[ SECRET POST #3605 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3605 ⌋

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

01.



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02.
[Emmerdale, Robert/Aaron]


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03.
[Sia, "The Greatest"]


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04.
[Pokémon Generations]


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05.
[Hark! A Vagrant, Wuthering Heights]


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06.
(Jeremy Irons)


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07.
[It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia]


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08.
[Criminal Minds, S10E02 "Burn"]








Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 17 secrets from Secret Submission Post #515.
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.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

I don't know how unfortunate it is.

Obviously taste is taste, no one has to like anything. It feels like sometimes people have a reflexive dislike for any old long book, and a reflexive assumption that everyone shares that dislike, or that anyone who does like them is being insincere or ridiculous somehow. And it kind of aggravates me.

Of course there are also plenty of smug dickheads going the other way as well. In many ways those guys are bigger assholes. But it feels like I see them less these days. Maybe that's just confirmation bias.

Obviously I think that both groups should go the hell away and just let people read and talk about what they want to.

[sarillia]

It also seems to be assumed that everyone has spent too much time hearing from those smug people insisting that the classics are mandatory reading that's better than [YA, sci-fi/fantasy, best-sellers, whatever is maligned by people who don't bother reading it]. But I've heard way more from the people who go too far the other way and can't let anyone mention a book that's considered a classic without ranting about how much it sucks and how anyone who likes it is pretentious.

I'm with you on wanting both groups to go away.

[dethtoll]

Your very first line kind of demonstrates my point. :)

I find the majority of Victorian/Edwardian-era monstrosities most people are thinking of when they refer to classic literature to be unreadable, bloviating pap, and it is my belief that a lot of these works should have been shed ages ago but remain in academic and literature circles strictly out of tradition -- tradition defined by generations of white academics (mostly male) at that.

While I do believe most people don't care for older works, I don't think they share my specific viewpoint nor have they really thought about it. But lit snobs are almost universal in how they react when someone says they don't like classic literature. They act like it's inconceivable that someone might not like the same books they do, and often imply that those who don't are somehow lesser for it in some way. And so much of the classic literary canon was the populist trash of its day anyway, so it just comes off as hypocritical when they sneer at anyone for reading "genre" fiction.

Shit like this is why it's almost impossible to get published, too.

People hate on classic literature because classic literature snobs are poisonous to a love of books.

[(Anonymous)]

Your very first line kind of demonstrates my point. :)

Yeah, sorry, that was poorly phrased. One of those things where there's a transition/concept in your head but you forget to actually include it in the sentence. What I had in mind when I was talking about "hate" there was the kind of reflexive dismissal that I was talking about in the next paragraph. Not just people disliking classics. But I sorta skipped over actually making that distinction, I think.

I don't really have any particular desire to defend literary snobs. They do exist, and they're a bunch of dicks, and they should knock it the hell off. Like I said, I don't see them as much as I do their inverse counterparts. But, yeah, again, I completely agree, literary snobs are dumb and bad. Nor do I have any desire to elevate it above genre literature.

The most that I want to do is to appeal to the general idea that taste is taste and that there are appealing things about classic literature for many people, even if it seems like bloviating pap to you. I would make the same argument about more or less any genre - maybe with less specificity about genres that I don't enjoy, but I don't think it would be any less true. That's really all the argument that I'm making here. I don't think you're actually arguing against that idea, I'm just trying to make sure I'm clear.

Also, I'm not entirely sure that the idea about a tie between publishing & elitist ideas about literature holds up, just from what I've seen friends say about it, but I'm sure you're more familiar with the industry than I am.

[dethtoll]

Well sure, taste is taste. I'd probably be a lot more indifferent about classic literature if not for the snobs, but either way I've got better things to do with my time than actually read that stuff.

I particularly detest the early 20th century "literary modernism" movement, though. To me, that era was the birth of the modern lit snob. You know the type: they hate "genre" fiction; they frown on reading books for fun; their favorite contemporary authors are all white guys from Brooklyn; they ignore the double standard of dismissing "chick lit" while praising similar books from male authors; they won’t read anything that didn’t get a review from the NYT or NPR, assuming they read anything written after 1920 or so. "Literary modernism" gave them their manifesto, implemented in books like Ulysses: the more unreadable, the better. "Make it new," indeed! More like "Ezra (go) Pound sand" if you ask me.

You are absolutely correct: Taste is taste, and I'd very much like to live and let live. But lit snobs simply cannot do that.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I mean, listen, I'm totally fine if you want to just keep crapping on lit snobs, but I'm still not interested in defending them. I like some of the things that they like. Dislike others. And I don't think the books themselves are better or worse because of their fanbase. But dicks are dicks.

[dethtoll]

Yeah, what I'm getting at is I think it's important to call out lit snobs because I think they're dangerous to literacy, period.

[(Anonymous)]

LMAO

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT

fair enough