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Post by mummifiedstalin on Jul 31, 2009 21:31:39 GMT -5
I think the problem is that people think that books should all be entertainment. They shouldn't. Sometimes stuff that's hard or even irritating can be more enlightening and make you think harder than something that you just immediately dive in to and get sucked along.
You mentioned Gertrude Stein, for example. Her entire point in writing was to mess up language. It's *supposed* to be difficult, to make normal everyday language seem strange and alien. She worked to make it that way. She wasn't trying to tell a story, she was trying to create a work of literature that intentionally disorients you within a language you already speak. Of course that's going to "taste bad," but the experience isn't about the "taste" or the "ride" of reading it. It's about seeing language in a completely different way.
So to use your food metaphor, not every dish is supposed to go down as easily as french fries. Some tastes have to be developed over time. Take alcoholic drinks, for example. Most of them taste painfully awful the first time you try them. But, first, taste isn't the only reason to drink them, and, second, if you develop a taste for wine, say, you end up with a much wider experience of how different tastes can affect you.
Plugging through an experience that may initially turn you off can often become more rewarding than something that, like candy, is easily accessible.[I have two problems with writers who write in such a way as to make it difficult to understand just to make it challenging. What other field does this? I've invented a new mathematics, it doesn't solve any problem that the old math can solve and its much more difficult to learn but its challenging. How can understanding a book that is intentionally written to be difficult to understand rewarding? It's different if its a book like Beowolf or Shakespere where it is difficult to understand because it was written for an audience hundreds of years ago. They weren't intended to be difficult. People say scientist do this but they are writing to other scientists. Specialized writing is designed to avoid confusion among specialists. The second problem is that students are taught that good writing is very difficult to understand. If its easy to understand, its lousy writing. These people then get a job writing the instructions on programing your DVD burner that are almost impossible to understand. Books don't always have to be fun to be useful but they should at least be interesting. I agree that you need to be ready to read a book. I've tried to read War and Peace a few times and never got past a couple of chapters. I've just started it again after reading a history book about the Nepolionic wars and I'm finding it really interesting now. Something tells me that English teachers are putting some revisionist history on some of these books. Instead of admitting that they aren't as good as they thought, they try to pass if off as if the author made it that way on purpose to "challenge" us. Kind of like how Tommy Wiseau now tries to say he meant The Room to be an unintentional comedy all along...even though that's obviously not true. YOU'VE UNVEILED OUR CONSPIRACY!!! NOOOOO!!!!!! Heh. In truth, it's usually more of a historical problem. My students were and still always amazed when I tell them Shakespeare was "pop" culture back in ye olde Elizabethan times. They don't believe me when I told them that religious leaders closed the theaters for the same reasons people used to hate rock music. They don't believe me when I tell them that his language was seen as too pedestrian by some of the elites of his time. And they don't believe me when I tell them that other playwrights wrote irritated letters to each other when his _Pericles_ sold out consistently to the lower, uneducated classes when they couldn't get anyone to come to their high-falutin' recreations of ancient Greek classics. But that's just an example. I don't think any writer writes something just to be difficult for its own sake.* They may be trying to do something that is inherent difficult, say. But no one blames a pro baseball pitcher for making it too hard to hit his fast balls. Why should art be made for the lowest common denominator? We'll all gravitate towards the easy stuff on our own. But sometimes a little push to help us appreciate something that we might normally not want to spend the effort on can also be a good thing. *Edit. I should clarify that there are plenty of writers that do that. They're just bad writers, and they're usually young, and they usually think that obscurity can make them seem deep or smart. I think the difference, though, is that they stay obscure while a good writer will, over time, have people who are better able to help others see why spending time on a difficult writer is worth the effort. I was lucky enough to have great teachers who made "hard" readers seem enlightening rather than just a slog. But, sure, in the end it all comes down to taste. I just have better taste than the rest of you. ;D
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Post by Fred Burroughs on Jul 31, 2009 22:58:54 GMT -5
You know I wasn't being totally serious with that right?
I've heard a lot of those things about Shakespeare before too.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Jul 31, 2009 23:03:37 GMT -5
You know I wasn't being totally serious with that right? I've heard a lot of those things about Shakespeare before too. Sarcasm on the internet...sometimes it's hard (for me, at least) to tell. My apologies if...when...I get pedantic!
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Post by Donna SadCat Lady on Jul 31, 2009 23:39:02 GMT -5
Something tells me that English teachers are putting some revisionist history on some of these books. Instead of admitting that they aren't as good as they thought, they try to pass if off as if the author made it that way on purpose to "challenge" us. Kind of like how Tommy Wiseau now tries to say he meant The Room to be an unintentional comedy all along...even though that's obviously not true. YOU'VE UNVEILED OUR CONSPIRACY!!! NOOOOO!!!!!! Heh. In truth, it's usually more of a historical problem. Maybe, but often it's more of a teacher problem. That is, there are teachers with a genuine enthusiasm for the book that they want to share. And there are teachers who have a list of themes to cover, and woe betide the student who doesn't repeat back each and every point on that list. My students were and still always amazed when I tell them Shakespeare was "pop" culture back in ye olde Elizabethan times. They don't believe me when I told them that religious leaders closed the theaters for the same reasons people used to hate rock music. They don't believe me when I tell them that his language was seen as too pedestrian by some of the elites of his time. And they don't believe me when I tell them that other playwrights wrote irritated letters to each other when his _Pericles_ sold out consistently to the lower, uneducated classes when they couldn't get anyone to come to their high-falutin' recreations of ancient Greek classics. But that's just an example. Ah, but good ol' Will wrote for everybody, from the groundlings to the intelligentsia. And that ain't easy, in any era. I don't think any writer writes something just to be difficult for its own sake. They may be trying to do something that is inherently difficult, say. There are exceptions to that, though, you know, Mumms. The twentieth century was rife with writers and artists who sought to be as difficult to understand as possible, for various reasons. In Shakespeare's time, there were the Metaphysical poets. Look at Ben Jonson--he saw no reason to stoop to the audience's level of understanding, and was rather irate when his plays didn't do well because of it. Heck, we could probably find examples in ancient Greece, let alone ancient Rome. But no one blames a pro baseball pitcher for making it too hard to hit his fast balls. Why should art be made for the lowest common denominator? True, but he's supposed to beating the other team. Seeing the audience as an opponent to be defeated would be an... interesting approach. Maybe a lot of writers do feel that way! But then you're getting into the whole question of what art is. Should art be a form of communication, where the artist seeks to convey a meaning or idea to others? Or is it a form of expression, where the artist seeks purely to give an idea an external form, without worrying about what it conveys to others? Or were the Dadaists right that, since civilization's on the brink of collapse, it doesn't really matter anyway? We'll all gravitate towards the easy stuff on our own. But sometimes a little push to help us appreciate something that we might normally not want to spend the effort on can also be a good thing. That's true too. But the problem is, I think, that what teachers might intend to be a little push can end up feeling like being knocked down and sat on until the student says, "Uncle!" Or "Compare and contrast!" or something.
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Post by Mr. Atari on Aug 1, 2009 9:06:22 GMT -5
I've read all of this great, highbrow debate, and I've come to a conclusion:
I still don't like Jane Austen.
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Post by Chuck on Aug 1, 2009 13:58:00 GMT -5
I've read all of this great, highbrow debate, and I've come to a conclusion: I still don't like Jane Austen. I don't blame you in the least.
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Post by Mighty Jack on Aug 1, 2009 14:22:34 GMT -5
^ Well I'd hold it against him, but he's so darn cuddly and lovable!
While I feel comfortable debating music and movies, I get a bit insecure when it comes to literature. I can discuss it, but I always feel like I'm a few crumbs shy of a full sandwich.. er, or something like that.
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Post by Satchmo on Aug 1, 2009 18:28:56 GMT -5
I've read all of this great, highbrow debate, and I've come to a conclusion: I still don't like Jane Austen. I don't blame you in the least. Seconded. When someone told me that Pride and Prejudice was not only a "comedy" (no, seriouisly!), but a satire, it just made me hate it even more. Good satires never end happily, that takes away the bite, and without the bite there's no point.
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Post by Donna SadCat Lady on Aug 4, 2009 22:28:39 GMT -5
And I still like her. So there you go. I'll only say one more thing about Jane Austen (for now): she's funny. And so is Kate Beaton.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Aug 4, 2009 23:39:43 GMT -5
And I still like her. So there you go. I'll only say one more thing about Jane Austen (for now): she's funny. And so is Kate Beaton. As is probably obvious: she's chick-lit, 19th-century style!
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Post by Mr. Atari on Aug 5, 2009 0:12:35 GMT -5
The other night, Mrs. Atari was watching Pride and Prejudice. I saw enough to notice the period costumes and the treacly dialogue and asked, "Is this the one where the poor girl falls for the rich boy or the one where the rich girl falls for the poor boy?"
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Post by Nuveena on Aug 5, 2009 13:16:06 GMT -5
They're all pretty much the same. Twilight of the 19th century, but with more structure.
Just read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley for a school assignment. I couldn't stand it. Even though I tried to get into it, I couldn't; I didn't find any of the characters relatable, except maybe John, and didn't care for the story in general.
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Post by angilasman on Aug 5, 2009 20:37:07 GMT -5
I kept thinking that Caulfield had to be an ironic character, because there's no way that anyone could find him even remotely likeable, right? Yep. That's the only reason that book is interesting. People who think you're supposed to find Caulfield to be someone to relate to are either stupid or just as adolescently self-absorbed as he is. Salinger wrote it as a dark comedy, methinks. I only starting liking the book when about a third of the way through I had this revelation: "Oh, I get it! Caulfield is full of sh*t!" ;D Anyway, when it comes to long, depressing internal monologues I have to say I prefer Heller's Something Happened.
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Post by callipygias on Aug 6, 2009 8:56:37 GMT -5
when it comes to long, depressing internal monologues I have to say I prefer Heller's Something Happened. Then there might be something wrong with you. Something very, very wrong with you.
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Post by Tennis Hog on Aug 13, 2009 16:34:19 GMT -5
Lady Chatterley's Lover. I see that it was probably shocking and different when it was published, but to me it just seemed like a pair of people endlessly telling each other how much better they were than the mindless masses because they had sex in the countryside, dammit, and that meant they were closer to nature and thus superior.
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