Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
case) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
fandomsecrets2015-02-04 06:51 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2015-02-04 06:51 pm
[ SECRET POST #2954 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2954 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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[Phineas & Ferb]
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[Roger Delgado]
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(Dangan Ronpa)
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[All Time Low]
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 024 secrets from Secret Submission Post #422.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2015-02-05 05:10 am (UTC)(link)I'd prefer not to get too far into this because I don't think it's totally germane to the argument and because the argument is an inescapable quagmire from which no one can ever return. I think it's probably the case that there are times when we can say something is just a bad book but I think most of the things we're talking about here come down to subjective taste.
Only because those things are almost universally agreed to be bad when they fail. If you try to be deep and succeed, people go "holy shit this book is amazing! It made me cry/think about existentialism in a whole new way!" or whatever.
But that's my whole fucking point! When we say "trying to be deep" or "pretentious", we always mean that you failed to be deep. That's what those words mean and people are using them as objective judgments. They are saying that some given subset of books is not worth reading and is objectively bad. But a large percentage of the time, those are actually subjective judgments. It's just that they're using them as though they were objective and applying them far too widely, and often, to entire subfields of literature.
People can recognize garbage that's being trotted out as literature for the sake of the author's ego/reputation/career. *cough* She's Come Undone *cough*
Sure. But that doesn't mean that every single thing that people say is trying to impress people is garbage. So I don't think that point gets us anywhere at all. It's not an objective fact that something is or is not garbage, and even if it was, any individual person's judgment about whether something is garbage is not necessarily objectively correct. Which I think is another point that can be generalized to a lot of these situations.
Are these objective qualities or subjective ones? Because if they're subjective, there's nothing wrong with what they're saying. Saying "This book is incomprehensible so I don't like it" is as valid and subjective as "I didn't like it; it had too much romance."
Almost no books are literally incomprehensible, though. I don't think that point gets us anywhere. Books are more or less difficult to comprehend but they're not incomprehensible. And that's an important point, because that difference in vocabulary points to an important difference in how we think of the books. "I didn't like this book because I couldn't comprehend it" is a very different judgment than "I didn't like this book because it's incomprehensible." And one of them is fundamentally subjective and one of them isn't. But no book that we're talking about here is actually, literally incomprehensible. And to say that, you know, "Oh, it's not their fault that incomprehensibility is considered universally bad" - that doesn't seem to adequately address the situation, for all of those reasons, because their judgment about comprehensibility is not necessarily correct and because comprehensibility is not a quality of that kind.
Second, again, this is a discourse that often issues in "these books are worthless and boring etc etc." So again, it is a discourse that does try to make objective claims. At least IME. So at the very least, if people are using subjective language, they're using it to make objective claims or in the way that we use objective claims. And that's what annoys me.
Other people might prefer a stripped-down plot-necessary-only book versus AP's boring chunk style. Me bringing up that taste preference does not mean I am "framing the question in a way that intrinsically supports one side over the other".
I think that I'm specifically referring to the "tricky puzzle" characterization, which I wouldn't use to describe American Psycho (which example I'm fine with), or really most things on the other side of the 'clear and concise' side of style. I don't disagree with your fundamental characterization of the split. Again I think this is a completely secondary argument and not very important. I accept that I have my own biases but I don't think that I'm trying to enforce them on anyone else here. If someone isn't interested in reading any literary fiction I'm not particularly invested in making them.
no subject
(Anonymous) 2015-02-05 08:29 am (UTC)(link)no subject
And I shall be back to chat more with Gravity's-Rainbow!anon later, as I've just woken up and am a bit grumpy as a result.
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(Anonymous) 2015-02-05 08:10 pm (UTC)(link)I eagerly await your response etc etc etc.
no subject
I'm going to take it you don't have "P word" privileges then.
That mindset is in no way connected to what I'm trying to say here, and if it's worth anything, I read quite a lot of genre fiction of all kinds.
If I had said "the masses" would you be spending time on disclaimers? It was a small joke, not a real assertion that anyone was looking down on the average reader as a plebeian boor.
I eagerly await your response etc etc etc.
And I yours, should you choose to continue the conversation. (This post is winding down, and I know it can be troublesome to track a conversation without an account, so I totally understand if you want to let it be.)
no subject
No, it's not actually. Assuming the conversation remains between us two, anyway. I'm willing to let you pick which one you believe, and I'll accept the validity of it for this discussion. Both ideas have merits--that everything about a book's good or badness is subjective, OR that there are certain objective qualities by which books can be judged good or bad.
It's just that they're using them as though they were objective and applying them far too widely, and often, to entire subfields of literature.
That's not what the OP is doing though. The OP isn't dismissing anything--they're arguing that certain (subjective?) qualities that their friend likes, are not necessary in a book for that book to be good.
Furthermore, people dismissing a type of book and the fairness of that isn't the issue (to me). If someone says "I don't want to read romance novels because the sexist gender roles they put characters in" well, obviously that seems unfair to a romance fan, because of course there are romance novels that challenge traditional gender norms.
But that person is dismissing a genre based on an incorrect generalization about the whole genre that they've made based on their experience with *some* of the genre. They're still not dismissing romance novels on the basis of being unable to understand them, just like people who unfairly dismiss literature do--they dismiss literature based on certain incorrect (or correct) assumptions about it--not because they can't understand it.
that doesn't seem to adequately address the situation, for all of those reasons, because their judgment about comprehensibility is not necessarily correct and because comprehensibility is not a quality of that kind.
You are the one who described GR as obscure. You also said it was "very difficult to figure out what's going on and why it matters". You certainly *act* as if comprehensibility is a measurable quality that can be applied to novels. You don't act as if its incomprehensibility is unique to you. In fact, you listed it as an example of a book that people would be unable to understand.
Second, again, this is a discourse that often issues in "these books are worthless and boring etc etc." So again, it is a discourse that does try to make objective claims. At least IME. So at the very least, if people are using subjective language, they're using it to make objective claims or in the way that we use objective claims. And that's what annoys me.
So, you're annoyed over the tendency of most people to say "this movie is boring" instead of including "to me". Yes, it can get old, that people don't include that disclaimer to respect other's tastes. I'm not sure what to tell you on that, since it goes far beyond literature.
I think that I'm specifically referring to the "tricky puzzle" characterization, which I wouldn't use to describe American Psycho
Oh, there's nothing really tricky about AP. It's akin to GR (afaik, having haven't read GR) in that they both (presumably) have some traits that are commonly considered bad (obscurity, boringess).
Again I think this is a completely secondary argument and not very important. I accept that I have my own biases but I don't think that I'm trying to enforce them on anyone else here.
Sure. I was just making the point that you were incorrect that I was using the Clear VS Obscure dichotomy as a parallel to Good VS Bad book dichotomy. My point was simply that liking one over the other is acceptable.
If someone isn't interested in reading any literary fiction I'm not particularly invested in making them.
This has nothing to do with the Obscure VS clarity thing, but the location of this (and some other statements) makes it seem to me as if you're conflating a dislike for obscure writing with a dislike for literature. I'm probably reading too much into it, but just in case, let me say: They aren't the same. You can dislike needless obscurity and like literature.