Literature (2 Viewers)

[ishq]

i'm affraid your piorot, and probably marple as well, doesn't belong in this section.

chrsite is the epitome of pop fiction. i ebeliev her play the mouse trap has run continually in london theatres since it's inception in 1960 something - just a bit of trivia

but each their own eh

Lol. Crime Fiction probably inspired that trivia too. Tom Stoppard and his lovely parody.

I Love Albert!.....Albert!


Sorry, momentary lapse of sanity

 

[nwatts]

I Love Albert!.....Albert!

I'll kill you for this!

 

[nedzelic]

yeah, "simon's for the chop alright"

 

[azzie]

its strange though, how through the ages most of the things considered "pop culture" or "trashy" are now art! like pride and prejudice and all those other "we need to marry a wealthy man" books from the 19th century (sorry but after studying them all year, they seem the same)
eh well, christie is a good relief after tolstoy and dostoyevsky
but yes, faulkner is a "real" artist and its his stuff im planning to read next.

 

[ishq]

^

Anna Karenina anyone?

 

[azzie]

and crime and punishment? dont make me cry. baby jesus will cry too, im warning you right freaking now.

 

[ishq]

Crime and Punishment, War and Peace, Bad and Good.

Its all so repetitive.
The cyclic nature of world events.

*philosophical mode emerging*

 

[M-turkey]

Nope. There's trash, and there's literature. Nedzelic is perhaps a little elitist, but it's obvious he enjoys material written by talented writers, rather than the pulp that is churned out to make money or to be intentionally provocative.

There's nothing wrong with literature thats "intentionally provocative". Some of the best works were written that way.

Take a look at Jonathon Swift for example...

 

[nwatts]

There's nothing wrong with literature thats "intentionally provocative". Some of the best works were written that way.

Take a look at Jonathon Swift for example...

If the provocation serves as the focus of the text, it's worthless. If it naturally comes through the subject matter (like say, Porter's 'Monkey's Mask') then I have no problem. There are hardly a range of "best works" written with the sole purpose to offend/provoke its reader, undermining any sense of artistic integrity for shear shock value.

The likes of the gen X authors (namely Easton Ellis and Palahniuk) exploit this provocative style and can occasionally pull it off - this is usually because they have other intentions, though, example the anti-commercialism found in many of their texts. Most of the time their writing is just drivel with nothing outside their lurid sense of what a reader will react to with the most offence.

 

[nedzelic]

yes, yes. crime and pun, war and peace
this is the stuff i was hoping for

keep it up!

 

[Sarah168]

There's nothing wrong with literature thats "intentionally provocative". Some of the best works were written that way.

Take a look at Jonathon Swift for example...

I don't often diss what the make of this thread has called "literature" but Gulliver's Travels is possibly my most hated book. I'm all for Jane Austen, Dickens, Harper Lee, Thomas and the rest of the gang but I can't stomach "Gulliver's Travels". The sight of the book cover makes me wanna run. I attempted it as a related text in the HSC. NEVER AGAIN! lol I went for Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" instead

 

[keladry]

really anything that counts as "literature" seems to have one thing in common - longevity. if the da vinci code and harry potter (which is being studied in school now) are still being published 100 years in the future, will they finally be counted as "literature"?

well i haven't read much in the last couple of weeks due to end of sem exams but i do enjoy reading all sorts of things, even the trashy mills and boon on occasion (hahaha). but i love the bronte sisters, austen, dickens and wilde, as well as anne rice, tamora pierce, isobelle carmody, garth nix, raymond feist and robert jordan and my list could go on and on. my point is, because i read and enjoy (for the most part) trash and pop as well as "literature", what does that make me?

anyways i've been craving some austen so i'm going to watch the bbc p&p, read all six of her books (maybe except emma - haven't gotten over doing that for the hsc yet), and maybe trawl thru the archives for some screen adaptations. i hear some of them are quite crap tho.

 

[nedzelic]

the BBC of p n p was quite good. also, they just made a movie of it, and last year bollywood did a version....i'm not ready for that one yet

 

[ishq]

the BBC of p n p was quite good. also, they just made a movie of it, and last year bollywood did a version....i'm not ready for that one yet

Ah - I don't think you'll appreciate the bollywood version in this lifetime. Its the epitome of 'pop trash', complete with singing, dancing and shiny clothes. I didn't like the Keira Knightley version either - they changed the original.

I loved the BBC version! Not because it was P&P, but because of Colin Firth.
*drools*

 

[nedzelic]

what did yous think of the adaptation to bridget jones' diary? studied in in year 11 and while as a singular text i din't really like it, as a tranfsormation it was quite clever
thoughts?

 

[walrusbear]

First thing you do in Extension 1 English in Year 11 is discuss "what is literature". You eventually come to the conclusion that everything is literature, from Matthew Reilly to The Seventh Samurai and Gravity's Rainbow, Tolkein and Austen to Mills and Bloom.

It's all literature.

Which is pretty much the accepted response for an exam/assessment question.

that's a pretty extreme attitude, though i guess it has some credence.
i think it's best to acknowledge that pop culture has its value. the romantic in me would like to think that literature has some criteria or standard. however i'm sure that attitude would exclude a lot of my favourite works.
that said, matthew reilly sucks a little too hard for my liking to be literature.

btw, did you mean Mills and Boon or was it a clever reference to critic, Harold Bloom?

 

[nwatts]

really anything that counts as "literature" seems to have one thing in common - longevity. if the da vinci code and harry potter (which is being studied in school now) are still being published 100 years in the future, will they finally be counted as "literature"?

Christie has "longevity" and she wrote pulp, as did all the classics of crime fiction. None of them had any significant literary status other than being influential. A text's longevity has little to do with the definition of literature.

 

[M-turkey]

I don't often diss what the make of this thread has called "literature" but Gulliver's Travels is possibly my most hated book. I'm all for Jane Austen, Dickens, Harper Lee, Thomas and the rest of the gang but I can't stomach "Gulliver's Travels". The sight of the book cover makes me wanna run. I attempted it as a related text in the HSC. NEVER AGAIN! lol I went for Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" instead

Yeah, I dont really like Gulliver's Travels either, but I guess I was more refering to his Essays:

A modest Proposal
http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

and

An Argument to Prove That the Abolishing of Christianity in England, May as Things Now Stand, Be Attended with Some Inconveniencies
http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/swift/christ.htm

These are great and quite amusing...

 

[malkin86]

I think that Gulliver's Travels has aged too much... that the political ideas and people that inspired it aren't really relevant here and now... I read the first two when I was younger, and it was funnish as a fantasy, but the others were just too dry.

 

[nedzelic]

how is everyone going with it all?