Interests Zone > ✑ ∙ Writers Corner
Literature
Guest:
Hey, I thought I'd dedicate a thread to literature!
That is, if you read books that fit that umbrella, you can be right at home here!
Share what you read recently or are currently working through, and especially your thoughts on it if you have something to say.
Because what is and what isn't literature is kind of a contentious topic, let's agree that literature is any work of written art that has been given attention by literary studies; is considered to be exemplary for its time, part of a culture's "canon", or in any other way has the aspiration to say something about art, the world or the human condition as opposed to entertainment literature.
Cele:
My favourite book is the Epic of Gilgamesh. Truly a culture... no, humanity defining work of literature.
Melooon:
--- Quote from: Cele on March 07, 2023 @774.34 ---My favourite book is the Epic of Gilgamesh. Truly a culture... no, humanity defining work of literature.
--- End quote ---
I'm not sure if this is joking, but Im gonna assume its not and say; really? I tried reading it once and from what I remember it was basically a dude going on and on about how great he is :tongue:
It was like "I have the BEST army, and I SMASHED the other armies and then built the BIGGEST city and my city was so cool because I'm THE COOLEST and Im BEAUTIFUL and everyone loves me, and then I chopped up all the other people and fed them to my awesome dogs!! YEAH!!"
I guess in that sense it is a defining work of humanity, but not in a good way! :drat:
Necrosia:
--- Quote from: Melooon on March 07, 2023 @836.19 ---I'm not sure if this is joking, but Im gonna assume its not and say; really? I tried reading it once and from what I remember it was basically a dude going on and on about how great he is :tongue:
It was like "I have the BEST army, and I SMASHED the other armies and then built the BIGGEST city and my city was so cool because I'm THE COOLEST and Im BEAUTIFUL and everyone loves me, and then I chopped up all the other people and fed them to my awesome dogs!! YEAH!!"
I guess in that sense it is a defining work of humanity, but not in a good way! :drat:
--- End quote ---
I share this feeling with a bunch of other tales that fit the aforementioned description xD
The most famous variants and writers of the arthurian legend, the Silmarillion... both are conceptually very interesting to built upon but not very entertaining for me as a reading experience :tongue:
Goethe's Elective Affinities is the only book to date that I had to stop reading because it made my literally(haha) ragequit, it was infuriating, I also really like Faust but more as a reading experience because it was translated really well rather than a great story.
I used to be really into the classics like 10 years ago or so but these days they don't hold my attention any longer, not saying they are bad or anything, just not interesting to me.
Guest:
I think most people try reading literature the same way they read entertainment books or YA novels; pointing out tropes, judging characters, expecting romance and action and "worldbuilding" and plot twists and all of these modern shapes of entertainment. I think that misses the point entirely.
In reality, literature can give us a window into society and schools of thought of the age they were written in. They can make us relate character concepts, philosophies, attitudes and types of people from things written ages ago to today, to find some common point in the human experience. You can trace all of human history, references, later literature, philosophies, political movements, back through literature. It's not meant to be entertaining with a lot of plot twists and cool worldbuilding; these were great thinkers of their times! That's not to say literature as a whole is drab and needs to be read stoically; plenty of literature is fun to read, cynical, sarcastic and timelessly wonderful, in particular Jane Austen and Fyodor Dostoevsky come to mind here.
I think it falls a bit flat to shrug off the entirety of the Epic of Gilgamesh as "just some guy celebrating himself". It is one of the earliest known instances of many myths that permeate all of our canon; including a great flood, the form of an adventure epic itself, the garden of Eden and so on; predating the age of Jesus by thousands of years! It has influenced all of human history, and many of the things that might fall flat these days in an adventure or fantasy novel written to be fun and exciting to read like a TV show are not comparable to those in the classics; that is where these tropes were birthed, not to entertain, but to lead, inspire, convince and represent entire cultures, peoples, to move and fascinate the greats in gigantic royal libraries!
Same with Faust; it gives us a first look into "radical" literature of the time: how a man of science makes a deal with the literal devil in order to date a girl, and over time loses himself more and more, breaking more and more, until he is almost entirely unrecognizable. All entirely packaged in perfectly tuned rhyme and meter, word jokes, political commentary and social criticism!
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
Go to full version