What exactly makes contemporary literature so bad?

What exactly makes contemporary literature so bad?

Why do you guys hate it?

Is it because you believe that there is nothing original left to be written; that every possible idea for a philosophy or story today would have to be in some way a rehash or retelling of something that was done better long ago?

Is it because you have a contempt for modern society, politics and technology? Personally I think that with the rapid development of new technology, it gives authors tons of new and interesting things to write about.

I mean for example, you couldn't really write about the internet as we know it today in the 20th century simply because it didn't exist. I think as long as new things keep getting invented that drastically change the way the world is, new authors will always have interesting things to potentially write about.

And as language evolves alongside these technologies, I would imagine that prose could become very different too, I mean if you compare Shakespeare to the English we have now, it is a very different style but they both have their merits I think.

Most contemporary lit is pretty bad, because YA has now taken over as what most adults read, since most people are permanently stuck in a 14 year old's mindset.

I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing though, if that's what people want to read, whatevs.

I agree with you, very well put. I think that most people here on Veeky Forums are a bunch of pretentious contrarians that hate everything that doesn't pander to them. Sad losers, if you ask me.

plot
concept
prose

no contemporary book does a good job at all 3

Hey faggot, are by chance the renowned young adult fiction author John Green?

W-what? No way!

It's because the prose is stilted and the plot is incredibly boring. The title of the book is based off a sophomoric reinterpretation of a great Shakespeare quote, and that juvenile world view never leaves the story.

The most interesting character appears to be the drunk writer. If the book transitioned towards his struggles and finished his story, it would be good YA. Yet they would be far too challenging for John Green; he would rather focus entirely on a stupid romance and an easy tragedy -- that being fucking cancer. Mr. Green seems incapable of improving because he's too self-conscious to focus on true tragedy.

He's a hack essentially.

Yet with these new evolving technologies and with the fast-paced nature of society (which now starts to center around the cities and steadily away from rural and urban areas), and the demands of a stagnating economy, no one really has the time or interest to read. If very few people see the book as a relevant medium, then the writing equally becomes sloppy, academic, or too introspective for its own good.

Literature is on its way out, but is kept alive by the genre-industry and educational institutions. Film, TV shows, and Youtube videos are the future of intellectual discussion/presentation and storytelling as our average collective attention spans shortens to less than 2 minutes.

TL; dr: It was a pleasure to burn

the main hooks of the stories has clickbait tier depth and reason. even a news site propaganda piece has more plotting and atmosphere.

I think the problem with modern literature is twofold. One the one hand, you have a hyper-commercialised book market in which the goal is to become the next NY Times bestselling author. In order to do that, you must democratise your appeal to the lowest common denominator. Hence the appeal of YA because it can be read by kids and adults and doesn't deal with any complex themes. Just rehashes of coming-of-age stories in exotic locales and situations. These stories are at best average-level literature, but they are what sells, so all the incentives go toward writing more.

On the other hand, the 'avant-garde' has become obsessed with 'pushing the boundaries' of art even though the boundaries no longer really exist. This leads to books that only appeal because they have some stylistic quirk or because they associate themselves with some sort of political or social cause. In these cases art becomes secondary to a quest for originality or the praise of the bien-pensants.

So a pleb-tier mass market and an isolated intelligentsia more concerned with feeling smart than writing good literature. This does not invalidate the fact that there are still good living writers, it just highlights the conditions that stultify good literature.

Overcoming the constraints of hyper-bourgeois markets and ivory tower circle jerks are required to improve the environment in which literature can flourish.

>Overcoming the constraints of hyper-bourgeois markets and ivory tower circle jerks are required to improve the environment in which literature can flourish.

and how can we do that?

Some great stuff has been released recently: I enjoyed Station Eleven, All the Light we Cannot See, The Fates and the Furies, The Sellout, The Nix, and Purity which were all intellectually stimulating and fun to read. I haven't read, but also heard good things about A Little Life, Moonglow, Swing Time, The Vegetarian, etc.

However, much of contemporary literary fiction is focused on including otherwise marginalized voices, which triggers the /pol/-tard neets on Veeky Forums. It's not hard to see why you'd see the lack of interest on this board.

Because contemporary authors cannot think. They live in a very constricted world view and tend to reject the history of human thought due to their percieved importance of their world. There is no ambition, yet to be truly ambitious you must have the knowledge of what to be ambitious towards.

Another factor is our current cultures constant need for comfort and safety. To be able to appreciate and create something meaningful you must have had at least some serious struggle in your life, and to have overcome it. Many in this new generation lack the fortitude to understand this and embrace this. Leaving the mind scared of anything challenging or threatening to their bubble.

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings."
- John Green

What a fucking hack

>Purity
I found it to just be another one of Franzen's Boomer-placating slogs about marriage and obsolete politics. It's a bloated tome perpetuating some CNN-constructed delusion that Wikileaks is some sort of cyber ISIS helmed by a megalomaniacal madman with "blood on its hands." This could maybe be condoned if the man was capable of stringing together an aesthetic sentence, but that's too much to ask from someone who probably prides himself on the fact that he's been subscribed to The Economist for years.

Western Literature sucks today because people are not reading many book as they should.
When our favorite writers were children, they read classics. Today, adults are reading Harry Potter, therefore it's only possible to write Harry Potter level books.

You don't write literature about the Internet, fag. It always comes off as forced. What happens on the Internet stays on the Internet.

This. The dumbing down of literature has left us with a half-dead English language, and a population that is not intellectually or linguistically equipped to deal with the hypocrisies and stupidities of the modern world, leaving them open for exploitation by politicians and ideologues.

>However, much of contemporary literary fiction is focused on including otherwise marginalized voices, which triggers the /pol/-tard neets on Veeky Forums.
Fuck off with your newspeak, libshit

By writing good books. There's really nothing more to it.

I really do think with some discipline a few who browse here could write something meaningful and good.

Triggered.

A lot of good literature is being written. You're just not looking

Then list some good recent books.

I'll wait.

Because literature is a slave of the economy (just like everything else). Consequently, it's sole purpose is to make money, and that is achieved by catering to the lowest common denominator. The fate of degrading all aspects of human life in the relentless pursuit of profit is the destruction of our society that we are currently witnessing. One could argue that the ship has already sunk, but the crew is still mostly unaware - they're too busy staring at their iphones.

lit will never claim that any book of the past 20 years is as good as classics because the academia-media-publishing industrial complex hasnt fully endorser any. Pure pseudo intellectualism, simple as that.

>whatevs
aren't you afraid of a society full of people like that?

>they're too busy staring at their iphones.

I would prefer not to.

Ah yes, the go-to response of everyone who refuses to see the current state of things. And as always, you conviniently leave out your so called proof of why "it's not so bad".

>/v/ memes
Not surprised at your retarded response, not surprised at all.

IQ85 here. John Green's nice. Trust me.

You really sound like one of those struggling wageslaves that cry out against society and actually believes the "I'm a wolf amongst millions of sheep" mentality.

I get the point you are trying to make, but the "they're too busy staring at their iphones" and "relentless pursuit of profit = destruction of society" detracts the fuck away from that point.

Take some classes in behavioral economics, then come back and try making this point.

Thank you.

Because most people are writing for their own personal vanity, and often have very few interesting ideas to share or stories to tell. We are living in the Age of Narcissism and all our art is feeling the pinch.

I don't hate FioS or anything contemporary.

Nobody here seriously dislikes it.

>Is it because you believe that there is nothing original left to be written; that every possible idea for a philosophy or story today would have to be in some way a rehash or retelling of something that was done better long ago?
No.

>Is it because you have a contempt for modern society, politics and technology?
No, it's pure unadulterated, unapologetic contempt for EVERYTHING.

When these Veeky Forums people shit on everything, its done ironically and non-seriously. Do not fall for this.

How long have you used Veeky Forums?

Veeky Forums is /b/, but the b is for /b/ooks

>no contemporary book does a good job at all 3
name an example of a book that does