Can we get a serious (>) thread about the state of contemporary literature and what style(s) of writing do and do not...

Can we get a serious (>) thread about the state of contemporary literature and what style(s) of writing do and do not appeal to the contemporary reader?

I'll start off with first reply

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People (by people I mean those of us who us who are below maybe 30 and use the internet compulsively and as a source of community / social interaction) seem disinclined to read lengthy stories where there seem to be excess detail etc.

I think the reaction to advertising and the fact people no longer watch TV and stuff partly because you're forced to be passive at all times while people excitedly sell you stuff mean that prose that's like "Imagine yourself in a...." and which sounds like a sales pitch is dead.

Tao lin's popularity relates I feel to the fact it is autistically deliberate in its structure and lack of artifice. It is like reading a string of data. Soothing, easy to process, and emotional if you allow it to be.

Eliot Rodger's book is interesting because it is sincere (mainly because it's a roman a clef / autibio) and interacts with the internet community and its love of memes, interally-produced refernces / in-jokes and so on.

I might sound a bit naive, but, I earnestly believe that it is not the fact that people no longer take heed of overly detailed or hard stories, but that there is not enough passion nor much truth in contemporary literature.

Where is the modern day Keats or Rimbaud?

There is no one pouring their souls out in a concise, dazzling way.
I think that's the real problem.

The ennui of the 21st century is not yesterday's ennui. It is not being romantically oblomovian, or living the life of a Dostoevsky or Tolstoy character. It is being a commodity in a gargantuan market, which is simply a wart on the side of YA, which is a wart on media. It is walking outside to write a nature poem and being greeted by railing and pathways and bicyclists and honking, and writing on the railing and the pathways and the bicyclists and the honking, because the pastoral and the natural is dead. It is writing an elegy to the stars because the sky is dead because the city lives at night and hums into the sky. It is writing on the hollow and the codified and the quantified, volumes of work drowned in volumes of commentary.

The old "literary" lifestyle is dead. All that one can see now are cars and monitors.

I believe there is so much more to write about now than before. The world is so vast and plenty.
Of course, there might be an overwhelming quality to it, but I do not believe that's the real problem.
Why despair over it? We must find a way to understand and ordain it.
I would love for teenagers to read classic literature instead of Harry Potter, or whatever the hell they are reading today. A great deal of people are passive and listless and do not want to think about the world and its circumstances in a critical way; but we can and we will bring back art somehow. We need a new renaissance, and considering the great deal of resources we have at our disposal, I reckon this is bound to happen.
However, we need discipline and interest. And the only way to bring this back is by showing how great humanity was in contrast to current society. And no one is doing this.

tao lin is the shemale of west/sino relations

the faustian spirit of angst paired with a chinky dilligence & attention to detail

love it

>There is no one pouring their souls out in a concise, dazzling way.
Romanticism is for soy abusers, it's modernism what needs a massive revival.

Is anyone else sad the way that art and literature seems to be progressing? I'm not going to be the guy who says that "art is dying" or whatever. But, there seems to be a sort of purity, sanctity to previous works of art, like the works of Shakespeare or Chaucer, or even the KJV that is impossible to recapture in the modern age. Literature has become so self-conscious and ironic over time, and it seems impossible to navigate the literary waters of the time and to still come out with a work of art of the same kind as the ones I just mentioned. I'm not saying that art is worse, though some might argue it might be. I'm just saying that there's this tone of almost divine sincerity that seems to be missing nowadays, and I really find it to be a shame. Because, of course, to try to write like Shakespeare right now would also be to make a work of art that is antiquated and out of date. It's almost like I wish I could travel back in time to when literature was first starting in order to avoid the restrictions/requirements/standards of the modern literary environment.
Anyone else have this feeling occasionally?

>It's almost like I wish I could travel back in time to when literature was first starting in order to avoid the restrictions/requirements/standards of the modern literary environment.
>Anyone else have this feeling occasionally?
Anyone who has seriously thought about being a writer has thought about this.
But again, maybe I wouldn't have been interested in literature if I were alive during that age.

It's a paradox to have the words "restrictions/requirements/standards" used in such a context in the same sentence as "Modern." There aren't any restrictions towards a foray into contemporary literature, nor was there ever one in any other literary epoch. If such restrictions were really in place, there would be no Rupi Kaur, no Arno Schmidt, not even Shakespeare would have been able to pen his plays.

Though, this argument shifts wildly once you factor in your personal perspective on the value, the importance of literature—of writing it, especially. Are you afraid of the progression of literature because you're afraid of being left behind? That you can't find the proper words to act as a key into making it in today's literary market? Or are you just sentimental of the old days? Are you disillusioned by the relative simplicity of today's literature?

Face the truth, guy: The majority of those who even bother to pick up a book recreationally don't do it for didactic reasons. It's entertainment now, and in the hustle and bustle of the technological age, most people don't have the time nor the effort for ambiguity, for verbosity, or for meaning.

That thing in your image is so bad

Why? Because every writer should already know this?

Ok lads who's gonna post the infographic?

You know the one.

i feel like the modern audience isn't really into embellished prose or embellished situations. People want to read about shopping at the grocery store or driving to work. They don't want to read about how a character is having an existential crisis while in art school.

Why do I get more emotion from this than most modern literature?

youtube.com/watch?v=feeA-Dr0XGw

The focus on small parts of our environments, the lighting of the day that creates a certain mood, I feel like this is what people really think about. When we're just walking along, in the city or in the town, and seeing people out and about, and walking around during the blue hour, and feeling lonely all the time.

What does an environment make you feel? What do you remember about it? I feel like so much of modern writing is writers forcing themselves to feel a certain way.

Tao Lin

it's empty

that's just because music and visual art is easier to consume

modern writing sucks because we have no romantics, we have only cynics.

It sounds like the sort of advice you'd receive in a "creative writing" class, so best to avoid at all cost.

I actually think the first paragraph in this image is the best written.

It's hard to have a tone of divine sincerity when no one believes in the divine anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not religious myself. But those epic, religious tones were only around because people genuinely believed that stuff to be true.

Delillo uses repetitive sentences all the time and it creates a great effect

I think this actually reflects what people DON'T want. People don't want writing to try to sound like music, or to sound fancy, they want writing that feels real and blunt and honest. Even if it feels awkward, that's ok, because most of our thoughts are awkward and not necessarily elegant.

>a sort of purity, sanctity to previous works of art

HAMLET. Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
OPHELIA. No, my lord.
HAMLET. I mean, my head upon your lap?
OPHELIA. Ay, my lord.
HAMLET. Do you think I meant country matters?
OPHELIA. I think nothing, my lord.
HAMLET. That’s a fair thought to lie between maids' legs.
OPHELIA. What is, my lord?
HAMLET. Nothing.
OPHELIA. You are merry, my lord.

youtu.be/C78HBp-Youk

>People want to read about shopping at the grocery store or driving to work
Looks like you smoked a bit too much LSD there

OP, give me approx. 5 years to mature as a writer and spend that time learning German. Thank me later.

It's the death of the aristocracy. For all it's ills, the aristocratic class of old had a certain elitist attitude and a desire to strive for artistic greatness in the works they produced that caused their works to be so superior. The democratisiation of culture may have led to a more fair society but in exchange the masses now control the cultural zeitgeist and because of this whatever appeals to the lowest common denominator reigns supreme. This problem exists in every type of art - music, painting, architecture - not just literature.

>it's ills

This is cute, Hamlet might be the best character in the western canon, it feels like he is constrained by the play going on around him

>Can we get a serious (>) thread about the state of contemporary literature and what style(s) of writing do and do not appeal to the contemporary reader?
>caring about readers
the reader can suck my fucking tooth

nice contribution to the discussion

I feel we are still just getting used to the new world. We now have a portal for the great minds of our generation to communicate, critique, and edit big group projects. Domestic terrorism against the faceless overlords is going to become a daily ordeal in our lifetime, how we consume and do religious norms will change to reflect the times which will create the next big schism. We could still have a big world changing war. Written projects will take on a more multi-media form and I expect a big return or oral story telling, especially in an improval direction. I dunno, I excited for this century and its literature