how the hell can normies stand to read genre fiction?
you can read a tight, thought provoking 150-300 pages of literary fiction where every word feels important
or you can read a 10 book series of 700 page tiny print tomes where everything is exposition or dialogue where two of the thousands of characters argue and play mind games with each other described in excruciating detail as if the reader is too stupid to infer what's going on in a dialogue
i am genuinely impressed anyone has the attention span for this stuff, i simply cannot do it
Thought-numbing escapism will always be popular.
>>8210852
i'd rather stare at a wall
genre fiction requires a constant struggle against boredom
When you don't realize sf can be literary
>>8210904
People here don't seem to get that.
>>8210847
Sounds like you are reading the types of authors who are just writing worlds and daydreaming.
Science fiction can go in any direction, it's main goals are to be thought provoking, imaginative and literary.
A 2000 word chapter describing life on some shitty made up planet called "Gaesalon" where the aliens are extremely detailed to just turn out to be chicken turtle hybrid things, that's amatuer hour.
A lot of old sci fi had shitty plots.
Part 1: Problem (need money or in trouble)
Part 2: explain the plan to fix the problem and introduce the love interest
Part 3: begin to explain the problem and the science.
Part 4: the twist, a villian shows up and the plan goes to hell.
Part 5: oh no what do we do.
Part 6: the simple resolution and the author hints that the hot girl who looks like someone he saw on the street and the main character who is supposed to be him, they fucked.
Then you had robots and discussion of ethics and morality and beliefs in great sci fi authors.
It's the same with literature.
You have your love story that tries to say something deep and suddenly it's literary.
You should read better sci-fi authors like Bradbury and Asimov, Dick and some of Ellison.
>>8211040
You might want to try getting over yourself.
If you don't like genre fiction, why are you reading it? :^)
>>8210847
even the best sf (philip dick probably) lies too far from great literature. and "thought provoking" is not enough, when the language itself is weak
>>8210882
90% of everything is shit/mediocre though. Even so called "literature"
>>8211087
that is the point, because
>90% of everything is shit/mediocre
and
>99.9% of sf is shit/mediocre
>>8210847
Are you talking about Malazan?
>>8211094
>>99.9% of sf is shit/mediocre
Prove it
>I don't like it, therefore it's bad
'High-lit' snobs can't seem to grasp the fact that their precious literature is just as genre based as everything else
>>8211111
It's generally that genre fiction usually lacks some kind of coherent commentary/larger message that literary fiction normally contains
>>8210847
>150-300 pages of literary fiction where every word feels important
You said it yourself. They don't take this stuff seriously. Why do you?
>>8211263
>Has read 1% of science fiction
>Says 99% of it as all shit.
Woah, sounds like some pseud shit.
More accurately, 75% percent of science fiction is a stupid plot where there's some science stuff, and then a fight and then someone fucks a hot girl, or these days, someone comes out as gay, but there are also complex and engaging writers, and a writer who sounds like a scientist is definetly not childish.
I for example don't like writers who are all prose nothing else. Especially that rhythmic type, I think they should have just written a poem. But im far from able to discount the merits of their style, because im not a overconfident cunt.
>>8211285
>Has eaten 1% of shit
>Says 99% of shit all tastes like shit
Just eat more shit, ya dummy.
Notice, I'm not talking about 0.1%, which is good. 0.1% gives sf some room
>>8211285
>I for example don't like writers who are all prose nothing else
And I like it
>because im not a overconfident cunt
so be one, like I am
I used to think this, but then I read Pynchon's review of Warlock (1958) and now I'm not sure if I feel comfortable dismissing the category completely. Assuming that Warlock is genre fiction of course, which it strikes me as (it's a western).
>>8211407
So your viewpoints rely basically on what the most famous and well known people believe?
>>8211291
NOT ALL MUSLIMS
>>8211111
>he "likes" purchasing commodities that prey on his autism
people on this board need to stop making a transhistorical ideal out of the notions of "style" and "prose" and realize that if Sci Fi in the 21st century has shitty, pregnable writing that wears its political and ideological investments on its sleeve, that just makes a totalizing cultural criticism, a real diagnosis of the age, that much easier. the great lot of the literary canon is just as shitty from the perspective of ideologiekritik, it just partook of a culture that was better at hiding it.
>>8211417
No, I had just always dismissed genre fiction (not so much consciously as just never thinking about it in any form). While doing some post-GR Pynchon research I came across the review. It had, like most reviews, a description of the themes etc. and a reflection on them, which I found to be of a higher level than I would have expected forcing my re-appraisal.
In short, it has nothing to do with Pynchon being the author other than I wouldn't have read a review of a piece of genre fiction if I hadn't stumbled onto it in some other pursuit. The content of the review itself is what substantiated the change of opinion.
>>8211413
literary genre is pretty resistant to quantification. it's easy to judge a whole genre on the basis of a few of its exemplary articles.
>>8210882
Most of Solaris is hard-science details, with about 15% thoughtfulness. The movies are better.
t. former genre pleb
>>8211451
But what about the fact that there's spaceships and stuff? That's for children!!!!!
>>8211511
prolonged childhood and consumerism go hand in hand. young adult, sci fi, and fantasy work to catch those outliers who sense a vague void while staring at their array of screens and thinking reading words on a page can fill it
>>8211480
Solaris is literally the single worst film Tarkovsky ever made and that turd existing is the only blemish on an otherwise flawless filmography
>>8211560
it is absolutely not worse than nostalghia
>>8211560
That doesn't mean the book isn't an even bigger turd. Or are you just venting?
>>8211588
You literally have shit taste, the final scene of Nostalghia alone is better than all of Solaris.
>>8211589
I am just venting. I have never read the book, but if it's worse than the film I really won't bother.
>>8211588
Nostalghia is his best behind Mirror, boy you sure are a pleb
I really hope something bad happens to you, and when it does you can think of me
>>8211044
I tried reading it, that's what happened, and I didn't enjoy it anyways. I should mention that I like some of the sci-fi classics though.
>>8211619
Are you sure it didn't have a quiet intensity? No? A certain noisy relaxed quality, maybe? How about a quietly noisy relaxed intensity?I'm saying your "critique" is a steaming pile of clichéd dogshit and you're too stupid to muster up something of value
>>8211648
As apposed to yours, which is purely ad hominem
you seem really hostile for some reason, did you get something stuck up your ass today?
>>8211031
Bradbury is GOAT
Except for those weird short stories about Irish people. The fuck was up with that?
It is never the subject matter that makes something bad. A talented writer can turn any premise into timeless literature
The problem is simply, very simply, that there are a lot of very mediocre writers. Not truly awful, because if they truly were awful they wouldn't get published. But they are extremely mediocre. And a lot of mediocre writers jump on board the genre that is easy to work with and will get them sales. Guess what? It's easy to impress some readers with tales of galactic civilization, so that's where the mediocre writers go.
It's not that all Sci-fi is bad, it's that it's the dumping ground for dull, money grabbing authors more than anywhere else besides fantasy (which suffers from the same problem)
I'm not sure what exactly is the difference between literary and genre fiction, and I think cutting it out as one or the other doesn't really work. Also, people read for different reasons, some people just read to get into an easy story without having to properly think too much.
>>8210904
I don't think that's a fair assessment. Hell, you could call The Hunger Games "thought-provoking", due to the themes of rebellion and abuse of power, but many people on this board would not consider it to be literary fiction.
>he reads Pynchon but not Alfred Bester
>he doesn't consider Wolfe and Delany two of the best living American writers
ITT Snobs
>>8211857
that's the same magnitude of understatement as going to /r9k/ and saying there are virgins there. where do you think you are?
>>8211666
this post is full of good words but fails as a whole
Great thread, I'm sure this is no different at all than all the others one exactly like it made on here every single day
Upvoted
>all these faggots saying genre fiction
its called a story, faggots
>>8211560
Tark only disliked it because it failed to fulfill his "transcendental film" idea. Doesn't mean it's a bad film by any means, I wouldn't say he has a single bad or even less-than-great film.
>>8210847
I consider something "good" "genre fiction" if I feel like I'd rather be watching a movie or television series based on the book rather than continue reading. If I feel like it's a waste of time to read and wouldn't even be fun as mindless entertainment in film or tv form then it's garbage genre fiction. THere are exceptions but that's pretty much how I see it.
To clarify: if it would work as well or better in a different medium it's probably genre fiction and not "lit."
>>8211619
No, it is you, who made of good parts, but fails as a whole
Dismissing an entire form of literature because it isn't as "intellectual" is pseud as fuck. The problem isn't genre fiction, but instead the mediocre writers who can only write generic genre fiction.
>>8211828
Yes this blindness to the genre nature of pynchon, ij, spenser, keats, sir thomas moore, kafka, homer, coleridge, poe, beowulf, marlowe, shakespeare, and the great mass of pre 19th century writers before realism took over is a very closed and blinkered view of literary history. Pynchon is absurdist sf and fantasy by and large and always plays in genre. The difference is delany and wolfe are not always absurdists. But the irony in their writing is real, just too subtle for thothose not used to the sf tropes they actively subvert instead of simple utopia/dystopia tripe.
>>8210847
They ARE jealous of the jetpack. I hope you didn't think that image illustrates your point.
>>8210847
Don't lump all scifi in with whatever shit you've read. Sure, the genre offers plot devices that compensate for terrible writing and consequently many terrible writers get published. But have you read childhood's end? Cs lewis' space trilogy? Some scifi is absolutely beautifully done.
>>8211078
Why do you people love dick so much?
He's a fucking terrible writer. His plots are weak excuses to just info dump at you while the characters go nowhere and do nothing.
>>8212591
Dick is like a schizophrenic Borges. The characters are barely human but you read it for the weird ideas, not the character development. His novels are pretty dumb, but reading through his short stories is a joy of brain-fucked weirdness.
>>8212587
Those two are terrible examples but otherwise I agree.
>>8212591
>Why do you people love dick so much?
Where do you think you are?
>>8210847
>normies
>reading
Normies only read YA nowadays. Genre fiction is usually the territory of misfits and children.
>>8210904
isaac asimov
strugatsky bros.
william gibson
maybe I'm revealing myself as a pleb but that shit is good too
So "literary fiction" is just boring word play with as many complicated words as possible, arranged in a manner that plebs won't understand?
"Genre fiction" is simple words describing a plot and characters, arranged in a way that the lowest iq would get, with no deeper meaning?
Am I getting this right?
In that cause don't avoid pic related, embrace it.
>>8210847
>literary fiction is not constituted by its own generic tradition
Did you read any Bahktin or are you just willfully ignorant?
>>8212781
The point is generally that "literary" fiction has some deeper message about the human condition that goes beyond just being entertaining. There's some nebulous qualifiers to do with context and quality of writing too. It's a spectrum and far from objective.
>>8210847
At least you know what exposition is, OP, faggots on here are literal retards and pretend to know what they're talking about.
>>8210852
Not that I'm meme'ing or anything, but even DFW agreed that commercial stuff is fine in small doses.
>>8212871
"Even" dfw is famous for writing a near future sf book in which canada and the Us have an absurd border squabble and years are subsidized by capitalism. In addition, the metaphor of entertainment as an all consuming death wish is given life just as jg ballard, in more polished and stark prose, presents his metaphors of societal suicide as a series of catastrophes or crashes. Infinite Jest is science fiction.
My friend picked up on me reading nonstop (finished Notes, GR, and Blood Meridian the past month, reading Dubliners now, probably going to read Fagles's translation of the Odyssey or Lolita next) and now he wants me to read Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson and I can't bring myself to do it. He's pushing it on me so hard.
>>8212863
Yeah, and plenty of fiction which is part of a genre embodies this.
The main difference is that they tend to be the works that define the genre, while the *real* genre fiction slavishly tries to recreate them through narrative tropes, without realising what literature actually is.
>>8213209
It's shit. As in, for SFF it's shit.
>mfw all literature can be traced back to what was escapist fantasy
>>8210847
>normies
HS student special snowflake tier desu
>>8213861
No, it can't. Not purely escapist fantasy. It had very clear themes, messages, points, literal poetry -- it's a good example of how genre fiction isn't really fiction from a genre, but it's not a good example of purely escapist fantasy.
>>8212781
>Avoid Conan and Lord of the Rings
What kind of stunted buffoon made this image?
>>8213889
Welcome to the concept of "bait".
>>8213898
So it's bait just because you don't agree?
It's almost as if most people don't understand allegory or even basic themes.
Yes even in schlock fantasy and sci-fi you can find a message that the author is trying to convey.
Even trash like hunger games has a fucking moral, a simple one but regardless.
>>8211417
Just people better read than you
>>8210847
You'd be surprised. Some can be just as profound as literary fiction.
You seem to have just scratched the surface of trite sci fi/fantasy books. Some deal with engaging themes equal with literary fiction. Sci fi through technological and social possibilities, and fantasy with created myth and archetype.
>>8210847
>Normies
>Reading Science Fiction
What world do you live in, man?
>>8211451
Hesse, Huxley, Orwell, Eco, Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Burroughs...
Yeah, you got me anon. Unlike Sci Fi, Great Literary Writers do not wear their ideological agendas on their sleeves. uh-uh.
>>8215265
When you are no longer 15 years old you may be worth having a conversation with. You've got a lot of maturing to do yet. Your head is still filled with childishness, cognitive dissonance, and an unavoidable contrarian nature. Your arguments aren't your own, they are instead the opposite of whatever mine are. You haven't experienced enough of the world yet to have a worthwhile opinion. Go on being edgy for now. Develop emotionally so you can tame your intellect. It comes with age and education. Your frustration and inability to communicate effectively is still evident.
>>8215273
And your counterpoint was?
