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Lol I always laugh when I see people talk up Dostoevsky and any 19th century writer. It's 2025 now and literature has improved in depth and characterization as

Lol I always laugh when I see people talk up Dostoevsky and any 19th century writer. It's 2025 now and literature has improved in depth and characterization as much as any other field.

zettapwn 1y ago
[dead]
almostgotcaught 1y ago
Weird take - how exactly could literature improve "in depth and characterization"? What new "technology" has been made available to authors that enables them to create deeper characters?
- voisin 1y ago
  Not OP, but breadth and depth of understanding about psychology have improved dramatically and exposure to diverse viewpoints thanks to hyper connectedness likely make it possible to go deeper.
  - bowsamic 1y ago
    In my opinion, all the best art expresses the "unknown knowns" of the human, i.e., the unconscious that has not been brought to light. Art is an expression of what is really true but not known. Knowing about it doesn't make it easier to express. To bring up the old trope, the curtains are never just blue, not in the sense that the artist is always putting in some conscious meaning, but that the choice of blue says something about the artist's human feeling even if they didn't intend it
  - zabzonk 1y ago
    > breadth and depth of understanding about psychology have improved dramatically Provide one tiny bit of evidence for this. Do you seriously think that Shakespeare (for e.g.) did not have a profound understanding of human psychology?
    - KaoruAoiShiho 1y ago
      If he did it's not shown in his writing, or really any pre-20th century writers really.
      - daseiner1 1y ago
        this is bait
      - zabzonk 1y ago
        have you read any pre-20th C writers? Or any novels or plays at all?
        KaoruAoiShiho 1y ago
        The conflicts in his plays just aren't that profound, you know? Compared to modern "psychological turmoil" it's relatively simplistic, something like Macbeth's "ambition vs morality". Modern writers pull in more layers of depth, explain the ebbs and flows of motivations and identities through social forces and work more with complex ideas like self-deception and rationalization. Shakespeare's characters are generally reliable narrators in a way that later lit tends not to be.
    - daseiner1 1y ago
      there's a reason Harold Bloom titled his book about Shakespeare The Invention of the Human
    - altruios 1y ago
      not who you are replying to - but: Shakespeare was limited by the number of interactions he had with humans. He did not have the internet. We also have neurology as a science now. So that's one bit of evidence for the claim. Of course Shakespeare had a profound understanding of human nature. And of course he did not have the working vocabulary and knowledge base of modern psychology which has been built up over time by many humans working together. Two things can be true.
      - 1y ago
  - internet_points 1y ago
    or maybe hyper connectedness is just making writers more distracted, making it harder to see deeply into human relations, feelings and thoughts
bowsamic 1y ago
I don't like Dostoevsky but this is an insane take. Art doesn't just "get better" over time and depth and characterisation isn't everything either. Homer's Odyssey is still an incredible and fulfilling read. Literature is not some kind of engineering discipline though a lot of new writers seem to be almost like analytic philosophers in that they think newer = better while having some kind of sterile and formalistic understanding of art
- KaoruAoiShiho 1y ago
  depth and characterization isn't everything but it's the discussion chosen by the OP, he seemed to imply that Dostoevsky had the best psychological interiority and "multiple scales of experience".
kstrauser 1y ago
You’re nuts. I read “Crime and Punishment” a couple years ago, and went in knowing literally nothing about it except that it was famous. It was astonishingly good. It felt fresh, modern, and claustrophobically suspenseful in a way I wouldn’t have believed possible for a book that age. If you don’t like it, fine. Preferences are a thing and we don’t all have to enjoy the same stuff. But to dismiss it as obsolete or out of touch is madness. It’s a classic for a reason. Along those lines, I read “Moby Dick” last year for the first time. Now I’m annoyed with everyone who led me to imagine it as some dusty tome to slog through. It’s hilarious. Ishmael’s a sarcastic smartass with a lot to say. Some of the classic are classics for a reason, ya know?
- KaoruAoiShiho 1y ago
  I might've conveyed myself poorly. Never said Dostoevsky wasn't great or not a relevant read! I was just reacting to the OP who seemed to say it's still the best ever. But we've improved everything, art, kites, the wheel. It's the same for literature, but you do have to get pretty deep into lit to see though. The main criticism for I have for Dostoevsky is that he's overdramatic. Yes it's great fun fiction and a vast improvement over the simpler, more idealized writing of much of his era, but some of the angst of his characters is simply cultural. He has a lot of religious influence in his work (which don't appeal to me as an atheist) and their struggles for the human soul is a symptom of his time. A Buddhist might say, just calm the fuck down man. Most people don't react to horrible situations by "crashing out", but via coping and rationalization and making the best of their situation, that's how you get consistent improvement and accrue generational uplift. Later writers like Virginia Woolf is able to better integrate a variety of responses to suffering, post modernists like Tao Lin even gets overly detached (everyone hates post modernists). But I think the best novel about the human condition ever written, which handles the drama, but realistically, is probably by Elena Ferrante in 2011. I'm not highlighting any underrated work here lol, it's widely acclaimed, including called the best book of the 21st century by the NYT.
  - internet_points 1y ago
    > Most people don't react to horrible situations by "crashing out", but via coping and rationalization and making the best of their situation, that's how you get consistent improvement and accrue generational uplift. Most people I've known do not react rationally to horrible situations. Or even to good situations.
rererereferred 1y ago
What's a good novel from the last 20 years? Genuine question. Looking back at everything I've read, it all has been older than that. I don't really pay attention to novel news so it's more like I only read stuff I've heard about in the past.
- KaoruAoiShiho 1y ago
  I recommended a book in my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44181274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44181274
- CesareBorgia 1y ago
  This is a great list: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueLit/comments/1fwciah/truelits_100_best_books_of_the_quarter_century/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueLit/comments/1fwciah/truelits_1...
- giraffe_lady 1y ago
  I am absolutely not trying to sustain the other commenter's claim that modern fiction is better lol. I also don't tend to stay on top of contemporary fiction, a lot of stuff gets hyped and well reviewed but just isn't that great. Or it had a lot of resonance for the specific time it was written that lessens as time passes. And of course the extreme selection bias, not all good books "survive" but most of the ones that do are good on at least some qualities. But there is definitely still excellent fiction being written now. The last sumurai by helen dewitt, or the gray house by mariam petrosyan I would place with the likes of middlemarch and anna karenina.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
happytoexplain 1y ago
>literature has improved in depth and characterization as much as any other field. It hasn't. 1. Many fields experiencing development over the past century or two are much newer than literature, which might as well be a synonym for thought. During that time, those newer fields were, or currently are, in their early rapid-growth phase. 2. Literature is deeply on the subjective side of "fields", so it's a lot easier to argue that it has changed, rather than that it has improved.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

Lol I always laugh when I see people talk up Dostoevsky and any 19th century writer. It's 2025 now and literature has improved in depth and characterization as much as any other field.

zettapwn 1y ago

[dead]

almostgotcaught 1y ago

Weird take - how exactly could literature improve "in depth and characterization"? What new "technology" has been made available to authors that enables them to create deeper characters?

voisin 1y ago
Not OP, but breadth and depth of understanding about psychology have improved dramatically and exposure to diverse viewpoints thanks to hyper connectedness likely make it possible to go deeper.
- bowsamic 1y ago
  In my opinion, all the best art expresses the "unknown knowns" of the human, i.e., the unconscious that has not been brought to light. Art is an expression of what is really true but not known. Knowing about it doesn't make it easier to express. To bring up the old trope, the curtains are never just blue, not in the sense that the artist is always putting in some conscious meaning, but that the choice of blue says something about the artist's human feeling even if they didn't intend it
- zabzonk 1y ago
  > breadth and depth of understanding about psychology have improved dramatically Provide one tiny bit of evidence for this. Do you seriously think that Shakespeare (for e.g.) did not have a profound understanding of human psychology?
  - KaoruAoiShiho 1y ago
    If he did it's not shown in his writing, or really any pre-20th century writers really.
    - daseiner1 1y ago
      this is bait
    - zabzonk 1y ago
      have you read any pre-20th C writers? Or any novels or plays at all?
      - KaoruAoiShiho 1y ago
        The conflicts in his plays just aren't that profound, you know? Compared to modern "psychological turmoil" it's relatively simplistic, something like Macbeth's "ambition vs morality". Modern writers pull in more layers of depth, explain the ebbs and flows of motivations and identities through social forces and work more with complex ideas like self-deception and rationalization. Shakespeare's characters are generally reliable narrators in a way that later lit tends not to be.
  - daseiner1 1y ago
    there's a reason Harold Bloom titled his book about Shakespeare The Invention of the Human
  - altruios 1y ago
    not who you are replying to - but: Shakespeare was limited by the number of interactions he had with humans. He did not have the internet. We also have neurology as a science now. So that's one bit of evidence for the claim. Of course Shakespeare had a profound understanding of human nature. And of course he did not have the working vocabulary and knowledge base of modern psychology which has been built up over time by many humans working together. Two things can be true.
    - 1y ago
- internet_points 1y ago
  or maybe hyper connectedness is just making writers more distracted, making it harder to see deeply into human relations, feelings and thoughts

bowsamic 1y ago

I don't like Dostoevsky but this is an insane take. Art doesn't just "get better" over time and depth and characterisation isn't everything either. Homer's Odyssey is still an incredible and fulfilling read. Literature is not some kind of engineering discipline though a lot of new writers seem to be almost like analytic philosophers in that they think newer = better while having some kind of sterile and formalistic understanding of art

KaoruAoiShiho 1y ago
depth and characterization isn't everything but it's the discussion chosen by the OP, he seemed to imply that Dostoevsky had the best psychological interiority and "multiple scales of experience".

kstrauser 1y ago

You’re nuts. I read “Crime and Punishment” a couple years ago, and went in knowing literally nothing about it except that it was famous. It was astonishingly good. It felt fresh, modern, and claustrophobically suspenseful in a way I wouldn’t have believed possible for a book that age. If you don’t like it, fine. Preferences are a thing and we don’t all have to enjoy the same stuff. But to dismiss it as obsolete or out of touch is madness. It’s a classic for a reason. Along those lines, I read “Moby Dick” last year for the first time. Now I’m annoyed with everyone who led me to imagine it as some dusty tome to slog through. It’s hilarious. Ishmael’s a sarcastic smartass with a lot to say. Some of the classic are classics for a reason, ya know?

KaoruAoiShiho 1y ago
I might've conveyed myself poorly. Never said Dostoevsky wasn't great or not a relevant read! I was just reacting to the OP who seemed to say it's still the best ever. But we've improved everything, art, kites, the wheel. It's the same for literature, but you do have to get pretty deep into lit to see though. The main criticism for I have for Dostoevsky is that he's overdramatic. Yes it's great fun fiction and a vast improvement over the simpler, more idealized writing of much of his era, but some of the angst of his characters is simply cultural. He has a lot of religious influence in his work (which don't appeal to me as an atheist) and their struggles for the human soul is a symptom of his time. A Buddhist might say, just calm the fuck down man. Most people don't react to horrible situations by "crashing out", but via coping and rationalization and making the best of their situation, that's how you get consistent improvement and accrue generational uplift. Later writers like Virginia Woolf is able to better integrate a variety of responses to suffering, post modernists like Tao Lin even gets overly detached (everyone hates post modernists). But I think the best novel about the human condition ever written, which handles the drama, but realistically, is probably by Elena Ferrante in 2011. I'm not highlighting any underrated work here lol, it's widely acclaimed, including called the best book of the 21st century by the NYT.
- internet_points 1y ago
  > Most people don't react to horrible situations by "crashing out", but via coping and rationalization and making the best of their situation, that's how you get consistent improvement and accrue generational uplift. Most people I've known do not react rationally to horrible situations. Or even to good situations.

rererereferred 1y ago

What's a good novel from the last 20 years? Genuine question. Looking back at everything I've read, it all has been older than that. I don't really pay attention to novel news so it's more like I only read stuff I've heard about in the past.

KaoruAoiShiho 1y ago
I recommended a book in my comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44181274 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44181274
CesareBorgia 1y ago
This is a great list: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueLit/comments/1fwciah/truelits_100_best_books_of_the_quarter_century/ https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueLit/comments/1fwciah/truelits_1...
giraffe_lady 1y ago
I am absolutely not trying to sustain the other commenter's claim that modern fiction is better lol. I also don't tend to stay on top of contemporary fiction, a lot of stuff gets hyped and well reviewed but just isn't that great. Or it had a lot of resonance for the specific time it was written that lessens as time passes. And of course the extreme selection bias, not all good books "survive" but most of the ones that do are good on at least some qualities. But there is definitely still excellent fiction being written now. The last sumurai by helen dewitt, or the gray house by mariam petrosyan I would place with the likes of middlemarch and anna karenina.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

happytoexplain 1y ago

>literature has improved in depth and characterization as much as any other field. It hasn't. 1. Many fields experiencing development over the past century or two are much newer than literature, which might as well be a synonym for thought. During that time, those newer fields were, or currently are, in their early rapid-growth phase. 2. Literature is deeply on the subjective side of "fields", so it's a lot easier to argue that it has changed, rather than that it has improved.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]