To the mods:
I'm not trying to start a fire, I just saw the thread was locked. I only got to p 2 and wanted to respond to some so they didn't think I was curled up in a corner drooling while sucking my thumb.
To the others:
I graduated college in the '70's. I've read alot and have been writing for 30+ years and am good at it. Whether to make you laugh, cry, or get you off I've received more praise than not on my writing and just so you know, my blog is not representative of my fiction.
In college I majored in psych and law and wrote poetry and fiction to escape my then-life. I appreciate all your knowledge and responses and want you to know that I am trying to catch up on what I've missed in literature academia, if you will. If you disagree with my words fine, but don't insult me or my now wonderful life and I won't insult yours.
I will go back and read what I missed.
_____________
I'm not trying to start a fire, I just saw the thread was locked. I only got to p 2 and wanted to respond to some so they didn't think I was curled up in a corner drooling while sucking my thumb.
To the others:
I graduated college in the '70's. I've read alot and have been writing for 30+ years and am good at it. Whether to make you laugh, cry, or get you off I've received more praise than not on my writing and just so you know, my blog is not representative of my fiction.
In college I majored in psych and law and wrote poetry and fiction to escape my then-life. I appreciate all your knowledge and responses and want you to know that I am trying to catch up on what I've missed in literature academia, if you will. If you disagree with my words fine, but don't insult me or my now wonderful life and I won't insult yours.
I will go back and read what I missed.
_____________
You know, when you post something about "literature being degraded" in a writers' forum with over 35K members all over the world, you might anticipate hearing something that isn't the response you were angling for.
Really? You mean my daft post won’t gain me any more followers? Sigh…
Your initial post was . . . daft is about the kindest thing I can say.
Kind? Do any of the words in your following paragraph represent your ideas in any way?
It reveals an appalling set of assumptions that all rest upon entitlement, arrogance, and a combination of ignorance and naiveté.
Your opinion. You’re entitled. I would think you with your vocabulary you should be able to get your point across without personal attacks.
I can see you've given this a great deal of thought.
But you need to read a hell of a lot more.
Yes, I do. But I’m not going to chew my nails off to read Milton or spend time deciphering other languages because that’s how you think it works. There are other ways.
First, your trite little reference to the "degradation of literature" suggests that you're completely unaware that you are echoing a cliché that's thousands of years old.
And you need to learn that your pov may be glean more respect if you stuck to the subject and not the person. Again.
QUOTE]
Also, you need to consider that there are only a FEW books from any given era, and that we still study and read and enjoy stories from the classical era. When you look at the Victorian era, those books weren't written that long ago, as far as history goes. Only a hundred years? Pshaw--that's nothing. Read some Juvenal or Chaucer--now THOSE guys were storytellers.
That being said, literature, like any other artform, grows and develops and changes with society and the times. A hundred years from now, somebody on the mindspeak networking applications will ask the same question, and will receive approximately the same sorts of answers--
--and hopefully will know enough to be more temperate in their response to those answers. Part of having a successful conversation is the ability to listen to differing views without being defensive--a skill that any writer really needs to develop before heading out into the mean nasty world of publishing. Just sayin'.
I welcome differing views as long as they don’t attack me. This wasn’t about us, it was about lit.
I don't know Amadan personally and he sometimes posts crap that make me want to tear my own arm off just so I've got something to throw at him but I feel pretty confident in saying this:
Yes. Yes, Amadan would say that to your face.
Thanks for the heads up.
Additionally, often what stands the test of time is not what the people at the time would have expected.
Give the kid a little break. Most writers and readers must think this at one point or another before they learn better.
It's just... Well, god help the ones that learn better by posting it on AW.
I’m probably old enough to be a young grandmother to some of you, and again, personal.
I do believe we are degrading literature. It is a trend started by Shakespeare, continued with Voltaire and then Dickens and passed down to us as an honored tradition.
Keep up the good work.
Not sure if this is sarcasm but if not, thanks. Just trying to think things through.
It's mostly said for effect, which is a problem; that means a writer has completely missed his or her audience.
It's not promising.
In terms of textual "tells" it's right up there with "I'm a writer, not a reader. "
You really are into assumptions. And that’s the last personal attack I’m giving.
Ah, but I'm going to give the Butterfly points for her sig :I think that's adorable. I'm going to make it my 2012 screensaver.
Not sure that fuck and adorable belong together, but it works for me!
What makes this list of "100 best novels" in any way definitive? Don't get me wrong, I personally consider many books on the list great. But what is the criteria of "greatness" that we're using here?
Three Men in a Boat is one of the most hilarious novels I've ever read. Same thing with Voltaire's Candide. If my criteria for greatness were how humorous I found a book, those two would definitely be in any "best novels" list I composed. It isn't clear what criteria are being used to compile and order the books.
Another problem with taking these sorts of lists seriously is that if you really think about ranking books by assigning to them numerical values, by which you mean to say of a given book that it is (in the case of, say, Grapes of Wrath) just barely better than one (Under The Volcano) but not quite as good as another (Sons and Lovers), I think you'll find the idea really rather absurd.
I do.
Lastly, let's pick out a specific book on the list. Take Animal Farm. I like Animal Farm. But if I had to make a "best of" list, I'd rank tons of recently written novels above it. Animal farm (IMO) has very little subtlety, the characters aren't particularly interesting--the best thing about it is the premise. Again, what is the criteria on the basis of which Animal Farm is included but other books (both recent and not) are excluded?
Well said! Just for comparison to some of the above – see? Points can be made on subject only.
Early Shakespeare wasn't exactly classic literature back in his day, was he? And Dickens was a serial writer.
Who knows, Nora Roberts and RL Stine might be classic literature in the future. I like the latter, and I've never read the former. I think it's highly unlikely, but there's a slight possibility.
@MrAnonymous: I loved Animal Farm when I was eight, but I read it again my freshman year in high school and, sadly, most of the charm was gone.
The best of lists are rather subjective. One person will say Jhumpa Lahiri is the best writer ever. Others will say she's too heavy handed and doesn't branch out enough. One person will say Haruki Murakami is creative and trippy. Someone else will say he should stop dropping acid and write a real story. As for the opinions on Cormac McCarthy? I've had people tell me he's the most overrated writer ever and others swear by him as the best American novelist.
Another good post.
What any of the many '100 best books evah' lists are good for is widening one's experience of literature, especially someone who hasn't yet read very widely.
What they aren't good for is making judgments about current literature. After all, as has been pointed out several times upstream, they only contain books considered to be classics that have survived the test of time.
Since bazillions of books haven't survived, we can't very accurately compare the classics with all books published contemporaneously with them, the way we can with books published in our own era.
Truthfully, I wasn’t impressed after reading many books on that list and not sure how one gets on a list. If by sales just because a book is purchased doesn’t mean the reader liked it. There have been thousands of books written since then and just wonder why this “list” hasn’t been recreated.
Until recently Robert Louis Stevenson was classed as trash. Then about twenty years ago, people changed their minds and he became the 'classic' writer he is today.
This! How does this happen and why go back? Why not look at what is being published at the time?
This is the writer of boys-own [and occassionally girls] stories such as Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Master of Ballantrae as well as Jekyll and Hyde.
Give me the adventure stories of RL Stevenson, John Buchan and Rosemary Sutcliff. And I have a literature degree that cover right from Sophocles, to Chaucer, to Shakespeare and Marlowe, to Pope and Sterne, to Stevenson and Eliot to Sarah Waters and Kate Atkinson.
I firmly believe that Sarah Waters will be one of the classic authors of Queer Gothic.
