3 ms·

But an equally intuitive argument could be made that fiction entertains readers by baffling and eluding their expectations about what, specifically, will happen

But an equally intuitive argument could be made that fiction entertains readers by baffling and eluding their expectations about what, specifically, will happen next. That's what fiction that wins literary prizes and gets emphasized by literary nerds and academia does. It is absolutely not reflective of fiction as a whole or on average.

pattusk 6y ago
I would say exactly the opposite : cliffhangers and cheap thrills are the stuff the Da Vinci Code, Tom Clancy novels and all your best selling page turners are made of. Literary prize winning fiction has been what you could call post narrative since (at least) the Nouveau Roman.
- fouc 6y ago
  It appears you're actually both on the same page, you didn't say the opposite. He's saying the common fiction including best sellers are generally predictable. And literary novels being less so.
  - pattusk 6y ago
    Not really, there is a difference of scale to consider. Best sellers are unpredictable from one page to the next, unexpected surprises abound but the general plot is highly predictable. Literary novels typically have very mundane, thoroughly predictable narratives, what is unexpected is the way in which it is delivered or the comments the narrator may make along the way. The original author refers to fiction [which] entertains readers by baffling and eluding their expectations about what, specifically, will happen next. Which I believe is closer to the way popular fiction operates than to literary fiction.
- ianhorn 6y ago
  I think there are two different questions: Will our protagonist achieve their goal? How will our protagonist achieve their goal? You can be unpredictable by not knowing where the story is going, or unpredictable by not knowing how the story will go where it must go. I'm a fan of the latter (lots of genre fiction) because it's like a puzzle. I know Harry's going to thwart Voldemort again this book, but it really looks like there's no way he will, so how the hell is he going to do it?
renewiltord 6y ago
Well, I think a lot of literature has a tendency to be read a way based on what the reader knows. So the notion of what is baffling is different depending on what you've built as an intuition for what the story is telling which depends on what other stories you've read. Personally, I can recall having expectations eluded multiple times in East of Eden even though the narrative is actually fairly direct. It's just that the books I've read build for me the future path for where this book is going. I suspect that if I had read it as a teenager I would have had fewer moments where that occurred. There is a beautiful space between being very predictable and providing no release to the reader. I think good writers are able to do that for the audiences they're aiming at. Perhaps the classical authors are merely those who can do that for many.

pattusk 6y ago

I would say exactly the opposite : cliffhangers and cheap thrills are the stuff the Da Vinci Code, Tom Clancy novels and all your best selling page turners are made of. Literary prize winning fiction has been what you could call post narrative since (at least) the Nouveau Roman.

fouc 6y ago
It appears you're actually both on the same page, you didn't say the opposite. He's saying the common fiction including best sellers are generally predictable. And literary novels being less so.
- pattusk 6y ago
  Not really, there is a difference of scale to consider. Best sellers are unpredictable from one page to the next, unexpected surprises abound but the general plot is highly predictable. Literary novels typically have very mundane, thoroughly predictable narratives, what is unexpected is the way in which it is delivered or the comments the narrator may make along the way. The original author refers to fiction [which] entertains readers by baffling and eluding their expectations about what, specifically, will happen next. Which I believe is closer to the way popular fiction operates than to literary fiction.
ianhorn 6y ago
I think there are two different questions: Will our protagonist achieve their goal? How will our protagonist achieve their goal? You can be unpredictable by not knowing where the story is going, or unpredictable by not knowing how the story will go where it must go. I'm a fan of the latter (lots of genre fiction) because it's like a puzzle. I know Harry's going to thwart Voldemort again this book, but it really looks like there's no way he will, so how the hell is he going to do it?

renewiltord 6y ago

Well, I think a lot of literature has a tendency to be read a way based on what the reader knows. So the notion of what is baffling is different depending on what you've built as an intuition for what the story is telling which depends on what other stories you've read. Personally, I can recall having expectations eluded multiple times in East of Eden even though the narrative is actually fairly direct. It's just that the books I've read build for me the future path for where this book is going. I suspect that if I had read it as a teenager I would have had fewer moments where that occurred. There is a beautiful space between being very predictable and providing no release to the reader. I think good writers are able to do that for the audiences they're aiming at. Perhaps the classical authors are merely those who can do that for many.