the educated were the literate, the literate were the educated. No amount of 'words mean what I want them to mean' will change the fact that the fantasy audience's pre-modernist equivalents wouldn't even have been *in the room* for conversations about literary merit. In that period of modernity which was pre-modernist, literate people to whom sensationalist fiction was marketed read it as entertainment, knowingly. They had no illusions about its quality. Now we have a literate society without literature that still enjoys reading. We're living in the brief interregnum between the end of literature as a force in the lives of the majority of literate people, and the death of its appeal as a concept, as something to be said for a work. So you want to claim genre fiction as literature, even though literature itself has no value to you - I have yet to hear an explanation of how Franzen can be regarded as modernist, because none of the people arguing against the facts I've stated think it a telling enough error to bother with. Oh, but it is. It speaks volumes.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:27:01 2012 No.2596901 So what he's saying is we're losing books that have strong messages and literary significance, and shifting more towards fantasy novels? It's like we're reentering the Romantic period, but with some slight changes.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:29:00 2012 No.2596905 >>2596880 FANTASY IS GENRE FICTION, MORON! LEARN TO READ! I don't care what opinion you have of me, because you don't know good from bad!

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:29:00 2012 No.2596906

>>2596895
yes, but neither gatsby nor the ringwraiths are real. you can't meet the one any more than you can meet the other. and the fact that the world in which gatsby lives resembles ours more than the world in which frodo lives is not in itself an argument that the one is better than the other. if Gatsby is better than Lord of the Rings, it's because it's a better book, with better writing and more interesting matter, not merely because the world in which gatsby moves happens to resemble the real long island of our world.

saying that the merit of a book is intrinsically connected to its mirroring of our reality seems intensely small-minded. surely it's the creation of the author that matters - his artistry in creating these characters and moving them through the plot, the skill of his prose, the depth which his creation attains? it seems to me that none of the really important things about a novel have to do with the mirroring of our world. if that was the central point of a novel, you would do better to read non-fiction, which really does mirror our reality.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:30:00 2012 No.2596910 >>2596884 Autism. >>2596895 You have the patience of a saint!

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:31:00 2012 No.2596912 >>2596906 Autism.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:34:01 2012 No.2596917

>>2596906
Did I say I liked the great gatsby? I don't

moving along here. Gatsby existed in a world obviously trying to mimick the intrinsic properties of our own. Even if some parts of reality are contorted to make a point or drive the story, the author has worked within the plausible confines of what we would consider reality.That is what makes it fiction

Lord of the rings purposely extends reality with a mythological cosmos. All sorts of things which have no seeming basis for existing are created with clear intent to rupture what we think of as conventional reality. Therefore, it is fantasy.

Pretty sure I've explained this to you alaredy

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:35:01 2012 No.2596921

>>2596899

>The fantasy genre is a subset of genre fiction.

Not by the definition you yourself presented, moron.

>Genre Fiction, also known as Popular Fiction, is a term for fictional works (novels, short stories) written with the intent of fitting into a specific literary genre in order to appeal to readers and fans already familiar with that genre.

"appealing to readers already familiar with the genre" is not what all works that belong in the fantasy genre set out to do.

A book belongs to the fantasy genre if it has fantastical elements in it, that is all. If you want to argue how having fantastical elements by itself makes a book shit, go ahead, otherwise you have no argument.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:36:00 2012 No.2596926

>>2596917
>Did I say I liked the great gatsby? I don't

IF gatsby is better. the actual literary judgment is kind of beside the point here.

>Gatsby existed in a world obviously trying to mimick the intrinsic properties of our own. Even if some parts of reality are contorted to make a point or drive the story, the author has worked within the plausible confines of what we would consider reality.That is what makes it fiction. Lord of the rings purposely extends reality with a mythological cosmos. All sorts of things which have no seeming basis for existing are created with clear intent to rupture what we think of as conventional reality. Therefore, it is fantasy.

okay. i accept that as a valid, valuable distinction between fantasy and non-fantasy fiction. (although i would say that even fantasy like the lord of the rings contains things that are realistic). but i don't see any reason to suppose that the one thing must necessarily be worse, judged as literature, than the other.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:39:00 2012 No.2596932 >>2596921 > "appealing to readers already familiar with the genre" is not what all works that belong in the fantasy genre set out to do. Incorrect.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:41:00 2012 No.2596936 What you begin to notice is that many fantasy readers don't understand the difference between fantasy and reality. Hence my comparison and identification of them with pedophiles, who confuse their desire for its reciprocation.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:41:00 2012 No.2596937 >>2596917 So does that mean One Hundred Years of Solitude is fantasy, or is it not quite fantastical enough? Where do we draw the line? Is some Kafka fantasy and some Kafka not fantasy?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:41:00 2012 No.2596938 >>2596932 >I'll say things that are obviously untrue, and then say that anyone who disagrees with me is autistic, a pedophile, or lying! You. This is what you do.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:43:01 2012 No.2596940

>>2596932

Oh, "incorrect"?

Shit, I can't argue against that rock solid argument.

Having fantastical elements != trying to appeal to fans of the fantasy genre

Just like having motorcycles be a big part of your story doesn't necessarily mean you're trying to appeal to bikers, it just means you have fucking motorcycles in your story.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:44:00 2012 No.2596943 >>2596938 No, what you said was clearly untrue. For your own sake, try to understand this. It's nothing to do with me - you did either tell a lie, or retreat into delusion. Fantasy novels are aimed at fantasy readers. It's not up for debate.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:44:00 2012 No.2596944

Everyone knows that sheep are actually very small rocks. It's simply clear to everyone, except people who are lying becuse of their small minds. Don't try to ask me for definitions of sheep or rocks, you damned autists, you know what it means! It's only people who like to fuck children who can't acknowledge this.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:45:00 2012 No.2596946

>>2596926
Ahahahaha oh man. So this was actually the quality debate in disguise the whole time? Seriously?

I am not even arguing about the value assumption of fantasy as being less than fiction, I think that idea is stupid. What I am arguing about is idea that fiction is the same as fantasy.

>>2596937
You're right to say that absolute definitions are very tricky. We can go with a spectrum idea here. I haven't read one hundred years, but would probably slide Kafka somewhere in between fiction and fantasy

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:47:01 2012 No.2596950

This is important to recognize. Slaughterhouse-Five is certainly fiction--one might even call it science fiction. However, SH5 carries far more purpose in its writing than Dune or I, Robot, for example. The same goes for fantasy. It's important to differentiate between books that involve analysis and which convey messages or changes in perspective, and those that are written for plot or shallow allegory (Narnia, for instance). Just as we use genres in music to make it easier for us to find music that we enjoy, we must have this separation in books so that those of us who place great importance on the use of plot, style, and metaphor (only examples, of course) to progress a message can find what we want, and others can find what they want.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:47:01 2012 No.2596951

>>2596943
In a pedantic and banal sense, you are right. Novels are aimed at readers; fantasy readers are those who read fantasy; therefore, fantasy novels are aimed at fantasy readers, since anyone who reads them immediately becomes, ipso facto, a fantasy reader.

This is not a meaningful sense, however. And it is certainly NOT true that all fantasy novels are aimed at fantasy readers in a marketing or business sense - not all fantasy novels are written to take advantage of the expectations and preferences of fantasy readers so that they can sell more. This is more or less the case for epic fantasy, but it's simply not true for epic fantasy. You're simply wrong - it's not true. It is obviously untrue to anyone with adequate knowledge of the genre.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:48:00 2012 No.2596954 >>2596946 oh sorry i took you to be arguing about quality my b, my b

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:48:00 2012 No.2596955

>>2596940

You don't have an argument. I can picture myself riding a motorcycle. You can picture yourself summoning a ring-wraith. But I can ride a motorcycle. You can't summon a ringwraith. Imagination and fantasy are two entirely different things. Imagination suggests to me that you think reality is too limiting a field for fiction because your reality is drab, limited and disheartening. Fantasy suggests to you that it doesn't matter if you can picture yourself fighting ogres. One is an attempt to understand. The other is an attempt to escape. One meets the world; the other doesn't want the world to see it.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:51:00 2012 No.2596962

>>2596943

(1) "Appealing to readers already familiar with the genre" is what all works that belong in the fantasy genre set out to do.
(2) A person can not be familiar with a genre if that genre does not exist.
(3) For a genre to exist there must be books within that genre.
(4) The first fantasy novel would have to have been written to appeal to readers of a genre that didn't exist.
(5) There are no fantasy books.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:52:01 2012 No.2596966 >>2596955 Can you actually ride a motorcycle though? Need proof.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:53:01 2012 No.2596970
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>>2596656
haha just look at my wonderful elven house, built entirely out of wood and magic and 'clay'!

>>2596723
That last bit is indeed the main flaw of the passage, popular fiction and literature can mix, but only >>2596720 in a literary work of course, which incorporates and uses the 'low-culture' element within a larger frame.

>>2596906
>>2596917
My theoretical (some copy-paste) 2c in this burning thread, from reading Irwin's work on fantasy:
The chief mechanism of fantasy/sci-fi is to show what is not real and cannot be real by presenting it as fact (so it's dependent on the real by negation). Even if fantasy expresses a culture that is inverted, it still has to adhere to the codes of that society to get its point across.
This means fantasy fiction has to conventionalize its radical imaginative potential: one becomes extremely conscious of its use of the imaginary, since this use is being thematized (fantasy has to constantly *wink* at the reader for it to also convey its meaning in the light of reality).
Fantasy is doomed to be a stale 'type' or genre within literature, since it has to pander to popular taste both in its depiction of an imaginative society and in its presentation as a work of imagination.
So fantasy readers aren't paedophiles exactly, but they aren't readers of literature either - i'd say something in between ;)?

>>2596937
Well, what happens in Kafka that sounds fantastical? Granted, there's Metamorphosis, but Samsa just doesn't give a fuck

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 15:55:01 2012 No.2596977

>>2596951

You seem conflicted. It's about time. Yes, all fantasy novels are aimed at the existing market for fantasy. If you think this is a cynical accusation, again, grow the fuck up. Without that audience desperately scanning the covers for Tolkien comparisons and the right kind of acrylic painting, the genre would not exist.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:56:00 2012 No.2596978

>>2596955

How does fantasy elements = escapism? Why can't a fantasy element be used to help understand something about human experience, just like technology is used in science fiction to help illustrate philosophical quandaries?

Sounds like you're stuck in your narrow-minded dogma and dealing in absolutes because it's easier for your tiny brain to categorize things.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 15:59:00 2012 No.2596982 >>2596977 They probably use graphics tablets now, rather than acrylic. How would you categorize One Hundred Years of Solitude?

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 16:03:01 2012 No.2596993

>>2596966

Sure, if I learn how it differs from a bicycle and go buy one. Meanwhile, can you summon a ring-wraith? Need proof.

>>2596970

Heheh!

> So fantasy readers aren't paedophiles exactly, but they aren't readers of literature either - i'd say something in between ;)?

I can live with this bold new theory, given time. :D

Of course, the elephant in the room, the real reason fantasy and fiction get confused, is that to many of its readers, sexual intercourse is less conceivable or probable than a raid on Mordor.

>>	hi guys fish Fri Apr 27 16:04:01 2012 No.2596996 File: 25 KB, 348x224, 1330447853747.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] i like buks lets talk about some buks about a fish

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 16:06:01 2012 No.2596999 >>2596978 Read what I wrote again, and think.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:06:01 2012 No.2597000

Every single person in this thread who has responded to an Ahab post is completely retarded. So is Ahab. Since this thread has become too shitty to survive we are obligated let it die, so unless you are retarded you will not swallow any more of the response bait that Ahab or samefag posters put up.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:07:01 2012 No.2597001 >>2596970 I've run out of time to argue with you and will be back in several hours. This isn't over

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:10:01 2012 No.2597004

>>2596993
If I directed my own adaptation of LOTR I could have an actor who, in the context of being on set, when asked whether he was a ringwraith would say "Yes." I'd summon him by name and if he was minimally cooperative he'd probably come over to me. Mine was actually easier.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 16:10:01 2012 No.2597005

>>2597000

If only it were that easy.
>>2597001

> This isn't over

OK, everyone, everyone? Look. This is how fantasy readers really talk and think. Not:

> "Grossman’s thesis is that the very concept of novels being split into ‘literary’ and ‘genre’ camps took hold during the 1920s with the modernist project to reject plot and narrative as a valid way of representing the world. Until then, the gothic horror of Dracula, the self-referential experimentation of Tristram Shandy and the romantic comedy of Pride and Prej had been permitted to happily co-exist under the single, unjudgmental category of fiction."

OK? Not that. They talk like this:

> This isn't over

- because Mom's calling them for supper. I trust this has been profitable.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:11:01 2012 No.2597009 >>2596729 This is a great insight. Thanks for posting it.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:11:01 2012 No.2597010 >>2596999 Now I'm starting to think you're trolling. I really should have picked up on that sooner.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 16:16:00 2012 No.2597022

>>2597004

> If I directed my own adaptation of LOTR I could have an actor who, in the context of being on set, when asked whether he was a ringwraith would say "Yes." I'd summon him by name and if he was minimally cooperative he'd probably come over to me. Mine was actually easier.

No, mine is, because PROTIP: it can really happen.

Caracalla !!S1oOkTjvsv2 Fri Apr 27 16:17:00 2012 No.2597023

This question has probably already being addressed somewhere in this thread, but where is the boom town in fantasy?

You have a lot of authors skilfully crafting these ugly wish fulfillment scenarios designed to intoxicate its prepubescent audience with foolery, and then you have the ones that create these often very nicely plotted potboilers that are just massive, sprawling things, designed to squeeze very penny out of the cult audience they generate.

Where's the Sci-fi/fantasy high-brow?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:18:01 2012 No.2597026 >>2596790 >Tropes I think you mean, 'conventions'

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 16:19:01 2012 No.2597030

>>2597009

No problem!

>>2597010

No, I'm not. I'm telling you the truth, the difference between imagination and fantasy is of kind, not of degree, and the people who don't want you to know that are the people who make money from the confusion.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:19:01 2012 No.2597032 >>2597022 I did exactly what you did; I suggested a context where it would be true.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 16:21:00 2012 No.2597042 >>2597032 No, you fantasized a context where it would be true, and even there, it wasn't. You had to imagine someone pretending to be a ring-wraith. I don't have to imagine someone pretending to be a motorcycle.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:23:01 2012 No.2597054 >>2597030 Why can't fantasy elements be used to say something about human experience, just like technology is used in sci-fi?

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 16:25:00 2012 No.2597060 >>2597054 Do you have trouble remembering my earlier comments about genre fiction?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:25:00 2012 No.2597062 Ahab, when will you start to explain your assertions? This far into the thread you have posted nothing but rhetoric.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:27:01 2012 No.2597066

>>2597042
You had to imagine that you would be able to ride a motorcycle. I just had to imagine that someone would respond to being called a ring-wraith. You didn't specify what makes somebody a ring-wraith. If an actor says he's a ring-wraith it's because that's what he is. There would be no denying him. In that scenario he would be in every way encouraged to identify himself as a ring-wraith.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:28:00 2012 No.2597067 Hey the link is working again. FYI.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:34:00 2012 No.2597080

>>2597060

>motorcycles are real, ring-wraiths aren't

That jargon? Yeah, I remember that, that has no relation to my question though.

Technology in sci-fi can be used to help illustrate ideas about consciousness, memory and what it means to be human, it can be used to help illustrate different kinds of societies and human behavior.

Fantasy elements can do the same thing, there is no argument for why they couldn't. You got nothing, sport.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:37:01 2012 No.2597090 >>2597080 I kept trying to bring up One Hundred Years of Solitude because that's more or less what it uses fantasy elements for. Of course I bet genre-fantasy fanboys would defend fantasy elements on that basis too.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:38:00 2012 No.2597093

>>2597023
There is no Sci-fi/fantasy high-brow. Some nerds would probably argue otherwise and point to legitimate works of literature that could be said to have used Sci-fi/fantasy conventions in some way and to some degree, but all of these are so divorced from the genre in general that they can hardly be considered Sci-fi/fantasy anyway

>>	Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Fri Apr 27 16:41:02 2012 No.2597107 File: 83 KB, 448x595, a-greek-woman-alma-tadema.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] What is fantasy but mythology taken for the fiction it is from the start.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:43:02 2012 No.2597113 >>2597107 a marketing scheme

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:43:02 2012 No.2597116

>>2597093

>legitimate works of literature that could be said to have used Sci-fi/fantasy conventions in some way and to some degree, but all of these are so divorced from the genre in general that they can hardly be considered Sci-fi/fantasy anyway

It doesn't need to abide to "conventions" to be sci-fi or fantasy, all it needs to do is have sci-fi or fantasy elements (like technology that doesn't exist now or supernatural things of any kind).

This bullshit about "if it's a respected piece of literature it's not REALLY fantasy or sci-fi" rests on the false premise that for a book to be fantasy or sci-fi it needs to abide to conventions of other works within the genre.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:45:00 2012 No.2597122 So what would you guys say about anovel like the Left Hand of Darkness

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:51:01 2012 No.2597142

>>2597116
All you're really doing here is expanding the category. Not very fruitful, IMO. Consider thise: most science fiction fans, who have read Gravity's Rainbow, for example, when asked if it's sci-fi, will say, "Oh, yeah, I guess it's kind of science fiction, but don't go in expecting much that you've seen in science fiction books before." In this regard, there is very little reason to call it sci-fi.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 16:56:00 2012 No.2597155

did you know that Queequeg from Moby-Dick comes from a fictional island of cannibals?

a fictional island of cannibals sounds an awful lot like fantasy to me, so i have to say that anyone who likes Moby-Dick is an autistic pedophile.

Along with the Metamorphosis, The Bible, Beowulf, The Odyssey, and Gulliver's Travels.

If you respond to me I will quote your message and say "Autism."

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:04:20 2012 No.2597171

>>2597142

That's kind of the problem though, it's snobby assholes pretending they're above sci-fi by making excuses for the sci-fi novels they do enjoy. It's bullshit based on the false premise (if it's good enough it's not sci-fi/fantasy) as I said.

If it has science fiction elements it is of the science fiction genre, all the while being "literary fiction", instead of "genre fiction" (which is fiction that caters to specific conventions within a certain genre, instead of just having elements of some genre).

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:08:17 2012 No.2597179 >>2597066 > Words mean what I want them to No bitch, they do not.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:09:17 2012 No.2597182

>>2597171
Except my hypothetical sci-fi fan is not a snobby asshole. He's just a typical nerd who's read hundreds of sci-fi books and knows all of the conventions and loves them, and just happened to at one point read Gravity's Rainbow because someone inaccurately told him that it's great science fiction. This is how the scenario typically plays out, in my experience.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:12:17 2012 No.2597190 Also, jargon doesn't mean what you think it does, cannibal tribes were legit anthropology in Melville's time, and no, that isn't the reason why those books you daren't read aren't genre fiction.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:13:17 2012 No.2597191 >>2597190 Autism.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:16:18 2012 No.2597200 >>2597191 Aw look, it thinks it's people.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:16:18 2012 No.2597202 >>2597200 Autism.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:17:18 2012 No.2597206 Fantasy fans would rather sage-bomb their threads with bullshit than have their reasoning shot to pieces in public, so I'll keep bumping this so the patient guy can complete the reaming.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:18:17 2012 No.2597208 >>2597206 Autism.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:18:17 2012 No.2597209 >>2597179 This argument applies to you as well.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:18:17 2012 No.2597210 >>2597191 >>2597202 Reported.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:18:17 2012 No.2597211 Remember children if you reply to a namefag you're no better than them.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:19:17 2012 No.2597212 >>2597210 Autism.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:21:18 2012 No.2597218 >>2597191 Ahab was legit in using Autism as an insult as the people he was responding to were guilty of the kind of pseudo-pedantry and fact-fetishism characteristic of the stereotypical autistic. You just sound like a petulant child.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:21:18 2012 No.2597220

>>2597182

Yeah, Gravity's Rainbow is not genre fiction, that's where the confusion lies. Just because some people get confused or are ignorant about correct definitions doesn't mean the book isn't science fiction though.

If one had to pick a term to describe Gravity's Rainbow, would it be "sci-fi"? No, it would be "literary fiction". That doesn't mean it isn't also sci-fi though.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:22:18 2012 No.2597221 >>2597218 Autism.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:22:18 2012 No.2597222 >>2597218 Sup Ahab.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:22:18 2012 No.2597223 >>2597206 You have yet to criticize Fantasy. What do you have against it?

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:23:18 2012 No.2597229 >>2597209 Indeed, but I don't want to distort or pervert the language. I have no depravity to protect from reason, unlike you.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Fri Apr 27 17:24:18 2012 No.2597231
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>>2597113
I answered myself. Note the absence of a question mark. The hyper-markets of our modern world ruin everything. A good book can be found in any genre of literature.

>>2597200
Quit being so pedantic.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:25:18 2012 No.2597233 >>2597229 You seem to be under the impression that I was the person with whom you were previously having an argument. This is not the case.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:27:17 2012 No.2597237 >>2597218 Thank you. I love that the scum think I'd be hiding from them by pretending to be an onlooker. Why hide from the judgment of people I don't respect?

>>	Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Fri Apr 27 17:29:17 2012 No.2597239 >>2597237 >Scum Get over yourself.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:29:17 2012 No.2597241 >>2597233 Don't interfere then, caitiff.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:30:17 2012 No.2597243 >>2597233 Anonymous is just a monolithic blob in the eyes of normal people. No one cares that you happen to be a distinct individual

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:30:17 2012 No.2597246 >>2597218 >>the people he was responding to were guilty of the kind of pseudo-pedantry and fact-fetishism characteristic of the stereotypical autistic. but that's what i was doing too, lol.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:31:17 2012 No.2597247 >>2597239 Stop trolling, please.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:33:18 2012 No.2597254
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>>2597122
Not the same poster but can somebody answer this? Many critics agree that it is a great piece of literature. I know he's controversial here but Harold Bloom said: "Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time". I would agree.

And there's no way you can say "Well that's not really sci-fi" with this one, it very clearly is.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:33:18 2012 No.2597260

>>2597246

I think any impartial onlooker would have to conclude that this thread has been a perfect illustration of the inability of genre fiction fans to keep their minds together when dealing with the standards of unbought, rational readers.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:34:17 2012 No.2597261 >>2597260 Autism.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:36:17 2012 No.2597266 boy, old peg-leg can't form an argument for shit, especially compared to D&E

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:37:17 2012 No.2597269

Ahab is your typical low tier college student. His professors barely know his name because he's too nervous to correct them. He always sits in the same seat, back left corner, and tries to act like he's bored or tired but in reality he listens to everything, smirking to himself about how dumb everyone sounds. After class, he calls his mom and yells at her to quickly pick him up, once home he rushes to his room and projects all his anger on /lit/ but only after a very quick masturbation session.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:37:17 2012 No.2597272 >/lit/ - Mature books for mature readers such as myself

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:38:17 2012 No.2597273 >article that's not an article, that's a blog

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:39:17 2012 No.2597289

>>2597254

Bloom edited a book on Tolkien for pay, and we know he has no time for Tolkien. The trick for him, I guess, is to only make the kind of compromises that nobody he respects would see him making. To be honest, I don't respect Bloom. He's an industry, not a critic.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:42:17 2012 No.2597298 >>2597289 Okay, fine. Let's pretend Bloom has no opinion on the book. There are plenty of other critics who agree it's a great work. What about them?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:42:17 2012 No.2597299 >>2597269 I disagree, I think he sits in the front of the class and frequently makes really witty and insightful comments on the subject matter and gets lots of pussy (or dick if he's a girl or gay guy).

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:42:17 2012 No.2597300 >>2597269 The problem with this kind of thing is you've got to be observant to do it. The kind of person you describe reads fantasy, not literature - in fact, you're describing yourself.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:43:17 2012 No.2597304 >>2597298 List them and their comments.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:45:18 2012 No.2597310 >>2597269 Personally I'm leaning towards Ahab being a mouthbreather who yells out an answer every time the professor asks a rhetorical question.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:47:17 2012 No.2597320 >>2597310 How you hate me for telling you the truth.

Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Fri Apr 27 17:49:18 2012 No.2597325
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>>2597247
I'm quite sincere, trippy m'lad. You are the one that seems to here itching for a mindless pedants debate, so you seem the one trolling.

>>2597272
>/lit/ - Mature books for mature readers such as myself
I know. On the one hand I like that this board is into serious literature, or at least tries to be most of the time, but I think we can be a little more helpful with the younger, "entry-level" if you will, readers. I remember throwing away much of my time on sci-fi and fantasy, but I transitioned. Patience children.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:50:18 2012 No.2597328 >>2597304 well wouldja look at all those literary critics at the bottom of that page who thought Lord of the Rings was good enough to merit serious criticism! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themes_of_The_Lord_of_the_Rings

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 17:51:17 2012 No.2597333 >>2597310 Oh no, trust me. I used to be friends with someone exactly like him. Funny enough, he was a high functioning autistic, someone who is on the borderline but still has that superficial, gnawing obsession to compartmentalize everything.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:54:17 2012 No.2597340 >>2597325 I don't want any sort of debate, and never have. I help people, you want to hurt them. >>2597328 Too idle to do as I asked, eh? Of course you are. Idle hogs, each and every one.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:57:18 2012 No.2597348 >>2597333 This is simply a lie. Nothing in my posts bears out this description, and the problem for you is, EVERYONE CAN READ WHAT I WROTE, DUMMY. How many people do you think you're going to be able to deceive?

>>	Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Fri Apr 27 17:59:18 2012 No.2597356 >>2597340 Pedantic autistic troll.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 17:59:18 2012 No.2597357 This is now a thread where scum attack a vertebrate out of petulance. Its entertainment value is almost done. For an explanation of current and future policy, read this older post: >>2596803

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:00:18 2012 No.2597361 >>2597356 Why do you object to my helping people?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:03:17 2012 No.2597367 >McEwan >Modernist The shit? Enduring Love was decidedly post-modern, and if anything actively criticizes the modernist viewpoint as represented by the character Joe Rose who is a retarded intolerant douchebag CUNT.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:04:17 2012 No.2597371 >>2597357 I like how you use a quotation from a sci fi critic to defend your point, while bashing sci fi.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:05:17 2012 No.2597373 >>2597340 the ratio of posts from anonymous to tripfags in this thread is disgustingly low. I expected better of you, ahab.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:07:18 2012 No.2597380 >>2597348 Bingo. I was right. Extreme defensiveness is another major sign of autism. Nothing angers an autistic more than when you uncover their supposed superior world of play blocks and dictionaries.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:09:17 2012 No.2597385 >>2597367 Exactly, they don't know because they don't read. >>2597371 I haven't bashed sci-fi, fantasy or anything else. I've just stated and re-stated the fact that genre fiction is not literature. >>2597373 What's wrong?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:09:17 2012 No.2597388 >>2597373 He's not quite as energetic as Deep&Edgy, but he's certainly more articulate.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:10:17 2012 No.2597389 >>2597367 We've been over this. It's fairly clear who he's referring to, he just used the wrong label. It's a very irrelevant point.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:10:17 2012 No.2597390 >>2597380 Again, you're not describing me and anyone who reads my posts can see that, so this isn't really going to get you anywhere.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:12:18 2012 No.2597405

>>2597385
take a great tripfriend like D&E. He'd be getting maybe 10 anonymous responses for every one of his posts. You, meanwhile, seem to be taking a more Hemingway-esque approach to posting, but let us not forget that Joyce was superior to Hemingway.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:14:17 2012 No.2597413

>>2597389

No, it's a CRUCIAL point. Earlier I asked for an explanation of how Franzen could be described as a modernist. I'm still waiting, because nobody who wants fantasy to be called "literature" actually reads literature. They just like the idea of the label. I went into this further in this post: >>2596899

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:17:18 2012 No.2597417 >>2597405 The earlier stuff contains more meat, at this point it's just fly-swatting until I can think of a good line to end on, or until that "lel" guy arrives.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:18:17 2012 No.2597421 >>2597390 Only an autistic person would obsess to the level you have over a description. It's a huge irony that you've taken the name Ahab, another autist.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:20:17 2012 No.2597428

>>2597385

>I haven't bashed sci-fi, fantasy or anything else.

>It is one blob of shit. (referring to fantasy)
>Fantasy is for, as one sci-fi critic put it, "little boys who are not too bright at school"

What are you doing here then?

>I've just stated and re-stated the fact that genre fiction is not literature.

Absolutely, genre fiction isn't literature.

Works that belong to the fantasy or sci-fi genre can be literature though (belonging to the fantasy or sci-fi genre meaning having supernatural or futuristic elements).

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:22:17 2012 No.2597435 >>2597421 This is what you said to the police when they obsessed over whether that kid you abducted could consent, isn't it?

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:23:17 2012 No.2597443

I enjoyed the article, but I left wondering what the hell kind of genre fantasy Grossman was referencing when praising fantasy.

I spent the better part of a decade reading more-or-less genre fantasy along with *-school literary assignments. I've read a larger number of authors than I particularly care to admit at this point; enough to be skeptical about Grossman's claims of fantasy.

Because unless I was a moron and totally missed the elephant series / novels in the room, fantasy seems to be the complete antitheses of literature. There very rarely is any substance outside of a plot - an often clever and well written plot, sure, but at the end of the day fantasy's primary shtick is depthless escapism. You don't even have to be a devout classicist or literary vet to recognize that.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:23:17 2012 No.2597446 >>2597428 Describing it accurately in the context of /lit/ - a board for the discussion of literature, no less. No, they can't. It's explicit in the sentence you just agreed with that the one that follows it isn't true.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:24:18 2012 No.2597449 Ahab has been posting in this thread consistently for 5 hours.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:25:18 2012 No.2597452 >>2597443 Thank you for your honesty.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:25:18 2012 No.2597453

I saw this thread hours ago when it first started. I can't believe you people are still replying to that brainless twit. Stop so he can actually get off the internet for 5 minutes. He is trolling you. I don't know how you guys can't see that with his delusional comparisons between pedophiles and fantasy readers. He probably has some kind of mental problem so he most likely can't take responsibility for his actions. You guys should do some reflection too for replying to him STILL.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:25:18 2012 No.2597454

I wish fantasy was better, I really do. I feel like it has so much potential to explore society, humanity and culture from a different perspective, or even just to create enjoyable and imaginative escapism, but at the moment it seems to do neither. It's just so bogged down in medieval Europe and knights and dragons and magic swords. What fantasy needs is someone to do for it what Philip Dick or Matheson or even Vonnegut did for sci-fi and create reasonably deep, meaningful 'literature' while staying vaguely within the genre confines. If someone pulled that off it could shake things up so much, but it's not going to happen because everyone's still much too busy ripping off pretty much the only fantasy writer who actually put thought into his works, despite the fact he's been dead for almost 40 years.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:27:17 2012 No.2597459

>>2597449
>>2597453

It kept being fun, so I kept the tab open, no diagnosis need apply. They answer because for most of the time it's only been me and one other guy who'll give them the time of day, and they want attention more than they fear ridicule. They know there's something wrong and they want to be helped, if only they could unkink their minds around the notion.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:29:17 2012 No.2597463 >>2597435 Fuck, I'm laughing so hard right now! You couldn't even phrase your comeback properly! You're devolving more and more into your autism! Right here on this thread for everyone to see, and to be recorded forever!

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:32:18 2012 No.2597471

>>2597446

>It's explicit in the sentence you just agreed with that the one that follows it isn't true.

"Genre fiction" does not refer to "all books that belong to a genre such as fantasy or sci-fi", it refers to "works of fiction that appeal to people who are already fans of the genre by using common conventions of the genre". It is also known as "Popular fiction".

I'm glad we cleared that up and I'm sure you now see your mistake.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:33:18 2012 No.2597474 >>2597449 he's doin it from his cell phone at an awesome friday night party, he's prob. drunk or high at this point so it's impressive that he can maintain such clear articulation, a testament to his vast and indefatigable intellect

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:34:17 2012 No.2597476 >>2597463 Laughing on your own, like you always do. There's no everyone. You're alone. "Devolving" conveys your descent into clumsy trolling very well. What do you hope to gain?

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:34:17 2012 No.2597477

>>2597454
Hi, its >>2597443

I completely agree with your post. So I'll spare a long winded reply and simply say I too wish the Tolkien circle jerking would end. At least there seems to be a noticeable decrease in books emphasizing THE QUEST for [plot device] and more of an increase in political intrigue and war games. Its slow progress though.

I've had daydreams of writing such a piece; I think a lot of us have at some point.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:34:17 2012 No.2597478 >>2597459 >one other guy don't worry bro, there's at least two of us

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:35:17 2012 No.2597479 >>2597471 Autism.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:36:17 2012 No.2597484

Can someone point out the differences that cause a high quality fantasy/sci fi fiction novel to be classified as "not literature" but other high quality fiction is "literature"?

And I don't want comments about how some fantasy is aimed at a certain audience and whatnot, I'm just talking about the content of the book. I still haven't seen anyone give a clear reason why a science fiction novel can't be as meaningful, intellectual, unique, etc, as a novel about a factory worker or something like that.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:36:17 2012 No.2597485 >>2597454 check out John Crowley for all that cool stuff you desire + some magic and faeries, he owns

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:37:17 2012 No.2597486 >>2597479 >if someone points out how I'm misusing words it's autism

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:37:17 2012 No.2597489

This has been a thread of two halves. The first part is about how genre fiction isn't literature. The second is about how much the hogs who read fantasy want me to be their father. Both have been pretty fun, but it's probably time to wrap up now, we're getting into diminishing returns.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:38:17 2012 No.2597491 >>2597489 >The second is about how much the hogs who read fantasy want me to be their father wat I hope you're just high because that would make all of this kinda funny.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:39:17 2012 No.2597494 >>2597484 See the difference between the dawgs playing poker and a work of art for reference.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:39:17 2012 No.2597495 All I know is a crap ton of tech advances we have is because of Star Trek.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:40:17 2012 No.2597496 >>2597494 But what if the dawgs playing poker had been painted by Michelangelo? Really makes you think..

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:40:17 2012 No.2597498 >>2597486 I'm not misusing words, you dumb motherfucker! Why do you refuse to accept reality?

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:41:17 2012 No.2597500 >>2597495 >>2597496 lol

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:43:17 2012 No.2597504 >>2597498 The way you're using "genre fiction" doesn't match the definition you provided by linking the Wikipedia entry on "genre fiction".

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:43:17 2012 No.2597505 >>2597500 It's true. The creator the MRI was inspired by one of McCoy's devices. Cell phones by communicators. http://www.pcworld.com/article/164195/star_trek_tech_we_use_today_almost.html

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:43:17 2012 No.2597506

>>2597494
You've said absolutely nothing with this statement, doing exactly what I advised against (but thought you would do anyway, of course). You're comparing a work of art to something that while perhaps entertaining, is not art.

I'm talking about a sci fi/fantasy novel that has all the important qualities that many people look for in literature, not just a simple, overdone story that takes place on a different planet or other fantastic setting. Tell me why you think that isn't literature, and maybe try to do it in more than one sentence, because these comments really aren't helpful to anyone (even though that's what you're claiming to be doing here).

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:44:18 2012 No.2597507 >>2597505 The MRI may be a great thing for humanity, but don't even try to defend cell phones..

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:44:18 2012 No.2597508 Hey, Ahab, are The Odyssey and Beowulf genre fiction?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:45:18 2012 No.2597511 >>2597507 I didn't say great for humanity. All I said was tech advances. And cell phones are that. I cringe when I see tween brats texting away as well.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:46:17 2012 No.2597513

>>2597476

In all seriousness, I'm not trolling you. I'm simply making fun of who you are.

I want you to imagine this thread as the classroom you sit in everyday. But this time, everyone knows the truth about you, and one by one they all slowly turn their heads and start laughing.

I think it's time for you to leave the thread and run home crying to your mommy. Bye Bye!

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:52:17 2012 No.2597520

>>2597504

Yes it does.

>>2597505

There are a lot of great things in this world that have nothing to do with literature. Maybe if the fantasy readers thought about that they wouldn't get their jimmies rustled, but like their treasure-horny heroes, they want the status of that golden term, literature. Even though hardly anyone reads literature. Even though they themselves don't read it. Even though almost nobody who writes it can do it for a living. Within our lifetimes, this half-life of prestige will end, and literature will be as niche an interest as freely improvised music. I welcome that day.

>>2597506

I can't help you or anyone by lying. Anyone who looks for what literature provides in popular fiction is unserious, and their tastes don't concern me. The reason why it can't be literature is because it is not an application of imagination, but of fantasy. The differences between these two were explicated in detail in earlier posts.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:54:18 2012 No.2597524 >>2597485 Looks interesting, any specific novels?

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:55:18 2012 No.2597525

>>2597508

Nah.
>>2597513

Look everyone, this is OP's soul. This is how they think, all the time. Victims of their own lack, they dramatize everything in such terms; this is why they drool over stories of bloodshed and medieval savagery. Don't forget what you see here. Don't forget, this is what lies behind every attempt to dignify fantasy as literature: the Third Reich.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:57:17 2012 No.2597530 >still falling for and responding to a troll who doesn't even try to continue the argument with bullshit but just tells you you're wrong I am disappoint /lit/

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:57:17 2012 No.2597531 >>2597525 >Nah But why?

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 18:58:17 2012 No.2597533 >>2597530 Everyone can see I'm not a troll; everyone can see that the pro-fantasy camp has been Rumpelstiltskin for some time now.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 18:59:17 2012 No.2597534 >>2597520 >The differences between these two were explicated in detail in earlier posts. No, they weren't, you've been too busy giving your impression of an autist slinging one liners to say anything of substance ITT

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:00:17 2012 No.2597535 >>2597531 Because you didn't have the literate but uneducated, undiscriminating demographic for genre fiction to exist yet. Seriously, it's like saying "why wasn't Julius Caesar a capitalist?" Wrong phase of development.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:00:18 2012 No.2597537 >>2597534 That's a lie and you know it, wretch.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:01:18 2012 No.2597539 >>2597535 What if someone wrote a piece comparable to Beowulf today? Then what?

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:01:18 2012 No.2597541

>>2597530
you think this is disappointing?

/lit/ still falls for "I just read Twilight and thought it was fantastic, fuck the haters, it was expertly written and people who dont like it simply hate fun and have no good reasons for disliking it, they're all just elitist hipsters hopping on the bandwagon" trolls

STILL.

FALLS FOR IT EVERY TIME.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:03:17 2012 No.2597544 >>2597539 Well, "comparable" is doing a lot of work there. It would depend upon how it was comparable.

>>	sage Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:05:17 2012 No.2597548 >>2597544 You know what he means, dickface. Stop being pedantic.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:06:17 2012 No.2597550 >>2597548 No, I don't. I'm not being pedantic.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:06:17 2012 No.2597551 >>2597544 >herp a derp the oddysey is comparable to atlas shrugged look i can compare them: the oddysey is better than atlas shrugged I AM SO CLEVER AND WITTY

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:07:17 2012 No.2597552 > dickface This is what fantasy readers are. Learn, /lit/, I can't always be here to discipline them.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:08:18 2012 No.2597556

>>2597550
Then you're obviously incapable of interpreting language as anything but completely literal (which is a common symptom of autism, incidentally).
It is common for people to use 'comparable' when what they actually mean is 'similar', or similar.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:09:18 2012 No.2597562 If by "a piece comparable to" what's meant is "an imitation of", then of course that would be for cretins. What do you want from me? I can't change sociology, or the publishing industry. The facts are what they are.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:10:17 2012 No.2597564

>>2597544
Comparable in that it's an epic work of fiction with a setting and characters that would fall in the realm of fantasy or mythology. A work with powerful imagery and poetry, and meaningful themes. The story would be unique, of course, so it wouldn't be considered derivative of Beowulf.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:11:17 2012 No.2597566 >>2597556 Know your place.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:14:17 2012 No.2597574

>>2597564

Again, we come to the difference between fantasy and imagination. What you're describing could never exist. A fantasy book that somehow isn't a fantasy book. A book written after Beowulf, modelled on it, impossible to imagine without its example - yet somehow not derivative. Don't you see how this is a hypothetical object, invented solely to make a claim you've already decided upon? No such work could fail to be a fantasy novel. We're not talking about John Gardner's Grendel here, where the point is this parallels, the similarities - we're talking about an accidental twin. It couldn't occur.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:16:17 2012 No.2597581

>>2597525

You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar. I've thoroughly enjoyed lurking this thread, and not in small part thanks to your command of language. While your insight is pointed, the manner in which you convey it is precise, flexible and stimulating. Thank you for brewing the antidote to the disease that perpetually shits up this board.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:18:17 2012 No.2597585 >>2597581 Thank you, I'm glad you've enjoyed it!

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:20:18 2012 No.2597594 >>2597574 All art is derivative, sorry bro

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:21:18 2012 No.2597595 >>2597594 lol relativism

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:21:18 2012 No.2597596 >>2597594 Nah some of it is down right integral.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:23:17 2012 No.2597601

>>2597585
I'm the guy that called you elitist right at the beginning, returned. You are an elitist cock with a worryingly poor grasp of the history of literature. I'm not sure why you get off making such bombastic (but written in lovely, flowery prose) false claims you appear to have picked up from That One Book You Read For Eng Language Class. That, or one of the finest trolls I've seen on /lit/ in a long time. Either way: boo.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:25:18 2012 No.2597607 >>2597595 if you think pointing out that all art is in some sense derivative is at all the same as saying that there are no artistic standards, then you're actually kind of stupid - which up till now i had not thought you to be.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:42:17 2012 No.2597654

>>2597601

No, my command of the history of literature is just fine. Are you the fraud who disappeared in a puff of smoke when I mentioned that "literary scholar" is not a phrase such people use to describe themselves? I'm not trolling, I'm here to do what I've said I'm here to do.
>>2597607

No, it's not the same, but the kind of person who does one does the other. I don't need to smell their breath to know how many of a pawnbroker's patrons are rummies.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:46:18 2012 No.2597665 6 hours. He's spent 6 hours of his Friday doing this.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:51:18 2012 No.2597680

>>2597665

Not exclusively, it's fun, and it's easy. It also means I've taken 6 hours of predation time away from the fantasy readers who would otherwise be roaming the streets for kids. It's a testament to how fucking dumb you are that you persisted in trying to discuss fantasy on /lit/.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:52:18 2012 No.2597683 >>2597680 Sure is confirmation that Abah has been shitting up this thread as Anonymous. inb4 deleted

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:54:17 2012 No.2597686 >>2597683 Not really, no. That doesn't make a lick of sense. I doffed my trip for another thread and forgot to put it back on.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:55:17 2012 No.2597692 Also loving how you misspelled a four-letter word. That's genre fiction, right there.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:55:17 2012 No.2597693 >>2597686 Sure thing, Abah.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 19:57:18 2012 No.2597703 >>2597692 I did it on purpose, because I knew you couldn't resist pointing it out. Autism.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 19:59:17 2012 No.2597711 >>2597703 Sure, pedophile.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:02:18 2012 No.2597725 So yeah, among the many things fantasy readers don't get, there's the fact that insults only work if they're rooted in observation, and come from someone the target respects. Otherwise, they're just self-defeating.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:05:17 2012 No.2597738

Ingredients

2 large onions, sliced thinly length wise

6-8 cloves of garlic, minced

1/3 cup chickpeas

1/3 cup red beans

1/2 cup lentils

2 tsp turmeric

3 cups fresh parsley (packed – equivalent to 1 1/2 bunch)

2 cups fresh cilantro (packed – equivalent to 1 bunch)

2 cups fresh mint (packed – equivalent to 1 bunch)

20 springs of fresh chives or scallions ( green portion of scallions only)

1 1/2 lb baby spinach

2 oz reshteh

1 tbsp flour

Garnish

1 large red onion, thinly sliced

2 tbsp dried mint

kashk, whey ( sour cream can be substituted for kashk)

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:06:17 2012 No.2597740

Mix well until there are no lumps. When adding flour to soups it is always a good idea to use this technique to ensure that there are no lumps in the soup.

Add water and flour to the soup. Adjust seasoning by adding salt. Cook for 1/2 hour longer on low. At this point your soup is ready as the beans should be cooked. You can further cook the soup to deepen the flavors, however, it must be on very low temperature, since this soup is very thick, chances are the bottom will stick.

For the garnish fry onions in oil. I have found that vegetable oil works best and the chances of burning the onions is much less. Once the onion turns translucent, lower the heat and allow for the onions to slowly caramelize.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:07:17 2012 No.2597748

Once they have tuned into a golden color add dry mint and allow for the onions to crisp up. This takes about an hour from start to finish. It is best to prepare the garnish while cooking the soup.

Place soup in a bowl, add a pinch of fried onion to the center along with a dollop of kashk.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:10:17 2012 No.2597756

OK, that takes care of the starter. Now for the main.

Dolmeh-yeh Baadenjaan Recipe
eggplants filled with ground meat, rice and herbs
Makes 4 Servings

Ingredients

8 small eggplants
400 grams ground lamb or beef
100 grams of long-grain or basmati rice
2 medium onions, finely chopped
cooking oil
2-3 teaspoons of tomato paste
fresh lime juice, 3-4 teaspoons
sugar, 2-3 teaspoons
salt
black pepper
1/2 cup parsley, finely chopped
1/3 cup mint, finely chopped
1/2 cup spring onions, finely chopped
1/3 cup garlic chives, finely chopped
1/3 cup tarragon, finely chopped (optional)

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:10:19 2012 No.2597758 Method Fry onions in cooking oil over medium heat until golden. Add ground meat and fry further until meat changes color. Add 1/2 cup water, salt, pepper and tomato paste. Mix and cook further until water boils off.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:11:19 2012 No.2597762 Fry prepared vegetables in cooking oil over medium heat until wilted. Boil two cups of water in a small pot. Add 1 teaspoon of salt and rice and boil further until rice softens. Drain the water and let cool slightly.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:11:19 2012 No.2597764

Peel eggplants and cut a circle at the tops, then remove insides without creating any holes at the sides or the end. Sprinkle some salt inside the eggplants. Mix prepared meat, vegetables and rice well. Fill the eggplants with the mix and close the tops.

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:12:17 2012 No.2597766

Fry eggplants in cooking oil for 5-10 minutes over medium heat, then place in a pot side by side (avoid stacking them). Dissolve one teaspoon of tomato paste in a glass of hot water and add to eggplants. Add salt, black pepper, lime juice and sugar and simmer for 5-10 minutes until water boils off.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:14:17 2012 No.2597768 Now for dessert!

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:15:18 2012 No.2597776 Bastani Akbar-Mashti Recipe vanilla ice-cream with thick cream and rosewater Makes 4 Servings

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:16:17 2012 No.2597779 Ingredients vanilla ice-cream, one litre thick (or double) cream, 100 grams rose-water, 2 spoonfuls

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:17:17 2012 No.2597780

Method

The cream used to prepare Bastani Akbar-Mashti should be very thick. Leave the cream in the freezer until it is frozen. Cream or Ice-cream should not be very hard. Cut frozen cream into small pieces and mix with ice-cream. Add rose-water and mix well. Place the mix in the freezer for at least one hour.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:18:18 2012 No.2597785 Now, let's be a little outrageous and wash that down with some delicious Doogh!

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:19:18 2012 No.2597786 Doogh Recipe yogurt drink Makes 4 Servings

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:19:18 2012 No.2597789 Ingredients yogurt, one glass water, 2-3 glasses dried mint, one teaspoon dried pennyroyal, one teaspoon (optional) salt black pepper (optional)

>>	Standard Toaster !RQTOASTvfI Fri Apr 27 20:20:18 2012 No.2597790 >dracula and pride and prejudice were once both considered fiction [paraphrased] >at any bookstore, they're both found in the fiction section

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:21:17 2012 No.2597800 >>2597790 :D

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:22:18 2012 No.2597805

Method

Beat yogurt until it flows smoothly. Add mint, pennyroyal, salt, and black pepper, and mix well. Add water to yogurt gradually and mix as you add. The quantity of water can be adjusted to obtain the desired density. Place in the fridge for a few hours. Mix again before drinking. Carbonated doogh is a popular soft-drink in Iran.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:24:18 2012 No.2597811 oooooooooh, I love Persian food are you from LA?

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:25:17 2012 No.2597813

According to New York magazine, Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin is reading your fan mail and taking it under advisement—even when what you ask for sounds more like the inevitable porn parody version, Game of Boners.

Meaning, of course, that many of these messages to Martin involve sex: Some viewers complain there’s too much explicit nudity and humpty-hump content on Thrones (like in this NSFW clip), but others—a.k.a. the gays—take the show to task for not giving them the specific kind of nudity they require.

When episodes focus repeatedly on female bodies at the expense of, say, more clothing-free shots of warrior Khal Drogo (Conan The Barbarian‘s Jason Momoa), this gets some of you all riled up. “I’ve got a few letters from gay fans who, while they were pleased by the naked male sexuality, were upset that the penises were not actually erect,” says Martin.

Honestly, this seems like a perfectly reasonable request. Maybe for every two or three full-frontal lady moments, the show could deliver one erection. Hire stunt penises if necessary, whatever it takes. But please, George R.R. Martin, hear the urgent, needy cries of your horned up homosexual fans.

Winter is coming and they beg for naked justice.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:27:18 2012 No.2597817 >>2597756 Sounds delicious actually. But why do Americans call Aubergines eggplants? They look nothing like eggs.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:27:18 2012 No.2597818 >>2597811 No, I wish I had more (read: any) experience of Persian food. These recipes sound delish but I'm primarily using them to while away the time until auto-sage, which I'm assuming is around 300 posts.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:27:18 2012 No.2597820 >>2597817 I guess it's the shiny... hull?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:28:18 2012 No.2597822 File: 32 KB, 320x253, eggplant.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2597817 really nothing like them eh?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:29:18 2012 No.2597825 >>2597820 The shiny black hull you mean? Are american eggs black? Is it a hull, or a shell?

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:31:18 2012 No.2597828 >>2597825 Not sure, aren't they purple?

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:32:17 2012 No.2597831
File: 43 KB, 681x440, Aubergine.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>>2597822

Ah, well, fair play then. Although they look hard to stuff. The Aubergines we get are black and big. And I know that you get the same things in the US, because I've seen them a) in the supermarkets, and b) I saw an Audrey Hollander clip where she stuck one up her cunt and arse.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:32:17 2012 No.2597832

Personally, this article is complete shit. It's right, but it comes off so smug, which is how Lev Grossman always comes out looking like. Grossman wrote the Magicians, a book which can be summed up as "Harry Potter in College, then Narnia being explored by post-grad-wizard-aspies". And now he and way too many people think he's a fucking authority on fantasy? It wasn't even that good.
This article does have a point, though. Many critically acclaimed literary authors have had magic or otherwise supernatural events in their books. most of the twats on /lit/ just hate the fact that fantasy is popular and some of the books actually have literary worth, but since the word "magic appears", they just say "neckbeard book".
That being said, those last words made me rage so hard.
>If Joyce was alive, I'll tell you what he would have done because I'm smug enough to make such assumptions.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:35:18 2012 No.2597838 >>2597831 Ah! For a second there, not knowing who Audrey Hollander was, I thought you meant the woman who wrote The Time Traveller's Wife. I tried to reconcile this in my mind.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:36:17 2012 No.2597839 >>2597818 :O never had Persian food! Where are you from?

Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:39:17 2012 No.2597847

>>2597832

I almost agree, except where you've put "right" I'd put "wrong", and where you've put "but" I'd put "and". Also, a supernatural event in a naturalist fictional world doesn't mean the same thing as standard operating procedure by the power of Grayskull. Anyway, let's not get onto that crap, we're having a nice chat about eggplant variations.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:40:20 2012 No.2597849 File: 10 KB, 180x244, niffenegger.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>2597838 I don't think I'd actively seek out porn that the time traveller bird made.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:41:20 2012 No.2597851
File: 43 KB, 650x435, 1270515424990.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]

>come around in the morning and engage in heated discussion
>later on the day come back to the same thread and they are discussing fucking eggplants

I take that back. This is over

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:42:20 2012 No.2597854 >>2597839 Oh, all kinds of places.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:42:20 2012 No.2597857 Aubergines are berries. Fact that.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:43:20 2012 No.2597858 >>2597851 We were discussing aubergines, actually.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 20:44:20 2012 No.2597863 >>2597849 I know what you mean. >>2597851 It's all gone pretty well, I think.

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:44:20 2012 No.2597865 >>2597858 Eggplants motherfucker, can you comprehend it?

>>	Anonymous Fri Apr 27 20:47:20 2012 No.2597869 >>2597865 They don't look like eggs. And another thing - you play football with your hands. What the fuck is wrong with Americans?

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 21:03:18 2012 No.2597915

>>2597847
First off, you're honestly worse than any tripfag I've ever seen, including the one's on /mu/. Now I'm raging at myself for giving you enough of my precious attention to tell you're obvious troll.
This whole thread has been about you screaming "HURR DURR GENRE FICTION ISN'T LITERATURE". Yeah, no shit it isn't, you fucking retard. What you said is like saying "The apple isn't an orange". What Grossman said in the article (it's a glorified blog post, really) is that we are beginning to see fantasy that actually ha some thought put into beyond the plot.
For example (in my opinion), Joe Abercombie's First Law Trilogy deals with how little people change and how they can't escape their past. Although that hardly makes it literary, it shows that fantasy and sci-fi authors are actually putting some thought into it. I hope this continues, but will there ever be a fantasy book that has the literary worth of. say, Hemingway (a personal favorite)? Probably not, but I'm not a fortune teller.
Now please, do us all a small favor and kill yourself. Make it quick, because I actually pity such desperate, attention-starved people like you. Your parents obviously didn't love you enough, and they had a reason not to.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 21:15:19 2012 No.2597942 >>2597915 No, he's clearly not saying that. Joe Abercrombie sounds like a determinist fuck. In related news, you're too late, son.

Anonymous Fri Apr 27 21:40:23 2012 No.2598013

Pretentious fucks separate literature into 'actual literature' and 'genre literature' only because most fantasy is indeed weak. Now if there was once a book, situated on a medieval world with dragons and shit, with Pynchon prose and meaningfulness, would it cease being 'genre'? There is no such a thing. Simply, what happens is that the books selling well are the stupid ones (as in most periods of time), and due to various factors, the fantasy ones. However, this is completely different from saying the fantasy ones are bad.

It seems to me most of you don't read fantasy because you think it sucks, and because you think it sucks, you don't give it any shot at all. Every genre has good stuff and bad stuff.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Fri Apr 27 21:54:23 2012 No.2598046 >>2598013 > Pretentious fucks separate literature into 'actual literature' and 'genre literature' No, and the rest of what you've said is wrong because of this. Grow up. If fifty people tell you you stink, it's time to wash.

>>	Ahab !!kNaamJVNbDP Sat Apr 28 16:28:50 2012 No.2599579 :D

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