After wiki-ing Infinite Jest, I think I might have to check it out, too.
It should only be $10, if they still have the 10 year anny addition. Just take your time with it. I would recommend reading the first two-hundred pages or so, and then starting over.
Yes, any book that requires I begin it multiple times can fuck off and die. I will read it through once and judge it based on that. I posit that if a generally well-read and sharp fellow cannot work through and draw any meaning from a book on a single read-through, the book is a failure.
You will always draw some meaning from it on the first read through.
If you can't get more out of the book on multiple readings, well, then the book is a failure.
Evil Multifarious on
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
After wiki-ing Infinite Jest, I think I might have to check it out, too.
It should only be $10, if they still have the 10 year anny addition. Just take your time with it. I would recommend reading the first two-hundred pages or so, and then starting over.
Yes, any book that requires I begin it multiple times can fuck off and die. I will read it through once and judge it based on that. I posit that if a generally well-read and sharp fellow cannot work through and draw any meaning from a book on a single read-through, the book is a failure.
You are not smart enough to fully grasp exactly what the book is trying to say on a single read through, let alone remember which characters go with which parts of the untied narratives. Nobody is. The fucking writer himself had to edit it five times, and strip away over 500 pages. Don't think so highly of your self.
edit* Hell, fully was too much. I'd be surprised if you could even follow what was going on in the first 200 pages. I do this shit for a living, and I'm just offering some advice. Why do people think so highly of themselves when it comes to words and thoughts. Fuck, would you listen to Beethoven once and go "well shit, I guess that was cool" and then completely ignore the structure which builds in the first movement, making it immensely more enjoyable on a second, third, fourth listen?
Which is why I said that the best way to phrase something is the simplest way that communicates the information, not the simplest way period, or the most accessible way.
This, and the rest of the post, but mostly this, is sort of the key message.
What you are describing is, quite simply, good writing.
Someone like Faulkner writes incredibly complex sentences. Even those who enjoy Faulkner's writing would suggest that some of his sentences could be edited to be more effective, of course; he's not perfect. But the means by which he expresses ideas is effective.
What is important to understand is that the information being communicated is not always simply what the sentence says or describes. Language evokes ideas without stating them.
When Faulkner writes a six hundred word sentence (and he has, many times) about a family's history, he's not just communicating the family's history. If that was your only goal, then the simplest means of communicating that history is just a bullet list, a point form summary of major events and individuals and dates. Faulkner's monolithic sentence communicates the experience of living that history, or at least attempts to do so; the very form of the sentence, the very structure of the attempt to communicate, is itself a form of communication.
So, what you are advocating is essentially "Don't put in extra shit when it's not necessary." But when you're experimenting with the nature of written communication, what's necessary becomes a very interesting question.
Henry James, for example, wrote Turn of the Screw in a very confusing, obtuse style, where he would leave the main verb of the sentence (the predicate) until very near the end, after a number of dependent clauses and descriptions and commas and semicolons and brackets. He did this because the information he wanted to communicate with the sentence was secondary to the effect he wanted to produce, or the greater overarching idea he wanted to convey. That idea was that it is impossible to write authentic realist or naturalist texts about human thought, because you can never really understand or convey another human being's mind. So, he wrote in the way he did to create a distance between the reader and the characters in the story, between the reader and the story in general (which was narrated in first person by one of the characters therein).
And Faulkner and James, difficult and complex as they are, are modernist authors, who still operate under certain familiar guidelines. Postmodern authors reject many or all of those guidelines, and are attempting to do many different things with their writing.
Bingo, and I can get behind Faulkner and James, and behind pomo authors experimenting with language and the like. There's a purpose there. The best pop-culture example I can think of for someone who uses inaccessible language for its own sake is Dean Koontz, whose work reads like he wrote a story and then went through and replaced each word with the most obscure thing he found in his thesaurus. It's bullshit writing meant to make him sound smarter, and it directly obfuscates his work, while sounding fucking lame.
I hesitate to give any examples of "literary" authors who do similar things, because I tend not to read through particularly obtuse books. I prefer complex books with straight-forward language, like Hemingway. Dickens might be a decent example - his work is often impenetrable, even though the sentences themselves are beautiful things. But his books strike me as a bit like a house constructed solely of fine art. Yeah, it's pretty to behold, but you can't make a building out of nothing but fucking paintings and expect it to stand.
ElJeffe on
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The fucking writer himself had to edit it five times, and strip away over 500 pages. Don't think so highly of your self.
Postmodernism: Outlines are so last century.
Actually, outlines are an outdated and archaic device in which an elite group of British aristocrats would determine the very nature of logical structure in order to alleviate themselves of non-British concepts, forcing those who disagreed with their outlines to be condemned as no better than the native population.
I am not sure why such complexity and obfuscation is needed in a narrative, unless its main fuction is to be a puzzle. What does that bring to the table?
The fucking writer himself had to edit it five times, and strip away over 500 pages. Don't think so highly of your self.
Postmodernism: Outlines are so last century.
Actually, outlines are an outdated and archaic device in which an elite group of British aristocrats would determine the very nature of logical structure in order to alleviate themselves of non-British concepts, forcing those who disagreed with their outlines to be condemned as no better than the native population.
Outlines are really about choosing sides.
I can't tell if you're joking or not.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
Dickens wrote flowery because he was paid by the word. I'm sure he could produce much more efficient and probably overall better text, but a man's gotta eat.
I find that the problem of dense-for-its-own-sake language is hard to identify in many books that deal with high-end philosophy, because the ideas are so complex that it's hard to express them at all, let alone efficiently. Even without fiction and narrative getting in the way, I'm trying to read Heidegger's Being and Time in full right now, and it's tremendously difficult. Frankly I think the concepts are almost beyond the power of language to describe, especially after translation. But someone might be able to express them more effectively, more efficiently, with less complexity, and that would be a good thing.
Where is the border drawn between very hard, complex ideas, and needlessly difficult, complex language? It's always hard to tell, and the border region is where people argue about pretention and masturbatory academia.
edit* Hell, fully was too much. I'd be surprised if you could even follow what was going on in the first 200 pages. I do this shit for a living, and I'm just offering some advice. Why do people think so highly of themselves when it comes to words and thoughts. Fuck, would you listen to Beethoven once and go "well shit, I guess that was cool" and then completely ignore the structure which builds in the first movement, making it immensely more enjoyable on a second, third, fourth listen?
This isn't what you're describing, though. You're describing something more akin to a piece that sounds like a complete, garbled mess on the first listen-through, and takes multiple attempts before I can even make sense of the melody. That is not a good song.
Beethoven is awesome because on the first listen, you go, "Hey, that was pretty," and on subsequent listens you begin to dissect what makes it tick, and it becomes even better. Hey, let's use House of Leaves as an example. Excellent book, somewhat confusing, but a single read-through will get you a lion's share of the point. Future readings reveal more, which is why it's awesome. Only Revolutions was similar. Difficult to tackle, but not impossible, and worth the effort. If I'd had to go back to the beginning of Leaves after a hundred pages and start over because I was completely lost, I would think it sucked.
I'm not full of myself. I just have reasonable expectations out of even "brilliant" writers. I expect them to meet me halfway. I am willing to put forth an effort in reading their books if they promise not to give me a literary nut-punch.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
Also, Podly totally said I wanted to say before I got the chance to reply: life is not about well-ordered, simple truths. People gravitate towards clichés and common knowledge and folk wisdom because they want life to be simple and clear, and they think that boiling life down to a pithy sentence is an indication of wisdom or knowledge of truth. All it really is is sophistry.
To really say something meaningful about life, something beyond easily recognizable or shallow truths, requires complexity of thought, which requires complexity of expression.
Dickens wrote flowery because he was paid by the word. I'm sure he could produce much more efficient and probably overall better text, but a man's gotta eat.
Yeah, I was aware of this. Does he have anything he didn't write where paid by-the-word? I'd like to read something of his that was a little tighter, if anything exists.
I find that the problem of dense-for-its-own-sake language is hard to identify in many books that deal with high-end philosophy, because the ideas are so complex that it's hard to express them at all, let alone efficiently. Even without fiction and narrative getting in the way, I'm trying to read Heidegger's Being and Time in full right now, and it's tremendously difficult. Frankly I think the concepts are almost beyond the power of language to describe, especially after translation. But someone might be able to express them more effectively, more efficiently, with less complexity, and that would be a good thing.
Where is the border drawn between very hard, complex ideas, and needlessly difficult, complex language? It's always hard to tell, and the border region is where people argue about pretention and masturbatory academia.
Agreed, and why I steer clear of most philosophical texts. I read 200 pages of Hume that basically amounted to "There is no spoon" and I wanted to dig up his corpse so I could hate-fuck the skull into gooey shards.
ElJeffe on
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Ultimately, the quality of a book comes down to entertainment value. People are entertained by different aspects of writing, so they'll search for authors who offer experiences which appeal to them the most.
In conclusion, this is a hard question to generalize about since it's mostly a matter of taste. By my low, low standards even gutter-trash pop literature like the Da Vinci Code could achieve some sort of literary award.
I despise Steinbeck, so I doubt my conception of literature matches conventional standards of quality.
Ergandar on
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
edited January 2009
The thing is that the book is over 1000 pages long, with an extra 200+ of endnotes; it is also intentionally disjunctional, because it is attempting to literally show the fragmented experience mimetically. DFW does plenty of work trying to help the reader -- he was an extremely humble guy, and feared being seen as pretentious and a high priest type -- but the book is so massive that it's hard to even keep the characters straight, especially when time and place shifts as rapidly as it does.
Your notion of a read through, I feel, is also outdated. Why should a novel be read through once, from beginning to end, if the novel itself is fragmented and disjointed and elliptical? A novel is always there, tied together by construction. It is always-already presenting itself to the world. What does it really matter what order you read it in?
edit* Hell, fully was too much. I'd be surprised if you could even follow what was going on in the first 200 pages. I do this shit for a living, and I'm just offering some advice. Why do people think so highly of themselves when it comes to words and thoughts. Fuck, would you listen to Beethoven once and go "well shit, I guess that was cool" and then completely ignore the structure which builds in the first movement, making it immensely more enjoyable on a second, third, fourth listen?
This isn't what you're describing, though. You're describing something more akin to a piece that sounds like a complete, garbled mess on the first listen-through, and takes multiple attempts before I can even make sense of the melody. That is not a good song.
Beethoven is awesome because on the first listen, you go, "Hey, that was pretty," and on subsequent listens you begin to dissect what makes it tick, and it becomes even better. Hey, let's use House of Leaves as an example. Excellent book, somewhat confusing, but a single read-through will get you a lion's share of the point. Future readings reveal more, which is why it's awesome. Only Revolutions was similar. Difficult to tackle, but not impossible, and worth the effort. If I'd had to go back to the beginning of Leaves after a hundred pages and start over because I was completely lost, I would think it sucked.
I'm not full of myself. I just have reasonable expectations out of even "brilliant" writers. I expect them to meet me halfway. I am willing to put forth an effort in reading their books if they promise not to give me a literary nut-punch.
I don't think the difficulty of Wallace's writing is a nut-punch. It's the fact that he's working through extremely complex ideas. He's not just saying "there are no central truths," he's demonstrating it, with nuance and depth and great consideration - not to mention the fact that he's enjoying himself and playing around a bit, which is another key element of postmodern writing.
I mean, what is a novel? Why write fiction to make a point instead of an essay? Ultimately, a novel that is written by an author trying to make a philosophical point is essentially a hypothetical situation in an essay that is expanded and made more complex and complete. The hypothetical situation is never good enough, in an essay, and you must always make compromises and hack it down to size so it fits and still makes your point. A novel is what happens when you stop making compromises and finish the example in its entirety, so that it includes as much of life as is possible.
Yeah, I was aware of this. Does he have anything he didn't write where paid by-the-word? I'd like to read something of his that was a little tighter, if anything exists.
Dickens was paid by the word for everything, I'm sure there's something unsullied by capitalism out there of his, though.
And Feral, that was sarcasm. The problem with Postmodernism is that it functions perfectly only from within it's own framework. There's no means to verify the philosophical framework aside from using the framework you're trying to prove. Catch-22, but a compelling one.
I mean, what is a novel? Why write fiction to make a point instead of an essay? Ultimately, a novel that is written by an author trying to make a philosophical point is essentially a hypothetical situation in an essay that is expanded and made more complex and complete. The hypothetical situation is never good enough, in an essay, and you must always make compromises and hack it down to size so it fits and still makes your point. A novel is what happens when you stop making compromises and finish the example in its entirety, so that it includes as much of life as is possible.
Why write fiction to make a point at all?
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
I am not sure why such complexity and obfuscation is needed in a narrative, unless its main fuction is to be a puzzle. What does that bring to the table?
Because good art often portrays life as it is. It is called mimesis, and has pretty much always been an indicator of good art. And we moderns believe that life is very complex, so a mimetic representation, if it strives to be true, may need to introduce this complexity.
But there is a limit at which extremely complex system becomes for all intents and purpouses chaos, and divulges no messege but that. Narrative should be as complicated as it is needed to express a given idea, but there seems to be a trend where writers try to make their idea or theme more grand by making the delivery system more complex.
Your notion of a read through, I feel, is also outdated. Why should a novel be read through once, from beginning to end, if the novel itself is fragmented and disjointed and elliptical? A novel is always there, tied together by construction. It is always-already presenting itself to the world. What does it really matter what order you read it in?
Yes, and using pages is so last-century. That's why all my stories consist of plastic beads glued to the shells of still-moving turtles. If you're not willing for the turtles to rearrange themselves in the proper manner to read my story, well just fuck you, buster.
ElJeffe on
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
edited January 2009
Also, in DFW defense, his lexicography isn't terribly complex. Often, the big words he uses are recondite or jargon, and they stand out as such. He had a self stated love affair with the OED, and it really comes through -- he seemingly always uses the right word, even when he is offering a refracted presentation of someone's experience.
I mean, what is a novel? Why write fiction to make a point instead of an essay? Ultimately, a novel that is written by an author trying to make a philosophical point is essentially a hypothetical situation in an essay that is expanded and made more complex and complete. The hypothetical situation is never good enough, in an essay, and you must always make compromises and hack it down to size so it fits and still makes your point. A novel is what happens when you stop making compromises and finish the example in its entirety, so that it includes as much of life as is possible.
Why write fiction to make a point at all?
Because there is no other way to include all the elements you need to consider while still providing a concrete example. Also, it's more fun, and more compelling, and more authentic. An essay explaining your ideas about life will never ring as true as a novel describing your life, a novel that shows and doesn't tell. Simulating experience has a power that is different from simply stating or describing it objectively, I think.
It's a question I've considered a lot, and a question which is complicated by the notion that the author's point is not necessarily the one that is strongest in the text. But even that can be resolved; a good author who is mimetically representing reality, or a segment of reality, will represent parts of life that he didn't necessarily intend to, or which can be interpreted differently.
Evil Multifarious on
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
Your notion of a read through, I feel, is also outdated. Why should a novel be read through once, from beginning to end, if the novel itself is fragmented and disjointed and elliptical? A novel is always there, tied together by construction. It is always-already presenting itself to the world. What does it really matter what order you read it in?
Yes, and using pages is so last-century. That's why all my stories consist of plastic beads glued to the shells of still-moving turtles. If you're not willing for the turtles to rearrange themselves in the proper manner to read my story, well just fuck you, buster.
You should try and sell that to PS1 in Queens. You could seriously become a millionaire.
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
I mean, what is a novel? Why write fiction to make a point instead of an essay? Ultimately, a novel that is written by an author trying to make a philosophical point is essentially a hypothetical situation in an essay that is expanded and made more complex and complete. The hypothetical situation is never good enough, in an essay, and you must always make compromises and hack it down to size so it fits and still makes your point. A novel is what happens when you stop making compromises and finish the example in its entirety, so that it includes as much of life as is possible.
I mean, what is a novel? Why write fiction to make a point instead of an essay? Ultimately, a novel that is written by an author trying to make a philosophical point is essentially a hypothetical situation in an essay that is expanded and made more complex and complete. The hypothetical situation is never good enough, in an essay, and you must always make compromises and hack it down to size so it fits and still makes your point. A novel is what happens when you stop making compromises and finish the example in its entirety, so that it includes as much of life as is possible.
Why write fiction to make a point at all?
Because there is no other way to include all the elements you need to consider while still providing a concrete example. Also, it's more fun, and more compelling, and more authentic. An essay explaining your ideas about life will never ring as true as a novel describing your life, a novel that shows and doesn't tell. Simulating experience has a power that is different from simply stating or describing it objectively, I think.
It's a question I've considered a lot, and a question which is complicated by the notion that the author's point is not necessarily the one that is strongest in the text. But even that can be resolved; a good author who is mimetically representing reality, or a segment of reality, will represent parts of life that he didn't necessarily intend to, or which can be interpreted differently.
I find that when fiction was written to illustrate a particular philosophical point, it is usually is about as subtle as a bludgeon.
This is in contrast to fiction that, as Podly was describing with Infinite Jest, explores a question. Exploring a question and making a point are two different things, in my mind, and yes I agree that if you're exploring a basic conundrum of the human experience then you get a lot more mileage out of the interactions of believable characters.
However, if the author has already resolved that question in his or her own mind, then he or she is better off writing an essay, as a work that was written to illustrate a particular answer is basically an overwrought fable.
Feral on
every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.
I find that when fiction was written to illustrate a particular philosophical point, it is usually is about as subtle as a bludgeon.
Are you impuning the subtle grace of Atlas Shrugged?
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
That's why all my stories consist of plastic beads glued to the shells of still-moving turtles. If you're not willing for the turtles to rearrange themselves in the proper manner to read my story, well just fuck you, buster.
I want to read this. When do the turtles line up next?
That's why all my stories consist of plastic beads glued to the shells of still-moving turtles. If you're not willing for the turtles to rearrange themselves in the proper manner to read my story, well just fuck you, buster.
I want to read this. When do the turtles line up next?
If I told you, it would destroy the mystique.
ElJeffe on
I submitted an entry to Lego Ideas, and if 10,000 people support me, it'll be turned into an actual Lego set!If you'd like to see and support my submission, follow this link.
I mean, what is a novel? Why write fiction to make a point instead of an essay? Ultimately, a novel that is written by an author trying to make a philosophical point is essentially a hypothetical situation in an essay that is expanded and made more complex and complete. The hypothetical situation is never good enough, in an essay, and you must always make compromises and hack it down to size so it fits and still makes your point. A novel is what happens when you stop making compromises and finish the example in its entirety, so that it includes as much of life as is possible.
That's why all my stories consist of plastic beads glued to the shells of still-moving turtles. If you're not willing for the turtles to rearrange themselves in the proper manner to read my story, well just fuck you, buster.
I want to read this. When do the turtles line up next?
That's why all my stories consist of plastic beads glued to the shells of still-moving turtles. If you're not willing for the turtles to rearrange themselves in the proper manner to read my story, well just fuck you, buster.
I want to read this. When do the turtles line up next?
That is up to you, as you are an actor of human expirience and can exert control over your own story!
muninn on
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Podlyyou unzipped me! it's all coming back! i don't like it!Registered Userregular
edited January 2009
I find that my favorite writers often present theses. Shakespeare, Joyce, Wallace - they seemingly have no personal philosophies to be found in their ouvre. Joyce was notorious for this. Jocyean critics are often times broken down into the "Sunny Jim" camp and the "Joyce-as-nihilist" camp. They can't even decide if he was happy or sad, because Joyce himself feared being labeled. It is impossible to describe him, because when he felt that people were comfortable saying he was an atheist, he would tell how he wanted his children to go to a jesuit school. When people would say that he was a generally happy person, he would talk about how terrible the world is.
I mean, what is a novel? Why write fiction to make a point instead of an essay? Ultimately, a novel that is written by an author trying to make a philosophical point is essentially a hypothetical situation in an essay that is expanded and made more complex and complete. The hypothetical situation is never good enough, in an essay, and you must always make compromises and hack it down to size so it fits and still makes your point. A novel is what happens when you stop making compromises and finish the example in its entirety, so that it includes as much of life as is possible.
Why write fiction to make a point at all?
Because a story with no point is uninteresting?
If there is anything that English Lit taught me, is that its ok to make up your own point.
I mean, what is a novel? Why write fiction to make a point instead of an essay? Ultimately, a novel that is written by an author trying to make a philosophical point is essentially a hypothetical situation in an essay that is expanded and made more complex and complete. The hypothetical situation is never good enough, in an essay, and you must always make compromises and hack it down to size so it fits and still makes your point. A novel is what happens when you stop making compromises and finish the example in its entirety, so that it includes as much of life as is possible.
Why write fiction to make a point at all?
Because there is no other way to include all the elements you need to consider while still providing a concrete example. Also, it's more fun, and more compelling, and more authentic. An essay explaining your ideas about life will never ring as true as a novel describing your life, a novel that shows and doesn't tell. Simulating experience has a power that is different from simply stating or describing it objectively, I think.
It's a question I've considered a lot, and a question which is complicated by the notion that the author's point is not necessarily the one that is strongest in the text. But even that can be resolved; a good author who is mimetically representing reality, or a segment of reality, will represent parts of life that he didn't necessarily intend to, or which can be interpreted differently.
I find that when fiction was written to illustrate a particular philosophical point, it is usually is about as subtle as a bludgeon.
This is in contrast to fiction that, as Podly was describing with Infinite Jest, explores a question. Exploring a question and making a point are two different things, in my mind, and yes I agree that if you're exploring a basic conundrum of the human experience then you get a lot more mileage out of the interactions of believable characters.
However, if the author has already resolved that question in his or her own mind, then he or she is better off writing an essay, as a work that was written to illustrate a particular answer is basically an overwrought fable.
Well, I guess when I say "make a point" I'm being very broad. Fiction is, like you say, exploratory. It explores life. I mean, you could explore life through an essay instead, but if you wanted to explore all the facets of being that Joyce explores in his fiction, you'd have to write an essay that is equivalent in length to all the criticism written about Joyce. Or even all the good criticism, which is still tremendous. I wouldn't even attempt to do the same with Shakespeare. Criticism on Hamlet alone exceeds the amount of text written about the Bible.
I mean, fiction is obviously more fun for the author and the reader for the most part, and gives you more license to explore and find nuance, but even in terms of pure efficiency of effect, communication, etc, fiction is superior. Fiction can evoke. Bringing an experience to life shows you all the facets of those experience, more than any objective, clinical, analytical attempt to lay out all those facets can do.
I mean, what is a novel? Why write fiction to make a point instead of an essay? Ultimately, a novel that is written by an author trying to make a philosophical point is essentially a hypothetical situation in an essay that is expanded and made more complex and complete. The hypothetical situation is never good enough, in an essay, and you must always make compromises and hack it down to size so it fits and still makes your point. A novel is what happens when you stop making compromises and finish the example in its entirety, so that it includes as much of life as is possible.
Why write fiction to make a point at all?
Because a story with no point is uninteresting?
I wouldn't go that far, though it depends on what you mean by "point". Any decent piece of writing will necessarily contain what the author views as truths of the human condition. Even if it's a straight-forward relation of events A through C, the way in which the author writes the characters tells you things. If that's considered a "point", then I guess we agree. If you mean something more like an explicit thesis statement being explored, then I don't think that's necessary at all. Pop-fic writers like King, Douglas Adams, Pratchett, they pretty much just write stories where shit happens. There's not a "point" outside of the way in which they tell their story, the way the characters behave, the things that happen. They're still very interesting at their best, because the characters, events and storytelling are the point. And regardless of the crazy shit that might happen, the stories feel "true" in the sense that they seem believable, given the universe in the books.
ElJeffe on
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You will always draw some meaning from it on the first read through.
If you can't get more out of the book on multiple readings, well, then the book is a failure.
You are not smart enough to fully grasp exactly what the book is trying to say on a single read through, let alone remember which characters go with which parts of the untied narratives. Nobody is. The fucking writer himself had to edit it five times, and strip away over 500 pages. Don't think so highly of your self.
edit* Hell, fully was too much. I'd be surprised if you could even follow what was going on in the first 200 pages. I do this shit for a living, and I'm just offering some advice. Why do people think so highly of themselves when it comes to words and thoughts. Fuck, would you listen to Beethoven once and go "well shit, I guess that was cool" and then completely ignore the structure which builds in the first movement, making it immensely more enjoyable on a second, third, fourth listen?
Postmodernism: Outlines are so last century.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Bingo, and I can get behind Faulkner and James, and behind pomo authors experimenting with language and the like. There's a purpose there. The best pop-culture example I can think of for someone who uses inaccessible language for its own sake is Dean Koontz, whose work reads like he wrote a story and then went through and replaced each word with the most obscure thing he found in his thesaurus. It's bullshit writing meant to make him sound smarter, and it directly obfuscates his work, while sounding fucking lame.
I hesitate to give any examples of "literary" authors who do similar things, because I tend not to read through particularly obtuse books. I prefer complex books with straight-forward language, like Hemingway. Dickens might be a decent example - his work is often impenetrable, even though the sentences themselves are beautiful things. But his books strike me as a bit like a house constructed solely of fine art. Yeah, it's pretty to behold, but you can't make a building out of nothing but fucking paintings and expect it to stand.
Actually, outlines are an outdated and archaic device in which an elite group of British aristocrats would determine the very nature of logical structure in order to alleviate themselves of non-British concepts, forcing those who disagreed with their outlines to be condemned as no better than the native population.
Outlines are really about choosing sides.
I can't tell if you're joking or not.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
I find that the problem of dense-for-its-own-sake language is hard to identify in many books that deal with high-end philosophy, because the ideas are so complex that it's hard to express them at all, let alone efficiently. Even without fiction and narrative getting in the way, I'm trying to read Heidegger's Being and Time in full right now, and it's tremendously difficult. Frankly I think the concepts are almost beyond the power of language to describe, especially after translation. But someone might be able to express them more effectively, more efficiently, with less complexity, and that would be a good thing.
Where is the border drawn between very hard, complex ideas, and needlessly difficult, complex language? It's always hard to tell, and the border region is where people argue about pretention and masturbatory academia.
This isn't what you're describing, though. You're describing something more akin to a piece that sounds like a complete, garbled mess on the first listen-through, and takes multiple attempts before I can even make sense of the melody. That is not a good song.
Beethoven is awesome because on the first listen, you go, "Hey, that was pretty," and on subsequent listens you begin to dissect what makes it tick, and it becomes even better. Hey, let's use House of Leaves as an example. Excellent book, somewhat confusing, but a single read-through will get you a lion's share of the point. Future readings reveal more, which is why it's awesome. Only Revolutions was similar. Difficult to tackle, but not impossible, and worth the effort. If I'd had to go back to the beginning of Leaves after a hundred pages and start over because I was completely lost, I would think it sucked.
I'm not full of myself. I just have reasonable expectations out of even "brilliant" writers. I expect them to meet me halfway. I am willing to put forth an effort in reading their books if they promise not to give me a literary nut-punch.
To really say something meaningful about life, something beyond easily recognizable or shallow truths, requires complexity of thought, which requires complexity of expression.
Yeah, I was aware of this. Does he have anything he didn't write where paid by-the-word? I'd like to read something of his that was a little tighter, if anything exists.
Agreed, and why I steer clear of most philosophical texts. I read 200 pages of Hume that basically amounted to "There is no spoon" and I wanted to dig up his corpse so I could hate-fuck the skull into gooey shards.
Ultimately, the quality of a book comes down to entertainment value. People are entertained by different aspects of writing, so they'll search for authors who offer experiences which appeal to them the most.
In conclusion, this is a hard question to generalize about since it's mostly a matter of taste. By my low, low standards even gutter-trash pop literature like the Da Vinci Code could achieve some sort of literary award.
I despise Steinbeck, so I doubt my conception of literature matches conventional standards of quality.
Your notion of a read through, I feel, is also outdated. Why should a novel be read through once, from beginning to end, if the novel itself is fragmented and disjointed and elliptical? A novel is always there, tied together by construction. It is always-already presenting itself to the world. What does it really matter what order you read it in?
I don't think the difficulty of Wallace's writing is a nut-punch. It's the fact that he's working through extremely complex ideas. He's not just saying "there are no central truths," he's demonstrating it, with nuance and depth and great consideration - not to mention the fact that he's enjoying himself and playing around a bit, which is another key element of postmodern writing.
I mean, what is a novel? Why write fiction to make a point instead of an essay? Ultimately, a novel that is written by an author trying to make a philosophical point is essentially a hypothetical situation in an essay that is expanded and made more complex and complete. The hypothetical situation is never good enough, in an essay, and you must always make compromises and hack it down to size so it fits and still makes your point. A novel is what happens when you stop making compromises and finish the example in its entirety, so that it includes as much of life as is possible.
Dickens was paid by the word for everything, I'm sure there's something unsullied by capitalism out there of his, though.
And Feral, that was sarcasm. The problem with Postmodernism is that it functions perfectly only from within it's own framework. There's no means to verify the philosophical framework aside from using the framework you're trying to prove. Catch-22, but a compelling one.
Why write fiction to make a point at all?
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Because good art often portrays life as it is. It is called mimesis, and has pretty much always been an indicator of good art. And we moderns believe that life is very complex, so a mimetic representation, if it strives to be true, may need to introduce this complexity.
definitely. i hate henry james. fuck that dude. but turn of the screw is a marvelous piece of writing.
Yes, and using pages is so last-century. That's why all my stories consist of plastic beads glued to the shells of still-moving turtles. If you're not willing for the turtles to rearrange themselves in the proper manner to read my story, well just fuck you, buster.
My all-encompassing hatred of his work clouds my judgment on that matter.
I wouldn't even use it as toilet paper.
edit: but in matters of other works of literature I dislike, I agree
Because there is no other way to include all the elements you need to consider while still providing a concrete example. Also, it's more fun, and more compelling, and more authentic. An essay explaining your ideas about life will never ring as true as a novel describing your life, a novel that shows and doesn't tell. Simulating experience has a power that is different from simply stating or describing it objectively, I think.
It's a question I've considered a lot, and a question which is complicated by the notion that the author's point is not necessarily the one that is strongest in the text. But even that can be resolved; a good author who is mimetically representing reality, or a segment of reality, will represent parts of life that he didn't necessarily intend to, or which can be interpreted differently.
You should try and sell that to PS1 in Queens. You could seriously become a millionaire.
A miserable pile of secrets?
I find that when fiction was written to illustrate a particular philosophical point, it is usually is about as subtle as a bludgeon.
This is in contrast to fiction that, as Podly was describing with Infinite Jest, explores a question. Exploring a question and making a point are two different things, in my mind, and yes I agree that if you're exploring a basic conundrum of the human experience then you get a lot more mileage out of the interactions of believable characters.
However, if the author has already resolved that question in his or her own mind, then he or she is better off writing an essay, as a work that was written to illustrate a particular answer is basically an overwrought fable.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Are you impuning the subtle grace of Atlas Shrugged?
I want to read this. When do the turtles line up next?
If I told you, it would destroy the mystique.
Because a story with no point is uninteresting?
Can I at least know the location?
That is up to you, as you are an actor of human expirience and can exert control over your own story!
If there is anything that English Lit taught me, is that its ok to make up your own point.
Honestly, I think this is a very important point, and not for the seemingly nihilistic sentiment it suggests.
Well, I guess when I say "make a point" I'm being very broad. Fiction is, like you say, exploratory. It explores life. I mean, you could explore life through an essay instead, but if you wanted to explore all the facets of being that Joyce explores in his fiction, you'd have to write an essay that is equivalent in length to all the criticism written about Joyce. Or even all the good criticism, which is still tremendous. I wouldn't even attempt to do the same with Shakespeare. Criticism on Hamlet alone exceeds the amount of text written about the Bible.
I mean, fiction is obviously more fun for the author and the reader for the most part, and gives you more license to explore and find nuance, but even in terms of pure efficiency of effect, communication, etc, fiction is superior. Fiction can evoke. Bringing an experience to life shows you all the facets of those experience, more than any objective, clinical, analytical attempt to lay out all those facets can do.
I wouldn't go that far, though it depends on what you mean by "point". Any decent piece of writing will necessarily contain what the author views as truths of the human condition. Even if it's a straight-forward relation of events A through C, the way in which the author writes the characters tells you things. If that's considered a "point", then I guess we agree. If you mean something more like an explicit thesis statement being explored, then I don't think that's necessary at all. Pop-fic writers like King, Douglas Adams, Pratchett, they pretty much just write stories where shit happens. There's not a "point" outside of the way in which they tell their story, the way the characters behave, the things that happen. They're still very interesting at their best, because the characters, events and storytelling are the point. And regardless of the crazy shit that might happen, the stories feel "true" in the sense that they seem believable, given the universe in the books.
This is exactly what I thought, pretty much, when Feral made this objection.