/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3731527]

Why is so much of /lit/ philosophy, and so little of it pulp genre lit?

[Anonymous No.3731562]

Because all the posters like to pretend to be smart since Game of thrones got too mainstream.

>I'm currently listening to the audiobook of Beowulf so who am I to talk?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTlDs9n9XY0&list=SPA723FA9D6067A270

[Anonymous No.3732465]

>>3731562

The Seamus Heaney version is fucking excellent -

Works so much better as spoken word ( not a shock really...)

Pic not related

[Anonymous No.3732491]

pulp literature is an oxymoron.

[Anonymous No.3732512]

>>3731527
>Why is so much of /lit/ philosophy

Because it's easier to fling shit at each other about broad ass topics than it is to have a meaningful conversation about X written by Y.

>Hey guys why are feminists so ugly
>250 replies

>Hey guys what's the deal with The Death of Virgil by Broch
>3 replies (maybe)

[Anonymous No.3732520]

>>3731562
You're an idiot

If /lit/ liked Game of Thrones before it's because /lit/ was populated by different people then. 4chan used to be a hotbed of all sorts of deviants.

And it's not just GoT, /lit/ just doesn't like fantasy in general, apart from Tolkien, and stuff like Peake and Dunsany, and a handful of dipshits who have a boner for Gene Wolfe.
That's not to say you can't get fantasy discussion on /lit/, you just have to return during the American evening/night when all the kids have free time after school

[Anonymous No.3732533]

>>3732520

Wow, you're like 3 kinds of moron.

[Anonymous No.3732536]

FUCK YEAH GOLDEN AXE

[Anonymous No.3732573]

>>3732520
What this guy said. Also, pulps are dying out. Like the penny dreadfuls and the dime novels before them, the last bastions of what you'd think of as "pulp" are publishers like Tor and Baen . I'm not even sure Bantam and Balantine are still around. And as far as pulp magazines go, what's left? Asimov's? F& SF? Hitchcock?

I have great respect for the pulp house and the genres they spawned have given us some of the greatest authors of the twentieth century (remember Tennesee Williams great stuf in the old Weird tales?) but I'd say in general the da of the pulps of jack london and burroughs and Howard and Hemingway (he was an Argosy writer wasn't he?) is gone for good.

[Anonymous No.3732626]

>>3732573

We are lucky enough to be living in a time when we can pick over the best of these, rather than having to catch them as they were released or miss them forever - long live ePub reprints !

[Anonymous No.3732699]

>>3731527
Philosophy = Inquisitive
Pulp = Hipsters

Let's face the truth, not everyone has read whatever obscure pulp lit you may drop on unsuspecting anons. Pulps are rare today because their overall quality never made them worth preserving. They were cheaply written and easily discarded--that is fertile ground for Hipsters.

Hipsters will make references to a pulp as if it was groundbreaking; or touched upon a subject in a intriguing way; or showcased some kind of mastery of the written word. But the truth is that's all Hipster bullshit, complete malarky.

Pulp was written for the lowest common denominator[1]. Hipsters come along and prescribe them again through a new bias lens. They'll talk about the campiness and all the irony that is implied with the nostalgia that comes from reading them. They'll attempt to invent out from it a kind of literary merit. And they'll use that to hype themselves as some kind of literary guru.

It's all smoke and mirrors mostly, building off the sensational language of the pulps and the near vacancy of scholarly discourse, Hipster take advantage of that environment to con you into believing that they're onto something amazing. BULLSHIT! In the end it's just a scam to make someone else's shitwork a springboard for thier shity writing[2].

Basically the lesson is this: People who think a pulp potentially has some kind unearthed literary merit deserves the company they con into believing them.
1.True, some authors had honed their skills there; that doesn't change the fact that most, if not all, of pulp is crap though.
2.BoingBoing is a great example: shit writers pushing other people's shitty writing, under the banner of pulp.

[Anonymous No.3732907]

>>3732699
>Philosophy = Lonely undergrads without gf's
>Pulp = People reading for the thrill of it

[Anonymous No.3732918]

>>3732907
>idiots will find a thrill anywhere
Pulp was written for the lowest common denominator

[Anonymous No.3732920]

>>3732907
philosophy is more like poor sods who think/are too smart for their own good. Honestly, intelligence is the root of all sadness.

[Anonymous No.3732940]

>>3732918

Sometimes a hamburger and a beer is perfect

[Anonymous No.3732953]

>>3732699

>completely missing the point that enjoyment of one doesn't preclude appreciation of the other...

[Anonymous No.3732978]

>>3732953
You must not be aware of how ignorance is the enemy of good culture? But then again ignorance is bliss, even if it is poisonous.

[Anonymous No.3732981]

>>3732699
The controversy dodn't used to be about the pulps versus philosophy, it was the pulps versus the slicks.

The slicks were where you found Bradbury and Shirley jackson and Harlan Ellsion and Ted Sturgeon. It was magazines like Collier's and The Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker, The Saturday Evening Post, later Playboy and Omni and Esquire. That was when you knew you had made it: when you were right there next to Gore Vidal and Joan Didion.
True, Hemingway and Steinbeck and Tennessee Williams came out of the pulp tradition, and Most of the money went to the pulp properties after the initial windfall of slick publication, but it was still the Acme. George R.R. Martin published mostly in the slicks, though John Ford and Larry Niven could only break in occasionally.

And the pulps were'nt so much the Lowest Common Denominator as they were a grab bag. Amy Lowell and Edna saint Vincent Millay and just about every writer of note had the pulp houses in their files. It was all about selling, and if Colliers didn't want it or it wasn't quite right for the Post, out it went to All-Story or Argosy or even Spicy Western and The Shadow Magazine. And cmame back, as often as not. Because while it might be from a famous authour (ususally using a pen name) crap was crap, and the pulps would reject it as quick as the slicks if it wasn't up to par or didn't fit their standard.

Philosophy has never been a strong seller. It's the kind of thing beatnicks keep their table ends level with and pretend to have read. This goes for Plato and "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" "Illusions" is about all the weight the typical poser mind can stand, and it gets the chicks as fast as Spinoza, or faster.

[Anonymous No.3733017]

Saying pulp genre is good lit, is like saying videogames are art; or that creationism is science.

[Anonymous No.3733032]

>>3733017
There's no such thing as a "pulp genre" Pulp was just a cheap paper to print on. Most of the classics were printed on pulp, mostly because they were in the public domain. My copy of "Dubliners" is a pulp.

You can't just mean, "that came out of the pulp magazines" or " are printed on wood pulp paper as oppsosed to electronic"? Is "Pulp" just an amorphous category for what you don't like? Or for physical books in general? Or those not printed on rag paper? Help me out here.

[Anonymous No.3733036]

>>3732981
Anything that allows for hipsters to breed their ideology will ruin culture. Pulp is bad for the soul. I'd rather have difficult philosophy then some cheap bigoted written pulp shit. Even postmodernism is a healthier alternative.

At least philosophy has an argument.

[Anonymous No.3733060]

>>3733036
I'm still not getting where the "Pulp" comes in. If someone did a pulp of DFW (like they have for Joyce and Shakespeare) would that make it bad? or if I decide to throw it into a genre, because the mood to classify things just hits me all at once, would that make it bad? I just need to know i guess when "pulp" stopped meaning a cheap edition, or a digest magazine and strated meaning something else. Also, what else?

[Anonymous No.3733065]

>>3733032
Pulp is a metonymy for works cheaply written for the poorly read. It is has no literary merit and is made purposely to pander to uneducated people's prejudices, bigotry, and hornyness.

[Anonymous No.3733075]

Golden Axe II was the fucking shit. I played that one first, so couldn't really into the original. Fucking god-tier soundtrack, and kicking lizardmen off of cliffs was so fucking cool for the time

[Anonymous No.3733077]

>>3733060
You don't understand what Pulp means. You're using the term wrong.

[Anonymous No.3733079]

>>3733065
So basically what everybody has been saying is "I don't like poorly written hackwork, regardless of the author, genre or type of publication." So, why not just call what you don't like, or that you consider to be pandering or hackwork that, instead of calling it "pulp" which has a lot of totally different meanings in literature and confuses people.?

I mean is it that hard to say :"Tennessee Williams is a hack" or "DFW is a moron" or Robert Heinlein is a poser" than to just call them all "Pulp"?

Please note I'm not arguing that they do or don't fit all the other definitions of pulp, including being printed on pulp paper.

[Anonymous No.3733084]

>>3733077
yeah, that's why I'm asking. It seems insanely vague and mostly boils down to "potboiler" or just "stuff I don't like"

[Anonymous No.3733116]

>>3733017
>videogames
>not art

[Anonymous No.3733129]

>>3731527
Don't understand. We talk about H.P.Lovecraft all the time.

[Anonymous No.3733143]

Because /lit/ consists, for the most part, of people between 16-22, a good deal of them philosophy/English majors, who fancy themselves sophisticated intellectuals, wise far beyond their years, and with no time to waste on anything their philosophy/literature teachers haven't put their stamp of approval on.

It's very important to them that their made-up stories about made-up people "say something" "meaningful" and "deep" about the "human condition", you see.

[Anonymous No.3733167]

>>3733084
Believe it or not there are actually scholarly works into the Pop culture phenomenon known as Pulp--it's not the buzzword you're making it out to be. The general consensus among scholars is that Pulp is defined as something that was written for the lowest common denominator, with little to no literary merit. That's not to suggest it doesn't have qualities of its own. It rose to prominence in the U.S. after the Civil War and has made influence on the world published fiction--for better or worse.

Professor John G. Cawelti has written scholarly books on the subject. Six Gun Mystique is probably the best place to start. Try also his Adventures, Mystery and Romance. Marshall McLuhan's The Mechanical Bride is another scholarly starter. You might want to look at writing guides to formulaic fiction published in the early half of the 20th century.

Pulp is an actual thing. It's not as fantastic or good as you want it to be. Personally I hate it, and I have clear justifiable reasons for that.

[Anonymous No.3733180]

>>3733116
But videogames aren't art.
They're videogames, end of story.

[Anonymous No.3733183]

>>3733143
All those quotation marks

[Anonymous No.3733186]

>>3733180

Please don't engage this troll.

[Anonymous No.3733192]

>>3733143
who are you quoting?

[Anonymous No.3733203]

>>3733192
Hipsters

[Anonymous No.3733204]

>>3733180
Which are an art form.
>>3733186
>anyone who disagrees with me must be trolling!

[Anonymous No.3733215]

>>3733204

Anyone who disagrees with me in such an idiotic fashion is trolling, yes. Or they're just an idiot.

Either way, you're going to shit up the thread by engaging them.

[Anonymous No.3733232]

>>3733215
Video games are art, deal with it. Whether they're quality art or not is another story, but you're completely retarded if you think they're not art.

[Anonymous No.3733240]

>>3733167
I believe that pulp is an actual thing. I collect pulps, And I probably have more textbooks on pulps and first editions thatn anybody I know. I have Pulps going Back to O. Henry and Conan Doyle, I have first publications of Burroughs and Hemingway and Jackson and Bloch, and even Earle Stanely Gardner and F. ScotT Fitzgerald. As much as you hate pulp, I love it.

But I think you, and some of the authors you quote are cherry picking. I can, and may, write a book on the history of the pulps. And I'm not saying that just because Steinbeck and Wells and Hemingway wrote for the pulps that all pulps are of their class and quality. (and I'm well aware of all three author's reputation for pandering and writing to the lowest common denominator, so no need to bring that up)


And if you're talking hack writing, I'm surpirised you'd include a hack like MvcLuhan. Beleive me, tha man isn't fit to carry Dick Geis's pencil case.

Also, formulaic fiction? Most of the good writers of the pulp tradition tried to avoid it. I defy you to find formula in "The colour out of space" or "desire and the black masseur" for instance. I'll have to give you Max Brand and O'Henry and Scott Fitzgerald, I guess, since their plots might have come out of a plot wheel. But you have to admit they transcended genre at least some of the time.

[Anonymous No.3733244]

>>3733116
>>3733180
>>3733204

take it to >>>/v/

[Anonymous No.3733274]

>>3733240
>I collect pulps...
You're a loser, and should end it all. The rest of that post was nothing but weak garble and had nothing arguable strong about it. Please write that book, so I can write a book about how erroneous and pointless it truly is.

Pulp sucks, deal with it. The better half of the world has.

[Anonymous No.3733310]

>>3733274
>>3733274
>>3733274
Now collecting pulps is a great tradition. Are you denigrating the reputation of the great Forest J Ackerman? Do you grant Farnsworth Wright no laurel? And what of Damon Knight? Anthony Boucher?

Also, how was that garbled? And shouldn't it be "Pulps suck?" since you seem to be (in your vague and limp wristed way) talking about the books and not the paper?

And I concede you may well be expert in pointlessness and eroneousness. "Better half of the world" indeed! That got a chuckle, as i guess you expected it to. You can't honestly think your attitudes reflect half of the world? Or that there's such a thing as "better" to delineate your fifty percent? You do realize that if the two sides are equal, they're both entitiled to be considered "lowest common denominators"?

And my stuff is garbled...
Listen, I know I'll never bring you to lament, as I do, the death of the pulps. Though I suppose all good things must end and we do still have three or four struggling on, but at least you should see them as something worth preserving. I mean Shakespeare and Dickens and Homer were heavily invested in that "lowest common denominator" too....

[Anonymous No.3733316]

>>3733180
Whoa there Roger Ebert.

[Anonymous No.3733340]

>>3733232
>video games are art... whether they're quality or not

Sorry, I generally don't think of games as being art.

pic related, not art

[Anonymous No.3733349]

>>3733240
>formulaic fiction? Most of the good writers of the pulp tradition tried to avoid it.

False. Literary Analysis of Pop-culture artifact such as Pulp-fiction illustrates that much of Pulp-fiction was formulaically produce. The average pulp writer would have thousands of works published. They were machines payed by the word and the editors marketed off them producing similar stories.

Do you even history?

>I defy you to find formula in "The colour out of space" or "desire and the black masseur" for instance.

Dropping esoteric titles without assistance in supplying a source.
Dumb ass hipster detected.

H.P. Lovecraft was formulaic, even people from the Lovecraft Society will tell you he had a formula to all is writings. And Tennessee Williams's more obscure works were just that: formulaic. He wrote them for the 'MUHN-neh'. (His plays however are another matter, but that doesn't elevate the pulps that inspired them.)

Please write that book, I going to enjoy writing mine.

[Anonymous No.3733353]

>>3733340
art
[ahrt]
- noun
1. the production of something beautiful or extraordinary

art 1 (ärt)
n.
1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.
2.
a. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
b. The study of these activities.
c. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.

[Anonymous No.3733357]

>>3733316
>>3733340

take it to >>>/v/ or get reported.

[Anonymous No.3733376]

>>3733349
>>3733349
Sorry. Didn't realize I need citaions for /lit/ posts. "The Colour out of Space" is by Lovecraft, "Desire and the Black Masseur" is Tennesee Wiliams. Both are from Weird Tales.

Pulp Authors:

Mark Twain
Rudyard Kipling
F.Scott Fitzgerald
Raymond Chandler
Dashiell Hammet
H. Rider Haggard
H.G. Wells
Upton Sinclair
Jack London
H.P. Lovecraft
Harold Lamb
Arthur Conan Doyle
Tennesee Williams
Ray Bradbury
Joseph Conrad
Stephen Crane
Lord Dunsany
Philip K. Dick
C.S. Forester
O. Henry

This is just a few taken from the wikipedia list. I could add a dozen others, including some major poets. You really want to disparage all these authors just because of the venue they published in?

[Anonymous No.3733392]

>>3733349
The Color Out of Space isn't esoteric you loathsome eidolon, Stephen King even did a treatment of it in Creepshow

Fucking Socrates had some shit formula called dialectics and made bank teaching kids to reason themselves to killing their parents; you're not pissing about him, are you?

[Anonymous No.3733811]

>>3733376
You really don't understand how to use the term Pulp do you? Your citations are wrong btw

[Anonymous No.3733818]

>>3733392
Don't conflate, things you barely understand

[Anonymous No.3733957]

>>3733811
No, I own those books, so the citations are correct, and I'm considered an expert on pulp, mostly due to the extent of my collection more than any real erudition though. But of course you have to know a lot about it to collect it. Obviously i'd be a terrible collector if I actually had salt shakers and was calling it pulps or vice versa.

The pic is a few I posted in another thread.

I also own a dictionary by the way, so I do know what "Pulp" refers to, in reference to books.

I do sort of wonder what you mean by it though. From what i gather, it seems you'd put ninety nine percent of the published literature of the twentieth century in the category. And it's apparently not a good category.

So if you don't mind my asking, if you don't like books, why are you on a literature board? I mean if I didn't like ninety nine percent of cats, I doubt I'd go to a cat board, and I certainly wouldn't say i liked cats if only one out of a hundred met my preferences. So i think it's fair to say that since you hate pulp, and you think a great majority of modern literature is pulp, that you hate the great majority of modern literature.

So why come to a literature board? And don't try the "pulp isn't literature " dodge. I have a dictionary, remember?

[Anonymous No.3734021]

>>3733392
>uses eidolon as insult
I don't think that means what you think it means...

[Anonymous No.3734025]

>>3733340

>pic related, not art

Pic related, art or not ?

[Anonymous No.3734059]

>>3733957
Please write that book, so we can all see your deliberate misuse of references. Or finish high-school first, it's your call.

Oh, and judging from the list you gave, I find it troubling you left out some of the highest selling 'pulp' authors: Oprah Winfrey, Neil Gaiman, and James Franco

[Anonymous No.3734080]

>>3731562
>Game of thrones got too mainstream.

Is it really considered mainstream? I know the show is popular, but the books?

I don't think anyone I know knows of either

[Anonymous No.3734146]

>>3734059
Gaiman and Winfrey write for the Slicks, not the Pulps. They belong with Harlan Ellison and Gore Vidal. I finsihed high school in seventy two

[Anonymous No.3734202]

>>3734146
No.
I think you should stop posting, I'm beginning to suspect there is a gas leak in your home. Or, you're retarded, according to your logic because I own a copy of the DSM, I can on good authority declare you retarded.

[Anonymous No.3734242]

>>3734202
I'm pretty sure you just picked this idea of "Pulps" out to make some sort of catchall for stuff you consider unworthy in some way. Genre Fiction perhaps, or American writers, or maybe books written for entertainment or bestsellers. whatever, if you don't like it you call it "pulp", be it on the whitest and slickest of formats, and written by the most resopected and honored of writers, it's all "pulp" to you. However, as I've pointed out a few times, your defintion of Pulp includes almost all books published in the twentieth century. It includes most of the great authors of the Lost Generation, and every one of the Beat Poets,. It includes most of the works that shaped american letters and culture for at least a hundred years. When you say "pulp" what you mena is "literature". To try splitting away just the ten or so books you think worthy of some "higher" designation is pointless. The acknowledged defintition is fine with me, and with Kippling, Fitzgerald, Twain and all the other "Pulp" authors.

[Anonymous No.3734243]

>>3734080

It's just shy of Harry Potter status, dude.

[Anonymous No.3734282]

>>3734242
I'm pretty sure you never read scholarly journal on Pop-Culture Literature, let alone payed attention in school. You're prescribing a hipster misinterpretation. Hurry up and write that book, it's going to be hilarious.

[Anonymous No.3734293]

I like books that combine the two best. That's why I like Dostoevsky.

[Anonymous No.3734313]

>>3732920
>intelligence is the root of all sadness
Fuck off, no it isn't. I'm building a quadrotor helicopter with a camera and radio transmitter/receiver. It's going to be awesome. Intelligence is great, you just have to use it.

[Anonymous No.3734321]

>>3734313
'intelligence is the root of all sadness' does not mean 'all intelligent people are sad'. But if you can't into basic logic than you're probably not one of them anyway.

[Anonymous No.3734346]

>>3734282

>I'm pretty sure you never read scholarly journal on Pop-Culture Literature

Like Dickons or Dumas ?

[Anonymous No.3734351]

I'm having trouble gleaning the true definition of "pulp" from this discussion. There appear to be many different options muddying the water.
Can someone help me out here?

[Anonymous No.3734362]

>>3734282
I've read a few textbooks on pop culture. But as the saying goes, "scholarly journals are the graveyard of ideas." So I can't really give them that much relevance. Some of the research I did in Psychology twenty years ago is only now beginning to creep out of the journal graveyard.
You have to realize, I'm one of the final authorities on the subject of pulps in america, and their impact on American culture, popular and otherwise. I'm probably one of the sources cited in any journal article on the pulp tradition, along with Forry Ackerman and a few others. I certainly answer enough requests about the stuff.

It does bug me to have my relatively limited and low key statements about something I love and have studied for years questioned by someone who (correct me if I'm wrong) probably hasn't read hsi fiftieth book on the subject. Go get your hands on some Dick Geis or some back issues of Locus or something.. Get your head out of the journals and go to the source. You might be surprised at what you find.

[Anonymous No.3734371]

>>3734362
All popular "culture" is complete garbage, and that you dedicate your life to its study is pathetic.

[Anonymous No.3734377]

>>3733036

>Anything that allows for hipsters to breed their ideology will ruin culture

Implying those on /lit/ circle jerking about Tao Lin arnt literary hipsters....

[Anonymous No.3734385]

>>3734351
I've been working on this myself. There seems to be a specialized definition that's being used as sort of a catchall for "popular fiction" or something.

Pulps are magazines that published short stories and Novels in serial form since the early nineteenth century and that reached their peak in america in the forties and fifties. Charles dickens publisghed an early form, and a lot of major authors got their start in them. They've sort of been tarred by the brush of the sleaziest among them, but theyre still well-respected. The term also includes mass-market paperbacks, especially paperback originals. The Wikipedia article on pulp magazines is actually pretty accurate and succinct.

[Anonymous No.3734391]

you have to read in order to discuss pulp literature

you don't need to read anything to discuss philosophy

[Anonymous No.3734393]

>>3734385
I understand that, but isn't all popular fiction bad because popularity necessitates poor quality?

[Anonymous No.3734394]

>>3734080
>Is it really considered mainstream? I know the show is popular, but the books?
I live in a country somewhere in Europe and many bus stops and subway stations had posters of Tyrion, Robb and Daenerys looking at me

[Anonymous No.3734395]

>>3734371
I dedicated my life to the study of Behavioral Psychology and Neurochemistry. Pulp magazines and paperbacks (and a few comics) are only my hobby, though it sort of got out of hand....

[Anonymous No.3734398]

>>3734371

> cause, like I'm into stuff you probably haven't even heard off <tugs at skinny jeans, hand reaches out to fixey>

[Anonymous No.3734405]

>>3734393
Nope. Most high quality things are popular too. It's just that there are a lot of low quality things that still hit the right buttons to be popular. Use a food analogy. Beef Wellington is very popular, but big macs are way outselling it.

[Anonymous No.3734412]

>>3731527
You have brought a storm of shit upon us.

[Anonymous No.3734413]

>>3733036
The problem is, you're including a lot of great writers, like Kipling, Twain and Fitzgerald, and philosphers are not entirely free of bigotry

[Anonymous No.3734418]

>>3734405
b-b-b-but most people are plebs and can't appreciate my arthouse film collection.

[Anonymous No.3734427]

>>3734418
most people are plebes and can't apprectiate my beer can collection. Do you think YOU could appreciate it?

[Anonymous No.3734433]

>>3734427
Does each can have something to say about the human condition?

[Anonymous No.3734441]

>>3734433
as an individual and as a gestalt: the history of beverage containers and beverage marketing points up a tragicomic commentary on the development of consumer culture and the commoditization of recreation and drug use.

[Anonymous No.3734446]

>>3734433
Only in their totality, and then they say everything.

[Anonymous No.3734456]

In the old days, people who could appreciate only the classics and the "books of the moment" were considered the dilettantes. those who could find value in the literature of the hoi poloi as well were considered sophisticates, and the ones who hid their lack of sophistication behind obscure and esoteric stuff were the poseurs. When did it change?

[Anonymous No.3734457]

>>3734351
Pulp Fiction was originally a term referring to a mass market publication printed on cheap pulp (paper). Originally (mid 19th century) it was short stories, using very small type, printed on newspaper size sheets. Later it would evolve into notebook collections, and later still, re-emerge as the serials collected into a novel.

The word Pulp has gone on to become a metonymy detonating a kind of written work published for a less than sophisticated literate audience--common folk, mostly aimed at young boys--and pandered to stereotypes. They had little to no literary merit.

Basically they're cheap books written to titillate like a cheap thrill. In retrospect they have harnessed an historic significance with pop cultural studies. But that's only after the fact--and some of it is just plain old-fashion nostalgia making vainglorious claims like the ones posted here in this thread by a certain soon to be writer.

[Anonymous No.3734463]

>>3734457
in other words "books"

[Anonymous No.3734469]

>>3734457
As long as you include the words, "and pretty much everything else" after the "cheap thrill" comment, i'm good with this definition.

[Anonymous No.3734471]

>>3734441
I'm being serious here when I say that I don't get "commodification". someone pls help.

[Anonymous No.3734525]

>>3734471
>commoditization
> I don't get "commodification"

kefkeske

[Anonymous No.3734565]

>>3734362
>>3734395
You must have nostalgia goggles bad. If you think your remarks hinting as if you're some kind well educated sap who is somewhat of an authority on the subject is going to blind me from your poor arguments and butthurted-ness with somebody dissing your precious 'pulp,' think again. Stop pretending to have some kind of special call to authority--especially on an anonymous board. Either make a valid point or deal with it. Your language skills thus far are a dead give away. You're either lying to save face or you have serious emotional difficulty dealing with people who just happen to hate what you like.

P.S. Please write that book, I can't wait.

[Anonymous No.3734653]

>>3734463
>>3734469
No my little plebs. Pulp has a historicity. Some prominent authors have written for pulb publication--that doesn't necessarily make them pulp writers though. You don't label Michelangelo a doodler just because he made some doodles.

A famous example of pulp are the Frank Reade novelas written under the house name Noname. It exemplifies the ephemeral and lurid qualities that are associated pulp-fiction.

But that's not to disregard some the works that have been argued out of the ashes of sultry pulp publication, like the works Ray Bradbury and his collected Martian Chronicles.

Generally the term Pulp refers to cheaply made books, both in quality of production and writing. If you want to say *all* books, your in for a very long fight.

[Anonymous No.3734657]

>>3734471
turning something into a marketable good

[Anonymous No.3734807]

>>3734653
I think this can be resolved pretty easily, using a variation on sturgeons law. 99% of pulps are not Mark Twain or Fitzgerald, 99% of all pulp novels and magazines suck. And of the books published in other formats or on other types of paper, the non-pulps, 99% of those suck just as much.
I doubt there's anybody on either side that would claim "literature" if we draw a line around it, is in any way better just because it's not got cheap thrills in it. In fact that might even make it worse. Pulp isn't any worse than ---we can't say literature because that takes in pulp too--let's say than academic literature. because it goes for cheap thrills and lurid covers, and academic literature isn't any worse than pulp because it's ass-numbingly over written and bourgeois to the core, Pulp doesn't mean retarded and academic doesn't mean vapid and pointless. Except 99% of the time. Deal?

and you both get to share the major writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Not the twenty first I guess cause pulps pretty much aren't around anymore, but still a pretty good deal, right?

[Anonymous No.3734812]

>>3734653
Isn't pleb a bad thing? why do you include yourself?

[Anonymous No.3734833]

>>3734657
Is that always a bad thing? And how does that apply to beer and drugs which have always been commodities?

[Anonymous No.3734875]

I do think the Pulp is bad and non-pulp is , well not as bad, gets confusing. Of all the terrible books I've read (or tied to read) in the last few months, none of them would fit any definition of pulp. they've mostly been mass market ebooks that would fall under the category o "fiction" and a few "non-fiction" (Yes, yes, everything has a genre these days, but genre is a marketing tool. Putting Moby Dick in Adventure and "Confederacy of Dunces" in humor doesn't make them not literature any,more than putting the fairy Queen in literature doesn't make it not fantasy-- you can call them all westerns if you feel like it: It's dealers choice) The thing is, with no more books being printed on pulp paper and the pulp magazines dying out, it's likely to turn into a pejorative term, a "fighting word" if you will, and we already have way too many of those. As such it becomes meaningless. If you feel like using Pulp when you mean "shit" you're just asking for somebody to wave Mark Twain at you. Pulp has too many vague, overlapping meanings. everybody ends up fighting the dictionary. based on the "shock and titilate and cheap thrill definition, as well as the pulp paper definition, you'd still end up with Dubliners and pretty much all Conrad and Maugham and Ford in the category. then you've either got to split MORE hairs or bring "authorial intent" or critical acceptance or some other subjective nosegay out. It's not worth it.

From now on, if you guys mean something is shit, how about you tell us it's shit, and tell us why, based on your own experiences reading and analyzing it? Because the one thing I do hate about this board is this loathsome tendency to criticize something you haven't read just because of some stupid criterion like it's printed on pulp paper or there's a rocket ship on the cover (looking at you, Pynchon).

[Anonymous No.3735472]

>>3734807
Pulp is shit, it's that simple

[Anonymous No.3735479]

>>3734875
>Of all the terrible books I've read (or tied to read) in the last few months
I stopped reading there. You're rambling to hear the sound of your own voice. Write the stupid fucking book already, loser.

[Anonymous No.3735483]

>>3734812
I'm always superior to you
always

[Anonymous No.3735970]

>>3735479
Umm...what book? I think you're confusing me with someone else.
>>3735483
I'm the guy you replied to here. And I'm beginning to see why This is just you and one other guy arguing trivia. You're kind of a jerk aren't you?

>>3735472
there, see how easy that was? If everybody knows you just mean "shit" when you say "pulp," and not anything specific, no one will argue with you and you can go back to reasonable discussions. If I say "Punk is shit" guys who like punk may argue with me. If i point to a dog and say "that dog is punk" (meaning shit) that's less likely to happen.

[Anonymous No.3736090]

>>3735970
>If everybody knows you just mean "shit" when you say "pulp," and not anything specific, no one will argue with you and you can go back to reasonable discussions.

Did you actually read any of the post? If you'd paid attention, you'd know it's been explained several times:

>>3732699
>...cheaply written and easily discarded
>...written for the lowest common denominator

>>3732918
>Pulp was written for the lowest common denominator

>>3733065
>...cheaply written for the poorly read. ...has no literary merit....

>>3733167
>Pulp is defined as something that was written for the lowest common denominator, with little to no literary merit.

>>3734457
>...a kind of written work published for a less than sophisticated literate audience--common folk, mostly aimed at young boys--and pandered to stereotypes. They had little to no literary merit.
>...they're cheap books written to titillate like a cheap thrill.

>>3734653
>Generally the term Pulp refers to cheaply made books, both in quality of production and writing.

What is so difficult to understand?

[Anonymous No.3736114]

>>3736090
Okay. I'm the guy you were arguing with yesterday (the one you're superior to always, remember?) And I think the point I was making, or trying to then sort of ties in to this:

it's NOT obvious what you mean when you say "pulp". It's taken a whole thread and we're still debating it. I was irritated because I thought you were dissing "Black Mask" and "All-Story", Then I thought you meant the paper, and he thinks you just use it as a substitute for "I don't like it". I suspect this discussion may come up a lot. Well, maybe not. I'm sorry to say it but your manner and well, truculence, is probably going to keep most people from interacting with you much. I'm a lot older than you, so a bit more patient, and I suspect a lot of others will just ignore you. You should really culitvate a more reasoned and light-hearted debating style. You sort of come across as a frothing lunatic, and while I'm pretty sure you're not, it really gets hard to get the image out of my head sometimes.

That said, I really am interseted in writing at least an article or two on the pulps and their contribution to literacy and media in the twentieth century, and I'd be interested in reading that article you cite. If you could get me the full citation, I'll get it off jstor and see what Ithink of it. Thanks.

[Anonymous No.3736132]

pulp sucks, philosophy sucks less

[Anonymous No.3736141]

>>3736132
in grapefruit juice, i agree with you. In orange juice though, i like xtra pulp, hold the philosophy.

[Anonymous No.3736144]

>>3736114
>NOT obvious what you mean when you say "pulp".

You are lot dumber than you think. Pulp could go to your home and shit in front of your screen, and you'd still wouldn't know. How can you possible still say it's ambiguous, when it has been explained clearly and repeated several times? Is 'paying attention' *that* difficult?

Write that book, or article, or whatever--with your skills and *credentials*, it will be hilarious.

[Anonymous No.3736175]

>>3736144
No, you don't get it: after ten or fifteen posts, and probably an hour of trying to pin down a specific answer, I do have an idea now of what you mean. But I think most people are going to go one of the other routes. All you really accomplish, as they other guy said, is to get across the idea that you think something's bad, and you use the word "pulp" to convey that instead of just saying you think it's bad. Most people aren't going to care enough to delve into the esoterica like I did, I only did because I thought I disagreed with you, now that I know we have pretty much opposite definitions of the term, I'm not even certain of that. And post an email. I'll see that you get a first draft.

Just to be sure, your version of pulp is "bad books, or poorly written books, probably printed on wood pulp paper" and mine is " books and magazines printed in the last century and a half on wood pulp paper in cheap mass market editions of varying quality and content."

[Anonymous No.3736176]

>>3736144

"Write that book, or article, or whatever.."

I hope he does - I'd read it with interest

[Anonymous No.3736379]

>>3736175
Call for help, you're retarded. The definitions given are a general consensus--both from laymen and scholars. I have no idea what you're attempting to accomplish other than other basking in some faux-intellectual nostalgia. You keep acting as if you have the info, but then make gestures as if to suggest "WHAH! It's really hard to pin down, you guys!". So either you don't know what you're talking about, or you're a complete farce butthurt over the fact someones has a better understanding of Pulp than you'll ever have.

Write that piece of shite article, or book, or whatever it is by now. Post it and learn how wrong it is.

[Anonymous No.3736441]

>>3736379

" Anonymous 05/09/13(Thu)00:19:03 UTC+10 No.3736379
>>3736175 #

>"...or you're a complete farce butthurt over the fact someones has a better understanding of Pulp than you'll ever have"

Oh the irony.....

[Anonymous No.3736518]

>>3736441
Why are you wasting time here? You have nothing meaningful to prove and no facility to do that effectively.

Write the stupid book,asswipe.

[Anonymous No.3736522]

>>3736441
I'm superior

[Anonymous No.3736535]

>>3736518
I'm the one writing the book. You're yelling at the wrong guy. And telling him you're superior. Well, he may be an asswipe too, though. and writing a book so I guess it could apply.

[Anonymous No.3736564]

>>3736535
>>3736441
I don't know who's who here. But I do know none of you have said anything significantly worth noting on the topic of Pulp. Both you have only have named-dropped, and alluded to how much you *potentially* know on the subject. That's quite a feat actually, seeing how both of you managed to that consistently.

You to might as well be hipster buddies. You both are doing exactly what I said earlier:

>>3732699
>Hipsters come along and prescribe [pulp] again through a new bias lens... ...And they'll use that to hype themselves as some kind of literary guru. ...It's all smoke and mirrors mostly.. ...Hipster... ...con you into believing that they're onto something amazing. BULLSHIT!...

[Anonymous No.3736573]

Y NO 1 REEDING INVISIBLES COMIX AND ROBET ANTON WILSON?!?!?

[Anonymous No.3736582]

Y NO 1 REED HOUSE OF LEEVES?!?!?!?!?!?

[Anonymous No.3736587]

Y NO 1 POST IN FOUCAULT THREAD?!?!?!?!?