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/lit/ - Literature

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2627756 No.2627756 [Reply] [Original]

>...a great many writers and critics have based their entire careers on the premise that anything that the general public can understand without mediation is worthless drivel. [...] If everybody came to agree that stories should be told this clearly, the professors of literature would be out of job, and the writers of obscure, encoded fiction would be, not honored, but pitied for their impenetrability. - Orson Scott Card, aka the greatest science fiction writer of our time.

what do you think about this /lit/?

inb4 homosexuals and ad hominems

>> No.2627764

>What do novels about a journey across post-apocalyptic America, a clone waitress rebelling against a future society, a world-girdling pipe of special gas keeping mutant creatures at bay, a plan to rid a colonizable new world of dinosaurs, and genetic engineering in a collapsed civilization have in common?
They are all most definitely not science fiction.
Literary readers will probably recognise The Road by Cormac McCarthy, one of the sections of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway, The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson and Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood from their descriptions above. All of these novels use the tropes of what most people recognize as science fiction, but their authors or publishers have taken great pains to ensure that they are not categorized as such.

>> No.2627773

obscure, encoded fiction is not a prerequisite to quality literature.

Neither, as it happens, is penetrability. Card here is just taking a populist stance because he has nothing to add to the discussion.

>> No.2627777

I think this point is completely lacking in nuance, misunderstanding the purpose of the "encoding," and caricaturing the position of "a great many writers and critics" to such a reductive position.
And Orson Scott Card isn't that great of a sci-fi writer. Ender's Game is a good children's book, the rest of the series is scribblings that needed a better editor, and the first book of the Bean series was the only good book out of them.

>> No.2627780

>>2627756
I do not agree with the sentiment, nor with the idea that Orson Scott Card is "the greatest" or even "a good" science fiction writer of our time.

I do broadly agree that science fiction is worth reading, and that the standards by which the intellectual clade judges fiction may not be perfect. And I am personally a science fiction reader.

>>2627764
This only goes to what categories things are sold as. If you want to have a conversation about marketing, that's one thing, and it is interesting to point out that things that are science fiction are marketed as 'literature' because they will sell better that way. However, if you think that has anything to do with literary merit, that's an argument you should probably make explicitly.

>> No.2627782

>Ender's Game is a good children's book
The one about murdering people, is that the children's book you're referring to?

>> No.2627786

>>2627782
Teenagers are children. Sorry to burst your bubble, big boy, but that's why you can't vote yet.

>> No.2627790

>>2627756
>a great many writers and critics have based their entire careers on the premise that anything that the general public can understand without mediation is worthless drivel.
This is not the case. He's just whining because he wasn't that good himself.

>> No.2627791

>>2627773
>obscure, encoded fiction is not a prerequisite to quality literature.
No, but it is a prerequisite to being accepted as quality literature.

>> No.2627792

>>2627782

Sucka never read Roald Dahl.

>> No.2627794

>>2627777
>speaker of the dead
>children's book

>> No.2627795

>>2627791
Explain the numerous canonical authors with plain-spoken styles then, please.

>> No.2627799

>>2627791
Hemingway called.

Conrad also called.

Chekhov also called, but he got a busy signal.

Dostoyevsky's cellphone battery is dying, I think, but I could still make out what he was saying pretty easily.

>> No.2627805

>speaker of the dead
>the book about humans beings who are tortured before being killed; it's a children's book.

>> No.2627804

>>2627794
Yes, is there something you don't understand?

>> No.2627802

>>2627794
>Speaker for the Dead
>Ender's Game is a good children's book,
>THE REST OF THE SERIES IS...
I'm not surprised, if you're the one defending Orson Scott Card's ridiculous whining, that you have a reading comprehension problem.

>> No.2627807
File: 19 KB, 400x400, philosoraptor.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2627807

How deep does a book have to be to be quality literature?

Does any book that does not need a deep analysis to understand automatically not quality literature?

How does one quantify or qualify quality literature?

>> No.2627813

>speaker of the dead
>the book about human beings who are tortured before being killed; it's a children's book.

>> No.2627817

>>2627799
Card would argue that the way those authors are received and understood by the literary establishment makes them impenetrable - that they are interpreted as though they were impenetrable, in studies which are impenetrable.

I mean, I'm sure no one has ever argued that Hemingway was up to anything complex with his stories, or written anything incomprehensible about it.

I think Card is basically wrong, but let's give him some credit.

>> No.2627818

Everybody, including everybody in this plebian board, confuses literature with 'human condition of the average middle class white protestant male between the age of 30 and 45

>> No.2627819

>>2627813
Yes.

>> No.2627820

>>2627813
Hey, look, it's another person trying to defend Orson Scott Card who's incapable of reading. Or it's the samefag who still can't read.

>Ender's Game is a good children's book, the rest of the series is scribblings

>> No.2627822

literature is only called literature by those who can relate to it. And the vast majorty of liberal arts major who relates to this so called "literature" have IQ's between 110 and 119 and lead normalfag lives. Their only distinguishing feature is that they've visited several more cities than the average American. They're not exactly the brightest of the bunch.

>> No.2627826

>>2627820
>thinks Ender's Game is the best one in the series

You're the child. The only ones who think that are 12 year old who think themselves precocious.

>> No.2627829

>>2627818
>Invisible Man
>The Bell Jar
>them
All considered literature. A poor black man, a mentally ill woman, and a lower-middle class woman during the Detroit race riots.

>> No.2627830

>>2627826
no ender's game pretty much is the best one in the series

(it's a bad series)

>> No.2627833

>mfw most of the thread is attacking Card and not the idea the thread was based on

Not saying his writings aren't scribblings, but come on /lit/ this was a chance at a halfway interesting discussion

>> No.2627834

>It's only real literature if hardly anyone likes it and almost no one reads it.

Yup, we've officially been invaded by /mu.

>> No.2627835

>>2627822
>ad hominems coming out your ass like so many spurts of shit the day after a Mexican Sweet 16

>> No.2627836

>>2627830
underage detected

Continue slashing your wrists and being misunderstood.

>> No.2627837

OP, you begin there with a series of ad hominems from Card. Nobody has based their career on that premise. No, as we're discovering, it's quite possible to run entire courses on plain stylists. I wonder why his jimmies are so rustled about people who make so much less money than him?

>> No.2627839

>>2627826
It's a terrible series full of meandering theosophy and puppy-tugging-your-pants-leg sentimentality that only has two settings, saccharine and maudlin. Ender's Game was the only one with any development and depth, and it's a stunted form suitable for children.
Also, I read the series when I was 10 years old. I came back to it about a year and a half ago. It's shit.

>> No.2627840

>Orson Scott Card, aka the greatest science fiction writer of our time

Serious, you need to read more.

>> No.2627844

According to all the pretentious hipsters itt: the only true literature are the ones considered 'literature' by the oldest person alive today.

>> No.2627843

>>2627833
OP is either uninformed or a troll, nothing good would have ever come of it.

>> No.2627841

>>2627833
Well, I think there has been legitimate discussion of the idea. But the thread was pretty irreparably damaged by the OP, not just mentioning Card and attributing it to him but also calling him the greatest SF writer. Probably intentionally. Fucking troll. Card is controversial enough on his own, without an incendiary opinion about his quality AND an incendiary opinion about Literature Versus Genre thrown in there.

>> No.2627850

>>2627836
You... you're not even really trying, are you?

>> No.2627852

>>2627839
so you're 11 and a half years old now? makes sense

>> No.2627853

My favorite thing about the series was always Peter Wiggin. While Ender was busy being a hopeless moralfag, Peter was too busy running shit. Peter is my role model.

>> No.2627855

>>2627844
I consider plenty of sci-fi literary. Just not Card.

>> No.2627858

>>2627834
>>2627844
nobody... nobody has really advanced either of those opinions ITT.

one dude just trying to start a fight all by himself...

>> No.2627859

>>2627841
>. Card is controversial enough on his own,

The only reason why Card is controversial in the first place is because you radicla liberal redditfag cunts burn his books because hurrr
>doesn't support sodomy

>> No.2627860

>>2627855
Too bad almost all sci-fi sucks balls.

>> No.2627862

>>2627850
-100/10

(That's -10 for you liberal arts majors.)

>> No.2627865

I bet at least half of the faggots in this thread are margaret atwood fans.

>> No.2627863

Man.

This thread really went from 0 to 60.

It's almost like there are people actively trying to turn it into a terrible thread or something.

>> No.2627866

>>2627833

No it wasn't! There's nothing true in that quote. /lit/ isn't the place to come if you hate literature. The place to go if you hate literature is - well, take your pick. Most rooms, most stores, most movie theaters, most churches, most gyms. Card's reaction to these writers makes no sense, it's an immoderate, irrational expenditure of irritation on his part, and it makes him look dumb as rocks. There are no impenetrable books; you open 'em on page 1 and start reading.

>> No.2627867
File: 24 KB, 320x227, 1311735975006.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2627867

>>2627860
>>2627859
>>2627844
>>2627834
It's official: pic related.

Seriously guys. Stop. You should know better.

>> No.2627870

>>2627867
>image macros, because i'm out of arguments

I expected better from you literary elitist fags.

>> No.2627871

The point of books isn't to experience enjoyment while reading them, it's to be fucking miserable while reading them. By doing this you can make yourself feel superior for suffering through a horrible book most people wouldn't bother reading. You are more patient and bland than everyone else, and therefore are more cultured.

>> No.2627873

>>2627870
you're not even making arguments, just repeatedly flinging out inflammatory and ridiculous statements

>> No.2627876

>>2627866
Card was responding to uncalled for criticism that is writing was too easily understood you little cunt.

>> No.2627877

>>2627873
Stop. Seriously man. Stop. He'll samefag for awhile to keep it moving and then go away. Or, hopefully, he's just go away.

>> No.2627880

>>2627873
You're just mad that I'm well versed in classics that are simply incomprehensible to you because you are an illiterate fuckwit.

>> No.2627882

>>2627876
>criticism that his writing was too easily understood

gonna need sauce on that one, pal

>> No.2627886

>>2627882
>computer illiterate libarts majors can't into google

How surprising

>> No.2627884

It's ironic, because Card is speaking about novels, which are a medium for plebians who can't into poetry and true literature, as if it were some kind of high art.

Hilarious as fuck. If what you call 'literature' is longer than 20 pages and published by a multi-million dollar industry, then you need to fucking kill yourself.

>> No.2627890

>>2627886
>sending other people on a wild goose chase

the burden of proof is on thou, my rumpinflamed friend

>> No.2627892

If all the people who read Pynchon suddenly went out and bought themselves the entire library to date of Orson Scott Card's books, the difference in sales wouldn't register. I think the quotation from which OP wants us to start this discussion is frankly paranoid. Talk to people in the tradition of serious literature - or any art - and most of them just want three squares and a living wage. Maybe a car? Sucessful popular fiction writers get that, plus two tons of money. For a popular fiction writer of Card's level of success to fulminate against these people for receiving the kudos which in many cases is all they get, is nutty.

>> No.2627895

>>2627890
thanks for admitting you're a nimwit, that saves me from a wild goose chase of my own. :3

>> No.2627900

>>2627892
You think these 'serious writers' aren't greedy? Oh they are, they're just greedy for attention from critics.

If you think money is the only device for avarice you are severely mistaken.

Some day you will realize how formulaic these oscar and pulitzer baits are.

>> No.2627905

Having a story such as ender's game be thrown into the caste of plebeian drivel is absolutely ludicrous.

The key to writing is to say what you need to say in not the most cryptic way imaginable but in a way that can communicate to the reader whether through complex emotion or by simply appealing to their base feelings of loneliness, lust, hate, and sorrow, and in some rare occasions happiness.

You do this by keeping it simple yet with a constructive prose that sustains the thought that there beauty attached to it.

Fuck the English majors of the world. They are out of their league when it comes to writing. Most of them are the afterbirth of the ideals of the rules of writing. True writers break every rule for the sake of breaking it. Those are the ones that are remembered.

>> No.2627912

>>2627900
A true writer does his work because he has to. Not for any type of material of social gain. Whether it be attention or a grand paycheck or even a shiny little award to please his ego.

A true writer writes because he has no choice. It is in him to do so. Sure he wants people to proclaim how brilliant it is but there lies an underlining fact that he writes because there's a fire in him that he can't control with spoken words or striving for anything else to take his mind off of it whether it be hiding within a corporation attempting to be normal or to starting a family where he believes he can love and cherish the life he has created for himself. He will loathe it all and wear a mask to create the illusion that his a normal stand up man. But deep inside him there is that fire and it rages and consumes him. The more he ignores it the greater it will be.

Writers don't know why they write. They don't care to know. It's just what they do and it will always be there inside them waiting for him to let it free.

>> No.2627914

>>2627900

Have you ever had to earn a living? I've met these people, and no, they are not greedy.

>> No.2627916

>>2627912
>The great artists of the Italian Renaissance were accountable to wealthy entities who became their patrons or gave them commissions. In many cases there was no other way to arrange it. There is only one Sistine Chapel. Not just anyone could walk in and start daubing paint on the ceiling. Someone had to be the gatekeeper---to hire an artist and give him a set of more or less restrictive limits within which he was allowed to be creative. So the artist was, in the end, accountable to the Church. The Church's goal was to build a magnificent structure that would stand there forever and provide inspiration to the Christians who walked into it, and they had to make sure that Michelangelo would carry out his work accordingly.

http://adam.shand.net/library/slashdot_interview_with_neal_stephenson/

>> No.2627918

>>2627912
I've met these so called "true writers", and not a single one of them would be writing if he were the last man alive on this planet.

>> No.2627919

>>2627916

Not about writers.

>> No.2627920

>>2627919
So you're saying writing is not art? Go kill yourself

>> No.2627924

Genre fiction can never be true art. If you disagree then you are a child.

>> No.2627937

>>2627924

define 'true art'

>> No.2627944

>>2627937
true art is whatever the x percent of people say is 'true art'

where x is defined as the smallest amount over 50

>> No.2627947

>>2627944

you win.

>> No.2627953

>>2627947
Objective subjectivism always wins.

Or was it subjective objectivism?

>> No.2627954

>>2627953

It's both. Right?

>> No.2627988

>>2627920

No, I'm saying that the socio-political circumstances of writing and painting are too different to make that quote of much use, except to a hack who wants to excuse his irrelevance.

>> No.2628005

>Card has publicly declared his disapproval of homosexuality and of marriage rights for gay men and women. In 1990, Card called for laws that ban homosexual behavior to "remain on the books... to be used when necessary to send a clear message that those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society", although he no longer advocates this, and argues that the 1990 stance must be seen in the context of the times (such laws were still deemed constitutional at the time) and the conservative Mormon audience to whom his essay was addressed.[26] In 2009, Card became a member of the board of directors of the National Organization for Marriage, a group that seeks to prevent the legalization of same-sex marriage.[27]

>Card has voiced his opinion that paraphilia and homosexuality are sometimes linked. In a 2004 essay entitled "Homosexual 'Marriage' and Civilization", Card wrote:
>The dark secret of homosexual society -- the one that dares not speak its name -- is how many homosexuals first entered into that world through a disturbing seduction or rape or molestation or abuse, and how many of them yearn to get out of the homosexual community and live normally.[28]

>> No.2628008

>>2628005
>Additionally, in Card's novella Hamlet's Father, which re-imagines the backstory of Shakespeare's play Hamlet, some claim that Card depicts the main character's problems as being the result of his father's activities as a gay pedophile. The novella prompted public outcry and its publishers were inundated with complaints.[12] The trade journal Publisher's Weekly criticized Card's "flimsy novella" and stated that the main purpose of it was to attempt to link homosexuality to pedophilia.[29] Orson Scott Card has responded to the claims that Hamlet's Father links homosexuality with pedophilia, Card wrote:
>...[T]here is no link whatsoever between homosexuality and pedophilia in this book. Hamlet's father, in the book, is a pedophile, period. I don't show him being even slightly attracted to adults of either sex. It is the reviewer, not me, who has asserted this link, which I would not and did not make.[30]

Between this and the quote in the OP, I've come to the conclusion that Card is a fucking moron.

>> No.2628012

Who is the greatest sci-fi writer of our time?

>> No.2628014

Ah, so the "statement of facts" that just aren't so is a regular technique with this guy.

>> No.2628015

So guys, Jules Verne: yay or nay?

I read most of Clarke, Asimov and H. G. Wells. Should I move on to Verne now?

>> No.2628016

You know, Asimov, Clarke, Verne, Wells, Adams, Heinlen, Bradbury, and pretty much every other science fiction writer seem to be incredibly open minded people. Maybe they've got flaws, but they seem very progressive and like kind of cool people in general.

Why is Card such a dick? Why does he make claims with no backing? What about him sets him apart from the rest?

>> No.2628017

>>2628015
Verne isn't necessary except as sort of a historic thing. Sounds like you like Silver Age sci-fi, check out van Vogt, Anderson, Niven, and Pournelle.
Books are not a checklist.

>> No.2628019

>>2628012

Ringo.

>> No.2628020

>>2628016
He's at the far end of a bell curve.

>> No.2628021

>>2628017
Already read most of Niven and Pournelle, the first Mote book was great but on the whole I didn't like them as much as the others I listed. I'll try Vogt and Anderson, thanks.

>> No.2628022

>>2628016

Well, H. G. Wells wanted to kill all the black people, so it's not just Card, to be fair.

>> No.2628053

>>2628005
nice adhominem faggot

also inb4'd, newfag can't into pre-emptive defense

>> No.2628054

>>2628020
far right end of the bell curve you mean

>> No.2628071

>>2628053

It's not an ad hominem, it's what he said. If someone has the habit of pulling assertions out of his ass, yes, it does matter. Of course it means something about his other 'arguments'.