If it's about prose then you could take pretty much any writer to task; everyone has their own style. It doesn't seem like a big deal to me. You wouldn't say that Joseph Conrad is an incompetent writer because he wrote some awkward stuff, it just doesn't make sense.

How is not a big deal? Prose is literally all there is to literature. It's not like film where you might be able to forgive bad audio quality or whatever else.

There's an endless amount of ways for prose to be good or effective. Just like anything else.

I'm referring to prose in the most technical sense: the method of delivering ideas through writing. It's an intensely personal thing—as is writing, in general. A writer can choose to deliver their thoughts to the reader as they see fit. Many are quick to point out what they perceive to be faults in the writing, while failing to understand the intentions of the writer—missing the forest for the trees, so to speak. I'm not saying that we should never criticize, but that we can do more to appreciate the fact that writing is the one medium that consists of a direct link, writer to reader, and sometimes the disparity between the two parties (personality, temperament) makes it so that the link can't even be formed, i.e. "this writer just isn't for me." Sometimes it's better to be less judgmental.

Looking at someone's prose is also necessary because prose also plays a role in determining whether something is genre fiction or literary fiction, AKA low art vs high art. Looking at the thoughtfulness or lack thereof when the writer constructs sentences is one of the most obvious giveaways whenever trying to determine that.

Are you seriously making this argument in earnest? All genre fiction is "low art"? Hell, the man who wrote the essay on the book you haven't read is a career genre fiction writer

I'm just regurgitating what I hear people really invested in literature say. Like literary professors and scholars. I didn't make up this dichotomy.

Yeah but the thing is, no one takes that dichotomy seriously anymore or even acknowledges it. Professors and scholars teach speculative fiction courses in universities all over the world. Condemning those forms of fiction as being inherently "low art" is as ok boomer as you can get. It's embarrassing. Do you even know who Michael Moorcock is, the man whose essay on the book you haven't read you can't stop arguing about? I'll give you a hint -- he's not a university professor.

I don't know what Moorcock's stuff being genre fiction has to do with anything though, since I never even brought any of it up. It particularly doesn't really matter since anyone can point out schlockiness when they see it. I've seen creators be fairly modest and call their creative works lowbrow and have no problem with that.

Also, to say that no one takes the genre fiction vs literary fiction dichotomy seriously anymore is factually wrong. I've run into people online who think in such terms without needing to try to find them. Especially on Reddit, but also other places.

Started the Malazan Book of the Fallen series a few months ago and I am now a bit past the first half of the 3rd book, Memories of Ice. What a monumental series so far. I had troubles getting into the series at first, starting and stopping Gardens of the Moon 2 or 3 times but the damn thing finally clicked.

If you hate Tolkien’s prose, then you hate it. His style isn’t for you. But if you’re going to hate his books, then hate his dumb, simple ideas and worldview. The essay also goes into that. As for the idea that “genre” is worse than “literary,” this is as dumb as music critics, who think imagine dragons and Billie Eilish are listenable, but refuse to listen to heavy metal. Most of the “literary fiction,” that I was forced to read in high school, is worse than decent quality fantasy/science fiction writers. Charles Dickens was paid by the word, he was 19th century clickbait. He’s as bad as Disney. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is so unreadable, that it doesn’t even matter what philosophy it’s trying to argue. Mark Twain is good, but he wasn’t considered “fine art,” when he was alive. Harry Potter, for all of its many flaws, is way better, than most of the “high literature” shit we had to read, in high school English class.

There is a lot of highbrow snob literature, with ideas as dumb as Tolkien, they just phrase it in a more pretentious hipster way. If you want some context, Tolkien tends to be favored, as a lyrical theme, by power metal/keyboard black metal bands, and Moorcock, by heavy/stoner/doom metal bands, and Hawkwind.

I don't even know what to say to that, just a bunch of massive generalizations and bizarre comparisons.

He was a married father of 5, Oxford Don, veteran, multilingual, philologist, author, critic, poet and artist.

He lived as few men did.

Don't forget that he survived the Battle of the freaking Somme. Yeah, real pathetic.

I am in no way any kind of academic, but I just started the first book and am not having any issues getting into it.

All of this seems right up my alley.

Especially all the talk of magic which the Game of Thrones books were pretty light on.

I'm only about a hundred pages in and I'm enjoying it.

I'm in the last hundred pages of book two and really loving it. Book one was good, but I wasn't quite blown away nor understood why it was held to such high esteem. But book two really amps things up, especially the chain of dogs. I'm truly hooked now. Excited to get into book three.

I did have a bit of a hard time with Erikson's writing at first, as he really doesn't go for a lot of typical exposition to explain the world he's created. Instead he just throws you into it and you have to figure things out yourself. It was a bit jarring and confusing but now that I've gotten used to it I've come to like that challenging aspect of it. It feels more immersive somehow.

It's also made me re-visit that Caladan Brood album and I'm really liking it, even if the choirs have a lot of pitch correction going on.

I made it through the 2nd book which to be honest, I found to be a slog compared to the first book.

Holy shit is Erikson's writing ever cryptic. A one sentence explanation of a character(s) ascending??? A concept as massive as Ascending and a one sentence explanation out of the fucking blue mentioning it in passing?? wtf is this shit. But, at the same time it also might be why I like it so much. All the mystery surrounding so much of what is going on.

Plus all the original, creative concepts that are going on throughout make this series extremely enjoyable.

I'm about 150 pages into the third book.

fkin love Malazan, my favorite fantasy series of all time. It's honestly made other series kinda hard to read because they just can't compare.

Did you read all ten books?

I sure damn did, and I need to do a re-read. And read the ICE books. And Erikson's new books.....

I'm infinitely impressed you read all ten books and a series after.

I love these books so far. More than even GOT to be honest.

Yeah ASoIaF was probably my first real intro to epic fantasy with a gritty side. Malazan upped that by a lot, and has honestly made it difficult to enjoy other series. I remember trying to read Name of the Wind by Rothfuss and it just felt like pure fluff.

Erikson is a machine, dude was putting out like a book a year while A Feast for Crows came out 12 damn years ago

Having seen the series I am planning a full embracing on the ASoIaF series; like reading them through autumn to fully get the "winter is coming" vibe and listening to the ost. I have heared though that the books are kind of slow paced, is that true?

Just finished Tractatus Logico-Philosophus by Ludwig Wittgenstein. It took my brain and turned it into jam. So dense, heavy and... logical!

Also read the epic poem Beowulf. Amazing work.

At some point I’m gonna sit down and read HP Lovecraft. Like, all of it. Lovecraft has always been my favorite horror writer, I like his work even more than Poe’s. But it’s been quite a while since I’ve read any of it.

I've read a few books lately:

Quarter to Midnight by Karen Rose


Good book about a son who recruits a PI to investigate his father's death. Much more involved than that, and it turned out to be a good read. It's a long book so you can be engrossed in it for a long time.

The Never Game by Jeffery Deaver


This one was an easy read but hard to put down. A "reward seeker" searches for a missing girl, which leads him to the depths of the video gaming industry. I like gaming so this book seemed like it was written for my specific target audience. Thankfully, the book didn't disappoint. It was interesting to see where the book led, and it looks like there's more that'll involve the main character in future books. Would like to read other books by this author, too, as his style of writing clicked with me.

It's Okay to be Angry About Capitalism by Bernie Sanders


A topic that hits home for me, and I like Bernie Sanders, so this was a no-brainer. The book is quite America-centric, and I didn't fully understand everything he was talking about for that reason, but I did understand his frustrations. It's mind-boggling the way America (and, by extension, other capitalist societies like Australia) is run. The book was right: it made me angry.

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig


My favourite of the books in this post. A girl kills herself and is taken to a purgatorial placed called the Midnight Library to try out other lives she could have lived if she made different choices. Highly interesting theme that has a good message. I will likely track down some more novels by Matt Haig.

The Anomaly by Herve le Tellier



A plane goes through a superstorm and is unknowingly duplicated. First plane lands in March and the second plane lands in June. The book is about a dilemma about who gets to live these lives if there's only one life to live.

I generally have 3-5 books going at a time.

As far as literature goes, I'm currently reading Pale Fire by Nabokov. Things's so dense and hard to read at times, it can be like mountain climbing. I'm like, fuck this book. Then I'm all, okay, I'll give it ten more pages. Then something will be funny and I'll hit a cruisin' spot, and I'll keep going. Although very challenging, I think I do like this book, I do.

Now.

On the topic of difficult books, last year I quit Beckett's The Unnamable. I loved Molloy and thought Malone Dies could be better but still got through it. But just felt like I was wasting my time with The Unnamable. So that's my metal review of the Beckett trilogy.

I'm gonna try to get back into Thus Spoke Zarathustra this week. I'm already halfway through it but had to stop a few months ago because it is a lot to process for a guy who didn't go to college for very long. The last book I read from front to back was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's What is Property?. It was a very interesting, yet very difficult read but I enjoyed it although it almost made my nose bleeds at times.

As far as literature goes, I haven't read much classics like A Catcher in the Rye, A Brave New World or even 1984, so I'm looking forward to do this soon. In high school, I used to read a lot but it was mostly stuff like Stephen King, HP Lovecraft or Patrick Sénécal (Our very own Québecois master of horror.)

I once read Animal Farm but it was in elementary school so it must've been a simplified version but even then I thought it rules.

That's it for me.

You leap-frogged Salinger and Huxley for Nietzsche?

That's bold. But had you stayed in college, they might have recommended against that.

Fuck you scumbag. This is a thread for sharing your reading experience regardless of education, which is what I did. Why am I not surprised that this went over your head?

Read my post again. I don't think you understood it. Anyway, if it helps, I haven't read Animal Farm. Most of the college graduates I know barely read anyway.

Funny thing. You'll like this, kazhard. The betterthanfood channel on youtube. Some guy said he doesn't read much and wanted to know where to start, and the betterthanfood guy said Borges. Can you imagine?

I thought you'd get a chuckle out of that.

I really enjoyed this book, as most people did, so I definitely recommend it. I never read it until my early 30's either, so don't worry.

Hey, that's good to know and thanks for not being a patronizing dick! I've seen the movie twice but I would imagine that the book is ten times better as it is usually the case.

People get really smug about literature for some reason. I recall Lex Fridman posted his reading list on Twitter earlier this year and everyone mocked him because it was so basic. It's a great list of the classics (in the English language anyhow).

I'm currently re-reading The Three-Body Problem. It may be my favourite scifi book of all time.

I read it in 4th grade. Lol. I like 1984 but I prefer Brave New World - drug orgies, etc. I finally got around to reading Fahrenheit 451 last year - it was assigned reading in high school, so I skipped it. In it, Bradbury predicts twitter and tiktok, so it's better I waited anyway.

If it helps, I recall more classic, mainstream novels being assigned in high school than college. But maybe you should consider going to back to school since this appears to be a major trigger for you.

Not being a college graduate doesn't make you an idiot. But putting your head up your butt does. Somebody very important once said that.

Also, it's a misnomer that books are always better than the movie. Look at The Shining. Little Children. Leaving Las Vegas. Wonder Boys. I could go on... I hope this doesn't come across as patronizing, but I can see you didn't go to college...

GreatWhiteSnake, my advice to you is to take your own life. You’re nothing but an insufferable, stupid, miserable scumbag who derive pleasure from belittling others. I am not going to engage with you further as it would be counterproductive, but if you respond, I will still read you if only to laugh at the utter depth of your stupidity. Please, consider those reasons I gave you and just fucking kill yourself already. And you probably didn’t to college either, as being an arrogant fuck without anything to be arrogant about isn’t typical of college graduates. Can’t wait till Bastardhead swing the banhammer on you.

P.S.

Did I mentioned to go fuck yourself? Doesn’t hurt to make sure.

P.P.S.

Fuck you.

And then everyone clapped.

My recommendation? Take a break from the Chives. Get out of the house. Hit the gym. Meet some girls. You'll forget all the things you're seeing on the internet that I didn't actually write.

Also, there's no way you read half of Zarathustra. You wouldn't make it through 10 pages of that book.

I'm not wrong, and you know it.