fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2636 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2636 ⌋

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[Pinocchio]

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I mean, in terms of reading enjoyment, not like, serious academic analysis or anything. On anything -- values dissonance and other social issues, acting styles, special effects, cliches, outdated tropes, old-fashioned visual styles...

I tend to prefer old movies to recent ones, but it's the other way around with television shows. I have no idea why.

I'm a bit hesitant to read Victorian literature, as I have difficulty reading sentences that go on for ten pages and use words that aren't in any dictionary.

So many recent movies have felt like just one long chase scene. Everything is at breakneck pace, and to hell with continuity in order to achieve that. Older movies are better paced and have time to develop better characterisation and plot progression.

Nope. I can understand doing this in terms of academic analysis (especially when we're talking about films&TV), but my enjoyment depends solely on whether I feel good when reading/watching the stuff. And this has nothing to do with the time when the work was created.

Yeah, within limits. I feel that it's incredibly myopic to judge old works by modern standards -- you guys do realize that fifty years from now, people will be judging the things you read/watch by 2060 standards and these thing WILL come up short some of the time, no matter how much they tried? On the other hand, it has to have something really good going for it for me to enjoy in spite of the problems. So...the difference between analytical and automatic enjoyment matters, I guess.

I'm not really sure it applies to literature, though. I feel like it doesn't have time-specific standards (even if we are talking about enjoyment rather than technical quality).

I dunno. I've personally seen a lot of people say something is "badly written" because it's written in a way that feels strange or difficult nowadays, even if the writing really has a lot going for it in other ways. Some people show a kind of a refusal to adjust the grooves in their brain even a little to accommodate stuff they're not used to.

This attitude exists, but it's not a scale so much as a "yes or no" situation. People who reject things that are written differently from the modern texts just reject them, they don't give them less of a pass. Their whole set of standards is different. Whereas when we have people who are, in principle, willing to give old books a go, their standards are flexible enough to be applied to modern and non-modern literature alike.

Hmmmm...I've seen a lot of reviewers read old books and praise various elements while bitching about how the writing style is "bad" and the book would be better if the style was all different (read: Hemingway'd), but you're right that at least among more casual readers, it tends to be more yes/no.

Wow, that's weird. And more than a trifle silly.

Although IDK if I'd judge someone's enjoyment standards. Like, if they try to say that a book would be technically better if the style were modern, it's one thing (a claim of someone hilariously incompetent). But if they are saying that they personally don't enjoy it, that's up to them, I guess.

eta: oh, and I'm so using the verb "to Hemingway".

Edited 2014-03-22 22:25 (UTC)

Yeah, IA. It bugs me when people phrase it like "oh obviously this book ought to be written differently for everyone's sake." (And hell, even if I would like a different style of writing better, when it comes to certain things like old translations of ancient epics and stuff, I wanna see something authentic, even if it's a pain in the ass, not an update!)

LOL I came up with "Hemingway" as verb during a creative writing class a while ago. The opposite is Dickensify (which IS NOT OBJECTIVELY BAD WHEN USED IN MODERATION YOU KNOW fuck stupid modern-obsessed unimaginative teachers *grumble grumble*...)

Edited 2014-03-22 22:32 (UTC)

Re: Social issues and outdated tropes: Sort of. It's more that I recognize that those things *are* problematic, but I also recognize that they're a product of their time - so those elements are based on beliefs that have [thankfully] changed [or are changing].

Re: Everything else: It depends. If it's a story/genre/enjoyably bad then yes. Otherwise, no - but I'd probably not be interested in them anyways, even if they didn't have those elements. So.

Yes to some, no to others.

I have no problem recognizing historical context in old works or making way for older art styles, but if it's bad writing or lazily done, I probably still won't like it. "Bad" SFX/scenery/whatever in visual media means something different now than it did once, but it still feels cheap.

Pretty much. I'm less likely to enjoy old visual media, but for books, I'm definitely less critical. It would probably be more accurate to say that I'm /more/ critical of recent books, and my editing work plays a big role in that. It's hard to turn off when reading current stuff.

Well they get more of a pass on social issues and special effects, but there's no way they get a pass on reading enjoyment haha. Either I enjoy it or I don't and there's certainly some older writing styles I don't enjoy in the slightest.

Yes, for the most part. And I get so annoyed at people who expect 21st thinking to be in works that over 50 years old, and in some cases, as young as 30.

[ SECRET POST #2636 ]

Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?

Re: Do you give old fictional works more of a pass than recent ones?