/lit/ I want your honest opinion on what differentiates literature, both fiction and nonfiction from regular books and great literature from normal works of literature. what should a great book aim for? accomplish?
Memes
>>7491436
/thread
Dunno about normal or great but from my experiences there's
>the guys who think they're some uber shit knowing something nobody else does and purposely retarding their growth in order to understand every minute detail of what ever small part of the world caught their attention for what ever reasons
>the guys who want that sweet sweet pussy
If you want to write, figure out which one you want to be and go for it.
>>7491433
i am a man of emotions. if it does not influence me emotionally, i throw it out, but i find the really brilliant books tie emotions with reason. if i can go into a book and not feel emotion or am not intellectually stimulated at first, but am overwhelmed by the time i leave it, then i typically think of it as a great book.
>>7491433
insight into timeless/universal truths, with resulting high rereadability and relevance to various stages of life
>>7491471
I definitely agree that a good book needs to make you feel. what do you mean by tying emotion with reason, though. care to give an example?
>>7491480
right, but don't most self-help books fit that criteria? is there something about how specific an author is that makes the difference?
>>7491491
Self help books are sophistry using faulty logic to try to dupe the reader into thinking they're having a revelation. So if you go down the criteria anon made
>insight into timeless/universal truths
Nope
>high rereadability
the more you reread it the easier to see how dumb it is
>relevance to various stages of life
may fit due to just how open ended and ambiguous this one is, it's a criteria I wouldn't have made
>>7491564
what are your criteria?
>>7491486
i'd say an example where my fears are realized in a way i did not expect in a novel, when the author confronts you with cold logic, showing you the emotions of the characters, but simultaneously giving you a view of the consequences for those emotions. sometimes it takes the form of you hating a character's actions, but sympathizing with them due to their humanity. i guess it's difficult to pin down what i mean. there are books that are great for entertainment's sake, that don't really grasp for your inner demons or make you struggle with ideas, but i feel great literature has to have a sincere human element that draws itself away from just trying to entertain. like in catch-22, mostly an entertaining book, yes. but when a certain woman gets raped and killed, and the following chapter, you start to see the horror of what amused you before. when you're stricken with cold reality in spite of your emotional blindness. eh, what do i know?
>>7491607
Getting more out of it from multiple readings is definitely one, Quality of craft (prose, structure), originality of thought, how engaging it is with the reader and what kind of engagement it offers (such as intellectually, aesthetically and down to lower forms of engagement like emotionally or historically), and I guess also it can be a good sign if there's a lot you can write about a work (treatises on minor harry potter characters notwithstanding). Also a big one is time. Time weeds out the chaff.
>>7491653
>lower forms of engagement like emotion
love is a low form of engagement?
sorrow is a low form of engagement?
what about hatred, or fear?
>>7491653
I agree with pretty much everything you wrote there but why do you consider emotional engagement to be a lower form as opposed to a complement of intellectual and aesthetic engagement. If those two do not hold emotion and connect with me on a visceral and emotional level, It just feels like a neat trick to me that I can forget about almost immediately.
>>7491677
It's effective because of its appeal, but it's cheap. Pet adoption commercials aren't great works of literature. Works best in tandem with other things, when it isn't being leaned on to support the whole thing. Take the Brothers Karamazov for example, highly emotional novel but that's because of how it supports a philosophical and psychological core.
>>7491684
>angrily agrees
>>7491697
hence why both are necessary and neither is a "lower form of engagement". intellectual appeal and emotional appeal are literally the two most important parts of literature.
>>7491708
Stop being so emotional brah.
>>7491719
stop being so intellectual, pseud.
>>7491708
Emotionality is of negligible worth from a critical standpoint. Visceral response has a short shelf life. How many times is a shocking scene going to shock you in subsequent readings?
>>7491755
haha shock and emotional content are very different things, and don't tell me that you can't feel the desperation every time you reread hamlet or macbeth or that there aren't more perspectives to appreciate in journey to the end of the night. if done well, a work will give you deeper emotion with every reading, not shallower.
>>7491433
"Literature is language charged with meaning. Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree"
So basically, great literature rewards close reading the most? I always wonder if this quote means that literature must be not only inherently ambiguous, but multifaceted. As if the greatest literature were so packed with interpretations, hints, inflections, and conflations, while still maintaining the outward literary form (eg a novel or a poem), that it could be read differently for each reader who picks it up.
