Novels these days..

[nameless]

I'm getting sick of the stuff i'm reading. I want to learn something from what i read. Or even, have some of my raw emotions awakened by the words on the page. But a lot of what i'm reading i can get from watching a movie. I think Stephen King type books may have been fine during the old times when we didn't have movies ot sitcoms, but times have changed. I want to get something out of a book that i simply cant get watching movies. Where are our future Hemingways? Faulkners?



That is my $0.02 at 2:42 am.

PS. There are some good works out there... The above is really just the beer talking.

[scarletpeaches]

I think it was Toni Morrison who said, if there's a book you want to read and you can't find it, write it yourself.

[E.G. Gammon]

I think it was Toni Morrison who said, if there's a book you want to read and you can't find it, write it yourself.

That's a GREAT quote. Thanks for sharing!

[triceretops]

Ahhh...may I interest you is some really hard science fiction? Carnivorous marsupials, an 11.9 light year journey to Tau Ceti, via a nuclear explosion Bang Drive, with hydrogen assist attitude jets, and a gravity repulser drive, occupied by a crew who consists of: a cryptozoologist, astronavigator, geologist, planet janitor, ecologist, demolitionist, and a prostitute. I'll beat you over the head with all the core sciences. (and you'll probably be relieved to get back to earth and read Stephen King).

Tri

[Perks]

There are just too many books being put out to make a sweeping statment like that. If that sort doesn't appeal to you, back away from the bestseller rack and try something else. Ask the people who work in the bookstores. Ask a librarian. Cheetos are best sellers too, but you can still get filet mignon. They make all kinds.

[maestrowork]

I agree with Perks. Also, there are always the classics. You always learn something from them, no matter how many times you've read 'em.

[Mike Coombes]

Warning - sweeping generalisation ahead...

It seems to me that the majority of people I come across on writing forums have a prejudice against 'litricher'. Too smart for it's own good. Hard to read. Hard to write. Pretentious. Far better to stick to easy to write, easy to read, entertainment.

Why?

Good writing should leave an impression. It should teach you something, whether about the writer, yourself, or the human condition in general. It should leave you an ever-so-slightly different person to who you were before you read it. It should challenge you, demand something of you.

There are a handful of writers still doing that - Ballard and Amis spring to mind - but they are in the minority.

[Perks]

Good writing should leave an impression. It should teach you something, whether about the writer, yourself, or the human condition in general. It should leave you an ever-so-slightly different person to who you were before you read it. It should challenge you, demand something of you.

Funny thing, bad writing actually does all that for me too. I was a very different person after reading, Where or When. Nobody liked me for a while. :)

[maestrowork]

List the novels (I'm excluding other types of books such as non-fiction or poetry) that changed you for the better...

[johnnysannie]

I'm getting sick of the stuff i'm reading. I want to learn something from what i read. Or even, have some of my raw emotions awakened by the words on the page. But a lot of what i'm reading i can get from watching a movie. I think Stephen King type books may have been fine during the old times when we didn't have movies ot sitcoms, but times have changed. I want to get something out of a book that i simply cant get watching movies. Where are our future Hemingways? Faulkners?



That is my $0.02 at 2:42 am.

PS. There are some good works out there... The above is really just the beer talking.

Your age - or lack thereof - is showing. Movies long predate sitcoms and both came long before Stephen King began writing and publishing. IMO if you get more out of movies and sitcoms (both forms which I think have sunk to all time lows) then you don't seem geared toward enjoyment of literature or popular fiction anyway.

Maybe it's just my age showing ;)

[Nicholas S.H.J.M Woodhouse]

care to start us off Ray?

[James D. Macdonald]

Your future Hemingways and Faulkners are on the shelf right now, mixed in with all the rest.

Just as Hemingway and Faulkner were on the shelf mixed in with all the rest when they were first published.

[Sassenach]

Warning - sweeping generalisation ahead...

It seems to me that the majority of people I come across on writing forums have a prejudice against 'litricher'. Too smart for it's own good. Hard to read. Hard to write. Pretentious. Far better to stick to easy to write, easy to read, entertainment.

Why?

Good writing should leave an impression. It should teach you something, whether about the writer, yourself, or the human condition in general. It should leave you an ever-so-slightly different person to who you were before you read it. It should challenge you, demand something of you.

There are a handful of writers still doing that - Ballard and Amis spring to mind - but they are in the minority.


I'm trying to figure out who'd pronounce something 'litricher'.

[jackie106]

Shakespeare was considered lowbrow by his contemporaries. After all, his plays are filled with bawdy wordplay ("the beast with two backs" comes from Othello), cross-dressing, practical jokes, heavy drinking, and fornication.

High-minded Elizabethans preferred Christopher Marlowe and Edmund Spenser. I read and enjoyed Dr. Faustus, but I have never seen any of Marlowe's plays peformed. Have you?

Jackie

[goatpiper]

There are plenty of excellent writers out there to learn from. Two current favorites of mine are Michael Chabon (I've only read Kavalier and Clay, but it's amazing, and his prose is phenomenal) and Neal Stephenson (I'm smack dab in the middle of his 'Baroque Cycle' right now). Both are writers who spin good yarns, and do so through a blanket of well-crafted (and in the case of NS, often uber-wacky) writing.

There's certainly plenty more out there...
My 2.5 cents

gp

[OneTeam OneDream]

I'm a Grisham fan. It's simple. It's predictable. Even still, I can't put it down.

[veinglory]

Funny, I generally find writers forums are rather pro-literature and anti-genre. Perhaps we are just more inclined to remember insults against our own type of writing ;) -- Just about anything will get picked on at one time or another.

[MarkPettus]

Gee, and I feel like an odd duck here because I don't write fantasy and science fiction.

I'm going to offend someone. Just a warning. Literary is a subjective title. Frank Herbert certainly filled every reasonable requirement with Dune, as did Asimov in Robots of Dawn and Anne Rice in Memnoch the Devil, but the stuffed shirt society isn't likely to admit they've even read SF or fantasy, much less praise it for its language or its exploration of challenging themes.

Guy De Maupassant wrote volumes (17 to be exact, and I've read them all) of stories that even Harlequin would consider too syrupy sweet to print, and yet he is labeled one of the 19th century masters of the short story. Henry Miller kept a diary where most of his entries appear to have been written while he was drunk, yet is considered a genius and an innovator.

I've spent days trying to find a single fresh and appropriate metaphor, and my copy editor uses the phrase "too rococo" with more frequency than I care to admit, but when I call my work "literary" I always look around to see if anyone is going to catch me. I'm a prole, not a professor, and I think that, like beauty, literary is in the eye of the beholder.

[nameless]

Your age - or lack thereof - is showing. Movies long predate sitcoms and both came long before Stephen King began writing and publishing. IMO if you get more out of movies and sitcoms (both forms which I think have sunk to all time lows) then you don't seem geared toward enjoyment of literature or popular fiction anyway.

Maybe it's just my age showing ;)


Let's not play the age card. I've taken classes on both subjects (i even wrote an essay or two on D.W. Griffith).

I was not implying that Stephen King predated movies. Nor did i say anything about sitcoms predating movies. I'm just saying, considering the vast selection of movies we have now, we should turn to books for something more than just "entertainment".

And when i mentioned Stephen King, i wasn't talking about him directly, i was talking about books like his. Books that give me nothing i can not get watching a movie.

[jackie106]

Gee, and I feel like an odd duck here because I don't write fantasy and science fiction.

Me too!

[johnnysannie]

Let's not play the age card. I've taken classes on both subjects (i even wrote an essay or two on D.W. Griffith).

I was not implying that Stephen King predated movies. Nor did i say anything about sitcoms predating movies. I'm just saying, considering the vast selection of movies we have now, we should turn to books for something more than just "entertainment".

And when i mentioned Stephen King, i wasn't talking about him directly, i was talking about books like his. Books that give me nothing i can not get watching a movie.


It's not playing "the age card". With age comes increased understanding of may things and a different point of view from the rashness of youth. Don't worry - you'll understand when you're older and more mature.

[nameless]

It's not playing "the age card". With age comes increased understanding of may things and a different point of view from the rashness of youth. Don't worry - you'll understand when you're older and more mature.

That is a very uneducated thing to say. I've seen "immature" elderly and i've seen very "mature" youth.
Stereotyping people based on age is no different than doing it based on race, gender, etc. I'm going to stop there, as we are going off topic. And i'm sure this type of talk is probably not allowed on these boards.
Next time, answer my question only please. It would be the "mature" thing to do.

PS. I don't recall giving my age. But i guess with maturity comes the right to assume.

[aadams73]

Me too!

Me three.

[Ebelie]

I'm trying to figure out who'd pronounce something 'litricher'.
:ROFL: I've just worked out that I pronounce it that way, although I think it may have something to do with not living in the US. - Yes, I've just confirmed that by checking my partner's pronunciation, and he also says 'litricher'.

[KTC]

I find that there is too much good stuff out there to read...I wish I could put my hand on a book and ingest it. My difficulty lies in widdling down what I'm going to committ to read. I cannot get enought of MICHAEL CHABON, J.ROBERT LENNON, DAVE EGGERS or JONATHAN LETHEM right now. Especially Chabon...but I find there is this string that floats through all of the above writers. It's a love of comics, of quirky...I don't know..there's just such a common thread. I just love reading. I GET SOMETHING OUT OF EVERY SINGLE BOOK I READ.

[pdr]

Me four!

And where I come from the pretentious pronounce literary as 'litar-ah- ry'. To which they all aspire.

[zarch]

I say "lidderacher."

And if you're having trouble finding contemporary writers of good lidderacher, try Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, Annie Proulx, or Richard Russo.

I have colleagues who say "lit-rit-two-er." But then I hear people down here say "liddachur" all the time...that bugs me.

[KTC]

I don't care what you call it...as long as it takes me to a better place.

[Kallahan]

I was given nightmares by Dan Simmons "Hyperion", very good stuff. Theres four books in the series but they get worse as you go on, not bad books just not that great. It won a Hugo if you don't believe me.

[WVWriterGirl]

I'm trying to figure out who'd pronounce something 'litricher'.

Come to my neck of the woods...'round here, they say it "litter-chur".

But, that's neither here nor there. The question is why would someone seek entertainment and not simply "new knowledge" from a book when you can get entertainment by watching TV or movies (as I read it). My answer is simple. When I watch TV or a movie, I get someone else's idea of how I should interpret an idea. When I read a book for entertainment, I get to make the characters look like anyone I want. If I want to, I can make the trees all have purple leaves if the author hasn't told me different. Basically, I can direct the "show" or "movie" in my own head and see it the way I interpret it, not the way the people who make the TV show or movie I'm watching see it. To me, that's more entertaining than anything on TV or in the theaters. That is why I read for entertainment and not for the simple knowledge gained from the experience.

And I do come away with new information, new emotions and "changed" when I read for entertainment. If I find a character reacting to a situation that's very different from the way I would react, I've learned something about myself - perhaps before reading that novel I hadn't considered that reaction as an option? I'm changed now, I've grown because I read that book.

Entertainment litter-chur is worth the time, in my book. It's definately worth more than the time I spend nearly comatose in front of the TV.

WVWG

ETA: FWIW, I feel like the odd duck here because I write and read horror and fantasy (mostly) and I haven't read all the classics. I don't care for mainstream lit and chick lit, as it doesn't take me "far enough away" from my every-day life. I feel a little left out when other AWers talk about this author or that book because I've not read it. I think we all feel like the "odd duck" from time to time, no matter what direction you're coming from.

[gp101]

High-minded Elizabethans preferred Christopher Marlowe and Edmund Spenser. I read and enjoyed Dr. Faustus, but I have never seen any of Marlowe's plays peformed. Have you?

Jackie
We all may have. There's a theory out there that says Marlowe actually wrote the works we now consider Shakepeare, but could not use his name, so he sent his works to his friend Bill, who was a playhouse financier. I can't say that it's true, but I can't resist a could conspiracy. Sorry to get off-topic.

[cwfgal]

Just my opinion, but I think the most well-rounded and best educated people (and by educated, I don't mean schooling and degrees necessarily) are those who experience a wide mix of mediums. Read literary and commercial books; read to learn something and also to entertain yourself; subscribe to and read National Geographic and The New Yorker as well as People and Reader's Digest; visit a museum of art and the local artist's show; listen to Mozart and Metallica; watch the Discovery Channel and sitcoms.

Don't turn your nose up at any of it, for all of it can broaden your horizons to some degree if you let it.

Beth

[maestrowork]

Read literary and commercial books; read to learn something and also to entertain yourself; subscribe to and read National Geographic and The New Yorker as well as People and Reader's Digest; visit a museum of art and the local artist's show; listen to Mozart and Metallica; watch the Discovery Channel and sitcoms.


Gasp! You describe to a T. Who are you? Have you been following me?

[pepperlandgirl]

We all may have. There's a theory out there that says Marlowe actually wrote the works we now consider Shakepeare, but could not use his name, so he sent his works to his friend Bill, who was a playhouse financier. I can't say that it's true, but I can't resist a could conspiracy. Sorry to get off-topic.

There's also a theory that Shakespeare was an alien.

Both theories are equally false.

[johnnysannie]

That is a very uneducated thing to say. I've seen "immature" elderly and i've seen very "mature" youth.
Stereotyping people based on age is no different than doing it based on race, gender, etc. I'm going to stop there, as we are going off topic. And i'm sure this type of talk is probably not allowed on these boards.
Next time, answer my question only please. It would be the "mature" thing to do.

PS. I don't recall giving my age. But i guess with maturity comes the right to assume.

With maturity comes a deeper understanding of life, of people, and of human nature in general. True enough that age does not always equal maturity. I did not say that it did. And if you want to compare educations, I expect that my multiple degrees might well outweigh yours.

One more thing that often comes with maturity is manners which you seem to lack.

And that shall be my last word on the subject.