/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6282430]

Hey /lit/

I'm 18 years old and in an AP Literature class for my last year of high school. My teacher assigned a book by Thomas Cobb called "Crazy Heart"

Many of the students in my class are upset because it seems more like a work of commercial fiction to us, and we feel like our teacher only picked this book since it was relevant to the local area and he had somewhat of a man-crush on the author (even put us into a Skype call with him.) The author claimed he wrote it in a short period of time, it was his first work and he admitted that he wasn't thinking about anything except entertainment and deadlines when writing it.

We know that the author's opinion doesn't really matter all too much as our teacher said about a novel but still, we just feel like he is trying to make literary connections that just aren't there. It was also a fairly poorly written book and extremely vulgar.

What do you think? Was this literary? Is there some merit to this book? Can we apply marxist criticism and the psychoanalytic theory to this book or is it just grasping at straws?

pic related, the author. he coughs a lot without covering his mouth on skype.

[Anonymous No.6282440]

>>6282430
oh and the reason i ask this is because he's encouraging us to write about this book on the AP test and i feel like they won't accept it and he'll just try to go "oh well that's dumb" and argue it but regardless he'll lose in the end but he won't actually face any of the consequences of it. We just feel like we wasted a few weeks on a book we cant even write about.

[Anonymous No.6282442]

why don't you shut the fuck up and do your assignments? Sounds like your teacher is going far and beyond what most would.

Be grateful. Stop sucking dicks in your free time also.

[Anonymous No.6282452]

Just write about alliteration, plebiscite

[Anonymous No.6282463]

eat a bag of shit faggot your teacher is trying to be innovative and gives you a book outside the circlejerked to death canon and then arranges a skype call with the author where you can ask him anything and all you notice is that he doesn't cover his mouth when he coughs and there's no one physically close to him? Go blow your fucking dad you worthless pleb shit.

[Anonymous No.6282470]

Your class sounds like a bunch of psueds, I bet that by "Marxist theory," you mean talking about opposites.

[Anonymous No.6282474]

>>6282442
I am grateful. He was an interesting author and I enjoyed the time I was able to ask him questions and such, it's just regardless of the enjoyment, we are AP students. We don't read books for their entertainment value for classes, we read them for their literary merit and ability to write about them on the AP test and we're not sure if we're able to.

I've read the book, done all the assignments, but most of the class is just upset because we feel like we spent all of this time on a book that we dislike. Even our teacher was struggling to find topics to apply to the book and everything we suggested to the author made him respond "I've never thought of that, how interesting" and ended our discussion.

He also gave us a 200+ song playlist on Grooveshark that we were supposed to listen to to understand "country western music" better and basically it was just about an old, washed up gross old guy with alcoholism and a shit-tier plot and it was just not a very good book, wasn't interesting, wasn't geared towards our age group, wasn't very literary and the author just talked about his life and cool author stuff and we can barely apply a criticism to this book. you guys are being so hateful but without answering my questions and instead resorting to 'fuck u' ad hominem arguing.

>>6282452
That's better to use in poems and we haven't received the essay prompt yet for our essay tomorrow, also the AP test essays will require more than "hurr muh alliteration".

[Anonymous No.6282484]

Haven't read it. It was a pretty good movie from what I remember. Killer fucking soundtrack.

But, yeah. Just read the book. It's not that big of a deal, man. Be happy you're reading something different in high school.

[Anonymous No.6282491]

reminder OP is indirectly shit talking Townes Van Zandt, someone who if he did a little fucking research, you could write a plethora of literary essays about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Rdm8LItAHs

[Anonymous No.6282495]

>AP classes
>Meaningful
Get over it, OP. Do what you're supposed to for the grade. Don't do more than that.

[Anonymous No.6282499]

>>6282430
Applying Marxist criticism and psychoanalytic theory to anything is grasping at straws.

You heard it here FIRST.

[Anonymous No.6282500]

>>6282474
You're in high-school dumbass, read some literary journal articles and repurpose some of their points

[Anonymous No.6282504]

>>6282474

You aren't grateful. You're a cunt and you deserve to die.

[Anonymous No.6282509]

Perhaps he's trying to teach you that interpreting a book is in fact a creative process. David Foster Wallace made a similar point in the English classes he used to teach, where he assigned students books by authors like Stephen King and Tom Clancy.

[Anonymous No.6282510]

>>6282491
Damn that's some good country

[Anonymous No.6282512]

>>6282470
We had this huge packet applying the Marxist criticism to an actually literary book "The Turn of the Screw" (I felt was brilliant) that we read earlier in the semester. It was extremely hard to understand and our teacher just talked to us about class oppression and how capitalism was bad. We are pseuds. We're AP students who have never heard of any of this shit before in our lives before entering this class.

>>6282463
? We asked the author lots of literary questions about the book and tried to understand more but he mostly said "lol I wrote this in college and it had a deadline and it was my assignment over the year and i just kinda wrote as i went along haha i never thought that he might have an Oedipal complex! Never thought that naming a guy after my name had any relevance but now i'm wondering! haha u guys are smart giving me all this new cool info :D" And then he went on to talk about his research and his life and stuff. It was interesting but the point about the author was that he couldn't really apply literary concepts to the book and was just reaffirming the classes thoughts that it wasn't really appropriate for the course.

>>6282484
>>6282495
Read it! It was okay, the ending was interesting. I just am not sure whether I could write about it in a literary way. I am glad you guys are defending my teacher though honestly, he is a very intelligent and likeable man and i'm glad to stand by him in this. Just wanted your opinions, didn't mean to upset so many people.


>>6282491
Dunno who that guy is

>>6282499
Yeah but we have to for our class.

>>6282500
But has anyone even wrote about this book....???

[Anonymous No.6282525]

>>6282509
Yeah I suppose that's right but it seems like it'd be appropriate for the three other college literature classes. AP classes are genuinely just preparation for the AP exam at the end of the year and anyone who says otherwise is lying. The L101 and L202 and W131 classes are all for creative process and literature that might be commercial. Any book on the syllabus is supposed to be guaranteed writing material for the test but some of us don't think so and we're too afraid to ask our teacher because he gets upset easily and makes us feel stupid if we question him.

Just a few days ago he got mad that a few people didn't read an assignment, told us we were lazy and made us watch dog videos because he said that's what we wanted to do and all we were good for.

[Anonymous No.6282546]

>>6282525
>Just a few days ago he got mad that a few people didn't read an assignment, told us we were lazy and made us watch dog videos because he said that's what we wanted to do and all we were good for.

I like your teacher. He knows what he's doing.

[Anonymous No.6282553]

>>6282512
>But has anyone even wrote about this book....???
Why don't you figure that out for yourself? Am I google, underageb&?

[Anonymous No.6282599]

>>6282525
>Acting this serious about AP Lit

Ah, those were the days.

OP. Sit down, jerk your dick, smoke a spliff, and calm the fuck down for a moment.

If the AP English exam is anything like it was in 2010, it'll be a breeze. You're graduating soon, you've probably been accepted into a few schools, and you've got years of student debt and lamenting your decision to study liberal arts ahead of you.

Just chill. Take it easy. Read the fucking book, have some funzies, fuck that weird girl who had a crush on you since 5th grade, and chill-the fuck-ax

Pic related: the book I wrote about for the AP Exams and got a motherfucking five. Just relax, man. It's all good.

[Anonymous No.6282604]

>>6282512
>dunno who that guy is
He's the only lyricist who can hold a candle to Dylan. If you did a little research about your book you would know it was based loosely on the life of Van Zandt. But you're too busy trying to find the "textbook marxist criticisms" and "Oedipal complexes" instead of actually doing any independent thinking of you own. You're one of those cunts who go through the motions of literary criticism like its working on an assembly line.

[Anonymous No.6282709]

>>6282604
No, I'm fairly certain it was about Hank Thompson, dude.

>>6282599
Yeah, but i'm not the only one who has raised concerns though. Nobody has addressed my question of whether it is literary or not yet. I don't know why everyone is so upset over this.

>>6282553
So far, nobody has written about this book to my knowledge and research, which is why I have asked.

[Anonymous No.6282729]

>>6282709
>No, I'm fairly certain it was about Hank Thompson, dude.
Oh my mistake