Wrote this on my blog (http://marshalmelee.tumblr.com/), but thought I'd add it to the TL list as well. Just some random thoughts.
I began reading Harry Potter when I was in elementary school and was hooked pretty early. Being able to stand in line, grab the next book, and devour it with glee was a defining part of my young life. Moreover, I felt I was a part of something big: even my Mom and my military-oriented brother read them avidly, as well as classmates and society at large. Even when reading was not convenient, loaning the excellent Jim Dale audiotapes from the library was a common method of keeping up.
As I look back on them now from a more critical and aged perspective, the Harry Potter novels are not the flawless creations I had remembered. But there’s no denying their effect on the young mind, and in particular my own. I reflect on this now as the Harry Potter saga draws to a close, with the final movie out in short order.
An end to all things is good. It keeps things in perspective; after all, what is life without death? What is a beginning without an end? To quote: “Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again.”
Even as I reflect on these words though, I realize there was a part of me that always looked forward to something coming out from the Harry Potter universe. This always maintained connection to my childhood, and to my past. Even if its only the latest installment in a movie series safely assumed to be not quite as good as the books (that’s not to call it bad).
I’m going to go see Harry Potter 7 Part 2, probably very near release, probably twice (I owe it to the aforementioned family to see it with them), and I am probably going to enjoy the ride. But overlooking it all is the fact that this is the end of something that has influenced my life, and I will miss it. In a way I wish Rowling would write something more to this universe she has created: but in another way, I feel that would cheapen the experience. In a way I am sad for the end: but in a way, I am also happy to see it done.
So thanks J.K. Rowling for influencing so many and writing such a readable work. And here’s to the post Harry Potter era: may it be ripe with opportunity, creativity, and maybe even something just as effectual.
dont cry dude :D its kind of like when LOTR trilogy finished. If youve ever seen the extended DVDs and also if youve seen the special features disc. Must be pretty sad for the cast who have spent pretty much their life being part of Harry potter
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
What? The HP series is/was incredible. HP fans are so sad about times like these (him when the movies are coming to a close, mine was back when I finished the 7th book t.t) because we feel a strong connection with the characters, considering we grew up with them. And not only that, the fact that Rowling seemed to be growing[as a writer] with us as well. I could read through the first few books at 10-11, and keep reading throughout each books release and be hooked to every word by the time the last book was when I turned 18 is incredible. She's an absolutely gifted novelist, and to tell us to simply find something "better to read" is incredibly insulting at the very least.
And who's to say we aren't reading better/more sophisticated works alongside HP? In fact, I'll bet that most of the people who read HP did in fact get led to other great literary works. I know plenty of peers that were turned into readers thanks to Rowling, and considering books were not really dying but certainly losing a lot of kids, she turned a whole fucking generation into readers. Some people would never move onto 1984, Frankenstein, Gatsby, etc if not for Rowling. So, while, yes it's great to find something different, saying to find something better is stupid and just doesn't get it.
Rowling really doesn't get enough credit for her wonderful style. I'm not certain that her books actually encourage people to read more heady stuff, but that shouldn't detract the merit of the books themselves. It may not be the appetizer to pique the hunger, but it is a very good snack in between denser stuff.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
What? The HP series is/was incredible. HP fans are so sad about times like these (him when the movies are coming to a close, mine was back when I finished the 7th book t.t) because we feel a strong connection with the characters, considering we grew up with them. And not only that, the fact that Rowling seemed to be growing[as a writer] with us as well. I could read through the first few books at 10-11, and keep reading throughout each books release and be hooked to every word by the time the last book was when I turned 18 is incredible. She's an absolutely gifted novelist, and to tell us to simply find something "better to read" is incredibly insulting at the very least.
And who's to say we aren't reading better/more sophisticated works alongside HP? In fact, I'll bet that most of the people who read HP did in fact get led to other great literary works. I know plenty of peers that were turned into readers thanks to Rowling, and considering books were not really dying but certainly losing a lot of kids, she turned a whole fucking generation into readers. Some people would never move onto 1984, Frankenstein, Gatsby, etc if not for Rowling. So, while, yes it's great to find something different, saying to find something better is stupid and just doesn't get it.
The books turned me into a reader for sure, just to back up this post.
Has anyone just held the last book for a great series and just feel a huge wave of sadness enveloping you?
I truly loved the Deltora Quest series and after I finished reading the last book, I just held it and felt immense sadness that the story was finally done and over. I think I've done the same for Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. After I'm done with the last book, I just hold the book, closed, in my hands and quietly think about finality.
Rowling really doesn't get enough credit for her wonderful style. I'm not certain that her books actually encourage people to read more heady stuff, but that shouldn't detract the merit of the books themselves. It may not be the appetizer to pique the hunger, but it is a very good snack in between denser stuff.
It turned a lot of people into readers, why wouldn't that encourage them to go to something more? All reading takes a logical progression, I feel. I started with Roald Dahl, Rowling, and Orson Scott Card and worked my way into Lewis Carroll, Bradbury and Orwell. Why couldn't someone skip Roald Dahl and go straight to Rowling into something meatier?
Rowling's world opened up children to reading larger books, and the story was so magical and the progression so perfect that of course they wanted to stay. Why wouldn't someone finish like HP5 and want to read something else to get through the long wait from 5-6? After finishing the series, why wouldn't the people who grew up with Rowling want to go out and find more books to immerse themselves in more great fiction?
edit: and just for quick clarification, I'm not saying they're like oh Harry Potter's over I can pick up some Ulysses now, I'm saying they're not going to stop reading and just typical progression will get them to the other, "heavier" books.
Hasn't Rowling said that she's not done with the series? I remember her opening some sort of website to continue the plot and add stories, and she talked about continuing the books some years from now. IMO shes just in it for the $.
On July 13 2011 18:58 cha0 wrote: Hasn't Rowling said that she's not done with the series? I remember her opening some sort of website to continue the plot and add stories, and she talked about continuing the books some years from now. IMO shes just in it for the $.
She'd be dumb not to revisit the world, but I doubt she goes back to the characters in the books.
And yes, she opened up pottermore.com, which is a free website and doesn't really have much information except that it "opens" in October and you can pre-register starting July 31st.
Never think these things are over if they have meaning to you! I've just bought HP1 in Chinese and am reading it as fast as my Chinese will permit. Reading the books in another language can be a very rewarding thing and be very good for learning languages!
Rowling really doesn't get enough credit for her wonderful style. I'm not certain that her books actually encourage people to read more heady stuff, but that shouldn't detract the merit of the books themselves. It may not be the appetizer to pique the hunger, but it is a very good snack in between denser stuff.
Do yourself a favor and never delve deeply into the world of Harry Potter.
You will quickly find out that JK rowling made the most dysfunctional world possible. Nothing makes sense from the government to the monetary system and everything has loose ends all over the place. A world like she describes really couldn't function at all.
If anything Harry Potter made me realize how amazing it is that Tolkien was able to create a world from basically scratch.
That aside I really loved the first 5 books. The last 2 I wasn't really a fan of but hey...gotta finish it.
Rowling really doesn't get enough credit for her wonderful style. I'm not certain that her books actually encourage people to read more heady stuff, but that shouldn't detract the merit of the books themselves. It may not be the appetizer to pique the hunger, but it is a very good snack in between denser stuff.
Do yourself a favor and never delve deeply into the world of Harry Potter.
You will quickly find out that JK rowling made the most dysfunctional world possible. Nothing makes sense from the government to the monetary system and everything has loose ends all over the place. A world like she describes really couldn't function at all.
If anything Harry Potter made me realize how amazing it is that Tolkien was able to create a world from basically scratch.
That aside I really loved the first 5 books. The last 2 I wasn't really a fan of but hey...gotta finish it.
When one of the principles of your book is that magic exists, anything is possible. Ask me any question about the internal logic of Harry Potter and I can justify it.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
Edit: beaten to my main point by others, bad times
I'd argue that when Harry Potter first came out, reading books wasn't nearly as popular as it is today. Far more people got into reading due to the book's simple writing style and good plot, and was no doubt a 'gateway drug' into other books. Having more people reading can't be a bad thing, even if what they are reading isn't your taste in literature.
Personally I stopped reading after the 6th book and stopped watching after the 5th film for no other reason then I didn't feel like continuing, as the gaps between the books was too large for me to keep interest.
Still, it was a good franchise and I can definitely see the appeal, and will be interesting to see what the actors all do afterwards, since like Mark Hamill was forever Luke Skywalker, I'm pretty sure Daniel Radcliffe is forever Harry Potter (and someone who got naked on stage with horses )
Rowling really doesn't get enough credit for her wonderful style. I'm not certain that her books actually encourage people to read more heady stuff, but that shouldn't detract the merit of the books themselves. It may not be the appetizer to pique the hunger, but it is a very good snack in between denser stuff.
Do yourself a favor and never delve deeply into the world of Harry Potter.
You will quickly find out that JK rowling made the most dysfunctional world possible. Nothing makes sense from the government to the monetary system and everything has loose ends all over the place. A world like she describes really couldn't function at all.
If anything Harry Potter made me realize how amazing it is that Tolkien was able to create a world from basically scratch.
That aside I really loved the first 5 books. The last 2 I wasn't really a fan of but hey...gotta finish it.
When one of the principles of your book is that magic exists, anything is possible. Ask me any question about the internal logic of Harry Potter and I can justify it.
Rowling really doesn't get enough credit for her wonderful style. I'm not certain that her books actually encourage people to read more heady stuff, but that shouldn't detract the merit of the books themselves. It may not be the appetizer to pique the hunger, but it is a very good snack in between denser stuff.
Do yourself a favor and never delve deeply into the world of Harry Potter.
You will quickly find out that JK rowling made the most dysfunctional world possible. Nothing makes sense from the government to the monetary system and everything has loose ends all over the place. A world like she describes really couldn't function at all.
If anything Harry Potter made me realize how amazing it is that Tolkien was able to create a world from basically scratch.
That aside I really loved the first 5 books. The last 2 I wasn't really a fan of but hey...gotta finish it.
Just think that there are 40 student/year (5 male + 5 female / house). Yes, that's right.
That means the total population which has been to Hogwards is 40 * 65 = 2600.
Since we never ever hear of an other magic school in the UK, and that most wizard seem to have been there, you really have a problem finding where all theses guys have been educated.
Now I don't think that the fact that HP world doesn't make sense is really a problem. It's not supposed to make sense, since it is a caricature of some aspect of England anyway.
The only thing thing my parents ever read is msn and the news .... I will try to get my dad hooked on Harry Potter now just for lawls .. though everything i am reading now is losing steam half way through .... fking no good books or all the good ones are dragged out to long now-a-days (sigh) when is the next jk rowling bood btw
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
What? I quit the movies after the third one, they were so bad But the books are amazing
Reminds me, gotta re-read them, been a while
See I disagree, I always thought the movies were great. However I never read the books, probably why I thought the movies were good because I never had to compare them to the books. This is where I feel a lot of people ruin their own movie experience if the movie is based off the book. They read the book and expect the movie to address everything that was in the book. My own mother does this as well, she will read the book then see the movie and complain that the movie just wasn't as good as the book.
It wasn't until recently when I could finally understand what she was talking about. I am not a reader by any margin. I hate reading, a lot. But when "Tomorrow when the war began" was made into the movie I was generally excited. After watching the movie I thought, hey, that was a decent movie and really enjoyed it. I then actually went out of my way and read the books. It wasn't until after I read the books that I realized how much the movie actually misses out. However that still didn't sway my judgment of the movie.
Although back to you're opinion DisaFear, I thoroughly have enjoyed the Harry Potter movies and its a real shame you haven't.
Thank god this series is finally done with. Although with the current state of entertainment I wouldn't be surprised if at least the book series got revived at some point.
I tried reading the first book, was completely uninterested about halfway through and gave up on the series. I've heard good things about the movies, but meh.
JK Rowling is a pretty awful writer, and the only reason she made so much money was because everyone read the first book and felt obligated to buy all the other ones
Harry Potter was a very good children's series. Unfortunately it ran of a god-damned cliff when after book 3 Rowling tried to make it gritty high fantasy.
Rowling really doesn't get enough credit for her wonderful style. I'm not certain that her books actually encourage people to read more heady stuff, but that shouldn't detract the merit of the books themselves. It may not be the appetizer to pique the hunger, but it is a very good snack in between denser stuff.
Do yourself a favor and never delve deeply into the world of Harry Potter.
You will quickly find out that JK rowling made the most dysfunctional world possible. Nothing makes sense from the government to the monetary system and everything has loose ends all over the place. A world like she describes really couldn't function at all.
If anything Harry Potter made me realize how amazing it is that Tolkien was able to create a world from basically scratch.
That aside I really loved the first 5 books. The last 2 I wasn't really a fan of but hey...gotta finish it.
Just think that there are 40 student/year (5 male + 5 female / house). Yes, that's right.
That means the total population which has been to Hogwards is 40 * 65 = 2600.
Since we never ever hear of an other magic school in the UK, and that most wizard seem to have been there, you really have a problem finding where all theses guys have been educated.
Now I don't think that the fact that HP world doesn't make sense is really a problem. It's not supposed to make sense, since it is a caricature of some aspect of England anyway.
Any fantasy/sci fi world will always have problems if you delve too deeply into them. That's because authors obviously cannot consider all the possible plot holes that may arise in their 'world'. The key is to simply accept whatever the author throws at you as long as it makes some sense.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
Clearly an idiot. Please ignore this guy.
There are literally thousands of far more terrible children's books and movies out there. The HP series is certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it is far from terrible, and compared to most of the the other trash that passes for literature these days, I think they are just fine. The movies...basically the same. Not masterpieces of intellect by far, but they tell a compelling coming of age story.
And dissing on LoTR, the books or the movies is just stupid. They broke new ground both in literature and in movies. The CGI alone was VERY groundbreaking in the movies, completely disregarding everything else. The books....just lol. If you think they are terrible, then you are just a terrible judge of literature, and need to be ignored.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
WTF LOTR movies are terrible? Something is wrong with you. Harry Potter maybe, LOTR just no.
Yes I think they were very bad movies.
I don't like the dialogues which were horrendously cheesy and sounded wrong, the way of filming which is really brutal, in a way vulgar with zooming on the face of everybody who is supposed to feel an emotion; it's all about speed and efficiency, and to be honest I find that brainless. The actors are good but really badly directed, and most of the dramatic stuff really make me laugh out loud. Just think of any Frodo/Sam line, it's so full of good feelings, that's just disgusting.
Every time an Elf appears on the screen it looks like some shampoo commercial. White light, stupid high pitched choral music, slow motion. I mean, does Peter Jackson think he will move people with such disgustingly cheap cinema? Apparently yes, and sadly, apparently he is right.
The music is heavy and boring.
The battles look like some kind of hysterical video game. Compare the nerdy warhammer stuff with the psychological tension in Tolkien's books. Think that during the siege of Minas Tirith, almost nothing happens for like 200 pages.
I find that the books have some kind of subtlety, that they manage to really create something. The movies, I found were brainless heroic fantasy, and really really boring as fuck. I found the third one so ridiculous that I never managed to watch it until the end. A friend of mine showed me the last scene with the hobbit jumping in slow motion on their bed. Made me feel sick.
Horrible movies, but again, that's just my opinion. The books are really nice.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
Clearly an idiot. Please ignore this guy.
There are literally thousands of far more terrible children's books and movies out there. The HP series is certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it is far from terrible, and compared to most of the the other trash that passes for literature these days, I think they are just fine. The movies...basically the same. Not masterpieces of intellect by far, but they tell a compelling coming of age story.
And dissing on LoTR, the books or the movies is just stupid. They broke new ground both in literature and in movies. The CGI alone was VERY groundbreaking in the movies, completely disregarding everything else. The books....just lol. If you think they are terrible, then you are just a terrible judge of literature, and need to be ignored.
I will make you a favor and ignore the first and the last sentence of your post. You seem to think people who have an other opinion than you are stupid. Well, you know what, then maybe you are. (It's also ironic that you tell someone to ignore me and then spend two paragraphs answering what I said).
Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
Now, don't get me wrong: I like him, I really do. I like LOTR, I loved reading it. But people comparing him to Balzac, Celine or any of these really great artist makes me sad. It's like saying that George Carlin, that I really fucking love, is a great philosopher like Spinoza or Nietzsche. You have people who really believe so. Well, no he is not. That's good pop culture, period.
The movies are brainless hysterical blockbusters. If you like it good for you, personally I find that boring and stupid. Same goes with HP movies. I find them really offensive.
On July 14 2011 00:19 Biff The Understudy wrote: Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
The Lord of the Rings is easily the most important work of fantasy writing in the last century, and it has profoundly influenced the genre, as well as science fiction. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Tolkien as bringing 'absolutely nothing to literature' because other 'important' writers have existed.
Harry Potter got me into reading. There was a time when I only read Harry Potter, but now my repertoire has grown leaps and bounds. I can't thank Rowling enough for that.
On July 14 2011 00:19 Biff The Understudy wrote: Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
The Lord of the Rings is easily the most important work of fantasy writing in the last century, and it has profoundly influenced the genre, as well as science fiction. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Tolkien as bringing 'absolutely nothing to literature' because other 'important' writers have existed.
I don't think we can fairly consider fantasy as anything else but entertainment. Tolkien is certainly influential in that sense that he created a genre, but to the art form that literature is, he doesn't bring much.
Tolkien didn't invent anything in terms of how to tell a story, what a novel is about; his writing is not original at all and quite flat, etc etc...
Now look at Joyce. Nobody had ever written the way he did. Nobody had used English language that way, nobody had written a novel like Ulysse, which just change the history of literature; and that's what a great writer does, that's what 'bringing something to literature means'. Not inventing 7453786 different creatures and gods and artifact and cities and continents and writing 15 books describing a world made from scratch. That's also great; but that has little to do with literature.
tl;dr: The content is very original (he created a world), but that doesn't make him a 'great writer'.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
Clearly an idiot. Please ignore this guy.
There are literally thousands of far more terrible children's books and movies out there. The HP series is certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it is far from terrible, and compared to most of the the other trash that passes for literature these days, I think they are just fine. The movies...basically the same. Not masterpieces of intellect by far, but they tell a compelling coming of age story.
And dissing on LoTR, the books or the movies is just stupid. They broke new ground both in literature and in movies. The CGI alone was VERY groundbreaking in the movies, completely disregarding everything else. The books....just lol. If you think they are terrible, then you are just a terrible judge of literature, and need to be ignored.
I will make you a favor and ignore the first and the last sentence of your post. You seem to think people who have an other opinion than you are stupid. Well, you know what, then maybe you are. (It's also ironic that you tell someone to ignore me and then spend two paragraphs answering what I said).
Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
Now, don't get me wrong: I like him, I really do. I like LOTR, I loved reading it. But people comparing him to Balzac, Celine or any of these really great artist makes me sad. It's like saying that George Carlin, that I really fucking love, is a great philosopher like Spinoza or Nietzsche. You have people who really believe so. Well, no he is not. That's good pop culture, period.
The movies are brainless hysterical blockbusters. If you like it good for you, personally I find that boring and stupid. Same goes with HP movies. I find them really offensive.
Why do you feel the need to come into a blog about the end of the HP era and completely shit on it? It doesn't matter if you're right or not, it's not nice. I find K-Pop terrible so I don't post in the K-Pop thread. It's not that hard you know.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
Clearly an idiot. Please ignore this guy.
There are literally thousands of far more terrible children's books and movies out there. The HP series is certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it is far from terrible, and compared to most of the the other trash that passes for literature these days, I think they are just fine. The movies...basically the same. Not masterpieces of intellect by far, but they tell a compelling coming of age story.
And dissing on LoTR, the books or the movies is just stupid. They broke new ground both in literature and in movies. The CGI alone was VERY groundbreaking in the movies, completely disregarding everything else. The books....just lol. If you think they are terrible, then you are just a terrible judge of literature, and need to be ignored.
I will make you a favor and ignore the first and the last sentence of your post. You seem to think people who have an other opinion than you are stupid. Well, you know what, then maybe you are. (It's also ironic that you tell someone to ignore me and then spend two paragraphs answering what I said).
Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
Now, don't get me wrong: I like him, I really do. I like LOTR, I loved reading it. But people comparing him to Balzac, Celine or any of these really great artist makes me sad. It's like saying that George Carlin, that I really fucking love, is a great philosopher like Spinoza or Nietzsche. You have people who really believe so. Well, no he is not. That's good pop culture, period.
The movies are brainless hysterical blockbusters. If you like it good for you, personally I find that boring and stupid. Same goes with HP movies. I find them really offensive.
Why do you feel the need to come into a blog about the end of the HP era and completely shit on it? It doesn't matter if you're right or not, it's not nice. I find K-Pop terrible so I don't post in the K-Pop thread. It's not that hard you know.
I like Harry Potter and I said it. I think the first books are really fine and imaginative children books. I don't agree about making Rowling the new Shakespeare. Should everybody who has an objection or a reserve about a topic not post?
Man, world would be boring. I don't post in Kpop thread, but if someone says that kpop is the greatest form of music ever, I'll probably answer that I have good reasons to disagree.
A discussion without contradiction doesn't really bring much.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
Clearly an idiot. Please ignore this guy.
There are literally thousands of far more terrible children's books and movies out there. The HP series is certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it is far from terrible, and compared to most of the the other trash that passes for literature these days, I think they are just fine. The movies...basically the same. Not masterpieces of intellect by far, but they tell a compelling coming of age story.
And dissing on LoTR, the books or the movies is just stupid. They broke new ground both in literature and in movies. The CGI alone was VERY groundbreaking in the movies, completely disregarding everything else. The books....just lol. If you think they are terrible, then you are just a terrible judge of literature, and need to be ignored.
I will make you a favor and ignore the first and the last sentence of your post. You seem to think people who have an other opinion than you are stupid. Well, you know what, then maybe you are. (It's also ironic that you tell someone to ignore me and then spend two paragraphs answering what I said).
Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
Now, don't get me wrong: I like him, I really do. I like LOTR, I loved reading it. But people comparing him to Balzac, Celine or any of these really great artist makes me sad. It's like saying that George Carlin, that I really fucking love, is a great philosopher like Spinoza or Nietzsche. You have people who really believe so. Well, no he is not. That's good pop culture, period.
The movies are brainless hysterical blockbusters. If you like it good for you, personally I find that boring and stupid. Same goes with HP movies. I find them really offensive.
Why do you feel the need to come into a blog about the end of the HP era and completely shit on it? It doesn't matter if you're right or not, it's not nice. I find K-Pop terrible so I don't post in the K-Pop thread. It's not that hard you know.
I like Harry Potter and I said it. Should everybody who has an objection or a reserve about a topic not post.
Man, world would be boring. I don' post in Kpop thread, but if someone says that kpop is the greatest form of music ever, I'll probably answer that I have good reasons to disagree.
Actually you came into the thread agreeing with someone who said that HP was terrible and the OP should find something better to read, then went on to say the movies were terrible. This just isn't the place for it, especially since your primary objective seems to be to showcase how refined your own taste in literature is. Yes, both HP and LOTR aren't great literature in the classical sense, but I fail to see why literature that's great in its ability to entertain needs to be compared to Dostojevsky.
edit: Maybe I should mention here that Dostojevsky's probably my favourite author after Tolstoy. You definitely don't need to convince me that HP isn't as brilliant as Brothers Karamazov lol.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
Clearly an idiot. Please ignore this guy.
There are literally thousands of far more terrible children's books and movies out there. The HP series is certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it is far from terrible, and compared to most of the the other trash that passes for literature these days, I think they are just fine. The movies...basically the same. Not masterpieces of intellect by far, but they tell a compelling coming of age story.
And dissing on LoTR, the books or the movies is just stupid. They broke new ground both in literature and in movies. The CGI alone was VERY groundbreaking in the movies, completely disregarding everything else. The books....just lol. If you think they are terrible, then you are just a terrible judge of literature, and need to be ignored.
I will make you a favor and ignore the first and the last sentence of your post. You seem to think people who have an other opinion than you are stupid. Well, you know what, then maybe you are. (It's also ironic that you tell someone to ignore me and then spend two paragraphs answering what I said).
Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
Now, don't get me wrong: I like him, I really do. I like LOTR, I loved reading it. But people comparing him to Balzac, Celine or any of these really great artist makes me sad. It's like saying that George Carlin, that I really fucking love, is a great philosopher like Spinoza or Nietzsche. You have people who really believe so. Well, no he is not. That's good pop culture, period.
The movies are brainless hysterical blockbusters. If you like it good for you, personally I find that boring and stupid. Same goes with HP movies. I find them really offensive.
Why do you feel the need to come into a blog about the end of the HP era and completely shit on it? It doesn't matter if you're right or not, it's not nice. I find K-Pop terrible so I don't post in the K-Pop thread. It's not that hard you know.
I like Harry Potter and I said it. I think the first books are really fine and imaginative children books. I don't agree about making Rowling the new Shakespeare. Should everybody who has an objection or a reserve about a topic not post?
Man, world would be boring. I don't post in Kpop thread, but if someone says that kpop is the greatest form of music ever, I'll probably answer that I have good reasons to disagree.
A discussion without contradiction doesn't really bring much.
You and minus_human came into this thread guns blazing when no one ever stated that Harry Potter was the end all be all of literature. Most of us have fond memories of picking up Harry Potter and spending whole days reading the books. We don't need you shitting up a nostalgia thread.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
WTF LOTR movies are terrible? Something is wrong with you. Harry Potter maybe, LOTR just no.
Yes I think they were very bad movies.
I don't like the dialogues which were horrendously cheesy and sounded wrong, the way of filming which is really brutal, in a way vulgar with zooming on the face of everybody who is supposed to feel an emotion; it's all about speed and efficiency, and to be honest I find that brainless. The actors are good but really badly directed, and most of the dramatic stuff really make me laugh out loud. Just think of any Frodo/Sam line, it's so full of good feelings, that's just disgusting.
Every time an Elf appears on the screen it looks like some shampoo commercial. White light, stupid high pitched choral music, slow motion. I mean, does Peter Jackson think he will move people with such disgustingly cheap cinema? Apparently yes, and sadly, apparently he is right.
The music is heavy and boring.
The battles look like some kind of hysterical video game. Compare the nerdy warhammer stuff with the psychological tension in Tolkien's books. Think that during the siege of Minas Tirith, almost nothing happens for like 200 pages.
I find that the books have some kind of subtlety, that they manage to really create something. The movies, I found were brainless heroic fantasy, and really really boring as fuck. I found the third one so ridiculous that I never managed to watch it until the end. A friend of mine showed me the last scene with the hobbit jumping in slow motion on their bed. Made me feel sick.
Horrible movies, but again, that's just my opinion. The books are really nice.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
Clearly an idiot. Please ignore this guy.
There are literally thousands of far more terrible children's books and movies out there. The HP series is certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it is far from terrible, and compared to most of the the other trash that passes for literature these days, I think they are just fine. The movies...basically the same. Not masterpieces of intellect by far, but they tell a compelling coming of age story.
And dissing on LoTR, the books or the movies is just stupid. They broke new ground both in literature and in movies. The CGI alone was VERY groundbreaking in the movies, completely disregarding everything else. The books....just lol. If you think they are terrible, then you are just a terrible judge of literature, and need to be ignored.
I will make you a favor and ignore the first and the last sentence of your post. You seem to think people who have an other opinion than you are stupid. Well, you know what, then maybe you are. (It's also ironic that you tell someone to ignore me and then spend two paragraphs answering what I said).
Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
Now, don't get me wrong: I like him, I really do. I like LOTR, I loved reading it. But people comparing him to Balzac, Celine or any of these really great artist makes me sad. It's like saying that George Carlin, that I really fucking love, is a great philosopher like Spinoza or Nietzsche. You have people who really believe so. Well, no he is not. That's good pop culture, period.
The movies are brainless hysterical blockbusters. If you like it good for you, personally I find that boring and stupid. Same goes with HP movies. I find them really offensive.
I don't understand- just because a book is written for entertainment purposes, the author is not a great writer? Who's to say that an author who is not innovative, or a philosopher, or who does not have profound things to say about life makes him have no literary merit? They're different fields of writing. I wouldn't say that innovative writing and great philosophy is inherently of more merit than entertainment.
On July 14 2011 00:19 Biff The Understudy wrote: Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
The Lord of the Rings is easily the most important work of fantasy writing in the last century, and it has profoundly influenced the genre, as well as science fiction. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Tolkien as bringing 'absolutely nothing to literature' because other 'important' writers have existed.
I don't think we can fairly consider fantasy as anything else but entertainment. Tolkien is certainly influential in that sense that he created a genre, but to the art form that literature is, he doesn't bring much.
Tolkien didn't invent anything in terms of how to tell a story, what a novel is about; his writing is not original at all and quite flat, etc etc...
Now look at Joyce. Nobody had ever written the way he did. Nobody had used English language that way, nobody had written a novel like Ulysse, which just change the history of literature; and that's what a great writer does, that's what 'bringing something to literature means'. Not inventing 7453786 different creatures and gods and artifact and cities and continents and writing 15 books describing a world made from scratch. That's also great; but that has little to do with literature.
tl;dr: The content is very original (he created a world), but that doesn't make him a 'great writer'.
Oh look, it's one of those ivory tower guys who like to talk about authors and books nobody but pseudointellectual wannabe brainiacs read. Keep patting yourself on the back about the ten million ways you can describe dewdrop on a leaf and how incredibly literary it all is.
There's nothing special about wasting a bunch of time rewriting a simple idea but in newfangled retarded and obscure ways which make the work so far removed from the common man that nobody wants to read it except those who want to be able to say they read it. James Joyce in a nutshell. There's your "nobody had used English language in that retarded a way before."
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
WTF LOTR movies are terrible? Something is wrong with you. Harry Potter maybe, LOTR just no.
Yes I think they were very bad movies.
I don't like the dialogues which were horrendously cheesy and sounded wrong, the way of filming which is really brutal, in a way vulgar with zooming on the face of everybody who is supposed to feel an emotion; it's all about speed and efficiency, and to be honest I find that brainless. The actors are good but really badly directed, and most of the dramatic stuff really make me laugh out loud. Just think of any Frodo/Sam line, it's so full of good feelings, that's just disgusting.
Every time an Elf appears on the screen it looks like some shampoo commercial. White light, stupid high pitched choral music, slow motion. I mean, does Peter Jackson think he will move people with such disgustingly cheap cinema? Apparently yes, and sadly, apparently he is right.
The music is heavy and boring.
The battles look like some kind of hysterical video game. Compare the nerdy warhammer stuff with the psychological tension in Tolkien's books. Think that during the siege of Minas Tirith, almost nothing happens for like 200 pages.
I find that the books have some kind of subtlety, that they manage to really create something. The movies, I found were brainless heroic fantasy, and really really boring as fuck. I found the third one so ridiculous that I never managed to watch it until the end. A friend of mine showed me the last scene with the hobbit jumping in slow motion on their bed. Made me feel sick.
Horrible movies, but again, that's just my opinion. The books are really nice.
On July 14 2011 00:05 Sm3agol wrote:
On July 13 2011 20:16 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
Clearly an idiot. Please ignore this guy.
There are literally thousands of far more terrible children's books and movies out there. The HP series is certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it is far from terrible, and compared to most of the the other trash that passes for literature these days, I think they are just fine. The movies...basically the same. Not masterpieces of intellect by far, but they tell a compelling coming of age story.
And dissing on LoTR, the books or the movies is just stupid. They broke new ground both in literature and in movies. The CGI alone was VERY groundbreaking in the movies, completely disregarding everything else. The books....just lol. If you think they are terrible, then you are just a terrible judge of literature, and need to be ignored.
I will make you a favor and ignore the first and the last sentence of your post. You seem to think people who have an other opinion than you are stupid. Well, you know what, then maybe you are. (It's also ironic that you tell someone to ignore me and then spend two paragraphs answering what I said).
Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
Now, don't get me wrong: I like him, I really do. I like LOTR, I loved reading it. But people comparing him to Balzac, Celine or any of these really great artist makes me sad. It's like saying that George Carlin, that I really fucking love, is a great philosopher like Spinoza or Nietzsche. You have people who really believe so. Well, no he is not. That's good pop culture, period.
The movies are brainless hysterical blockbusters. If you like it good for you, personally I find that boring and stupid. Same goes with HP movies. I find them really offensive.
I don't understand- just because a book is written for entertainment purposes, the author is not a great writer? Who's to say that an author who is not innovative, or a philosopher, or who does not have profound things to say about life makes him have no literary merit? They're different fields of writing. I wouldn't say that innovative writing and great philosophy is inherently of more merit than entertainment.
Just my opinion.
Well, it really depends what you value in life. I think entertainment really is less valuable than art and has less to bring to me as an individual, but that's also because I am a musician and have been raised in this idea. I guess also that it's a balance. I wouldn't spend my whole life reading Plato nor would I listen only Beethoven quartets (although I tend to do these days)...
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
Clearly an idiot. Please ignore this guy.
There are literally thousands of far more terrible children's books and movies out there. The HP series is certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it is far from terrible, and compared to most of the the other trash that passes for literature these days, I think they are just fine. The movies...basically the same. Not masterpieces of intellect by far, but they tell a compelling coming of age story.
And dissing on LoTR, the books or the movies is just stupid. They broke new ground both in literature and in movies. The CGI alone was VERY groundbreaking in the movies, completely disregarding everything else. The books....just lol. If you think they are terrible, then you are just a terrible judge of literature, and need to be ignored.
I will make you a favor and ignore the first and the last sentence of your post. You seem to think people who have an other opinion than you are stupid. Well, you know what, then maybe you are. (It's also ironic that you tell someone to ignore me and then spend two paragraphs answering what I said).
Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
Now, don't get me wrong: I like him, I really do. I like LOTR, I loved reading it. But people comparing him to Balzac, Celine or any of these really great artist makes me sad. It's like saying that George Carlin, that I really fucking love, is a great philosopher like Spinoza or Nietzsche. You have people who really believe so. Well, no he is not. That's good pop culture, period.
The movies are brainless hysterical blockbusters. If you like it good for you, personally I find that boring and stupid. Same goes with HP movies. I find them really offensive.
Why do you feel the need to come into a blog about the end of the HP era and completely shit on it? It doesn't matter if you're right or not, it's not nice. I find K-Pop terrible so I don't post in the K-Pop thread. It's not that hard you know.
I like Harry Potter and I said it. I think the first books are really fine and imaginative children books. I don't agree about making Rowling the new Shakespeare. Should everybody who has an objection or a reserve about a topic not post?
Man, world would be boring. I don't post in Kpop thread, but if someone says that kpop is the greatest form of music ever, I'll probably answer that I have good reasons to disagree.
A discussion without contradiction doesn't really bring much.
You and minus_human came into this thread guns blazing when no one ever stated that Harry Potter was the end all be all of literature. Most of us have fond memories of picking up Harry Potter and spending whole days reading the books. We don't need you shitting up a nostalgia thread.
Look, I was having a very fine conversation about art, entertainment and the value of fantasy and you come to tell me I should ignore this thread because I have something which is partially negative to say. Why don't you do the same with my post, and ignore them if you don't like them?
I haven't done any bashing, and I have developed my opinion on every statement I have made. Is that better than turning this thread into a HP praise fest?
On July 14 2011 00:19 Biff The Understudy wrote: Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
The Lord of the Rings is easily the most important work of fantasy writing in the last century, and it has profoundly influenced the genre, as well as science fiction. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Tolkien as bringing 'absolutely nothing to literature' because other 'important' writers have existed.
I don't think we can fairly consider fantasy as anything else but entertainment. Tolkien is certainly influential in that sense that he created a genre, but to the art form that literature is, he doesn't bring much.
Tolkien didn't invent anything in terms of how to tell a story, what a novel is about; his writing is not original at all and quite flat, etc etc...
Now look at Joyce. Nobody had ever written the way he did. Nobody had used English language that way, nobody had written a novel like Ulysse, which just change the history of literature; and that's what a great writer does, that's what 'bringing something to literature means'. Not inventing 7453786 different creatures and gods and artifact and cities and continents and writing 15 books describing a world made from scratch. That's also great; but that has little to do with literature.
tl;dr: The content is very original (he created a world), but that doesn't make him a 'great writer'.
Oh look, it's one of those ivory tower guys who like to talk about authors and books nobody but pseudointellectual wannabe brainiacs read. Keep patting yourself on the back about the ten million ways you can describe dewdrop on a leaf and how incredibly literary it all is.
There's nothing special about wasting a bunch of time rewriting a simple idea but in newfangled retarded and obscure ways which make the work so far removed from the common man that nobody wants to read it except those who want to be able to say they read it. James Joyce in a nutshell. There's your "nobody had used English language in that retarded a way before."
lol, you know I've been arguing with Biff as well, don't make me go over to his side now. I know you'd like to be an author, but you really don't know what you're talking about here.
On July 14 2011 00:19 Biff The Understudy wrote: Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
The Lord of the Rings is easily the most important work of fantasy writing in the last century, and it has profoundly influenced the genre, as well as science fiction. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Tolkien as bringing 'absolutely nothing to literature' because other 'important' writers have existed.
I don't think we can fairly consider fantasy as anything else but entertainment. Tolkien is certainly influential in that sense that he created a genre, but to the art form that literature is, he doesn't bring much.
Tolkien didn't invent anything in terms of how to tell a story, what a novel is about; his writing is not original at all and quite flat, etc etc...
Now look at Joyce. Nobody had ever written the way he did. Nobody had used English language that way, nobody had written a novel like Ulysse, which just change the history of literature; and that's what a great writer does, that's what 'bringing something to literature means'. Not inventing 7453786 different creatures and gods and artifact and cities and continents and writing 15 books describing a world made from scratch. That's also great; but that has little to do with literature.
tl;dr: The content is very original (he created a world), but that doesn't make him a 'great writer'.
Oh look, it's one of those ivory tower guys who like to talk about authors and books nobody but pseudointellectual wannabe brainiacs read. Keep patting yourself on the back about the ten million ways you can describe dewdrop on a leaf and how incredibly literary it all is.
There's nothing special about wasting a bunch of time rewriting a simple idea but in newfangled retarded and obscure ways which make the work so far removed from the common man that nobody wants to read it except those who want to be able to say they read it. James Joyce in a nutshell. There's your "nobody had used English language in that retarded a way before."
lol, you know I've been arguing with Biff as well, don't make me go over to his side now.
Would that hurt so much to agree with me? Even a little bit?
Well, it really depends what you value in life. I think entertainment really is less valuable than art and has less to bring to me as an individual, but that's also because I am a musician and have been raised in this idea. I guess also that it's a balance. I wouldn't spend my whole life reading Plato nor would I listen only Beethoven quartets (although I tend to do these days)...
Ok, I agree with that. Its merit is dependent upon personal preferences, and is relative. I would say to not claim that those authors are superior because of their field, rather reserve that as your opinion. I think that's what everyone's getting riled up about.
Well, it really depends what you value in life. I think entertainment really is less valuable than art and has less to bring to me as an individual, but that's also because I am a musician and have been raised in this idea. I guess also that it's a balance. I wouldn't spend my whole life reading Plato nor would I listen only Beethoven quartets (although I tend to do these days)...
Ok, I agree with that. Its merit is dependent upon personal preferences, and is relative. I would say to not claim that those authors are superior because of their field, rather reserve that as your opinion.
Oh, I never claimed that my way of seeing things was the only valuable one. There is no "truth" when we talk about what is important in life. Only point of views. It's just that some are more solid than others.
Well, it really depends what you value in life. I think entertainment really is less valuable than art and has less to bring to me as an individual, but that's also because I am a musician and have been raised in this idea. I guess also that it's a balance. I wouldn't spend my whole life reading Plato nor would I listen only Beethoven quartets (although I tend to do these days)...
Ok, I agree with that. Its merit is dependent upon personal preferences, and is relative. I would say to not claim that those authors are superior because of their field, rather reserve that as your opinion.
Oh, I never claimed that my way of seeing things was the only valuable one. There is no "truth" when we talk about what is important in life. Only point of views. It's just that some are more solid than others.
Well that's the internet for you. Things you say sound as if they are stated as fact, and people will react with their own opinions accordingly.
On July 14 2011 00:19 Biff The Understudy wrote: Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
The Lord of the Rings is easily the most important work of fantasy writing in the last century, and it has profoundly influenced the genre, as well as science fiction. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Tolkien as bringing 'absolutely nothing to literature' because other 'important' writers have existed.
But what exactly has he brought to literature? Joyce inspired 20th century modernist literature, he refined the stream of consciousness technique, the external description and forged a new way for the characters and the novel to interact with time, space and the self, etc.
Tolkien, although not a bad writer, writes in a highly canonical borderline-corny-rather-insipid way, there's nothing new literature nor writers have learnt from his work. Sure, the "fantasy" genre fans "have learnt" from him how to submerge in a world 'completely' fabricated out of the mind of the writer (Cervantes has stopped rolling in his grave from all the times he's heard this, he just sulks now), but his use of mythology and ancient rituals pales in comparison to all great writers use of the same tool, Joyce's Ulysses included. So, I agree with the first quoted post, Tolkien brought nothing to literature, nothing one can read in a more refined, pleasant and stimulating way in another author. Helping a genre grow does not mean you bring something new to literature, they are two different things.
As for the H.P series, at least it brought Emma Watson :3 Never read the books so I can't comment on them, but all generations have that book or series of them that mark them for the rest of their life so I don't think it'll be the end for you or any who has read the series, enjoyed it, discussed it, shared it, watched it; the end of a world does not mean the end of the world.
Well, it really depends what you value in life. I think entertainment really is less valuable than art and has less to bring to me as an individual, but that's also because I am a musician and have been raised in this idea. I guess also that it's a balance. I wouldn't spend my whole life reading Plato nor would I listen only Beethoven quartets (although I tend to do these days)...
Ok, I agree with that. Its merit is dependent upon personal preferences, and is relative. I would say to not claim that those authors are superior because of their field, rather reserve that as your opinion.
Oh, I never claimed that my way of seeing things was the only valuable one. There is no "truth" when we talk about what is important in life. Only point of views. It's just that some are more solid than others.
Well that's the internet for you. Things you say sound as if they are stated as fact, and people will react with their own opinions accordingly.
Yes. I wonder how people can come to the conclusion that a conception about art or life can be factual though. As long as you don't talk about event, every single thing you say is a point of view.
God the thread was about goddamn Harry Potter. What are we talking about.
Why the fuck are you guys talking about art and Joyce in a harry potter thread.
The harry potter books and movies are clearly not works of art. But they got millions of kids into reading (including me) and were meaningful to the OP.
I remember reading the first book over and over again when I was 6. The next two books were also great fun for my 7yr old imagination. Actually being able to read "big" books when I was little gave me the confidence to read other "big" books (lol) at an early age.
Even though I generally dislike the movies and hated the last few books, I'm looking forward to seeing the final movie for nostalgia sake
On July 14 2011 00:19 Biff The Understudy wrote: Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
The Lord of the Rings is easily the most important work of fantasy writing in the last century, and it has profoundly influenced the genre, as well as science fiction. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Tolkien as bringing 'absolutely nothing to literature' because other 'important' writers have existed.
I don't think we can fairly consider fantasy as anything else but entertainment. Tolkien is certainly influential in that sense that he created a genre, but to the art form that literature is, he doesn't bring much.
Tolkien didn't invent anything in terms of how to tell a story, what a novel is about; his writing is not original at all and quite flat, etc etc...
Now look at Joyce. Nobody had ever written the way he did. Nobody had used English language that way, nobody had written a novel like Ulysse, which just change the history of literature; and that's what a great writer does, that's what 'bringing something to literature means'. Not inventing 7453786 different creatures and gods and artifact and cities and continents and writing 15 books describing a world made from scratch. That's also great; but that has little to do with literature.
tl;dr: The content is very original (he created a world), but that doesn't make him a 'great writer'.
Oh look, it's one of those ivory tower guys who like to talk about authors and books nobody but pseudointellectual wannabe brainiacs read. Keep patting yourself on the back about the ten million ways you can describe dewdrop on a leaf and how incredibly literary it all is.
There's nothing special about wasting a bunch of time rewriting a simple idea but in newfangled retarded and obscure ways which make the work so far removed from the common man that nobody wants to read it except those who want to be able to say they read it. James Joyce in a nutshell. There's your "nobody had used English language in that retarded a way before."
lol, you know I've been arguing with Biff as well, don't make me go over to his side now.
Would that hurt so much to agree with me? Even a little bit?
I'm sure we would make a great team.
Hahaha, you know it wouldn't hurt at all, since I largely agree with most of what you've written in this thread. The things I disagreed with were how and where you wrote them.
On July 14 2011 03:04 StorkHwaiting wrote: Oh look, it's one of those ivory tower guys who like to talk about authors and books nobody but pseudointellectual wannabe brainiacs read. Keep patting yourself on the back about the ten million ways you can describe dewdrop on a leaf and how incredibly literary it all is.
There's nothing special about wasting a bunch of time rewriting a simple idea but in newfangled retarded and obscure ways which make the work so far removed from the common man that nobody wants to read it except those who want to be able to say they read it. James Joyce in a nutshell. There's your "nobody had used English language in that retarded a way before."
On July 14 2011 00:19 Biff The Understudy wrote: Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
The Lord of the Rings is easily the most important work of fantasy writing in the last century, and it has profoundly influenced the genre, as well as science fiction. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Tolkien as bringing 'absolutely nothing to literature' because other 'important' writers have existed.
I don't think we can fairly consider fantasy as anything else but entertainment. Tolkien is certainly influential in that sense that he created a genre, but to the art form that literature is, he doesn't bring much.
Tolkien didn't invent anything in terms of how to tell a story, what a novel is about; his writing is not original at all and quite flat, etc etc...
Now look at Joyce. Nobody had ever written the way he did. Nobody had used English language that way, nobody had written a novel like Ulysse, which just change the history of literature; and that's what a great writer does, that's what 'bringing something to literature means'. Not inventing 7453786 different creatures and gods and artifact and cities and continents and writing 15 books describing a world made from scratch. That's also great; but that has little to do with literature.
tl;dr: The content is very original (he created a world), but that doesn't make him a 'great writer'.
Oh look, it's one of those ivory tower guys who like to talk about authors and books nobody but pseudointellectual wannabe brainiacs read. Keep patting yourself on the back about the ten million ways you can describe dewdrop on a leaf and how incredibly literary it all is.
There's nothing special about wasting a bunch of time rewriting a simple idea but in newfangled retarded and obscure ways which make the work so far removed from the common man that nobody wants to read it except those who want to be able to say they read it. James Joyce in a nutshell. There's your "nobody had used English language in that retarded a way before."
lol, you know I've been arguing with Biff as well, don't make me go over to his side now.
Would that hurt so much to agree with me? Even a little bit?
I'm sure we would make a great team.
Hahaha, you know it wouldn't hurt at all, since I largely agree with most of what you've written in this thread. The things I disagreed with were how and where you wrote them.
Fighting people who, in fact, agree with me. History of my life.
Maybe I do something wrong now that I think about it.
On July 14 2011 03:04 StorkHwaiting wrote: Oh look, it's one of those ivory tower guys who like to talk about authors and books nobody but pseudointellectual wannabe brainiacs read. Keep patting yourself on the back about the ten million ways you can describe dewdrop on a leaf and how incredibly literary it all is.
There's nothing special about wasting a bunch of time rewriting a simple idea but in newfangled retarded and obscure ways which make the work so far removed from the common man that nobody wants to read it except those who want to be able to say they read it. James Joyce in a nutshell. There's your "nobody had used English language in that retarded a way before."
Lol, people with superiority complexes about how something they like is inherently "better" than things that others like really need to grow up.
I've never really been into literature (aside from HP, lol), but I used to think that I was better than others because I liked classical music and detested almost all mainstream music. Then I actually took the time to listen to some more mainstream stuff and talk about it with friends who did like it, and I realized that mainstream music can be pretty damn cool. I realized that some of it just has worth in entertainment value or even just being ridiculous (eg Ke$ha). It's just different and serves a different function; it's not necessarily "worse." It's just stupid to act like you can ever really assign an objective "good" or "bad" definition to arts.
There are still plenty of art forms that don't really tickle my fancy. Rap pops into my mind as an example. But I've opened my mind and realized how arrogant and groundless it is to bash on other people because of what music they like to listen to or what books they like to read or what art they like to look at, and I've realized what an arrogant prick I was for doing so when I was younger. What is it that you hope to accomplish with such things? Answer: Nothing but to feed your superiority complex. Get over yourselves.
I watched the final movie. I really liked how they changed the action described in the book to make it all dramatic :p. It is all over now. I will be looking out for any future movies the three main actors will appear in.
On July 14 2011 03:43 matjlav wrote: Lol, people with superiority complexes about how something they like is inherently "better" than things that others like really need to grow up.
I've never really been into literature (aside from HP, lol), but I used to think that I was better than others because I liked classical music and detested almost all mainstream music. Then I actually took the time to listen to some and talk about it with people who did like it, and I realized that mainstream music can be pretty damn cool. I realized that some of it just has worth in entertainment value or even just being ridiculous (eg Ke$ha), but that it's just different, not necessarily "worse." It's just stupid to act like you can ever really assign an objective "good" or "bad" definition to arts.
There are still plenty of art forms that don't really tickle my fancy. Rap pops into my mind as an example. But I've opened my mind and realized how arrogant and groundless it is to bash on other people because of what music they like to listen to or what books they like to read or what art they like to look at, and I've realized what an arrogant prick I was for doing so when I was younger. What is it that you hope to accomplish with such things? Answer: Nothing but to feed your superiority complex. Get over yourselves.
Let me find that post about this precise problem... Here it is:
On 1757 David Hume wrote: #7. There is a species of philosophy, which cuts off all hopes of success in such an attempt, and represents the impossibility of ever attaining any standard of taste. The difference, it is said, is very wide between judgment and sentiment. All sentiment is right; because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself, and is always real, wherever a man is conscious of it. But all determinations of the understanding are not right; because they have a reference to something beyond themselves, to wit, real matter of fact; and are not always conformable to that standard. Among a thousand different opinions which different men may entertain of the same subject, there is one, and but one, that is just and true; and the only difficulty is to fix and ascertain it. On the contrary, a thousand different sentiments, excited by the same object, are all right: Because no sentiment represents what is really in the object. It only marks a certain conformity or relation between the object and the organs or faculties of the mind; and if that conformity did not really exist, the sentiment could never possibly have being. Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others. To seek in the real beauty, or real deformity, is as fruitless an enquiry, as to pretend to ascertain the real sweet or real bitter. According to the disposition of the organs, the same object may be both sweet and bitter; and the proverb has justly determined it to be fruitless to dispute concerning tastes. It is very natural, and even quite necessary to extend this axiom to mental, as well as bodily taste; and thus common sense, which is so often at variance with philosophy, especially with the skeptical kind, is found, in one instance at least, to agree in pronouncing the same decision.
#8 But though this axiom, by passing into a proverb, seems to have attained the sanction of common sense; there is certainly a species of common sense which opposes it, at least serves to modify and restrain it. Whoever would assert an equality of genius and elegance between OGILBY and MILTON, or BUNYAN and ADDISON, would be thought to defend no less an extravagance, than if he had maintained a mole-hill to be as high as TENERIFFE, or a pond as extensive as the ocean. Though there may be found persons, who give the preference to the former authors; no one pays attention to such a taste; and we pronounce without scruple the sentiment of these pretended critics to be absurd and ridiculous. The principle of the natural equality of tastes is then totally forgot, and while we admit it on some occasions, where the objects seem near an equality, it appears an extravagant paradox, or rather a palpable absurdity, where objects so disproportioned are compared together.
Guess that's just your opinion. Here is the full essay if you are interested:
On July 14 2011 00:19 Biff The Understudy wrote: Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
The Lord of the Rings is easily the most important work of fantasy writing in the last century, and it has profoundly influenced the genre, as well as science fiction. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Tolkien as bringing 'absolutely nothing to literature' because other 'important' writers have existed.
I don't think we can fairly consider fantasy as anything else but entertainment. Tolkien is certainly influential in that sense that he created a genre, but to the art form that literature is, he doesn't bring much.
Tolkien didn't invent anything in terms of how to tell a story, what a novel is about; his writing is not original at all and quite flat, etc etc...
Now look at Joyce. Nobody had ever written the way he did. Nobody had used English language that way, nobody had written a novel like Ulysse, which just change the history of literature; and that's what a great writer does, that's what 'bringing something to literature means'. Not inventing 7453786 different creatures and gods and artifact and cities and continents and writing 15 books describing a world made from scratch. That's also great; but that has little to do with literature.
tl;dr: The content is very original (he created a world), but that doesn't make him a 'great writer'.
Oh look, it's one of those ivory tower guys who like to talk about authors and books nobody but pseudointellectual wannabe brainiacs read. Keep patting yourself on the back about the ten million ways you can describe dewdrop on a leaf and how incredibly literary it all is.
There's nothing special about wasting a bunch of time rewriting a simple idea but in newfangled retarded and obscure ways which make the work so far removed from the common man that nobody wants to read it except those who want to be able to say they read it. James Joyce in a nutshell. There's your "nobody had used English language in that retarded a way before."
lol, you know I've been arguing with Biff as well, don't make me go over to his side now. I know you'd like to be an author, but you really don't know what you're talking about here.
Could care less what side you're on. I know what I'm talking about. And other people know what I'm talking about. Probably a lot more people than would understand wtf James Joyce was ever talking about.
On July 14 2011 03:43 matjlav wrote: Lol, people with superiority complexes about how something they like is inherently "better" than things that others like really need to grow up.
I've never really been into literature (aside from HP, lol), but I used to think that I was better than others because I liked classical music and detested almost all mainstream music. Then I actually took the time to listen to some and talk about it with people who did like it, and I realized that mainstream music can be pretty damn cool. I realized that some of it just has worth in entertainment value or even just being ridiculous (eg Ke$ha), but that it's just different, not necessarily "worse." It's just stupid to act like you can ever really assign an objective "good" or "bad" definition to arts.
There are still plenty of art forms that don't really tickle my fancy. Rap pops into my mind as an example. But I've opened my mind and realized how arrogant and groundless it is to bash on other people because of what music they like to listen to or what books they like to read or what art they like to look at, and I've realized what an arrogant prick I was for doing so when I was younger. What is it that you hope to accomplish with such things? Answer: Nothing but to feed your superiority complex. Get over yourselves.
Let me find that post about this precise problem... Here it is:
On 1757 David Hume wrote: #7. There is a species of philosophy, which cuts off all hopes of success in such an attempt, and represents the impossibility of ever attaining any standard of taste. The difference, it is said, is very wide between judgment and sentiment. All sentiment is right; because sentiment has a reference to nothing beyond itself, and is always real, wherever a man is conscious of it. But all determinations of the understanding are not right; because they have a reference to something beyond themselves, to wit, real matter of fact; and are not always conformable to that standard. Among a thousand different opinions which different men may entertain of the same subject, there is one, and but one, that is just and true; and the only difficulty is to fix and ascertain it. On the contrary, a thousand different sentiments, excited by the same object, are all right: Because no sentiment represents what is really in the object. It only marks a certain conformity or relation between the object and the organs or faculties of the mind; and if that conformity did not really exist, the sentiment could never possibly have being. Beauty is no quality in things themselves: It exists merely in the mind which contemplates them; and each mind perceives a different beauty. One person may even perceive deformity, where another is sensible of beauty; and every individual ought to acquiesce in his own sentiment, without pretending to regulate those of others. To seek in the real beauty, or real deformity, is as fruitless an enquiry, as to pretend to ascertain the real sweet or real bitter. According to the disposition of the organs, the same object may be both sweet and bitter; and the proverb has justly determined it to be fruitless to dispute concerning tastes. It is very natural, and even quite necessary to extend this axiom to mental, as well as bodily taste; and thus common sense, which is so often at variance with philosophy, especially with the skeptical kind, is found, in one instance at least, to agree in pronouncing the same decision.
#8 But though this axiom, by passing into a proverb, seems to have attained the sanction of common sense; there is certainly a species of common sense which opposes it, at least serves to modify and restrain it. Whoever would assert an equality of genius and elegance between OGILBY and MILTON, or BUNYAN and ADDISON, would be thought to defend no less an extravagance, than if he had maintained a mole-hill to be as high as TENERIFFE, or a pond as extensive as the ocean. Though there may be found persons, who give the preference to the former authors; no one pays attention to such a taste; and we pronounce without scruple the sentiment of these pretended critics to be absurd and ridiculous. The principle of the natural equality of tastes is then totally forgot, and while we admit it on some occasions, where the objects seem near an equality, it appears an extravagant paradox, or rather a palpable absurdity, where objects so disproportioned are compared together.
Guess that's just your opinion. Here is the full essay if you are interested:
I will concede that my statement that art is never at all objectively "good" or "bad" is not entirely correct. It can be stated fairly objectively, for instance, that The King's Speech is a better movie than The Last Airbender. (You will have to forgive my inability to think of good literary examples since I don't read much, as previously stated.)
I suppose my issue is more that comparing JK Rowling and James Joyce is really an apples-and-oranges comparison. It's simply silly to say that JK Rowling "has less talent" or "is a worse writer" since they both have astounding accomplishments as far as their influence on the literary world goes. JK Rowling may not be able to write in a way that astounds academics like James Joyce, but she was able to get an entire generation of young adults back into reading. That takes talent no matter how you look at it, although a different kind of talent from what James Joyce had.
Edit: Though I see that you've already addressed this by saying that you think that the more "artistic" forms of art bring more value to your life than the "entertainment" forms of art. I could agree with that. At the same time, it's silly to expect everyone to be able to develop an appreciation for James Joyce. I don't think I ever could, for instance. I've just never been able to experience the joy that some people derive from "fine literature," though I can understand why it takes skill.
Similarly, I just enjoy "fine music" in addition to my ability to understand why it takes skill to write/perform such music. I can't really explain to you why. I just enjoy listening to it, and it gives me a feeling that I simply don't derive from fine art or literature. On the same token, I understand why other people might not enjoy Bach. Some forms of art just speak to certain people, and don't speak to other people. That's why I find it excessively futile to go through the endeavor of trying to convert all HP readers to James Joyce readers.
On July 14 2011 00:19 Biff The Understudy wrote: Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
The Lord of the Rings is easily the most important work of fantasy writing in the last century, and it has profoundly influenced the genre, as well as science fiction. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Tolkien as bringing 'absolutely nothing to literature' because other 'important' writers have existed.
I don't think we can fairly consider fantasy as anything else but entertainment. Tolkien is certainly influential in that sense that he created a genre, but to the art form that literature is, he doesn't bring much.
Tolkien didn't invent anything in terms of how to tell a story, what a novel is about; his writing is not original at all and quite flat, etc etc...
Now look at Joyce. Nobody had ever written the way he did. Nobody had used English language that way, nobody had written a novel like Ulysse, which just change the history of literature; and that's what a great writer does, that's what 'bringing something to literature means'. Not inventing 7453786 different creatures and gods and artifact and cities and continents and writing 15 books describing a world made from scratch. That's also great; but that has little to do with literature.
tl;dr: The content is very original (he created a world), but that doesn't make him a 'great writer'.
Oh look, it's one of those ivory tower guys who like to talk about authors and books nobody but pseudointellectual wannabe brainiacs read. Keep patting yourself on the back about the ten million ways you can describe dewdrop on a leaf and how incredibly literary it all is.
There's nothing special about wasting a bunch of time rewriting a simple idea but in newfangled retarded and obscure ways which make the work so far removed from the common man that nobody wants to read it except those who want to be able to say they read it. James Joyce in a nutshell. There's your "nobody had used English language in that retarded a way before."
lol, you know I've been arguing with Biff as well, don't make me go over to his side now. I know you'd like to be an author, but you really don't know what you're talking about here.
Could care less what side you're on. I know what I'm talking about. And other people know what I'm talking about. Probably a lot more people than would understand wtf James Joyce was ever talking about.
I don't want to derail this thread further, it should be about Harry Potter. I would suggest you give Tolstoy's Anna Karenina or War and Peace a try though. If you can tell me with a straight face afterwards that you still think Harry Potter is as good or better, well... I guess we'll just have to disagree.
On July 14 2011 00:19 Biff The Understudy wrote: Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
The Lord of the Rings is easily the most important work of fantasy writing in the last century, and it has profoundly influenced the genre, as well as science fiction. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Tolkien as bringing 'absolutely nothing to literature' because other 'important' writers have existed.
I don't think we can fairly consider fantasy as anything else but entertainment. Tolkien is certainly influential in that sense that he created a genre, but to the art form that literature is, he doesn't bring much.
Tolkien didn't invent anything in terms of how to tell a story, what a novel is about; his writing is not original at all and quite flat, etc etc...
Now look at Joyce. Nobody had ever written the way he did. Nobody had used English language that way, nobody had written a novel like Ulysse, which just change the history of literature; and that's what a great writer does, that's what 'bringing something to literature means'. Not inventing 7453786 different creatures and gods and artifact and cities and continents and writing 15 books describing a world made from scratch. That's also great; but that has little to do with literature.
tl;dr: The content is very original (he created a world), but that doesn't make him a 'great writer'.
Oh look, it's one of those ivory tower guys who like to talk about authors and books nobody but pseudointellectual wannabe brainiacs read. Keep patting yourself on the back about the ten million ways you can describe dewdrop on a leaf and how incredibly literary it all is.
There's nothing special about wasting a bunch of time rewriting a simple idea but in newfangled retarded and obscure ways which make the work so far removed from the common man that nobody wants to read it except those who want to be able to say they read it. James Joyce in a nutshell. There's your "nobody had used English language in that retarded a way before."
lol, you know I've been arguing with Biff as well, don't make me go over to his side now. I know you'd like to be an author, but you really don't know what you're talking about here.
Could care less what side you're on. I know what I'm talking about. And other people know what I'm talking about. Probably a lot more people than would understand wtf James Joyce was ever talking about.
I don't want to derail this thread further, it should be about Harry Potter. I would suggest you give Tolstoy's Anna Karenina or War and Peace a try though. If you can tell me with a straight face afterwards that you still think Harry Potter is as good or better, well... I guess we'll just have to disagree.
I've read War and Peace, and a dozen other classics... at the end of the day you have to know why you are reading.
Why are you reading a classic? I read War and Peace for entertainment. I was entertained by the political, military, and interpersonal events and transactions that occurred throughout the book. But I don't delude myself into thinking that there is some higher purpose to reading it than for entertainment - whatever form that entertainment takes. Which is why I stopped reading War and Peace at about 85% through when I got bored by a long stretch where the daughters went to some hunting lodge or something. (its been 10 years, I don't quite remember well)
If you are entertained by Harry Potter - great. Go enjoy yourself. If you are reading or watching for some other reason, such as to appreciate creative or artistic use of English, that's fine as well. What I don't understand is taking the reason you enjoy reading - lets say artistic enjoyment - and applying that to literature that people enjoy for different purposes. Why would you join a thread about a book that is meant to be enjoyed for its story, and start shitting on it for not being "art" and how it isn't "good writing" because it didn't meet some fucked up standards you set based on a few classics you read.
When someone says something like, "Harry Potter is shitty literature because it didn't revolutionize English writing", I can only shake my head because you are missing the point. Harry Potter wasn't written to change literature - the woman was on welfare when she wrote the first book for Christs sake, the circumstances seem to suggest she was just trying to get anything she could on the bookshelves. The point was to tell an entertaining story - and it achieved that end 100%. So it was good literature - at least in the conventional, "unrefined" (*cough* snob) use of the word good. So why shit on someone's nostalgia thread when they enjoyed it for the reason it was meant to be enjoyed, just because it wasn't like Joyce?
So lets can all the pretentiousness. I like that Biff has at least somewhat tried to pull back his comments in the last couple pages, re-framing his aggressive comments as his "opinion" and narrowing the scope significantly, but lets not delude ourselves here. He came into this thread to shit on other people and make himself feel superior. Comments like his first few are so over the top, largely non-nonsensical given what Harry Potter is about, and inappropriate for a thread like this. Not only that, but his follow up comments were just plain disingenuous as he tries to shit on the people who appropriately pointed out how absurd he was being. He is being a pure snob, and Stork's comment seems justified in that context - he pretty much described how I was feeling about Biff as well.
If you go back a few pages, you'll see that's exactly what I was arguing, so I'm not sure why you're quoting me. The only reason I posted again was to reply to Stork who went to the other extreme of trying to suggest classical literature was only for pretentious snobs.
On July 14 2011 05:32 Orome wrote: If you go back a few pages, you'll see that's exactly what I was arguing, so I'm not sure why you're quoting me. The only reason I posted again was to reply to Stork who went to the other extreme of trying to suggest classical literature was only for pretentious snobs.
I feel that Stork's comment was justified in the context of the previous comments of Biff.
On July 14 2011 00:19 Biff The Understudy wrote: Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
The Lord of the Rings is easily the most important work of fantasy writing in the last century, and it has profoundly influenced the genre, as well as science fiction. I don't think it's fair to dismiss Tolkien as bringing 'absolutely nothing to literature' because other 'important' writers have existed.
I don't think we can fairly consider fantasy as anything else but entertainment. Tolkien is certainly influential in that sense that he created a genre, but to the art form that literature is, he doesn't bring much.
Tolkien didn't invent anything in terms of how to tell a story, what a novel is about; his writing is not original at all and quite flat, etc etc...
Now look at Joyce. Nobody had ever written the way he did. Nobody had used English language that way, nobody had written a novel like Ulysse, which just change the history of literature; and that's what a great writer does, that's what 'bringing something to literature means'. Not inventing 7453786 different creatures and gods and artifact and cities and continents and writing 15 books describing a world made from scratch. That's also great; but that has little to do with literature.
tl;dr: The content is very original (he created a world), but that doesn't make him a 'great writer'.
Oh look, it's one of those ivory tower guys who like to talk about authors and books nobody but pseudointellectual wannabe brainiacs read. Keep patting yourself on the back about the ten million ways you can describe dewdrop on a leaf and how incredibly literary it all is.
There's nothing special about wasting a bunch of time rewriting a simple idea but in newfangled retarded and obscure ways which make the work so far removed from the common man that nobody wants to read it except those who want to be able to say they read it. James Joyce in a nutshell. There's your "nobody had used English language in that retarded a way before."
lol, you know I've been arguing with Biff as well, don't make me go over to his side now. I know you'd like to be an author, but you really don't know what you're talking about here.
Could care less what side you're on. I know what I'm talking about. And other people know what I'm talking about. Probably a lot more people than would understand wtf James Joyce was ever talking about.
I don't want to derail this thread further, it should be about Harry Potter. I would suggest you give Tolstoy's Anna Karenina or War and Peace a try though. If you can tell me with a straight face afterwards that you still think Harry Potter is as good or better, well... I guess we'll just have to disagree.
I've read War and Peace. It suffers lots of bloatage, needlessly detailed battle scenes, superfluous characters, rather stereotypical romances, some shallow but loveable main characters (like Natasha), some very prosaic dialogues, as well as rather predictable plot twists. The whole long torturous scenes of Andrei dying while Natasha nurses him was painfully obvious in its conclusion, especially knowing Tolstoy and literature of that period in general.
Yet that being said, War and Peace is an infinitely superior bildungsroman than HP. That's without question.
My question to you is what the hell does Tolstoy have to do with James Joyce or the so-called literary evolution of the language that Biff spoke of? I'm pretty sure Tolstoy wasn't deep into semiotics or invested much time into reinventing grammar. especially considering he wrote in fking Russian not English. Further, he incorporated innumerable tropes from popular fiction of his time and did not set out to polish slipstream or any number of other ridiculous notions of redefining narrative fiction.
In short, Tolstoy has absolutely nothing to do with the debate Biff is trying to have. Just as mentioning Dumas would be asinine in this context. Just because they're respected as classics doesn't make them suddenly part of the same canon as these so called "literary" authors. Dickens is a classic, but his writing was pretty atrocious and he didn't try to reinvent English. In fact his shit was episodic because that's how he made his bread.
I suggest you comprehend what the debate actually is before you start recommending painfully cliche "literary works" and act as though you're dropping a gem on em.
Edit: And yes, my comment was made in direct response to Biff. I'd never say something like that towards "literary work" unprovoked. It was simply meant as satire with a seed of truth to show how ridiculous Biff's position was.
Alright I'm going to let this go. Your first paragraph is just, uh, funny and suggesting I don't understand what we're talking about is a little arrogant for someone who came into this thread to teach someone else not to be pretentious, but oh well. It appears I misunderstood your intentions somewhat and your edit's cleared that up (just as Biff was referring to several classical authors with very different styles earlier, I thought your criticism was towards them as a whole), so let's leave this be.
As an English major, lover of literature, and aspiring writer, seeing this many people absolutely trash an author and her work is sickening.
I read the first four books, and saw the first three movies. The stories were taking turns I did not enjoy, so I stopped reading. Still, JK is a great story-teller. She is a mediocre writer (in the field of professional publishing), but she can spin the hell out of the story, and there is nothing wrong with that. Obviously, better books have been written, and greater stories have been told. Yet, JK's work can still be enjoyed. It isn't much more complicated than that. She tells a good story.
I've spent over a decade studying literature extensively and plan to do it for the rest of my life. I would not recommend the Harry Potter series to someone looking to delve into complex literary discussion. There is a reason why works like Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus is constantly being taught: it asks complicated questions of the reader, ones that delve into the very core of our existence. I spent over 100 hours researching the work, reading it, analyzing, and researching more, all in order to attend a conference discussion some new critiques of the work, and still felt embarrassed when I got up to give my speech in front of so many people who've devoted huge portions of their lives to studying it. I am involved in such things because they are my passion. If someone were to say "Mary Shelley is a shit writer" when I made a thread about the anniversary of her work (or death, etc.), I'd be angered as well. If I made a thread asking for the opinions of others about the basic questions of her work (for instance, sexuality and Dr. Frankenstein, the mother-child tie, the nightmare scene, the implications of the Creature learning to speak, etc.) and people stated that there is no merit to such discussions and offered up reasons why, I'd be excited, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT I WANTED.
Why do people feel the need to say "X book" or "X author is better"? Enjoy the work, or don't. Life is too short to be so full of hate. There is certainly a time and place to offer your critique. This doesn't really seem to be the appropriate place.
I was already an adult before I read the books, so I did not grow up with them like many others. Still, they were fun reads and I was sucked into the world. The writing was simplistic and fit the story. Her skill, as a writer, is definitely debatable, but that wasn't the purpose of this thread. It was about something much more important to the lives of those involved.
On July 14 2011 03:37 blankspace wrote: Why the fuck are you guys talking about art and Joyce in a harry potter thread.
The harry potter books and movies are clearly not works of art. But they got millions of kids into reading (including me) and were meaningful to the OP.
I remember reading the first book over and over again when I was 6. The next two books were also great fun for my 7yr old imagination. Actually being able to read "big" books when I was little gave me the confidence to read other "big" books (lol) at an early age.
Even though I generally dislike the movies and hated the last few books, I'm looking forward to seeing the final movie for nostalgia sake
Yep. Harry Potter is probably the longest book I'd read back then and being able to finish it definitely helped me read more. I also see the movies just because of how much I enjoyed the books.
I don't get why there's an argument in this thread. I don't think anyone claimed that Harry Potter is a literary classic or should be compared to the literary classics at all.
Bottomline is: it's an important part for some of our childhoods, so it's sad to see it finally finish.
On July 14 2011 05:58 Orome wrote: Alright I'm going to let this go. Your first paragraph is just, uh, funny and suggesting I don't understand what we're talking about is a little arrogant for someone who came into this thread to teach someone else not to be pretentious, but oh well. It appears I misunderstood your intentions somewhat and your edit's cleared that up (just as Biff was referring to several classical authors with very different styles earlier, I thought your criticism was towards them as a whole), so let's leave this be.
Yes because of course Tolstoy is beyond all reproach LOL.
And Biff made it very clear what his argument was when he said this: Now look at Joyce. Nobody had ever written the way he did. Nobody had used English language that way, nobody had written a novel like Ulysse, which just change the history of literature; and that's what a great writer does, that's what 'bringing something to literature means'. Not inventing 7453786 different creatures and gods and artifact and cities and continents and writing 15 books describing a world made from scratch. That's also great; but that has little to do with literature.
He is making the assertion that great "literature" involves revolutionary writing and innovation of the language. Inventing an entirely new world, history, people, languages, etc has little to do with literature. So what Biff has basically done is call the entire genre of fantasy drivel, while putting Joyce specifically on a pedestal for his use of language and creatively bad grammar.
You then decided to jump in and respond to my comment to him, which then includes you in said context. The onus is on you to understand what the debate is before jumping into it. It was not about a variety of famous classical writers, it was about the very specific criteria Biff seems to have for what constitutes "literature."
On July 14 2011 05:58 Orome wrote: Alright I'm going to let this go. Your first paragraph is just, uh, funny and suggesting I don't understand what we're talking about is a little arrogant for someone who came into this thread to teach someone else not to be pretentious, but oh well. It appears I misunderstood your intentions somewhat and your edit's cleared that up (just as Biff was referring to several classical authors with very different styles earlier, I thought your criticism was towards them as a whole), so let's leave this be.
Yes because of course Tolstoy is beyond all reproach LOL.
And Biff made it very clear what his argument was when he said this: Now look at Joyce. Nobody had ever written the way he did. Nobody had used English language that way, nobody had written a novel like Ulysse, which just change the history of literature; and that's what a great writer does, that's what 'bringing something to literature means'. Not inventing 7453786 different creatures and gods and artifact and cities and continents and writing 15 books describing a world made from scratch. That's also great; but that has little to do with literature.
He is making the assertion that great "literature" involves revolutionary writing and innovation of the language. Inventing an entirely new world, history, people, languages, etc has little to do with literature. So what Biff has basically done is call the entire genre of fantasy drivel, while putting Joyce specifically on a pedestal for his use of language and creatively bad grammar.
You then decided to jump in and respond to my comment to him, which then includes you in said context. The onus is on you to understand what the debate is before jumping into it. It was not about a variety of famous classical writers, it was about the very specific criteria Biff seems to have for what constitutes "literature."
Since you talk about me, I'll try to explain you and then I leave this thread because it's becoming annoying.
Let's take some of the greatest composers in history: Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Chopin, Berlioz, Fauré, Franck, Debussy, Ravel, Sibelius, Bruckner, Mahler, Wagner, Satie, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berg, Webern, Ligeti, Xenakis, Stockhausen, Boulez.
That's quite broad, it covers all history of western music for the past 3 centuries, and all genres.
Not a single one of them didn't:
1. Have a completely unique and original language, and by that I mean: wrote a way nobody had ever done before.
2. Transformed a way or another history of music. Broke boundaries; transformed the rules, introduced something absolutely new.
Not ONE of them.
Now, ask yourself a second question: why does nobody write Beethovenian music today? Why didn't we have 20 great Beethovenian composers, not breaking boundaries, not inventing something new, not bringing anything original, just doing good music in Beethoven style? That would be cool, we would have 200 great Beethoven symphonies right? We would still be making Beethoven today.
Well the answer is: these 20 composers existed. Hummel, for example. And they were all horrible. I know personally people who can write in the style of every single composers that I mentioned before. You ask them "write me some Stravinsky", they do. Without a mistake, and it sounds like Stravinsky. That doesn't make them being great composers, and something will always lack when they imitate Stravinsky, no matter how genius they are.
You will tell me: but then is it enough to make something new so that it's good? The answer is no, but the opposite is true: every great work of art does bring something new.
What Rowling is doing is the same than writing Brahms erzatz today.
That's fine, that's pleasing to read, but that's not great art. Joyce, in an other hand doesn't write with "bad grammar". He transforms his material, namely, English language, because he needs too, exactly the same way that Beethoven needed to break classical rules, and had twelve million reactionary critics saying he was writing bad music.
Now, if you answer this, drop your aggressive tone, I am sick of it.
On July 14 2011 07:16 Biff The Understudy wrote: + Show Spoiler +
Since you talk about me, I'll try to explain you and then I leave this thread because it's becoming annoying.
Let's take some of the greatest composers in history: Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Gluck, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Brahms, Liszt, Chopin, Berlioz, Fauré, Franck, Debussy, Ravel, Sibelius, Bruckner, Mahler, Wagner, Satie, Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Berg, Webern, Ligeti, Xenakis, Stockhausen, Boulez.
That's quite broad, it covers all history of western music for the past 3 centuries, and all genres.
Not a single one of them didn't:
1. Have a completely unique and original language, and by that I mean: wrote a way nobody had ever done before.
2. Transformed a way or another history of music. Broke boundaries; transformed the rules, introduced something absolutely new.
Not ONE of them.
Now, ask yourself a second question: why does nobody write Beethovenian music today? Why didn't we have 20 great Beethovenian composers, not breaking boundaries, not inventing something new, not bringing anything original, just doing good music in Beethoven style? That would be cool, we would have 200 great Beethoven symphonies right? We would still be making Beethoven today.
Well the answer is: these 20 composers existed. Hummel, for example. And they were all horrible. I know personally people who can write in the style of every single composers that I mentioned before. You ask them "write me some Stravinsky", they do. Without a mistake, and it sounds like Stravinsky. That doesn't make them being great composers, and something will always lack when they imitate Stravinsky, no matter how genius they are.
You will tell me: but then is it enough to make something new so that it's good? The answer is no, but the opposite is true: every great work of art does bring something new.
What Rowling is doing is the same than writing Brahms erzatz today.
That's fine, that's pleasing to read, but that's not great art. Joyce, in an other hand doesn't write with "bad grammar". He transforms his material, namely, English language, because he needs too, exactly the same way that Beethoven needed to break classical rules, and had twelve million reactionary critics saying he was writing bad music.
Now, if you answer this, drop your aggressive tone, I am sick of it.
I've lost all track of this debate, so I'll just say a few very self-evident things: - Your definition of great art != another person's definition of great art. - Your definition of literature != another person's definition of literature.
lol Biff, projecting your own personal tastes onto others adds absolutely nothing.
-Some guy says he likes lotr -You say lotr sucks and make some sweeping statements about literature and art, "Nietzsche > George Carlin" etc, immediately derailing the thread.
You just end up sounding elitist and people are even less likely to read the classics you adore.
As a more science-oriented person I've never quite been able to understand literary analysis. What is it aiming at? It's clearly not studying what makes a story entertaining, as we see in this discussion. When you say that an author adds to the tools of telling a story... adds what, exactly? Almost all academic discussion of literature that I've seen basically swerves into a roundabout discussion of philosophy/sociology/psychology. It's like you take those fields, and you encode them in an invented puzzle language, and then you have fun trying to decode it again. Why couldn't it have been stated cleanly in the first place? If the reason a classic is a classic is that it teaches you about the evils of greed (for example), why couldn't that have been an essay? It seems to me that a lot of literature is over-extended allegory. It's like you take a satire piece a la A Modest Proposal, and then you extend it and confuse it to novel length. Why? I feel like there are two reasons to tell a story: one is for entertainment, in which case it should be as pleasing as possible; the other is for sending a message, in which case the message should be as clear as possible - yet much of literature is wrapped in several layers of obfuscation. I don't pretend to be able to say that such a large and historic field is worthless, by the way; I'm just throwing it out there as a question.
You can't expect every single person in the world to really listen and not hear music, and really read and not just look. Nor is all art meant to shift paradigms and be a work with academic and creative depth. Sometimes it's simply meant to be entertainment, and one shouldn't lambast another because they enjoy something simply because it is fun (regardless of how shallow and/or trite it may be). You can't really expect everyone to care.
On July 14 2011 08:22 Redmark wrote: As a more science-oriented person I've never quite been able to understand literary analysis. What is it aiming at? It's clearly not studying what makes a story entertaining, as we see in this discussion. When you say that an author adds to the tools of telling a story... adds what, exactly? Almost all academic discussion of literature that I've seen basically swerves into a roundabout discussion of philosophy/sociology/psychology. It's like you take those fields, and you encode them in an invented puzzle language, and then you have fun trying to decode it again. Why couldn't it have been stated cleanly in the first place? If the reason a classic is a classic is that it teaches you about the evils of greed (for example), why couldn't that have been an essay? It seems to me that a lot of literature is over-extended allegory. It's like you take a satire piece a la A Modest Proposal, and then you extend it and confuse it to novel length. Why? I feel like there are two reasons to tell a story: one is for entertainment, in which case it should be as pleasing as possible; the other is for sending a message, in which case the message should be as clear as possible - yet much of literature is wrapped in several layers of obfuscation. I don't pretend to be able to say that such a large and historic field is worthless, by the way; I'm just throwing it out there as a question.
Well I'm definitely no expert but here are my thoughts:
People often say that you can't understand somethings until you experience them. Literature tries to capture the experience of the author and convey it to the reader. It can't be diluted to some bullet points.
In the example of say, classical music, people listen to it because it's pleasing and lifts the senses. Of course, people can break music down and analyze it's structure or details or examine the historical context. However, that's hardly the reason why it is written. Also, Beethoven could either say "I feel angry and distressed" or he could write epic pieces expressing himself through sound. Obviously the latter is more moving.
Moreover, you can't really just split it into "entertainment vs message," things aren't so cut and dried.
On July 14 2011 08:22 Redmark wrote: As a more science-oriented person I've never quite been able to understand literary analysis. What is it aiming at? It's clearly not studying what makes a story entertaining, as we see in this discussion. When you say that an author adds to the tools of telling a story... adds what, exactly? Almost all academic discussion of literature that I've seen basically swerves into a roundabout discussion of philosophy/sociology/psychology. It's like you take those fields, and you encode them in an invented puzzle language, and then you have fun trying to decode it again. Why couldn't it have been stated cleanly in the first place? If the reason a classic is a classic is that it teaches you about the evils of greed (for example), why couldn't that have been an essay? It seems to me that a lot of literature is over-extended allegory. It's like you take a satire piece a la A Modest Proposal, and then you extend it and confuse it to novel length. Why? I feel like there are two reasons to tell a story: one is for entertainment, in which case it should be as pleasing as possible; the other is for sending a message, in which case the message should be as clear as possible - yet much of literature is wrapped in several layers of obfuscation. I don't pretend to be able to say that such a large and historic field is worthless, by the way; I'm just throwing it out there as a question.
Well I'm definitely no expert but here are my thoughts:
People often say that you can't understand somethings until you experience them. Literature tries to capture the experience of the author and convey it to the reader. It can't be diluted to some bullet points.
In the example of say, classical music, people listen to it because it's pleasing and lifts the senses. Of course, people can break music down and analyze it's structure or details or examine the historical context. However, that's hardly the reason why it is written. Also, Beethoven could either say "I feel angry and distressed" or he could write epic pieces expressing himself through sound. Obviously the latter is more moving.
Moreover, you can't really just split it into "entertainment vs message," things aren't so cut and dried.
In contrast to other music which people listen to because it's displeasing and makes you feel down? It's not like the only innovation in music and literature happened 50+ years ago and yet those are always the only ones that are brought up in these "art" discussions.
I, too, don't really understand why you have to analyze books/movies/music and yet we had to do it a bunch in school.
To me, a book is either good/bad or mediocre and it's purely based off the entertainment value. Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think).
Usually just seems to be som blibber blabber about how the writer wrote this little sentence which kind of hints at these things and they in combination with these other things hinted at in these other sentences give us this message.
It feels weird and...sad that it's coming to an end. A lot of fond memories of sneak-reading Harry Potter during class, studying English with them after moving to the U.S., and being mad that Emma Watson went to Brown. No more waiting for the next one to come out. Thank you Harry Potter for making reading an enjoyable activity as a kid.
I liked the HP books, but I don't really feel the same way you do with it ending. I mean, technically, it's my generation as well, but I honestly don't feel its impact as others do. In the end, it was just another series to me along with Boxcar Children, Artemis Fowl, etc.
I was never a reader because of HP. I was a reader because I had to learn English. I was a reader because I forced myself to borrow 14 books every three weeks. I was a reader because I had to cure my boredom without television or computers. HP didn't get me started with classics; Poe and Salinger did that. Maybe that's why I don't feel the impact of HP ending. I'm more excited about Dark Knight Rises than HP7.5. But hey, to each their own.
And StorkHwaiting, I must disagree on Joyce. The way he writes isn't confusing. It's very straightforward and concise. His writing is also so refined. I love his narrative style. God it's great. He has beautiful sentences too. I can also see his influence on other writers like Fitzgerald and Hemingway.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
WTF LOTR movies are terrible? Something is wrong with you. Harry Potter maybe, LOTR just no.
Yes I think they were very bad movies.
I don't like the dialogues which were horrendously cheesy and sounded wrong, the way of filming which is really brutal, in a way vulgar with zooming on the face of everybody who is supposed to feel an emotion; it's all about speed and efficiency, and to be honest I find that brainless. The actors are good but really badly directed, and most of the dramatic stuff really make me laugh out loud. Just think of any Frodo/Sam line, it's so full of good feelings, that's just disgusting.
Every time an Elf appears on the screen it looks like some shampoo commercial. White light, stupid high pitched choral music, slow motion. I mean, does Peter Jackson think he will move people with such disgustingly cheap cinema? Apparently yes, and sadly, apparently he is right.
The music is heavy and boring.
The battles look like some kind of hysterical video game. Compare the nerdy warhammer stuff with the psychological tension in Tolkien's books. Think that during the siege of Minas Tirith, almost nothing happens for like 200 pages.
I find that the books have some kind of subtlety, that they manage to really create something. The movies, I found were brainless heroic fantasy, and really really boring as fuck. I found the third one so ridiculous that I never managed to watch it until the end. A friend of mine showed me the last scene with the hobbit jumping in slow motion on their bed. Made me feel sick.
Horrible movies, but again, that's just my opinion. The books are really nice.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
Clearly an idiot. Please ignore this guy.
There are literally thousands of far more terrible children's books and movies out there. The HP series is certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it is far from terrible, and compared to most of the the other trash that passes for literature these days, I think they are just fine. The movies...basically the same. Not masterpieces of intellect by far, but they tell a compelling coming of age story.
And dissing on LoTR, the books or the movies is just stupid. They broke new ground both in literature and in movies. The CGI alone was VERY groundbreaking in the movies, completely disregarding everything else. The books....just lol. If you think they are terrible, then you are just a terrible judge of literature, and need to be ignored.
I will make you a favor and ignore the first and the last sentence of your post. You seem to think people who have an other opinion than you are stupid. Well, you know what, then maybe you are. (It's also ironic that you tell someone to ignore me and then spend two paragraphs answering what I said).
Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
Now, don't get me wrong: I like him, I really do. I like LOTR, I loved reading it. But people comparing him to Balzac, Celine or any of these really great artist makes me sad. It's like saying that George Carlin, that I really fucking love, is a great philosopher like Spinoza or Nietzsche. You have people who really believe so. Well, no he is not. That's good pop culture, period.
The movies are brainless hysterical blockbusters. If you like it good for you, personally I find that boring and stupid. Same goes with HP movies. I find them really offensive.
Guess mainstream forms of entertainment are not suitable for a profound person like you then.
On July 14 2011 13:56 ghrur wrote: I liked the HP books, but I don't really feel the same way you do with it ending. I mean, technically, it's my generation as well, but I honestly don't feel its impact as others do. In the end, it was just another series to me along with Boxcar Children, Artemis Fowl, etc.
I was never a reader because of HP. I was a reader because I had to learn English. I was a reader because I forced myself to borrow 14 books every three weeks. I was a reader because I had to cure my boredom without television or computers. HP didn't get me started with classics; Poe and Salinger did that. Maybe that's why I don't feel the impact of HP ending. I'm more excited about Dark Knight Rises than HP7.5. But hey, to each their own.
And StorkHwaiting, I must disagree on Joyce. The way he writes isn't confusing. It's very straightforward and concise. His writing is also so refined. I love his narrative style. God it's great. He has beautiful sentences too. I can also see his influence on other writers like Fitzgerald and Hemingway.
On July 14 2011 13:56 ghrur wrote: I liked the HP books, but I don't really feel the same way you do with it ending. I mean, technically, it's my generation as well, but I honestly don't feel its impact as others do. In the end, it was just another series to me along with Boxcar Children, Artemis Fowl, etc.
I was never a reader because of HP. I was a reader because I had to learn English. I was a reader because I forced myself to borrow 14 books every three weeks. I was a reader because I had to cure my boredom without television or computers. HP didn't get me started with classics; Poe and Salinger did that. Maybe that's why I don't feel the impact of HP ending. I'm more excited about Dark Knight Rises than HP7.5. But hey, to each their own.
And StorkHwaiting, I must disagree on Joyce. The way he writes isn't confusing. It's very straightforward and concise. His writing is also so refined. I love his narrative style. God it's great. He has beautiful sentences too. I can also see his influence on other writers like Fitzgerald and Hemingway.
On July 14 2011 13:56 ghrur wrote: I liked the HP books, but I don't really feel the same way you do with it ending. I mean, technically, it's my generation as well, but I honestly don't feel its impact as others do. In the end, it was just another series to me along with Boxcar Children, Artemis Fowl, etc.
I was never a reader because of HP. I was a reader because I had to learn English. I was a reader because I forced myself to borrow 14 books every three weeks. I was a reader because I had to cure my boredom without television or computers. HP didn't get me started with classics; Poe and Salinger did that. Maybe that's why I don't feel the impact of HP ending. I'm more excited about Dark Knight Rises than HP7.5. But hey, to each their own.
And StorkHwaiting, I must disagree on Joyce. The way he writes isn't confusing. It's very straightforward and concise. His writing is also so refined. I love his narrative style. God it's great. He has beautiful sentences too. I can also see his influence on other writers like Fitzgerald and Hemingway.
You read Finnegan's Wake?
Not yet no. Do you not suggest it?
It's the textbook definition of confusing. Here is the opening sentence:
riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
No, I did not make a mistake there. Yes, it start mid-sentence.
On July 14 2011 13:56 ghrur wrote: I liked the HP books, but I don't really feel the same way you do with it ending. I mean, technically, it's my generation as well, but I honestly don't feel its impact as others do. In the end, it was just another series to me along with Boxcar Children, Artemis Fowl, etc.
I was never a reader because of HP. I was a reader because I had to learn English. I was a reader because I forced myself to borrow 14 books every three weeks. I was a reader because I had to cure my boredom without television or computers. HP didn't get me started with classics; Poe and Salinger did that. Maybe that's why I don't feel the impact of HP ending. I'm more excited about Dark Knight Rises than HP7.5. But hey, to each their own.
And StorkHwaiting, I must disagree on Joyce. The way he writes isn't confusing. It's very straightforward and concise. His writing is also so refined. I love his narrative style. God it's great. He has beautiful sentences too. I can also see his influence on other writers like Fitzgerald and Hemingway.
You read Finnegan's Wake?
Not yet no. Do you not suggest it?
It's the textbook definition of confusing. Here is the opening sentence:
On July 14 2011 13:56 ghrur wrote: I liked the HP books, but I don't really feel the same way you do with it ending. I mean, technically, it's my generation as well, but I honestly don't feel its impact as others do. In the end, it was just another series to me along with Boxcar Children, Artemis Fowl, etc.
I was never a reader because of HP. I was a reader because I had to learn English. I was a reader because I forced myself to borrow 14 books every three weeks. I was a reader because I had to cure my boredom without television or computers. HP didn't get me started with classics; Poe and Salinger did that. Maybe that's why I don't feel the impact of HP ending. I'm more excited about Dark Knight Rises than HP7.5. But hey, to each their own.
And StorkHwaiting, I must disagree on Joyce. The way he writes isn't confusing. It's very straightforward and concise. His writing is also so refined. I love his narrative style. God it's great. He has beautiful sentences too. I can also see his influence on other writers like Fitzgerald and Hemingway.
You read Finnegan's Wake?
Not yet no. Do you not suggest it?
It's the textbook definition of confusing. Here is the opening sentence:
riverrun, past Eve and Adam’s, from swerve of shore to bend of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to Howth Castle and Environs.
No, I did not make a mistake there. Yes, it start mid-sentence.
And this recommendation is coming from the person who claimed Joyce's writing was confusing? lol.
Finnegans Wake is written by James Joyce, dude. I believe StorkHwaiting was not so much recommending it as providing it as an example of how James Joyce's writing can be, at times, extraordinarily confusing. FW is like the exact opposite of straightforward and concise writing.
On July 14 2011 11:05 Aldehyde wrote: In contrast to other music which people listen to because it's displeasing and makes you feel down? It's not like the only innovation in music and literature happened 50+ years ago and yet those are always the only ones that are brought up in these "art" discussions.
I, too, don't really understand why you have to analyze books/movies/music and yet we had to do it a bunch in school.
To me, a book is either good/bad or mediocre and it's purely based off the entertainment value. Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think).
Usually just seems to be som blibber blabber about how the writer wrote this little sentence which kind of hints at these things and they in combination with these other things hinted at in these other sentences give us this message.
I apologize ahead of time; there is SO, SO, SO much to cover when introducing someone to the world of literary criticism that it can be a bit difficult to decide where to start. Please read until the end if you're going to bother reading my post at all, because each paragraph, on its own, doesn't really work without the whole here.
I'll address the main point here:
"Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think)."
That's not really the point of literary analysis. The point isn't to have a "message". You learn that day 1 of introduction to literary studies. I honestly suggest taking a course or doing the legwork yourself, because many of the common myths associated with literary criticism are debunked day 1 by a good professor. Boiling a work down to "Oh, this is about anti-slavery!" is generally trivializing thousands of complex questions that can be asked of the work.
Most professors address the question of "what's the point?" day 1 as well.
The "point" (which, you'll come to learn, is often a despised term) is to better understand history.
Literature is about understanding the world we live in. History is constantly contorted. Read a history book from 1920, and then read another book about the exact same subject today. The very way a text is worded completely changes its meaning. Even if an author does his/her very best to stay true to the facts, the way they say it changes how you interpret the information. When you retell this information, it is twisted again. This constant twisting completely alters our understanding of history to the point that much of what we learn today is often so far from reality that it is hard to truly understand "the past".
It isn't just about history, though. It isn't about getting "just the facts". Rather, it is a method of studying humanity and how we deal with the world around here. Quite a bit literary analysis (though just a fraction of the whole) has to do with the unconscious versus the conscious. Why did the author write what he/she did? Their personal reasoning for it isn't important. Looking at the words themselves, the ones that FACTUALLY EXIST, leads to the answers. Asking an author "what did you mean?" is the least helpful question of all time. The author's intent is not important. What actually exists on the page is.
Literature (and criticism) attempts to bypass this. The author creates a work, frozen in time, and their writing reflects THEIR INTERPRETATION OF THEIR WORLD. For example, if an author from 1837 wrote a gothic murder-mystery set in the 1600s, you can STILL gain INCREDIBLE insight into history and context by analyzing the WAY the author says something, not WHAT the author says.
It isn't about the words on the page. It is about how they work together, and how they interlink from page 1 until the last word.
There is a wrong way to interpret a work. A common misconception is that a work (primarily poetry) can "mean whatever you want it to mean". There is ambiguity, and that is at the heart of many discussions, but so many people read works incorrectly that it leads them to think that all works have dozens of meanings. Again, there is MUCH ambiguity, which stirs the majority of debate, but if you completely misread a work, you miss out on... everything.
Literary criticism is about understanding the world around you through what some consider a beautiful art form. It allows you to look back into history and understand WHY things were the they were, what certain individuals thought about it, and how it affected their concept of reality.
A huge part of the appeal is the ability to enter literary discourse and compare complex ideas with like-minded individuals, but MUCH of the work is very solitary, even though no piece exists in a vacuum.
And please understand that this is just the way I've learned. I'm a 23 year old senior English major (with a minor in Creative Writing) who intends to continue on to graduate school and make a career out of this. Point being: I am still a student and know jack shit. I've only been heavily involved with literary criticism for the last two years (as in, being involved in the discourse), and this is what I've been taught, as flawed as it may be.
I hope this helps with those who've never understood literary criticism and are interested. It isn't for everyone, but there is definitely a reason for its existence. It teaches about humanity, and history.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
WTF LOTR movies are terrible? Something is wrong with you. Harry Potter maybe, LOTR just no.
Yes I think they were very bad movies.
I don't like the dialogues which were horrendously cheesy and sounded wrong, the way of filming which is really brutal, in a way vulgar with zooming on the face of everybody who is supposed to feel an emotion; it's all about speed and efficiency, and to be honest I find that brainless. The actors are good but really badly directed, and most of the dramatic stuff really make me laugh out loud. Just think of any Frodo/Sam line, it's so full of good feelings, that's just disgusting.
Every time an Elf appears on the screen it looks like some shampoo commercial. White light, stupid high pitched choral music, slow motion. I mean, does Peter Jackson think he will move people with such disgustingly cheap cinema? Apparently yes, and sadly, apparently he is right.
The music is heavy and boring.
The battles look like some kind of hysterical video game. Compare the nerdy warhammer stuff with the psychological tension in Tolkien's books. Think that during the siege of Minas Tirith, almost nothing happens for like 200 pages.
I find that the books have some kind of subtlety, that they manage to really create something. The movies, I found were brainless heroic fantasy, and really really boring as fuck. I found the third one so ridiculous that I never managed to watch it until the end. A friend of mine showed me the last scene with the hobbit jumping in slow motion on their bed. Made me feel sick.
Horrible movies, but again, that's just my opinion. The books are really nice.
On July 14 2011 00:05 Sm3agol wrote:
On July 13 2011 20:16 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
Clearly an idiot. Please ignore this guy.
There are literally thousands of far more terrible children's books and movies out there. The HP series is certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it is far from terrible, and compared to most of the the other trash that passes for literature these days, I think they are just fine. The movies...basically the same. Not masterpieces of intellect by far, but they tell a compelling coming of age story.
And dissing on LoTR, the books or the movies is just stupid. They broke new ground both in literature and in movies. The CGI alone was VERY groundbreaking in the movies, completely disregarding everything else. The books....just lol. If you think they are terrible, then you are just a terrible judge of literature, and need to be ignored.
I will make you a favor and ignore the first and the last sentence of your post. You seem to think people who have an other opinion than you are stupid. Well, you know what, then maybe you are. (It's also ironic that you tell someone to ignore me and then spend two paragraphs answering what I said).
Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
Now, don't get me wrong: I like him, I really do. I like LOTR, I loved reading it. But people comparing him to Balzac, Celine or any of these really great artist makes me sad. It's like saying that George Carlin, that I really fucking love, is a great philosopher like Spinoza or Nietzsche. You have people who really believe so. Well, no he is not. That's good pop culture, period.
The movies are brainless hysterical blockbusters. If you like it good for you, personally I find that boring and stupid. Same goes with HP movies. I find them really offensive.
Guess mainstream forms of entertainment are not suitable for a profound person like you then.
If you bother to read what I wrote I said I enjoy reading Tolkien, and that I liked the first HP books.
But yeah, ad hominem sarcasm is great when you have little to say.
On July 13 2011 17:45 MarshalMeLee wrote: Wrote this on my blog (http://marshalmelee.tumblr.com/), but thought I'd add it to the TL list as well. Just some random thoughts.
I began reading Harry Potter when I was in elementary school and was hooked pretty early. Being able to stand in line, grab the next book, and devour it with glee was a defining part of my young life. Moreover, I felt I was a part of something big: even my Mom and my military-oriented brother read them avidly, as well as classmates and society at large. Even when reading was not convenient, loaning the excellent Jim Dale audiotapes from the library was a common method of keeping up.
As I look back on them now from a more critical and aged perspective, the Harry Potter novels are not the flawless creations I had remembered. But there’s no denying their effect on the young mind, and in particular my own. I reflect on this now as the Harry Potter saga draws to a close, with the final movie out in short order.
An end to all things is good. It keeps things in perspective; after all, what is life without death? What is a beginning without an end? To quote: “Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again.”
Even as I reflect on these words though, I realize there was a part of me that always looked forward to something coming out from the Harry Potter universe. This always maintained connection to my childhood, and to my past. Even if its only the latest installment in a movie series safely assumed to be not quite as good as the books (that’s not to call it bad).
I’m going to go see Harry Potter 7 Part 2, probably very near release, probably twice (I owe it to the aforementioned family to see it with them), and I am probably going to enjoy the ride. But overlooking it all is the fact that this is the end of something that has influenced my life, and I will miss it. In a way I wish Rowling would write something more to this universe she has created: but in another way, I feel that would cheapen the experience. In a way I am sad for the end: but in a way, I am also happy to see it done.
So thanks J.K. Rowling for influencing so many and writing such a readable work. And here’s to the post Harry Potter era: may it be ripe with opportunity, creativity, and maybe even something just as effectual.
Dear Sir, do you ACTUALLY believe that the Harry Potter era has an end at all??? So many people love those books so much that I can't see it dying at all. People don't read harry Potter for the fantasy or the magic, the read it for the characters and the world.
HOW DAMN REAL ARE THOSE CHARACTERS. They're all so flawed and awesome at the same time. It wont really die even if its less popular and if the hype dies down. But It'll still be there. The fans and community will still be there, its more like retired instead of dead.
With pottermore coming out you shouldn't be too worried. Going to be tons of extra things written in. I believe 18000 words for the first book. Tons of back information. Stuff like more on Professor Mcogagall because Rowling couldn't find spots in the book to add her information. You should be excited about that lol. Go to pottermore.com to check out more or look it up on youtube. It's going to be awesome.
Rowling really doesn't get enough credit for her wonderful style. I'm not certain that her books actually encourage people to read more heady stuff, but that shouldn't detract the merit of the books themselves. It may not be the appetizer to pique the hunger, but it is a very good snack in between denser stuff.
Do yourself a favor and never delve deeply into the world of Harry Potter.
You will quickly find out that JK rowling made the most dysfunctional world possible. Nothing makes sense from the government to the monetary system and everything has loose ends all over the place. A world like she describes really couldn't function at all.
If anything Harry Potter made me realize how amazing it is that Tolkien was able to create a world from basically scratch.
That aside I really loved the first 5 books. The last 2 I wasn't really a fan of but hey...gotta finish it.
Just think that there are 40 student/year (5 male + 5 female / house). Yes, that's right.
That means the total population which has been to Hogwards is 40 * 65 = 2600.
Since we never ever hear of an other magic school in the UK, and that most wizard seem to have been there, you really have a problem finding where all theses guys have been educated.
Now I don't think that the fact that HP world doesn't make sense is really a problem. It's not supposed to make sense, since it is a caricature of some aspect of England anyway.
You sir have never read any of these books. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. There was about 1000 students in the school Rowling said. But that doesn't make any sense because Mcgonagall called the whole class into the common room which I'm pretty sure was small. Whatever point is there are more schools.
Rowling really doesn't get enough credit for her wonderful style. I'm not certain that her books actually encourage people to read more heady stuff, but that shouldn't detract the merit of the books themselves. It may not be the appetizer to pique the hunger, but it is a very good snack in between denser stuff.
Do yourself a favor and never delve deeply into the world of Harry Potter.
You will quickly find out that JK rowling made the most dysfunctional world possible. Nothing makes sense from the government to the monetary system and everything has loose ends all over the place. A world like she describes really couldn't function at all.
If anything Harry Potter made me realize how amazing it is that Tolkien was able to create a world from basically scratch.
That aside I really loved the first 5 books. The last 2 I wasn't really a fan of but hey...gotta finish it.
Just think that there are 40 student/year (5 male + 5 female / house). Yes, that's right.
That means the total population which has been to Hogwards is 40 * 65 = 2600.
Since we never ever hear of an other magic school in the UK, and that most wizard seem to have been there, you really have a problem finding where all theses guys have been educated.
Now I don't think that the fact that HP world doesn't make sense is really a problem. It's not supposed to make sense, since it is a caricature of some aspect of England anyway.
You sir have never read any of these books. Beauxbatons and Durmstrang. There was about 1000 students in the school Rowling said. But that doesn't make any sense because Mcgonagall called the whole class into the common room which I'm pretty sure was small. Whatever point is there are more schools.
I counted exactly five males and five females in each house for each year.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
WTF LOTR movies are terrible? Something is wrong with you. Harry Potter maybe, LOTR just no.
Yes I think they were very bad movies.
I don't like the dialogues which were horrendously cheesy and sounded wrong, the way of filming which is really brutal, in a way vulgar with zooming on the face of everybody who is supposed to feel an emotion; it's all about speed and efficiency, and to be honest I find that brainless. The actors are good but really badly directed, and most of the dramatic stuff really make me laugh out loud. Just think of any Frodo/Sam line, it's so full of good feelings, that's just disgusting.
Every time an Elf appears on the screen it looks like some shampoo commercial. White light, stupid high pitched choral music, slow motion. I mean, does Peter Jackson think he will move people with such disgustingly cheap cinema? Apparently yes, and sadly, apparently he is right.
The music is heavy and boring.
The battles look like some kind of hysterical video game. Compare the nerdy warhammer stuff with the psychological tension in Tolkien's books. Think that during the siege of Minas Tirith, almost nothing happens for like 200 pages.
I find that the books have some kind of subtlety, that they manage to really create something. The movies, I found were brainless heroic fantasy, and really really boring as fuck. I found the third one so ridiculous that I never managed to watch it until the end. A friend of mine showed me the last scene with the hobbit jumping in slow motion on their bed. Made me feel sick.
Horrible movies, but again, that's just my opinion. The books are really nice.
On July 14 2011 00:05 Sm3agol wrote:
On July 13 2011 20:16 Biff The Understudy wrote:
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I have to agree with that.
The first couple of Harry Potter were fine children literature with a lot of imagination, everything else has been plain mediocrity.
The movies are all terrible imo. Really really terrible. Same for LOTR.
Clearly an idiot. Please ignore this guy.
There are literally thousands of far more terrible children's books and movies out there. The HP series is certainly not the pinnacle of modern literature, but it is far from terrible, and compared to most of the the other trash that passes for literature these days, I think they are just fine. The movies...basically the same. Not masterpieces of intellect by far, but they tell a compelling coming of age story.
And dissing on LoTR, the books or the movies is just stupid. They broke new ground both in literature and in movies. The CGI alone was VERY groundbreaking in the movies, completely disregarding everything else. The books....just lol. If you think they are terrible, then you are just a terrible judge of literature, and need to be ignored.
I will make you a favor and ignore the first and the last sentence of your post. You seem to think people who have an other opinion than you are stupid. Well, you know what, then maybe you are. (It's also ironic that you tell someone to ignore me and then spend two paragraphs answering what I said).
Tolkien is not a great writer. Compare him to a really important one, let's say James Joyce, and you realize he brings nothing, absolutely nothing to literature. He is a fine entertainer for teenagers and young adults. That's it.
Now, don't get me wrong: I like him, I really do. I like LOTR, I loved reading it. But people comparing him to Balzac, Celine or any of these really great artist makes me sad. It's like saying that George Carlin, that I really fucking love, is a great philosopher like Spinoza or Nietzsche. You have people who really believe so. Well, no he is not. That's good pop culture, period.
The movies are brainless hysterical blockbusters. If you like it good for you, personally I find that boring and stupid. Same goes with HP movies. I find them really offensive.
Guess mainstream forms of entertainment are not suitable for a profound person like you then.
If you bother to read what I wrote I said I enjoy reading Tolkien, and that I liked the first HP books.
But yeah, ad hominem sarcasm is great when you have little to say.
I was being serious, that was a compliment. And yeah, I dont really have alot to say.
On July 14 2011 11:05 Aldehyde wrote: In contrast to other music which people listen to because it's displeasing and makes you feel down? It's not like the only innovation in music and literature happened 50+ years ago and yet those are always the only ones that are brought up in these "art" discussions.
I, too, don't really understand why you have to analyze books/movies/music and yet we had to do it a bunch in school.
To me, a book is either good/bad or mediocre and it's purely based off the entertainment value. Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think).
Usually just seems to be som blibber blabber about how the writer wrote this little sentence which kind of hints at these things and they in combination with these other things hinted at in these other sentences give us this message.
I apologize ahead of time; there is SO, SO, SO much to cover when introducing someone to the world of literary criticism that it can be a bit difficult to decide where to start. Please read until the end if you're going to bother reading my post at all, because each paragraph, on its own, doesn't really work without the whole here.
"Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think)."
That's not really the point of literary analysis. The point isn't to have a "message". You learn that day 1 of introduction to literary studies. I honestly suggest taking a course or doing the legwork yourself, because many of the common myths associated with literary criticism are debunked day 1 by a good professor. Boiling a work down to "Oh, this is about anti-slavery!" is generally trivializing thousands of complex questions that can be asked of the work.
Most professors address the question of "what's the point?" day 1 as well.
The "point" (which, you'll come to learn, is often a despised term) is to better understand history.
Literature is about understanding the world we live in. History is constantly contorted. Read a history book from 1920, and then read another book about the exact same subject today. The very way a text is worded completely changes its meaning. Even if an author does his/her very best to stay true to the facts, the way they say it changes how you interpret the information. When you retell this information, it is twisted again. This constant twisting completely alters our understanding of history to the point that much of what we learn today is often so far from reality that it is hard to truly understand "the past".
It isn't just about history, though. It isn't about getting "just the facts". Rather, it is a method of studying humanity and how we deal with the world around here. Quite a bit literary analysis (though just a fraction of the whole) has to do with the unconscious versus the conscious. Why did the author write what he/she did? Their personal reasoning for it isn't important. Looking at the words themselves, the ones that FACTUALLY EXIST, leads to the answers. Asking an author "what did you mean?" is the least helpful question of all time. The author's intent is not important. What actually exists on the page is.
Literature (and criticism) attempts to bypass this. The author creates a work, frozen in time, and their writing reflects THEIR INTERPRETATION OF THEIR WORLD. For example, if an author from 1837 wrote a gothic murder-mystery set in the 1600s, you can STILL gain INCREDIBLE insight into history and context by analyzing the WAY the author says something, not WHAT the author says.
It isn't about the words on the page. It is about how they work together, and how they interlink from page 1 until the last word.
There is a wrong way to interpret a work. A common misconception is that a work (primarily poetry) can "mean whatever you want it to mean". There is ambiguity, and that is at the heart of many discussions, but so many people read works incorrectly that it leads them to think that all works have dozens of meanings. Again, there is MUCH ambiguity, which stirs the majority of debate, but if you completely misread a work, you miss out on... everything.
Literary criticism is about understanding the world around you through what some consider a beautiful art form. It allows you to look back into history and understand WHY things were the they were, what certain individuals thought about it, and how it affected their concept of reality.
A huge part of the appeal is the ability to enter literary discourse and compare complex ideas with like-minded individuals, but MUCH of the work is very solitary, even though no piece exists in a vacuum.
And please understand that this is just the way I've learned. I'm a 23 year old senior English major (with a minor in Creative Writing) who intends to continue on to graduate school and make a career out of this. Point being: I am still a student and know jack shit. I've only been heavily involved with literary criticism for the last two years (as in, being involved in the discourse), and this is what I've been taught, as flawed as it may be.
I hope this helps with those who've never understood literary criticism and are interested. It isn't for everyone, but there is definitely a reason for its existence. It teaches about humanity, and history.
I can get behind what you're saying but I haven't seen Biff and the people agreeing with him saying anything close to what you're saying. Perhaps I was wrong to bring up analyzing because I don't think that was what I really wanted to talk about.
Biff and co. are saying that some books are better because they bring more to the table in form of new ways to write the same thing. Sure, might be to some people but I think most people just want entertainment and it doesn't really matter if it's a new way to write or just an old and non-innovative way.
Kind of like how some SC pro might come up with this new way to play TvZ, he might bring more to SC as a whole but is he by default better than other players? Spanishiwa brought a whole new playstyle for zerg players to use in ZvP and in some extent, ZvT but is he better than IdrA? Hardly.
This is what bugs me about all this crap about "oh but he changed the way people write!". Yeah? So what? I don't find the work very entertaining so, to me, it's not good.
On July 14 2011 11:05 Aldehyde wrote: In contrast to other music which people listen to because it's displeasing and makes you feel down? It's not like the only innovation in music and literature happened 50+ years ago and yet those are always the only ones that are brought up in these "art" discussions.
I, too, don't really understand why you have to analyze books/movies/music and yet we had to do it a bunch in school.
To me, a book is either good/bad or mediocre and it's purely based off the entertainment value. Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think).
Usually just seems to be som blibber blabber about how the writer wrote this little sentence which kind of hints at these things and they in combination with these other things hinted at in these other sentences give us this message.
I apologize ahead of time; there is SO, SO, SO much to cover when introducing someone to the world of literary criticism that it can be a bit difficult to decide where to start. Please read until the end if you're going to bother reading my post at all, because each paragraph, on its own, doesn't really work without the whole here.
"Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think)."
That's not really the point of literary analysis. The point isn't to have a "message". You learn that day 1 of introduction to literary studies. I honestly suggest taking a course or doing the legwork yourself, because many of the common myths associated with literary criticism are debunked day 1 by a good professor. Boiling a work down to "Oh, this is about anti-slavery!" is generally trivializing thousands of complex questions that can be asked of the work.
Most professors address the question of "what's the point?" day 1 as well.
The "point" (which, you'll come to learn, is often a despised term) is to better understand history.
Literature is about understanding the world we live in. History is constantly contorted. Read a history book from 1920, and then read another book about the exact same subject today. The very way a text is worded completely changes its meaning. Even if an author does his/her very best to stay true to the facts, the way they say it changes how you interpret the information. When you retell this information, it is twisted again. This constant twisting completely alters our understanding of history to the point that much of what we learn today is often so far from reality that it is hard to truly understand "the past".
It isn't just about history, though. It isn't about getting "just the facts". Rather, it is a method of studying humanity and how we deal with the world around here. Quite a bit literary analysis (though just a fraction of the whole) has to do with the unconscious versus the conscious. Why did the author write what he/she did? Their personal reasoning for it isn't important. Looking at the words themselves, the ones that FACTUALLY EXIST, leads to the answers. Asking an author "what did you mean?" is the least helpful question of all time. The author's intent is not important. What actually exists on the page is.
Literature (and criticism) attempts to bypass this. The author creates a work, frozen in time, and their writing reflects THEIR INTERPRETATION OF THEIR WORLD. For example, if an author from 1837 wrote a gothic murder-mystery set in the 1600s, you can STILL gain INCREDIBLE insight into history and context by analyzing the WAY the author says something, not WHAT the author says.
It isn't about the words on the page. It is about how they work together, and how they interlink from page 1 until the last word.
There is a wrong way to interpret a work. A common misconception is that a work (primarily poetry) can "mean whatever you want it to mean". There is ambiguity, and that is at the heart of many discussions, but so many people read works incorrectly that it leads them to think that all works have dozens of meanings. Again, there is MUCH ambiguity, which stirs the majority of debate, but if you completely misread a work, you miss out on... everything.
Literary criticism is about understanding the world around you through what some consider a beautiful art form. It allows you to look back into history and understand WHY things were the they were, what certain individuals thought about it, and how it affected their concept of reality.
A huge part of the appeal is the ability to enter literary discourse and compare complex ideas with like-minded individuals, but MUCH of the work is very solitary, even though no piece exists in a vacuum.
And please understand that this is just the way I've learned. I'm a 23 year old senior English major (with a minor in Creative Writing) who intends to continue on to graduate school and make a career out of this. Point being: I am still a student and know jack shit. I've only been heavily involved with literary criticism for the last two years (as in, being involved in the discourse), and this is what I've been taught, as flawed as it may be.
I hope this helps with those who've never understood literary criticism and are interested. It isn't for everyone, but there is definitely a reason for its existence. It teaches about humanity, and history.
I can get behind what you're saying but I haven't seen Biff and the people agreeing with him saying anything close to what you're saying. Perhaps I was wrong to bring up analyzing because I don't think that was what I really wanted to talk about.
Biff and co. are saying that some books are better because they bring more to the table in form of new ways to write the same thing. Sure, might be to some people but I think most people just want entertainment and it doesn't really matter if it's a new way to write or just an old and non-innovative way.
Kind of like how some SC pro might come up with this new way to play TvZ, he might bring more to SC as a whole but is he by default better than other players? Spanishiwa brought a whole new playstyle for zerg players to use in ZvP and in some extent, ZvT but is he better than IdrA? Hardly.
This is what bugs me about all this crap about "oh but he changed the way people write!". Yeah? So what? I don't find the work very entertaining so, to me, it's not good.
Do you really think that comparison two problem as different as the artistic value of a book or a writer and the performance of a stracraft player is legitimate? Seriously?
I gave an example with composers and music, which seems to be much much more relevant since we are comparing the criteria of artistic value of two different art forms, and I haven't heard until now, in this thread or elsewhere, any valuable objection against it:
1. Why can't we write good Beethovenian or Mozartian music today? Why can a lot of people technically do it, but can't reproduce any of Beethoven genius and spark?
2. Why has every single great composer been unique, perfectly original and in a certain extent, groundbreaking? Why don't we have any amazing composers who hasn't brought anything new at all or didn't have a perfectly new and distinct way of writing?
My point is extremely simple: what JK Rowling does is what most pop musicians do: write with material and technique that existed 150 years ago. She is to Shakespeare what Oasis is to Mozart.
That's fine, I don't have anything against Oasis. But I laugh when people say their music is fantastic. It's not.
Rofl. Tolkien pioneered an entire genre of literature. He went far beyond a different way of writing. He revolutionized a different way of imagining. If you want to talk about revolutionary, Tolkien did way more than James Joyce ever did. Congrats on making zero sense.
And there are awesome composers that create totally new and distinct forms of music. T-Pain is father of autotune. T-Pain > Mozart/Beethoven any day of the week.
On July 13 2011 17:45 MarshalMeLee wrote: Wrote this on my blog (http://marshalmelee.tumblr.com/), but thought I'd add it to the TL list as well. Just some random thoughts.
I began reading Harry Potter when I was in elementary school and was hooked pretty early. Being able to stand in line, grab the next book, and devour it with glee was a defining part of my young life. Moreover, I felt I was a part of something big: even my Mom and my military-oriented brother read them avidly, as well as classmates and society at large. Even when reading was not convenient, loaning the excellent Jim Dale audiotapes from the library was a common method of keeping up.
As I look back on them now from a more critical and aged perspective, the Harry Potter novels are not the flawless creations I had remembered. But there’s no denying their effect on the young mind, and in particular my own. I reflect on this now as the Harry Potter saga draws to a close, with the final movie out in short order.
An end to all things is good. It keeps things in perspective; after all, what is life without death? What is a beginning without an end? To quote: “Someone once told me that time was a predator that stalked us all our lives. I rather believe that time is a companion that goes with us on a journey. It reminds us to cherish each moment, because it will never come again.”
Even as I reflect on these words though, I realize there was a part of me that always looked forward to something coming out from the Harry Potter universe. This always maintained connection to my childhood, and to my past. Even if its only the latest installment in a movie series safely assumed to be not quite as good as the books (that’s not to call it bad).
I’m going to go see Harry Potter 7 Part 2, probably very near release, probably twice (I owe it to the aforementioned family to see it with them), and I am probably going to enjoy the ride. But overlooking it all is the fact that this is the end of something that has influenced my life, and I will miss it. In a way I wish Rowling would write something more to this universe she has created: but in another way, I feel that would cheapen the experience. In a way I am sad for the end: but in a way, I am also happy to see it done.
So thanks J.K. Rowling for influencing so many and writing such a readable work. And here’s to the post Harry Potter era: may it be ripe with opportunity, creativity, and maybe even something just as effectual.
Dear Sir, do you ACTUALLY believe that the Harry Potter era has an end at all??? So many people love those books so much that I can't see it dying at all. People don't read harry Potter for the fantasy or the magic, the read it for the characters and the world.
HOW DAMN REAL ARE THOSE CHARACTERS. They're all so flawed and awesome at the same time. It wont really die even if its less popular and if the hype dies down. But It'll still be there. The fans and community will still be there, its more like retired instead of dead.
...They're actually not that real. There's a ton about them that is implausible. Starting with letting the one kid who ever stopped Voldemort from living with a dysfunctional step-family for years and then letting him run rough-shod all over some stupid preppy school instead of just putting him in a lab somewhere and tinkering with him until they figured out exactly how he stopped Voldemort.
It's a fun fantasy novel, but plz don't get into the whole how "real" the characters are. Things start to fall apart very quickly when you do that with fiction.
On July 15 2011 00:30 StorkHwaiting wrote: Rofl. Tolkien pioneered an entire genre of literature. He went far beyond a different way of writing. He revolutionized a different way of imagining. If you want to talk about revolutionary, Tolkien did way more than James Joyce ever did. Congrats on making zero sense.
And there are awesome composers that create totally new and distinct forms of music. T-Pain is father of autotune. T-Pain > Mozart/Beethoven any day of the week.
Much better than Beethoven. At least I had a good laugh. And Rowling, much better than Shakespeare. Are you kidding me. I mean, seriously, I thought it was a serious discussion.
Tolkien brought nothing to literature. As I said before, he invented an important content, but stylistically, in terms of how he writes, how he tells a story, how he think novels, he is mediocre and reactionary. One of my friend is a literature teacher, and he said he never passed the first chapter because of how awfully written it was (I don't have his level of expertise, so I wouldn't go too far into technical explanation). He loves the movies though.
I know you take it so personally because you want to be a fantasy writer, but really, fantasy is bit to literature what Mc Donald is to gastronomy.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I don't understand how posts like this don't receive a warning at the very least. Quality wise it offers nothing. Plus it's just a pompous 1 line response to someone's entire blog, which is insulting in itself.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I don't understand how posts like this don't receive a warning at the very least. Quality wise it offers nothing. Plus it's just a pompous 1 line response to someone's entire blog, which is insulting in itself.
At least it created some controversy. Think that without him, this thread would be long dead instead of turning into this glorious endless (and sterile?) conversation about the criteria of artistic quality.
On July 15 2011 00:30 StorkHwaiting wrote: Rofl. Tolkien pioneered an entire genre of literature. He went far beyond a different way of writing. He revolutionized a different way of imagining. If you want to talk about revolutionary, Tolkien did way more than James Joyce ever did. Congrats on making zero sense.
And there are awesome composers that create totally new and distinct forms of music. T-Pain is father of autotune. T-Pain > Mozart/Beethoven any day of the week.
Much better than Beethoven. At least I had a good laugh. And Rowling, much better than Shakespeare. Are you kidding me. I mean, seriously, I thought it was a serious discussion.
Tolkien brought nothing to literature. As I said before, he invented an important content, but stylistically, in terms of how he writes, how he tells a story, how he think novels, he is mediocre and reactionary. One of my friend is a literature teacher, and he said he never passed the first chapter because of how awfully written it was (I don't have his level of expertise, so I wouldn't go too far into technical explanation). He loves the movies though.
I know you take it so personally because you want to be a fantasy writer, but really, fantasy is bit to literature what Mc Donald is to gastronomy.
I do enjoy a good burger. Sometimes.
Literature teachers are useless. Tolkien was a bad writer. He was an amazing fantasist and storyteller. The two are not one and the same. Vast majority of people don't care that much about how well something is written. They care about what the STORY is. The story is what matters.
Not stupid little lines that a bunch of people who make it their job to read the shit can fap over it and force everyone else to hear about how fapworthy it is since the work is so epic shit that it requires an entire field devoted to decoding it simply so they can tell others what it's actually about.
Style is not everything. To most people, trying to spend time on thinking up how to resay a simple message in another, more complicated way is considered retardation. Whereas inventing an entirely new world is vastly more interesting. Hence why fantasy is incredibly popular, whereas James Joyce is read by... who nowadays?
Tolkien brought everything to literature. He literally taught all those other fools how to imagine an entire world, instead of just imagining another snarky way of saying someone went to the grocery store.
You are saying on the other hand it is more important to come up with a line like: ball to went fence over kids hahaha sad poignant orthoscopy. Instead of saying "Kids were playing ball and one of them broke his arm then went to the doctor."
And I don't get why you keep trying to refer to "you're trying to be a fantasy writer etc." What does that add to the conversation? Does that refute any point I've made? No. It's just your sad attempt at ad hominem attacks. I'm not taking it personally, I'm responding passionately because I like fantasy stories. Tolkien, I could take a pass on because his writing really is horrible. But it's undeniable that he brought a lot to literature. Maybe not the retarded genre that you enjoy, but that doesn't make it any less of an accomplishment.
In short: Literary writing sucks because they focus more on how to say something instead of focusing on what they're actually saying.
On July 15 2011 00:30 StorkHwaiting wrote: Rofl. Tolkien pioneered an entire genre of literature. He went far beyond a different way of writing. He revolutionized a different way of imagining. If you want to talk about revolutionary, Tolkien did way more than James Joyce ever did. Congrats on making zero sense.
And there are awesome composers that create totally new and distinct forms of music. T-Pain is father of autotune. T-Pain > Mozart/Beethoven any day of the week.
Much better than Beethoven. At least I had a good laugh. And Rowling, much better than Shakespeare. Are you kidding me. I mean, seriously, I thought it was a serious discussion.
Tolkien brought nothing to literature. As I said before, he invented an important content, but stylistically, in terms of how he writes, how he tells a story, how he think novels, he is mediocre and reactionary. One of my friend is a literature teacher, and he said he never passed the first chapter because of how awfully written it was (I don't have his level of expertise, so I wouldn't go too far into technical explanation). He loves the movies though.
I know you take it so personally because you want to be a fantasy writer, but really, fantasy is bit to literature what Mc Donald is to gastronomy.
I do enjoy a good burger. Sometimes.
Literature teachers are useless. Tolkien was a bad writer. He was an amazing fantasist and storyteller. The two are not one and the same. Vast majority of people don't care that much about how well something is written. They care about what the STORY is. The story is what matters.
Not stupid little lines that a bunch of people who make it their job to read the shit can fap over it and force everyone else to hear about how fapworthy it is since the work is so epic shit that it requires an entire field devoted to decoding it simply so they can tell others what it's actually about.
Style is not everything. To most people, trying to spend time on thinking up how to resay a simple message in another, more complicated way is considered retardation. Whereas inventing an entirely new world is vastly more interesting. Hence why fantasy is incredibly popular, whereas James Joyce is read by... who nowadays?
Tolkien brought everything to literature. He literally taught all those other fools how to imagine an entire world, instead of just imagining another snarky way of saying someone went to the grocery store.
You are saying on the other hand it is more important to come up with a line like: ball to went fence over kids hahaha sad poignant orthoscopy. Instead of saying "Kids were playing ball and one of them broke his arm then went to the doctor."
And I don't get why you keep trying to refer to "you're trying to be a fantasy writer etc." What does that add to the conversation? Does that refute any point I've made? No. It's just your sad attempt at ad hominem attacks. I'm not taking it personally, I'm responding passionately because I like fantasy stories. Tolkien, I could take a pass on because his writing really is horrible. But it's undeniable that he brought a lot to literature. Maybe not the retarded genre that you enjoy, but that doesn't make it any less of an accomplishment.
In short: Literary writing sucks because they focus more on how to say something instead of focusing on what they're actually saying.
If I think among the greatest things ever written, the first thing that come to my mind is Balzac. He can describe the front of a house for fifteen pages and there is so much to it that it seems that you can read it over and over, endlessly and it's the most beautiful thing, as beautiful as a great symphony or an amazing painting.
Your problem is that you completely miss the point with literacy.
On July 15 2011 00:30 StorkHwaiting wrote: Rofl. Tolkien pioneered an entire genre of literature. He went far beyond a different way of writing. He revolutionized a different way of imagining. If you want to talk about revolutionary, Tolkien did way more than James Joyce ever did. Congrats on making zero sense.
And there are awesome composers that create totally new and distinct forms of music. T-Pain is father of autotune. T-Pain > Mozart/Beethoven any day of the week.
Much better than Beethoven. At least I had a good laugh. And Rowling, much better than Shakespeare. Are you kidding me. I mean, seriously, I thought it was a serious discussion.
Tolkien brought nothing to literature. As I said before, he invented an important content, but stylistically, in terms of how he writes, how he tells a story, how he think novels, he is mediocre and reactionary. One of my friend is a literature teacher, and he said he never passed the first chapter because of how awfully written it was (I don't have his level of expertise, so I wouldn't go too far into technical explanation). He loves the movies though.
I know you take it so personally because you want to be a fantasy writer, but really, fantasy is bit to literature what Mc Donald is to gastronomy.
I do enjoy a good burger. Sometimes.
Literature teachers are useless. Tolkien was a bad writer. He was an amazing fantasist and storyteller. The two are not one and the same. Vast majority of people don't care that much about how well something is written. They care about what the STORY is. The story is what matters.
Not stupid little lines that a bunch of people who make it their job to read the shit can fap over it and force everyone else to hear about how fapworthy it is since the work is so epic shit that it requires an entire field devoted to decoding it simply so they can tell others what it's actually about.
Style is not everything. To most people, trying to spend time on thinking up how to resay a simple message in another, more complicated way is considered retardation. Whereas inventing an entirely new world is vastly more interesting. Hence why fantasy is incredibly popular, whereas James Joyce is read by... who nowadays?
Tolkien brought everything to literature. He literally taught all those other fools how to imagine an entire world, instead of just imagining another snarky way of saying someone went to the grocery store.
You are saying on the other hand it is more important to come up with a line like: ball to went fence over kids hahaha sad poignant orthoscopy. Instead of saying "Kids were playing ball and one of them broke his arm then went to the doctor."
And I don't get why you keep trying to refer to "you're trying to be a fantasy writer etc." What does that add to the conversation? Does that refute any point I've made? No. It's just your sad attempt at ad hominem attacks. I'm not taking it personally, I'm responding passionately because I like fantasy stories. Tolkien, I could take a pass on because his writing really is horrible. But it's undeniable that he brought a lot to literature. Maybe not the retarded genre that you enjoy, but that doesn't make it any less of an accomplishment.
In short: Literary writing sucks because they focus more on how to say something instead of focusing on what they're actually saying.
If I think among the greatest things ever written, the first thing that come to my mind is Balzac. He can describe the front of a house for fifteen pages and there is so much to it that it seems that you can read it over and over, endlessly and it's the most beautiful thing, as beautiful as a great symphony or an amazing painting.
Your problem is that you completely miss the point with literacy.
No, your problem is that there are multiple points to literacy, none of them wrong.
P.S. Who cares about the front of a house? I'd rather have an army of orcs burning Balzac's house down, trampling his yard flowers, and humping his pet labrador.
On July 14 2011 11:05 Aldehyde wrote: In contrast to other music which people listen to because it's displeasing and makes you feel down? It's not like the only innovation in music and literature happened 50+ years ago and yet those are always the only ones that are brought up in these "art" discussions.
I, too, don't really understand why you have to analyze books/movies/music and yet we had to do it a bunch in school.
To me, a book is either good/bad or mediocre and it's purely based off the entertainment value. Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think).
Usually just seems to be som blibber blabber about how the writer wrote this little sentence which kind of hints at these things and they in combination with these other things hinted at in these other sentences give us this message.
I apologize ahead of time; there is SO, SO, SO much to cover when introducing someone to the world of literary criticism that it can be a bit difficult to decide where to start. Please read until the end if you're going to bother reading my post at all, because each paragraph, on its own, doesn't really work without the whole here.
"Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think)."
That's not really the point of literary analysis. The point isn't to have a "message". You learn that day 1 of introduction to literary studies. I honestly suggest taking a course or doing the legwork yourself, because many of the common myths associated with literary criticism are debunked day 1 by a good professor. Boiling a work down to "Oh, this is about anti-slavery!" is generally trivializing thousands of complex questions that can be asked of the work.
Most professors address the question of "what's the point?" day 1 as well.
The "point" (which, you'll come to learn, is often a despised term) is to better understand history.
Literature is about understanding the world we live in. History is constantly contorted. Read a history book from 1920, and then read another book about the exact same subject today. The very way a text is worded completely changes its meaning. Even if an author does his/her very best to stay true to the facts, the way they say it changes how you interpret the information. When you retell this information, it is twisted again. This constant twisting completely alters our understanding of history to the point that much of what we learn today is often so far from reality that it is hard to truly understand "the past".
It isn't just about history, though. It isn't about getting "just the facts". Rather, it is a method of studying humanity and how we deal with the world around here. Quite a bit literary analysis (though just a fraction of the whole) has to do with the unconscious versus the conscious. Why did the author write what he/she did? Their personal reasoning for it isn't important. Looking at the words themselves, the ones that FACTUALLY EXIST, leads to the answers. Asking an author "what did you mean?" is the least helpful question of all time. The author's intent is not important. What actually exists on the page is.
Literature (and criticism) attempts to bypass this. The author creates a work, frozen in time, and their writing reflects THEIR INTERPRETATION OF THEIR WORLD. For example, if an author from 1837 wrote a gothic murder-mystery set in the 1600s, you can STILL gain INCREDIBLE insight into history and context by analyzing the WAY the author says something, not WHAT the author says.
It isn't about the words on the page. It is about how they work together, and how they interlink from page 1 until the last word.
There is a wrong way to interpret a work. A common misconception is that a work (primarily poetry) can "mean whatever you want it to mean". There is ambiguity, and that is at the heart of many discussions, but so many people read works incorrectly that it leads them to think that all works have dozens of meanings. Again, there is MUCH ambiguity, which stirs the majority of debate, but if you completely misread a work, you miss out on... everything.
Literary criticism is about understanding the world around you through what some consider a beautiful art form. It allows you to look back into history and understand WHY things were the they were, what certain individuals thought about it, and how it affected their concept of reality.
A huge part of the appeal is the ability to enter literary discourse and compare complex ideas with like-minded individuals, but MUCH of the work is very solitary, even though no piece exists in a vacuum.
And please understand that this is just the way I've learned. I'm a 23 year old senior English major (with a minor in Creative Writing) who intends to continue on to graduate school and make a career out of this. Point being: I am still a student and know jack shit. I've only been heavily involved with literary criticism for the last two years (as in, being involved in the discourse), and this is what I've been taught, as flawed as it may be.
I hope this helps with those who've never understood literary criticism and are interested. It isn't for everyone, but there is definitely a reason for its existence. It teaches about humanity, and history.
I can get behind what you're saying but I haven't seen Biff and the people agreeing with him saying anything close to what you're saying. Perhaps I was wrong to bring up analyzing because I don't think that was what I really wanted to talk about.
Biff and co. are saying that some books are better because they bring more to the table in form of new ways to write the same thing. Sure, might be to some people but I think most people just want entertainment and it doesn't really matter if it's a new way to write or just an old and non-innovative way.
Kind of like how some SC pro might come up with this new way to play TvZ, he might bring more to SC as a whole but is he by default better than other players? Spanishiwa brought a whole new playstyle for zerg players to use in ZvP and in some extent, ZvT but is he better than IdrA? Hardly.
This is what bugs me about all this crap about "oh but he changed the way people write!". Yeah? So what? I don't find the work very entertaining so, to me, it's not good.
Do you really think that comparison two problem as different as the artistic value of a book or a writer and the performance of a stracraft player is legitimate? Seriously?
I gave an example with composers and music, which seems to be much much more relevant since we are comparing the criteria of artistic value of two different art forms, and I haven't heard until now, in this thread or elsewhere, any valuable objection against it:
1. Why can't we write good Beethovenian or Mozartian music today? Why can a lot of people technically do it, but can't reproduce any of Beethoven genius and spark?
2. Why has every single great composer been unique, perfectly original and in a certain extent, groundbreaking? Why don't we have any amazing composers who hasn't brought anything new at all or didn't have a perfectly new and distinct way of writing?
My point is extremely simple: what JK Rowling does is what most pop musicians do: write with material and technique that existed 150 years ago. She is to Shakespeare what Oasis is to Mozart.
That's fine, I don't have anything against Oasis. But I laugh when people say their music is fantastic. It's not.
1. Because of course it's not the same no matter how good the work of today is since you know that it's not Mozart or whatever. That's a big deal, knowing that it's not the first of something.
2. Because what you're saying is bullshit? Why are you only mentioning classical music? That's been done. There are countless innovators in music but they don't have a fancy name such as "composer". Try listening to something not so "snobby".
There was a time when rap was innovative, now that has been done so of course it's just one of many these days. Techno was once innovative, now that's beeen done so of course it's just one of many these days. I can go on.
Oasis is inherently worse because it's not classical music? Get off your high horse.
I compare SC to your point of view because it's exactly the same. Spanishiwa's way of play was kind of awesome because it was new and something never seen before, everyone who imitates him is less and less awesome.
Mozart was awesome because he did something unique and new (or did he? I don't care enough to check these facts but all you "cultural" people say that he's awesome so I presume this is true) but everyone who imitates will be less awesome.
What's so fucking hard to understand?
You say that Tolkien's books are entertaining and fun but since he doesn't change the way of writing he's nothing special? Sure, he didn't use new kinds of sentences but he presented a WHOLE NEW WORLD to people and it made sense to the people reading it. That's a great thing in and of itself.
Now, I don't like LotR (the books or the movies) all that much, too much detail, too slow and all that but that doesn't matter, he made a whole lot of people believe in his world. To me, that's art if anything.
Harry Potter, great entertainment, just saw the last movie an hour or so ago myself. Not the greatest thing ever, it's all been done before, doesn't make it a bad movie/book, though. JK Rowling wrote about a world existing in our own, a community I didn't know about. She made it believable enough to get me interested, entertaining enough to get me hooked and tense enough to want to read the next book with great anticipation.
Sure, she doesn't reinvent the genre or a way of writing, as I said before, it doesn't make her a worse writer though. She captured and enthralled a whole generation, that's awesome.
So please, get off your high horse. You can have your way of thinking about this artsy stuff, I have mine. Yours is not better than mine, my way is not better than yours.
On July 14 2011 11:05 Aldehyde wrote: In contrast to other music which people listen to because it's displeasing and makes you feel down? It's not like the only innovation in music and literature happened 50+ years ago and yet those are always the only ones that are brought up in these "art" discussions.
I, too, don't really understand why you have to analyze books/movies/music and yet we had to do it a bunch in school.
To me, a book is either good/bad or mediocre and it's purely based off the entertainment value. Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think).
Usually just seems to be som blibber blabber about how the writer wrote this little sentence which kind of hints at these things and they in combination with these other things hinted at in these other sentences give us this message.
I apologize ahead of time; there is SO, SO, SO much to cover when introducing someone to the world of literary criticism that it can be a bit difficult to decide where to start. Please read until the end if you're going to bother reading my post at all, because each paragraph, on its own, doesn't really work without the whole here.
"Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think)."
That's not really the point of literary analysis. The point isn't to have a "message". You learn that day 1 of introduction to literary studies. I honestly suggest taking a course or doing the legwork yourself, because many of the common myths associated with literary criticism are debunked day 1 by a good professor. Boiling a work down to "Oh, this is about anti-slavery!" is generally trivializing thousands of complex questions that can be asked of the work.
Most professors address the question of "what's the point?" day 1 as well.
The "point" (which, you'll come to learn, is often a despised term) is to better understand history.
Literature is about understanding the world we live in. History is constantly contorted. Read a history book from 1920, and then read another book about the exact same subject today. The very way a text is worded completely changes its meaning. Even if an author does his/her very best to stay true to the facts, the way they say it changes how you interpret the information. When you retell this information, it is twisted again. This constant twisting completely alters our understanding of history to the point that much of what we learn today is often so far from reality that it is hard to truly understand "the past".
It isn't just about history, though. It isn't about getting "just the facts". Rather, it is a method of studying humanity and how we deal with the world around here. Quite a bit literary analysis (though just a fraction of the whole) has to do with the unconscious versus the conscious. Why did the author write what he/she did? Their personal reasoning for it isn't important. Looking at the words themselves, the ones that FACTUALLY EXIST, leads to the answers. Asking an author "what did you mean?" is the least helpful question of all time. The author's intent is not important. What actually exists on the page is.
Literature (and criticism) attempts to bypass this. The author creates a work, frozen in time, and their writing reflects THEIR INTERPRETATION OF THEIR WORLD. For example, if an author from 1837 wrote a gothic murder-mystery set in the 1600s, you can STILL gain INCREDIBLE insight into history and context by analyzing the WAY the author says something, not WHAT the author says.
It isn't about the words on the page. It is about how they work together, and how they interlink from page 1 until the last word.
There is a wrong way to interpret a work. A common misconception is that a work (primarily poetry) can "mean whatever you want it to mean". There is ambiguity, and that is at the heart of many discussions, but so many people read works incorrectly that it leads them to think that all works have dozens of meanings. Again, there is MUCH ambiguity, which stirs the majority of debate, but if you completely misread a work, you miss out on... everything.
Literary criticism is about understanding the world around you through what some consider a beautiful art form. It allows you to look back into history and understand WHY things were the they were, what certain individuals thought about it, and how it affected their concept of reality.
A huge part of the appeal is the ability to enter literary discourse and compare complex ideas with like-minded individuals, but MUCH of the work is very solitary, even though no piece exists in a vacuum.
And please understand that this is just the way I've learned. I'm a 23 year old senior English major (with a minor in Creative Writing) who intends to continue on to graduate school and make a career out of this. Point being: I am still a student and know jack shit. I've only been heavily involved with literary criticism for the last two years (as in, being involved in the discourse), and this is what I've been taught, as flawed as it may be.
I hope this helps with those who've never understood literary criticism and are interested. It isn't for everyone, but there is definitely a reason for its existence. It teaches about humanity, and history.
I can get behind what you're saying but I haven't seen Biff and the people agreeing with him saying anything close to what you're saying. Perhaps I was wrong to bring up analyzing because I don't think that was what I really wanted to talk about.
Biff and co. are saying that some books are better because they bring more to the table in form of new ways to write the same thing. Sure, might be to some people but I think most people just want entertainment and it doesn't really matter if it's a new way to write or just an old and non-innovative way.
Kind of like how some SC pro might come up with this new way to play TvZ, he might bring more to SC as a whole but is he by default better than other players? Spanishiwa brought a whole new playstyle for zerg players to use in ZvP and in some extent, ZvT but is he better than IdrA? Hardly.
This is what bugs me about all this crap about "oh but he changed the way people write!". Yeah? So what? I don't find the work very entertaining so, to me, it's not good.
Do you really think that comparison two problem as different as the artistic value of a book or a writer and the performance of a stracraft player is legitimate? Seriously?
I gave an example with composers and music, which seems to be much much more relevant since we are comparing the criteria of artistic value of two different art forms, and I haven't heard until now, in this thread or elsewhere, any valuable objection against it:
1. Why can't we write good Beethovenian or Mozartian music today? Why can a lot of people technically do it, but can't reproduce any of Beethoven genius and spark?
2. Why has every single great composer been unique, perfectly original and in a certain extent, groundbreaking? Why don't we have any amazing composers who hasn't brought anything new at all or didn't have a perfectly new and distinct way of writing?
My point is extremely simple: what JK Rowling does is what most pop musicians do: write with material and technique that existed 150 years ago. She is to Shakespeare what Oasis is to Mozart.
That's fine, I don't have anything against Oasis. But I laugh when people say their music is fantastic. It's not.
1. Because of course it's not the same no matter how good the work of today is since you know that it's not Mozart or whatever. That's a big deal, knowing that it's not the first of something.
2. Because what you're saying is bullshit? Why are you only mentioning classical music? That's been done. There are countless innovators in music but they don't have a fancy name such as "composer". Try listening to something not so "snobby".
There was a time when rap was innovative, now that has been done so of course it's just one of many these days. Techno was once innovative, now that's beeen done so of course it's just one of many these days. I can go on.
Oasis is inherently worse because it's not classical music? Get off your high horse.
I compare SC to your point of view because it's exactly the same. Spanishiwa's way of play was kind of awesome because it was new and something never seen before, everyone who imitates him is less and less awesome.
Mozart was awesome because he did something unique and new (or did he? I don't care enough to check these facts but all you "cultural" people say that he's awesome so I presume this is true) but everyone who imitates will be less awesome.
What's so fucking hard to understand?
You say that Tolkien's books are entertaining and fun but since he doesn't change the way of writing he's nothing special? Sure, he didn't use new kinds of sentences but he presented a WHOLE NEW WORLD to people and it made sense to the people reading it. That's a great thing in and of itself.
Now, I don't like LotR (the books or the movies) all that much, too much detail, too slow and all that but that doesn't matter, he made a whole lot of people believe in his world. To me, that's art if anything.
Harry Potter, great entertainment, just saw the last movie an hour or so ago myself. Not the greatest thing ever, it's all been done before, doesn't make it a bad movie/book, though. JK Rowling wrote about a world existing in our own, a community I didn't know about. She made it believable enough to get me interested, entertaining enough to get me hooked and tense enough to want to read the next book with great anticipation.
Sure, she doesn't reinvent the genre or a way of writing, as I said before, it doesn't make her a worse writer though. She captured and enthralled a whole generation, that's awesome.
So please, get off your high horse. You can have your way of thinking about this artsy stuff, I have mine. Yours is not better than mine, my way is not better than yours.
I don't really get your point to be honest.
The problem is that if someone does write in Beethoven style today, you can be sure it will be awful. It is not possible to write good Beethoven today, precisely because Beethoven could be that good only because it was new. It's not the novelty which is good in itself, but the novelty is essential to create great art. That can seem irrational, but as a musician, I experience it every day. Everybody can write in the style of Beethoven, nobody could even come close to the genius of his music using his style. It was possible only then, when it was a groundbreaking music.
You attack me on the basis that I talk about classical music. You find it snobby, you talk about high horses. Well that's your silly prejudices. Your problem is: I can make the exact same point with Jazz. You noticed that Coltrane, or Miles Davis, or Telonius Monk; all of them invented a completely new style, changed the way we perceived Jazz?
Oasis is mediocre because Oasis is written is tonal music with no imagination whatsoever, whether it is about rhythm, metric, structure, harmony. They don't bring anything. Every element of this music existed 200 years ago.
If when I say that you understand that I reproach Oasis not to be classical music, you really miss my point. I admire enormously musicians such as Bjork, or Bob Dylan.
I've answered like five times to everything you wrote about LOTR. Artistic value of a book is not about the amount of new creatures you invent. It's not even really about what you say, but how you say it. And in that regard, Tolkien is plain mediocrity, and so is Rowling.
They are both very entertaining, but not great artists or writers.
On July 15 2011 04:19 StorkHwaiting wrote: Style over substance is what you're saying. Sad, Biff. Sad.
Substance has nothing to do with the content.
Leonardo has not painted one the greatest painting ever because Mona Lisa was beautiful.
So now substance is subject to you? Would you like to expound on your idea? You are saying the artistic style Leonardo used mattered more than the actual meaning he meant to convey through the painting?
Biff, there is not one single meaning to the word "literature." Please stop acting as if you have the right or the credentials to force everyone's definition of "literature" to match your own. I literally have a document open right now written by one of the foremost Hittitologists in the world (Theo van den Hout, if you're wondering) explaining why lexical lists and law collections, amongst other things, should be considered Hittite literature. You wouldn't agree with him and that's fine, but please don't pretend that your definition is the only definition.
Not to mention, most "high literature" (what I'm calling "literature" by your definition) is typically characterized by shitty writing. I'll pull examples out of my ass: Lovecraft can't write good dialogue to save his life, Orwell's 1984 needs to take a trip down to the "show, don't tell" training camp, while Hemingway needs to get out a bit to meet some women so he can characterize them better. Next thing you know, they'll be calling Cormac McCarthy the next literary hero because he uses unconventional punctuation. (Or wait? Do they do that already?)
Dostoevsky's cool, though. But that's because Dostoevsky's the best (dead) author in the world.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
I don't understand how posts like this don't receive a warning at the very least. Quality wise it offers nothing. Plus it's just a pompous 1 line response to someone's entire blog, which is insulting in itself.
At least it created some controversy. Think that without him, this thread would be long dead instead of turning into this glorious endless (and sterile?) conversation about the criteria of artistic quality.
What?
The blog post was started because the guy was nostalgic about the end of a series that he read when he was young. It didn't need controversy. Seriously, the guy was like "Hey this was an enjoyable part of my childhood and I want to share my memories with you" which got shit all over when people started bashing the series that he was talking about.
On July 14 2011 11:05 Aldehyde wrote: In contrast to other music which people listen to because it's displeasing and makes you feel down? It's not like the only innovation in music and literature happened 50+ years ago and yet those are always the only ones that are brought up in these "art" discussions.
I, too, don't really understand why you have to analyze books/movies/music and yet we had to do it a bunch in school.
To me, a book is either good/bad or mediocre and it's purely based off the entertainment value. Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think).
Usually just seems to be som blibber blabber about how the writer wrote this little sentence which kind of hints at these things and they in combination with these other things hinted at in these other sentences give us this message.
I apologize ahead of time; there is SO, SO, SO much to cover when introducing someone to the world of literary criticism that it can be a bit difficult to decide where to start. Please read until the end if you're going to bother reading my post at all, because each paragraph, on its own, doesn't really work without the whole here.
"Sure, you can find some kind of message in books (and this can add immensely to the entertainment value.´) mostly but it so often varies from person to person that it, to me, becomes kind of pointless to have big discussions about it other than getting to know how people think (and not what they think about the book, just how they think)."
That's not really the point of literary analysis. The point isn't to have a "message". You learn that day 1 of introduction to literary studies. I honestly suggest taking a course or doing the legwork yourself, because many of the common myths associated with literary criticism are debunked day 1 by a good professor. Boiling a work down to "Oh, this is about anti-slavery!" is generally trivializing thousands of complex questions that can be asked of the work.
Most professors address the question of "what's the point?" day 1 as well.
The "point" (which, you'll come to learn, is often a despised term) is to better understand history.
Literature is about understanding the world we live in. History is constantly contorted. Read a history book from 1920, and then read another book about the exact same subject today. The very way a text is worded completely changes its meaning. Even if an author does his/her very best to stay true to the facts, the way they say it changes how you interpret the information. When you retell this information, it is twisted again. This constant twisting completely alters our understanding of history to the point that much of what we learn today is often so far from reality that it is hard to truly understand "the past".
It isn't just about history, though. It isn't about getting "just the facts". Rather, it is a method of studying humanity and how we deal with the world around here. Quite a bit literary analysis (though just a fraction of the whole) has to do with the unconscious versus the conscious. Why did the author write what he/she did? Their personal reasoning for it isn't important. Looking at the words themselves, the ones that FACTUALLY EXIST, leads to the answers. Asking an author "what did you mean?" is the least helpful question of all time. The author's intent is not important. What actually exists on the page is.
Literature (and criticism) attempts to bypass this. The author creates a work, frozen in time, and their writing reflects THEIR INTERPRETATION OF THEIR WORLD. For example, if an author from 1837 wrote a gothic murder-mystery set in the 1600s, you can STILL gain INCREDIBLE insight into history and context by analyzing the WAY the author says something, not WHAT the author says.
It isn't about the words on the page. It is about how they work together, and how they interlink from page 1 until the last word.
There is a wrong way to interpret a work. A common misconception is that a work (primarily poetry) can "mean whatever you want it to mean". There is ambiguity, and that is at the heart of many discussions, but so many people read works incorrectly that it leads them to think that all works have dozens of meanings. Again, there is MUCH ambiguity, which stirs the majority of debate, but if you completely misread a work, you miss out on... everything.
Literary criticism is about understanding the world around you through what some consider a beautiful art form. It allows you to look back into history and understand WHY things were the they were, what certain individuals thought about it, and how it affected their concept of reality.
A huge part of the appeal is the ability to enter literary discourse and compare complex ideas with like-minded individuals, but MUCH of the work is very solitary, even though no piece exists in a vacuum.
And please understand that this is just the way I've learned. I'm a 23 year old senior English major (with a minor in Creative Writing) who intends to continue on to graduate school and make a career out of this. Point being: I am still a student and know jack shit. I've only been heavily involved with literary criticism for the last two years (as in, being involved in the discourse), and this is what I've been taught, as flawed as it may be.
I hope this helps with those who've never understood literary criticism and are interested. It isn't for everyone, but there is definitely a reason for its existence. It teaches about humanity, and history.
I can get behind what you're saying but I haven't seen Biff and the people agreeing with him saying anything close to what you're saying. Perhaps I was wrong to bring up analyzing because I don't think that was what I really wanted to talk about.
Biff and co. are saying that some books are better because they bring more to the table in form of new ways to write the same thing. Sure, might be to some people but I think most people just want entertainment and it doesn't really matter if it's a new way to write or just an old and non-innovative way.
Kind of like how some SC pro might come up with this new way to play TvZ, he might bring more to SC as a whole but is he by default better than other players? Spanishiwa brought a whole new playstyle for zerg players to use in ZvP and in some extent, ZvT but is he better than IdrA? Hardly.
This is what bugs me about all this crap about "oh but he changed the way people write!". Yeah? So what? I don't find the work very entertaining so, to me, it's not good.
Do you really think that comparison two problem as different as the artistic value of a book or a writer and the performance of a stracraft player is legitimate? Seriously?
I gave an example with composers and music, which seems to be much much more relevant since we are comparing the criteria of artistic value of two different art forms, and I haven't heard until now, in this thread or elsewhere, any valuable objection against it:
1. Why can't we write good Beethovenian or Mozartian music today? Why can a lot of people technically do it, but can't reproduce any of Beethoven genius and spark?
2. Why has every single great composer been unique, perfectly original and in a certain extent, groundbreaking? Why don't we have any amazing composers who hasn't brought anything new at all or didn't have a perfectly new and distinct way of writing?
My point is extremely simple: what JK Rowling does is what most pop musicians do: write with material and technique that existed 150 years ago. She is to Shakespeare what Oasis is to Mozart.
That's fine, I don't have anything against Oasis. But I laugh when people say their music is fantastic. It's not.
1. Because of course it's not the same no matter how good the work of today is since you know that it's not Mozart or whatever. That's a big deal, knowing that it's not the first of something.
2. Because what you're saying is bullshit? Why are you only mentioning classical music? That's been done. There are countless innovators in music but they don't have a fancy name such as "composer". Try listening to something not so "snobby".
There was a time when rap was innovative, now that has been done so of course it's just one of many these days. Techno was once innovative, now that's beeen done so of course it's just one of many these days. I can go on.
Oasis is inherently worse because it's not classical music? Get off your high horse.
I compare SC to your point of view because it's exactly the same. Spanishiwa's way of play was kind of awesome because it was new and something never seen before, everyone who imitates him is less and less awesome.
Mozart was awesome because he did something unique and new (or did he? I don't care enough to check these facts but all you "cultural" people say that he's awesome so I presume this is true) but everyone who imitates will be less awesome.
What's so fucking hard to understand?
You say that Tolkien's books are entertaining and fun but since he doesn't change the way of writing he's nothing special? Sure, he didn't use new kinds of sentences but he presented a WHOLE NEW WORLD to people and it made sense to the people reading it. That's a great thing in and of itself.
Now, I don't like LotR (the books or the movies) all that much, too much detail, too slow and all that but that doesn't matter, he made a whole lot of people believe in his world. To me, that's art if anything.
Harry Potter, great entertainment, just saw the last movie an hour or so ago myself. Not the greatest thing ever, it's all been done before, doesn't make it a bad movie/book, though. JK Rowling wrote about a world existing in our own, a community I didn't know about. She made it believable enough to get me interested, entertaining enough to get me hooked and tense enough to want to read the next book with great anticipation.
Sure, she doesn't reinvent the genre or a way of writing, as I said before, it doesn't make her a worse writer though. She captured and enthralled a whole generation, that's awesome.
So please, get off your high horse. You can have your way of thinking about this artsy stuff, I have mine. Yours is not better than mine, my way is not better than yours.
I don't really get your point to be honest.
The problem is that if someone does write in Beethoven style today, you can be sure it will be awful. It is not possible to write good Beethoven today, precisely because Beethoven could be that good only because it was new. It's not the novelty which is good in itself, but the novelty is essential to create great art. That can seem irrational, but as a musician, I experience it every day. Everybody can write in the style of Beethoven, nobody could even come close to the genius of his music using his style. It was possible only then, when it was a groundbreaking music.
You attack me on the basis that I talk about classical music. You find it snobby, you talk about high horses. Well that's your silly prejudices. Your problem is: I can make the exact same point with Jazz. You noticed that Coltrane, or Miles Davis, or Telonius Monk; all of them invented a completely new style, changed the way we perceived Jazz?
Oasis is mediocre because Oasis is written is tonal music with no imagination whatsoever, whether it is about rhythm, metric, structure, harmony. They don't bring anything. Every element of this music existed 200 years ago.
If when I say that you understand that I reproach Oasis not to be classical music, you really miss my point. I admire enormously musicians such as Bjork, or Bob Dylan.
I've answered like five times to everything you wrote about LOTR. Artistic value of a book is not about the amount of new creatures you invent. It's not even really about what you say, but how you say it. And in that regard, Tolkien is plain mediocrity, and so is Rowling.
They are both very entertaining, but not great artists or writers.
I think we have to separate writers and artists. Tolkien obviously, to me, was a great writer in that he was able to tell a story and a whole world to people. Perhaps he was not a great artist since nothing in his writing was very special in his wording or whatever. Or perhaps he wasn't a very good writer but he sold a lot of books so if it means that you have to be a bad writer to sell a lot of books, I'd gladly sign up for that.
You said that there were no great composers these days, I said that, of course, there aren't any great classical composers these days since it's all been done and can't possibly live up to Mozart, please read what I said.
I don't find classical music by default to be snobby. I do, however, find that most people listening to that music to be cultural snobs who thinks that they know best when it comes to art and culture.
I even said that novelty was important, did you even read my post? If you did and still didn't understand, please tell me where I was so unclear that you interpreted my stance to be the complete opposite. Perhaps my writing was too clever and groundbreaking for you. Does that make me the next big thing in the world of artists? Like I said, techno was once new and brilliant and awesome to many people. Nowadays it's everywhere, of course the novelty is gone and in that much of what makes things "great".
I don't get what you mean by "The problem is that if someone does write in Beethoven style today, you can be sure it will be awful. It is not possible to write good Beethoven today, precisely because Beethoven could be that good only because it was new.".
Does this mean that Beethoven music is awful but what makes it good is that it's unique? Really? If so, I pity you. No, really.
And what's this about " It's not even really about what you say, but how you say it. And in that regard, Tolkien is plain mediocrity, and so is Rowling." ?
Does that mean that if I find out some really clever way of writing a book about how cultural snobs are horrible, you'd find it amazing? Would that make me the next big thing? Writing is a creative process, you can't possibly tell me that Rowling and Tolkien aren't creative? Sure, in your definition their work isn't "art" but you can't say that it isn't good/great writing.
On July 13 2011 18:06 minus_human wrote: Find something better to read. Seriously.
What? The HP series is/was incredible. HP fans are so sad about times like these (him when the movies are coming to a close, mine was back when I finished the 7th book t.t) because we feel a strong connection with the characters, considering we grew up with them. And not only that, the fact that Rowling seemed to be growing[as a writer] with us as well. I could read through the first few books at 10-11, and keep reading throughout each books release and be hooked to every word by the time the last book was when I turned 18 is incredible. She's an absolutely gifted novelist, and to tell us to simply find something "better to read" is incredibly insulting at the very least.
And who's to say we aren't reading better/more sophisticated works alongside HP? In fact, I'll bet that most of the people who read HP did in fact get led to other great literary works. I know plenty of peers that were turned into readers thanks to Rowling, and considering books were not really dying but certainly losing a lot of kids, she turned a whole fucking generation into readers. Some people would never move onto 1984, Frankenstein, Gatsby, etc if not for Rowling. So, while, yes it's great to find something different, saying to find something better is stupid and just doesn't get it.
The books turned me into a reader for sure, just to back up this post.
The first one is the first book I have read in my entire life, and I don't think I would have been interested into reading otherwise. Backing up as well.