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Departments => Books => Topic started by: fuzzyoctopus on December 11, 2003, 12:22:34 AM

Title: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on December 11, 2003, 12:22:34 AM
I realized that I really need to stop creating a new thread every time I want people's opinions on something literary.

This semester I took a class called "Literature of the American West," and we read and analyzed western novels and gumshoe/detective novels.

Ok, so while revising my paper just now, (which is due tomorrow) I realized something and subsequently added it to my paper.  Western novels were started in the early early 1900's, at the very end of the Victorian period. (The FIRST western novel, The Virginian, was written in 1902.  It began all western stereotypes and archetypes that exist today.)  But even though westerns have been written ever since that point, the western as a genre takes a very Victorian view of women.  Oh, sure it's the American Wild West, and women can be strong characters in their own way, but for the most part they're portrayed as wholy good and virtuous creatures.

Gumshoe/detective novels started in the 1920's and seem to all involve a more Modernist view of gender- women are more often than not the criminals.  Brigid in the Maltese Falcon is as crazy as they come.  The unearthly beautiful wife in The Long Goodbye is a murderer, and the other women are nymphomaniacs or just disillusioned with life.  I don't see this as being particularly misogynistic, just more of a backlash against the "Angel in the House" ideas of Victorian thinking.   Men can be evil.  Women can be evil, and they're even better than men at hiding it most of the time.

This has changed somewhat, since detective novels aren't really written gumshoe style anymore, but it's really really interesting to me.

I don't really have a question here, just thought it was interesting and wanted to know what everyone else thought.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Fellfrosch on December 11, 2003, 12:36:02 AM
Being married to a family that constantly tries to defend country music (from me), the first thing that leaps to my mind is "westerns portray women as virtuous because cowboy/country culture is itself extremely virtuous." I find several holes in that theory, but the basic tenets are actually pretty sound, especially when compared to the noir movement--one is preoccupied with morality, and the other is preoccupied with the lack of it.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on December 11, 2003, 12:57:29 AM
Yes, that's a good point- I'm interested in what Eric has to say with his study of heroes and all.  Esp. considering the difference in heroes between the cowboy and the gumshoe, and the fact that both genres are written towards a more male audience.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on December 11, 2003, 07:35:34 AM
no time right now, I'll get to it tonight.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Mistress of Darkness on December 11, 2003, 02:06:51 PM
Does anyone have any opinions on Red Badge of Courage? I made it through about half of it, but wasn't inspired to finish it.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: stacer on December 11, 2003, 05:25:09 PM
I haven't read it since high school. I really liked the likening of the grove of trees to a cathedral, I remember, and the spiritual experience the protagonist has in it, but don't remember much else except that the "red badge of courage" is basically a bullet wound. I don't remember particularly liking it, though, and probably wouldn't have finished it either if it weren't an assignment.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: stacer on December 11, 2003, 05:27:21 PM
I also have a question. Does anyone here besides me NOT get deconstruction? It intrigues me, but it slips through my fingers like sand when actually trying to use it. Plus, I think it can be taken too far. Any thoughts? I'd elaborate on my own thoughts, but I'm at work and don't have any of my notes nearby. And deconstruction just doesn't stay in my head long enough to actually be coherent when talking about it.  :P
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: EUOL on December 11, 2003, 06:19:16 PM
Something that's always helped me understand deconstructionalism is the little saying 'You're relying on what you're denying.'  In other words, a deconstructionalist view of a text will look for places where it is trying to destroy or undermine the very things that it needs to exist.  

That's only one piece of deconstructionalism, but it's the most interesting part, I think.  It's essentially the search for irony within texts.  (Or so it's been explained to me.)
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on December 11, 2003, 06:47:36 PM
I haven't read that Red Badge of Courage at all, but I have read Killer Angels or something like that. Its based on the Civil War, and is a pretty good book. The Red Badge is based in Civil War times too, no? Killer Angels was a good book though.

And stacer, I have no idea what you mean by deconstruction. I have a clue of what decomposition reactions are, but thats more chemistry oriented than lieterature oriented.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Entsuropi on December 11, 2003, 07:02:05 PM
Deconstruction is where you try to determine the authors hidden meanings and feelings while reading the text. At least, thats what i think it's about, i'm not 100% sure. Its a pile of wank i feel, but thats mainly because i'm insanely bad at analysising things.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on December 11, 2003, 07:31:01 PM
Ya, I feel that is going to be my downfall in english courses. Analysising things. I'm so bad at that. I could never do it right, and my answers are always wrong. Go ahead, ask me about something like that.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on December 11, 2003, 07:32:23 PM
Quote
Deconstruction is not synonymous with 'destruction', however. It is in fact much closer to the original meaing of the word 'analysis; itself; why etymologically means 'to undo' - a virtual synonym for 'to de-construct'. The deconstruction of a text does not proceed by random doubt or arbitrary subversion, but by the careful teasing out of warring forces of signification within the text itself. If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over another. A deconstructive reading is a reading which analyses the specificity of a text's critical difference from itself.
Barbara Johnson The Critical Difference

Basically, a text can say soemthing other than it appears to be saying, often fundamentally opposed to. It takes careful examination of elements within the text itself for this.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Mistress of Darkness on December 11, 2003, 07:50:37 PM
So it sounds like you should look for two opposite meanings that the text might have and play them against each other.

I always liked Deconstruction best because I felt like it was a free license to take a stupid conclusion from some other kind of analysis (Femminist being my favorite choice for this purpose) and rip it to shreds using the facts from the book.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Fellfrosch on December 11, 2003, 08:47:47 PM
Entropy's description is the basic standard of literary criticism, often called structuralism--you assume that the author's thoughts and feelings are important to the text, and try to determine through the text what those thoughts and feelings are. In other words, you assume that the book has a message or theme and try to figure out what it is. All other forms of literary criticism tend to use Structuralism as a base, but they don't have to; in general, the more popular forms of modern criticism ignore the author's intent and look instead at what the book itself is saying, whether the author intended it or not.

Deconstruction is a little different because it is most commonly used in two very weird ways. The first is just what MoD described: college students who use it as an excuse to disagree with other people and accepted literary conventions. The second is almost completely backwards of traditional criticism: instead of using a form of analysis to say something about a book, people use a given book to say something about their preferred form of analysis. I used both methods pretty often in college (I was a deconstructionist almost exclusively), but I've grown tired of them, to be honest, because they smack of people trying to look smart by showing off.

Every now and then, however, you can find a piece of criticism that actually takes deconstructionist ideas and does something interesting with them. The "relying on what your denying" aspect is one of these, because it challenges the world of literary analysis in (ironically) constructive ways, forcing you to consider ideas and patterns that previous schools of thought have ignored.

In my opinion, however, most deconstructionists are too enamored with their own esoteric-ness to be of much use. The ideas need to become more common and, subsequently, more approachable, before we'll be able to learn much from them. They're still loads of fun to play with, though.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: stacer on December 11, 2003, 09:51:42 PM
Entropy's idea sounds more like New Criticism than Structuralism to me. Similar, but not the same. New Criticism is the base, the school of thought most high school teachers teach from (at least mine did). Structuralism is more to do with the structure of language, from words on up through sentences and paragraphs--how that language works to weave meanings in a text.

Saint, that "careful teasing out of warring forces of signification" is one of the quotes the girls who presented on deconstruction used in my class. I can understand it in discussion, but it's been really hard to write my paper. I think I've finally figured it out, though. I'm deconstructing Joan Abelove's Go and Come Back, which is an annoying book, so there ought to be something to deconstruct. It seems to me that despite its seeming promotion of multiculturalism, valuing native cultures, etc., it also privileges middle-class white culture. So that's what I'm going with, playing those two against each other and seeing what I'll get.

What were you thinking about Red Badge of Courage, fuzzy?
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on December 11, 2003, 10:24:49 PM
Hearkening back to the Western discussion I was supposed to comment on:
Weren't there some serializations that could be counted as novels written in the 19th century?

But that's not what I was asked. I don't agree that cowboy/country culture is itself extremely virtuous. The whole idea behind many traditional western stories is about how the ranchers (real cowboys) were at odds with the farmers (the cowboy and the farmer should be friends! claims Oklahoma!) But the issue is often one of who can hire the guns to hold it. Might makes right; hardly more virtuous than society that's developed extensive legal systems to break up monopolies (as just one example of city culture improving on the ethics of cowboy culture).

I think the reason women are "virtuous" (actually, just more traditional role typing) in westerns is that it's a more primitive society, with life being brutal, nasty, and short, to borrow a philosopher's words for it. When you need all the muscle you can just to work a living out of the ground, than you have to get along with the others with you, and team playing is more important. There's no room for social climbing or for wholesale manipulation (though it can happen much more subtly). Besides, there's nothing to be gained by being a loner, unless you can go the whole route and become like the Lone Ranger (and that doesn't get you ahead materially). So there's no point: you get control of your husband's land by killing him, and... then what? No one to run the farm/ranch. Plus it's pretty easy to figure out who did it when there isn't anyone around.

In crime fiction, however, the events take place in an established community. There's room for one person to manipulate, steal, and kill for personal advantage without destroying the entire society that you depend on to establish your wealth and position. Basically, crime fiction gives individuals the opportunity to gain status/wealth/power by manipulation/theft/intrigue/murder that just don't exist in the wild prarie.

Interestingly, both genres, by this account at least, treat women as having the same physical capacities: Women don't lead bands of thugs by intimidation and take land by force, or run protection rackets. They can't use brute tactics, so they gain the most advantage by being family supporters in westerns, or more illicit means in crime fiction

The essential change though is an overall shift in public perception of what women are capable of is, I think, the primary factor. In the 20's you start getting your flappers: morality is looser and women are more liberated in general: making a woman bad guy more believable.

I hope that was all coherant
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on December 14, 2003, 10:55:00 PM
Recommendations:  Should I read Martin Chuzzlewit ?

Just as some who usually likes Dickens, and has heard very few things about it?
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on December 19, 2003, 09:13:09 PM
I was watching Conan today on Comedy Central, and Lewis Black was on. I love Lewis Black's comedy, very funny guy. And after his bit he was talking to Conan and said (paraphrased): "Anyone who says they're going to write a novel is nuts."

I found it rather funny.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on December 19, 2003, 10:10:57 PM
Heh.  I do like watching Lewis Black, both on his stand-up acts and on The Daily Show.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on December 20, 2003, 05:10:05 PM
This is the stack of novels I that I have, which must be read for next semester.   If you have read any of these and can recommend ones that you actually enjoyed, please do so, so that I will know what to read on the long plane rides.

"Seize the Day" - Saul Bellow
"Frankenstein" - Mary Shelley  (No, I've never read it)
"Persuasion" - Jane Austen
"Shosha" - Isaac Bashevis Singer
"Cannery Row" - John Steinbeck
"As I Lay Dying" - William Faulkner
"Main Street" - Sinclair Lewis
"Jazz"  - Toni Morrison
"Good Earth" - Pearl S. Buck


And "The Old Man and The Sea", but I read that one when it came, 'cause it was really short.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Fellfrosch on December 20, 2003, 05:43:01 PM
I sort of liked Frankenstein, but more as an intellectual exercise than as a book. And I quite liked Persuasion, but that's because I'm a Regency geek. Of the others I haven't read any, but I've read two of Toni Morrison's other books and loved them, so I recommend you start with Jazz.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on December 20, 2003, 06:15:51 PM
I just started reading Jazz this morning and am only 13 or so pages into it.
I'm wishing for some dialouge though: this straight narration gets really thick after a while, and it looks like we don't get any actual speaking until the middle of the book.
There's one other Morrison book I have to read this semester, but it hasn't come yet.  "Song of Solomon".  Is that one of the ones you read?  I told Kristy, and she said "Fun.  It's just as much fun as the REAL Song of Solomon."
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: stacer on December 20, 2003, 07:09:32 PM
Persuasion is my favorite Jane Austen. Well, at least, the movie is. The BBC movie, though hard to find sometimes, is the best, though most people I know think it's too slow-moving. It's got Ciarin Hinds and Amanda Root in it. Anyway, the book is quite good. It's my second favorite of her novels, second to Emma.

I've seen the 1950s movie Cannery Row, and I remember the story being fascinating in a John Steinbeck sort of way. Meaning, he's quite depressing and he focuses on the dregs of society, but always has a beautiful way of telling it, and challenges your mind in the process. Never read the book, though. I've read other John Steinbeck and liked it.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on December 20, 2003, 08:00:38 PM
I just keep telling myself, these books are famous for a *reason*.  Just because I hated "Crime and Punishment" and "Moby Dick" doesn't mean I'll necessarily hate any of these, right?

;)
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Fellfrosch on December 20, 2003, 08:13:41 PM
You hated Crime and Punishment? What's not to like.

The other Morrisons I read were Beloved and Paradise. I recommend them both quite highly.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on December 20, 2003, 08:48:23 PM
It's long and depressing.  And boring.  And contains long frustrating stretches where nothing happen.
Come to think of it, that's the problem with Moby Dick, too.  And Robert Jordan.

Or were you being sarcastic?  I know lots of people who love Crime and Punishment, but I can't like any book where I HATE the main character.  
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on December 20, 2003, 10:05:40 PM
all that stuff was written after the 18th century. No wonder you worry about it.

Unlike Fell, I have a strong dislike for Toni Morrison. what I have read of her didn't really bring anything new to the table about racial relations, and seemed to be entirely about racial relations.

Frankenstein, however, is better than any movie version I've ever seen of it. Go Mary Shelly!
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on December 20, 2003, 10:07:28 PM
Well I should be set then, since I've never seen any Frankenstein movie.  (Unless you count Mel Brooks)
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on December 20, 2003, 10:11:19 PM
well, don't get me wrong. TNT did a pretty good Frankenstein, actually. As was the original film. But the book isn't really a horror in the way those are.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Fellfrosch on December 21, 2003, 01:27:16 AM
No, I wasn't joking about Crime and Punishment--hating the main character is one of the points of the book, I think. But I'm biased in favor of Russian novels, to the point that I took an honors class entirely based around Dostoevsky. That's one dude I hope I never meet in a dark alley.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on December 21, 2003, 01:50:35 AM
There are very few writers I would feel safe running into in a dark alley.  Maybe EUOL, and that's only because I know him.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on December 21, 2003, 12:16:59 PM
Don't worry, I don't bite. Hard.

Heheh, is he joking? Heh heh.   :)
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Lieutenant Kije on December 21, 2003, 08:01:06 PM
I liked Cannery Row myself.  And Frankenstein too.  Persuasion was okay (but I'm not really into Austen.)
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Mistress of Darkness on December 29, 2003, 05:34:43 PM
I loved Dostoevsky's Notes from the Underground when I read it in 12th grade. It was one of the few books I actually read all of the way through, except for Awakening, but that was because that one was short. I think it's main draw was that my teacher didn't seem as intent for us to take him "SERIOUSLY" which made me like him better than the author of The Invisible Man.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Eagle Prince on December 29, 2003, 05:54:53 PM
Dostoevsky over Wells?  I guess I could see that.  One of the coolest things about HG Wells is nearly all of his books have been made into movies.

Frankenstein is awesome, but believe me when I say its obvious that a woman wrote it even after the first chapter.  There is more romance in the book than horror.  If anything, the little quirky stuff like that about the story is what makes it so good.  It has a lot more depth that most horror stories (esp more modern ones).
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: JP Dogberry on January 01, 2004, 01:16:10 AM
Talk about it EP. In my year 11 English class, we looked at Frankenstein. I think we ended up deciding that the guy who writes the first chapter (on the boat...I forget his name) must be an obsessive-compulsive Bipolar gay. We proceeded to make jokes about this for the rest of the year. (This was the same teacher who made us spend an entire double period discussing the phallic-ness of rocks in the background of Alien, and (serrendipitously) the same teacher who made me want to be an Englsih teacher myself. Not because of that incident though. But I digress.)
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Eagle Prince on January 01, 2004, 02:56:22 AM
Lol, glad to hear that wasn't just me.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on January 02, 2004, 11:22:19 PM
Well, I got two and a half of my books read over break -
Jazz is good but depressing.  It also has "Bridge of the San Luis Rey" written all over it.  But it is very well written, and I am sure I can get a paper or two out of it when the time comes. Huzzah.

Seize the Day is depressing and kind of boring.

Main Street - which I'm halfway through- is funny and satirical typical 1920's stuff.  Very amusing, at least in parts- the first two chapters, for example, are hilarious beyond belief.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Morag on January 19, 2004, 09:38:50 PM
I'm not a real Lit fan, about a year ago I took a Creative Writing class at the University of Utah (it was not as fun as Daves Class) and we had to read all these short stories.  I had never heard of most of them but my wife (graduated in english) and EUOL both had read just about everything I had to read for this class.  I reall didn't many of the stories, and even the ones that I hated less than the others were never anything I would like to write.  Were are talking stories like I Stand Here Ironing, The Misfit and Master and Man.
The worst part was the title of the book that had all our reading assignments in it was called "You Got to Read This"

I was actually excited to erad some stories that might help my onw writing but that class inspired me to stay to the clasics like Jordan and Herbert.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on January 19, 2004, 10:46:38 PM
Well some people just get into literature deeper than others.  I'm to the point where I can read something that I hate, but still enjoy it as literature.  Aren't you done with school though?
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on January 19, 2004, 10:52:11 PM
Well, got my books for my War & Lit class today. Here's the 4 books I've got for that class: "365 Days," "The Vietnam War in American Stories, Songs, and Poems," "The Vintage Book of War Fiction," and "World War One British Poems."

And in my Creative Writing class I got books entitled: "250 Poems," "40 Short Stories," and "Imaginative Writing."

Also I have to read "Cannery Women, Cannery Lives" in my Modern US History class.

So yeah, nice full workload for me this semester.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on January 19, 2004, 11:01:15 PM
Quote
And in my Creative Writing class I got books entitled: "250 Poems," "40 Short Stories," and "Imaginative Writing."

Do they have on on "Imaginative Titles" as well?

Sounds like a fun reading term for you, Gemm.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock on January 19, 2004, 11:11:12 PM
No, they both say "A Portable Anthology." And yes, I think I will have some fun reads. Plus in my creative writing class we have to write something each week. But she gave us this humongous list of topics to use. So who knows what I'll accomplish now.

Although I don't completely get the reason behind War & Lit. But I may get it someday.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: Morag on January 20, 2004, 02:11:47 PM
What do you mean by read a story you hate and still enjoy it as liturature?  After reading through hundreds a really bad stories as a slush puppy at TLE, if I would have read one of my creative writing assignments as a submission, I still would have rejected it (even if it had SF or F elements in it.)

And I am back in school studying Statistics, I desided to get a read Degree (no offence to English majors intended, becasue most of you actually want to use your degree, as apposed to my degree in psychology.)
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on January 20, 2004, 02:26:57 PM
Quote
I desided to get a read Degree (no offence to English majors intended, becasue most of you actually want to use your degree, as apposed to my degree in psychology.)

By which he means that even though many English majors use their degrees, it's still not "real" :D

Anyway, I think she means that she can see the elements in it that make you think. It's possible. It just doesn't usually happen in the slush pile.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: fuzzyoctopus on January 20, 2004, 06:58:11 PM
Quote
What do you mean by read a story you hate and still enjoy it as liturature?


Eric got part of it- the point is that if I read something just for the fun of it I can't STAND stupid, self-destructive or annoying characters.  But I can read books like that and understand that there's a purpose for these characters to act that way sometimes.
Title: Re: Generic discussions about Literature
Post by: The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers on January 20, 2004, 07:02:45 PM
see, that's how i read EVERYTHING