[ SECRET POST #2856 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #2856 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 03 pages, 055 secrets from Secret Submission Post #408.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 1 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[intrigueing]

FWIW, 90% of "serious fiction" simultaneously puts me to sleep and makes me angry that human beings capable of such an appalling level of pretentiousness exist and are allowed to write.

Of course, 90% YA books are fucking annoying and bandwagony, but at least they usually have an ounce or two of sincerity in them, y'know?

[sarillia]

I find this attitude just as baffling as the bias against YA. I always wonder what you and the people who agree with you have been reading and how you managed to find so much that fits the stereotypes of literary fiction.

[intrigueing]

I'd genuinely appreciate recs. The only adult literary fiction I've read published in the last 15 years that I really loved was Life of Pi.

[sarillia]

Hmm, I might have trouble with the "in the last 15 years" part. I get most of my books from library book sales so they tend to be older. I liked The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox by Maggie O'Farell. Margaret Atwood's done some more recent writing. Actually the first one of hers I read was The Penelopiad, which isn't generally a big favorite but I'm a sucker for the conceit of a well-known character going "let me tell you how it really happened" so I really enjoyed it. I remember liking The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. I haven't gotten around to reading the others in the series but I have a friend who loves them. I haven't read it since it first came out but I remember Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale being a fun gothic sort of thing, though it may be too overwrought for you.

And I'm realizing just how few modern books I read right now.

[intrigueing]

Thanks a lot! The Shadow of the Wind sounds particularly interesting. I'm going to make a point to check it out at the library next time I have time.

[feotakahari]

Come to think of it, if that sounds interesting to you, I can think of one recent "literary" novel that might be to your taste. It wasn't entirely my thing, but it was definitely well-written. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/may/16/fiction.features2

[sarillia]

I should add that I have a very high tolerance for pretentiousness so me vouching for a book means nothing for anyone who is sensitive to that sort of thing.

ALL THE TRIGGER WARNINGS

[feotakahari]

The last serious literary novel I tried to read was The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore. It was about a chimpanzee who wanted to be a man, and it got a gazillion rave reviews from big-name literary critics. This is an example of the kind of symbolism it used:

(Again, save your sanity and turn back now.)

The daddy chimpanzee finds a frog in his enclosure and decides to rape it, which is described in graphic detail. Afterwards, the main character decides to put the frog out of its misery by crushing it to death with a rock, to the horror of watching zoogoers. The MC spells it all out for the reader: the daddy chimp has only bestial drives, and lacks empathy for other beings, while he himself is capable of caring about others. But as an animal, he is only able to manifest his love in ways that seem barbaric to humans, since humans are the ones who decide what is and isn't civilized . . .

I already want to throw up, and I haven't even gotten to the lesbian toe sex or the girl-on-chimp action.

This is the outright worst novel I've seen get rave reviews, but I've seen similar books follow in its footsteps. I remember one where the main character edits an anthology of stories by patients at an insane asylum, and it turns out all the patients are faking mental illness to avoid dealing with their responsibilities, and all the staff are mentally ill. And one where a bunch of patients at a clinic for sleep disorders face off against the evil clinic director who wants to eradicate sleep forever. Not only are they stupid, and not only do they tend to portray women and queer people in incredibly stereotypical ways, they have no respect for the reader's ability to figure out a point of symbolism without being directly told it.

Re: ALL THE TRIGGER WARNINGS

[intrigueing]

LOL.

I think writers who make a big production out of coming up with symbolism are really missing the point. Symbolism is best when it's not entirely necessary, when it just adds layers and primes the reader's thoughts subconsciously, and when it comes organically from the events of the book, rather than the writer going out of their way to structure the events of the book around the symbolism.

[(Anonymous)]

Sure, 90% of both are terrible. And good YA books have a lot of good qualities. But to me, they're not going to display the wit and originality and the depth and the beauty that "serious fiction" is capable of.

[intrigueing]

...Why? I mean, if you said "they don't" -- past tense -- I'd agree with you. But "they're not going to" -- future tense? How on earth do you know? Do you have a time machine to the future or something?

Is there something inherent about YA fiction that makes it incapable of wit, originality, depth or beauty? I mean, YA fiction is just fiction about/aimed at young adults. What exactly causes books that fall under that category to become somehow mysteriously incapable of those qualities?

I'm genuinely curious about this -- do you also think all old books that are about/accessible to young adults but were written before the YA genre became a thing also have less depth, beauty, originality, or wit?

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think 'accessible to' young adults or 'about' young adults adds up to the same thing as 'aimed at' and 'written specifically for' young adults. The problem is precisely that YA is a discrete genre that people are conscious of, that marks itself out.

And it's not that YA fiction is incapable of those qualities. It's that it is less capable - that it does not allow the fullest expression of artistic beauty. Because they are specifically made for young adult sensibilities.

[feotakahari]

This sounds like arguing that constrained poetry is inherently less capable of beauty than free verse, because free verse can do things that can't be done with a specific rhyme scheme.

[intrigueing]

No, once again. Yes it it "less capable" because the range of narrative tools it can use is narrower, but that does not in any way equate to "doesn't allow." It's just harder to write it as well.

And for what it's worth, as someone who loved reading and was no less capable of appreciating beautiful books in my teens than I am now , even if I was not as good at pinpoint why they were so beautiful, I find your equating of "young adult sensibilities" and "does not allow the fullest expression of artistic beauty" to be really insulting.

Also, there are dozens upon dozens upon hundreds of ways to "express artistic beauty" in forms that are nearly impossible to be improved upon, and none of them are "full" because none of them can express all those different facets at once.

[(Anonymous)]

Don't worry, you can always read Twilight or 50 Shades of Grey.

[intrigueing]

Nah, those suck too. I seem to mostly only like old literary fiction books for some reason -- perhaps because they have plots and say what they mean.

But recs for adult literary fiction that is actually about something rather than "a woman/man's esoteric process of self-actualization while nothing actually happens in the story at all or everything that happens in the story is transformed into a narrative device to serve the character's inner angst" would actually be really, deeply appreciated.