5 ms·
I've never been able to give myself a good justification for why I should be reading any of that stuff.
by pfdietz 1y ago
I've never been able to give myself a good justification for why I should be reading any of that stuff.
- Papazsazsa 1y agoThe reason you read literary fiction is because you're curious about the outer edges of human thought or experience.
- nottorp 1y agoThis is HN, they may be looking to put a monetary value on it.
- kayodelycaon 1y agoInteresting. That’s exactly why I read science fiction.
- mcnamaratw 1y agoBut that’s new. Until ca 1970-2000, people read literary fiction because it was high quality, much more than because it was unrelateable. O’Hara, Salinger, and Franzen were not writing about the outer edges of human experience.
- esafak 1y agoBut does it have to be inaccessible to be so? It's easy to write something incomprehensible that says nothing. Is the writer writing about something that is inherently complex, and that's why it is inaccessible? Not typically in a novel. The prospective reader may then ask, why should I bother? I'm also curious what Pynchon has to say, but not enough to justify the investment.
- tekla 1y agoIt's not inaccessible. Its just that you don't have the reading skills from lack of use.
- pfdietz 1y agoYes, I'm sure it all our faults, not that of the product.
- tekla 1y agoYep, skills need to be practiced before you engage with harder material
- pfdietz 1y agoOr, authors need to be subservient to the needs and desires of the customers.
- antasvara 1y agoAround 54% of adults read at a 6th grade level or below: https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy https://www.apmresearchlab.org/10x-adult-literacy Based on this, you could reach both of these conclusions: 1. Most literary fiction is inaccessible to the average adult. 2. It's a big problem that even moderately complex novels are inaccessible to the average adult. The first statement (which I think is where you're coming from) is absolutely true. If you want to write a very popular book, it should be easily readable at a 6th grade level. The second statement is more a statement of values. Some people (such as myself) find it problematic that the average adult can't read/understand a book that is more complex than Harry Potter. You don't have to agree with the second statement. A lot of people don't. But I think understanding why someone might find that problematic is important. Personally, I think there are a lot of things worth knowing that can't be written at a 6th grade level.
- protocolture 1y ago>In the US
- trinix912 1y agoIf their goal is to write bestsellers, sure. That's where the €5 leisure novels come from. OTOH, if their goal is to push boundaries or be original, being subservient to the desires of the customers is counterproductive.
- UncleMeat 1y agoIs it inaccessible? Some books are, but there is a huge amount of literary fiction that follows traditional narrative and is comprehensible to anybody with a high school education. There are more than enough such books to fill a lifetime.
- esafak 1y agoI don't mean every work of literary fiction; only those commonly regarded as difficult, like Pynchon's.
- voidhorse 1y agoThis is fundamental misunderstanding of literature. This is like saying to a musician: I like the melody but you chose all the wrong instruments. Obviously, the entire character of a song depends not only on the melody (idea) but also on the instruments chosen, the performance, etc. (material). For literary fiction, the words are the material. What distinguishes literary works is not merely the "ideas" they present but the way in which they are presented. The words are the author's instruments, his paints. This is the difference between writing/reading for information and writing/reading as an aesthetic experience. Literary fiction of course imparts information and ideas, but it is predominantly about the latter experience insofar as the point is the evocative expression of those ideas. This is why just reading the cliff notes for a literary work is missing the point.
- mcnamaratw 1y ago“This is fundamental misunderstanding of literature” No it is not. It is a central and vital part of literature. Wound you like to have a friendly debate, each of us using quotations from any fiction writers we like?
- voidhorse 1y agoActually, I'd agree that "fundamental misunderstanding" is too strong. Obviously there is a certain threshold of comprehensibility one needs to achieve regardless of whether one is pursuing aesthetic ends or informative ones. That said, I would stand by the assertion that reading literature only for the information it imparts is missing much of the point. We esteem authors not solely for their plots and characters, but also for their stylistics—the difference between a great writer and a passing one is often little more than the well considered phrase. The arrangement, use, and rhythm of words are a major component in a literary work. My point is that asking a writer to "express it more simply or more accessibly" may in many cases amount to asking them to butcher the stylistics that they felt achieved the highest aesthetic quality for the kind of work they wanted to produce. If one is given a business briefing it is probably the apex of reason to ask a writer to simplify. Are there cases in which this or that phrase in a literary work would benefit from simplification? Yes, but to ask an author to simplify their entire aesthetic approach generally, really seems to me to fail to have appreciated a large part of what distinguishes literature from basic expository writing.
- awongh 1y agoThere's nothing more effective than a piece of fiction at transmitting the subtle complete world-view ideas of an author directly into your brain. I mean that in the sense that non-fiction is still very much fictionally presenting a world view of the author or the subject, but in a way that's bounded by real facts. Literary fiction doesn't have that constraint. Human history and society is actually made up of ideas and by taking 2-300 pages to digest a set of ideas you come away with a new perspective you can't get any other way.
- drakonka 1y agoFiction is alive and well. This article is specifically about the decline of literary fiction. I think people simply realize how boring and pretentious much of contemporary literary fiction is; many choose to go pick up a science fiction, or thriller, or even romance novel that can convery all the same ideas in more interesting and accessible ways.
- awongh 1y agoI think it's pretentious too, but I also think it's a useful distinction in the sense that the category aspires to deeper and broader ideas than a lot of fiction- Harry Potter, Hyperion, Dennis Taylor, We Are Legion, Twilight. Not to say that the distinction itself, literary vs non-literary fiction, isn't extremely pretentious. But we all recognize that some book's ideas are more shallow than others.
- LordShredda 1y agoIt's fun
- mcnamaratw 1y agoWhat is that stuff? Is Kurt Vonnegut that stuff? Folks, downvoting the comment above is literally destroying what you claim to support.
- julianeon 1y agoI can give one. As far as I can tell, as far as your entertainment options go, literary fiction is THE best option to exercise your mind. Ranked, in order, it's: literary fiction, nonfiction, computer games, movies, TV. "Meta-analyses show fiction reading has stronger associations with cognitive skills than nonfiction, with medium-sized benefits for verbal abilities and general cognition. Fiction enhances social cognition by exercising the brain's default network involved in theory of mind. Reading fiction increases brain connectivity, particularly in language areas and sensorimotor regions, with effects lasting beyond the reading session."
- protocolture 1y agoLiterary fiction is a category of fiction. Why read literary fiction over other fiction?
- BalinKing 1y agoWhat's the source of that last quote? I Googled it but got no results....
- CGMthrowaway 1y agoIt's probably AI but you can find the studies here and in the related links below https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38602788/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38602788/
- easterncalculus 1y agoSimply put, these are some of the greatest stories ever told and can teach about the world, its history, and the fundamental questions of the human experience. "Fiction is the lie through which we tell the truth." - Albert Camus