raefinlay

yes, we must have kitten food... :P

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Yeah, that's something that has always boggled. If these lit mags truly represent what people want, why can't they pay???

*also needs kitten food*

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jmeadows.livejournal.com

And ferret food.

;)

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I don't get why we have to shun and mock anyone.

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stillnotbored.livejournal.com

I shun them because I don't want to be associated with them. I don't want to give my work away. It is a matter of self worth and thinking that what I do has value.

I don't mock the people who do sub there, but I have zero use for some of the people who run some of the 4 the luv sites. They paint an illusion of quality and prestige that doen't exist. I don't like the way many of these sites present themselves and the way they sell themselves as being equal to paying markets. In reality they aren't, they never will be and I think they prey on people who are desperate to see their work in print or pixels no matter what. I don't think they do writers a service at all. People who might someday sell pro get sucked into and trapped into sending work there again and again so they don't have to deal with rejection.

And I know this is a totally and wholly personal thing, but it is honestly how I feel. I don't expect anyone else to agree.

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so eloquently said. :) *loffs*

In defense of them (a small defense) I remember in college and grad school I used to get lost in literary short stories by Lorrie Moore and Raymond Carver and T.C. Boyle and Joy Williams and Rick Bass. *le sighs* I was looking for something when I read... I was young and wanted to understand life and writing. I dunno. I *loved* them. They seemed to have at least a modicum of story goodness in them, though I do remember thinking they were sometimes more poetry than story. Maybe if looked at that way, like they aren't even trying to be "story," they make more sense (though possibly still not appealing to those of us looking to learn how to write novels).

BUT, I never could get into the stories in the particular mag you mentioned, and I read quite a lot of literary stories that I thought were just horrible and went nowhere.

All this to say, erm... I dunno. *shrugs*

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oh, and Donald Barthelme. *le sighs*

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Yep. Sometimes, the language itself just carries me away. This is fine.

It's just that I have a marked preference for literature with a redeeming quality or two. Weird, I know...

*also shrugs*

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lol. If nothing else, dude, we have limited time. Whatever we read had better be frickin good... :D

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ExACTly. Dude. When I look at an abstract painting, I can process the whole thing at once. If it evokes nothing more than an emotion, that's fine. Because, yanno, a picture says a thousand words, blah, blah. Very time efficient.

But literature. Such an investment for nothing but a twinge of angst is soooo not worth it.

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wine-love-pen.livejournal.com

I've read lots and lotsa of non-genre shorts ... I used to, um, compete in performing them. *cough* I could send you some good ones to wash away the bad taste. :)

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Could you perform them for me?

O.O

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navicat.livejournal.com

OMG *loves* Rae!

You have the greatest way of saying what I'm thinking, but saying it better than I ever could :)

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*loffs Jo (and Navi)*

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jmeadows.livejournal.com

I do so loff you.

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cristalia.livejournal.com

Nekkid.

*giggles*

I think the percentage of crap is just the same in literary stuff, but because it's loaded with so much baggage in our society, people aren't willing to say when 90% is crap.

(nekkid.)

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He's not naked. You just don't get it. There's nothing wrong with not getting a work of art, be it literary, musical, visual or performance. It doesn't mean you are less intelligent. My parents are extremely intelligent, but they didn't get the film "Lost in Translation" because they couldn't relate to the subject matter. My husband and I - who lived and traveled in Asia for a year - laughed our butts off, and in the end the film brought me to tears.

It is you who are being snobby by assuming there is nothing to get, thereby accusing the authors of deception and the audience of being duped.

Perhaps, as a fine artist, I'm touchy about this sort of "Emperor's Cloths" criticism, that I must suffer constantly from in my field.

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There is absolutely no doubt that I don't get it. *grin*

I'm a religious humanist, not a relativist. Therefore, I do not believe that every work on the planet has the potential to be someone's Rembrandt. Some of it is and will always be pure junk. (Yours is not, I think, but of course that's just my opinion...)

I have a very high and wide tolerance for formlessness in the visual arts. Not so much in literature, partly because of the time investment.

I *do* understand your point. Perhaps it's just a matter of preference. I'd be surprised, though, if most readers of the particular story I read actually got it.

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You seem to have interpreted me as saying that all art has equal merit. That is not at all what I meant. What I meant was that sometimes people who don't "get" a work of art assume there is nothing of value to get.

Another example - when I saw the film "Shakespeare in Love" I absolutely hated it and thought it was pretentious crap. But all my friends and family loved it. They explained what they "got" about it, and while I eventually understood what they were saying, I still didn't "feel" it. I will probably never enjoy that movie for all it is truly worth, but I must acknowledge now that it is a high quality film by the standards of its intended genre.

You say you'd be surprised if "most" readers got the story you read in the New Yorker. So art is of greater value if it appeals to more people? And what are you saying about the editor that accepted the story for publication? That they aren't knowledgeable enough about literary fiction to pick a story that actually has some real artistic merit?

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I have no doubt that the editor is extremely knowledgable. More so than I, that's for sure.

I also believe that influences other than quality determine editorial selection. The need to reach a certain quota of international authors, for example. Or translation pieces. (Certain philosophies, authors, etc.)

Sometimes people who don't "get" a work of art assume there is nothing of value to get. Agreed. A work's value cannot be wholly determined by who gets it and who doesn't.

So art is of greater value if it appeals to more people? I'm of two minds about this. If a painting is crap to everyone but ONE PERSON, then yes, the painting has value. But only to that person. Doesn't mean it should be on the wall of the Guggenheim. Conversely, I think of stuff like modern Christianity's Left Behind series, which represents some of the poorest literature known to man. But millions of people find value in that crap. Of course, thinking it's crap assumes certain conventions of literature than I am universally applying.

Thus my vacillation. *shrug*

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aaron-mag.livejournal.com

I like what you are saying and I agree with it. We should never be so convinced of the 'rightness of the published word' that we don't say, "Can anyone else not see that this is crap?"

Sort of like in that Ben Stiller movie where the guy yells, "Who cares about Derek Zoolander. The guy only has one look. Blue Steel, Magnum...they're all the same. I feel like a crazy man here!"

:D

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Exactly!!! A perfect example of how trending like a school of mindless fish can overwhelm our sensibilities.

Gawd, I loved that movie.

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We should never be so convinced of the 'rightness of the published word' that we don't say, "Can anyone else not see that this is crap?"

I would submit that we should perhaps never be so convinced of our opinion on the published word that we ask, "Can anyone else not see that this is crap?" without first asking simply, "What do you guys think of this?"

Same discussion. Much friendlier.

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At last a voice of reason. *sigh* You're right, of course.

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wistling.livejournal.com

I must disagree about "Lost In Translation". As an Asian, I found nothing funny about that movie. I relate to the subject matter, but the movie put me to sleep. It felt very superficial in its integration of the culture into the film.

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What I said about "Lost In Translation" was that I and my husband "got" it for what it was trying to do artistically. By disagreeing with me, are you saying that I didn't get it?

The superficiality of the Japanese culture was necessary to making the point about the main character's feelings of isolation. To a typical Tourist, any foreign countries culture seems superficial. The film wasn't trying to say that Japanese culture is purely superficial. It was saying that these Americans who were only staying in a fancy hotel for a week and who didn't speak the language and didn't know anything about Japan felt alienated because they were only exposed to the superficial aspects of the Japanese culture. The reason my husband and I related to this movie so well was because when we were in South Korea, we didn't speak the language or have any in-depth knowledge of Korean culture. As a result, our primary exposure was boy-bands, karaoke bars, malls, and other fluff. We knew there was a deeper side to Korean culture, but we couldn't access it because of who we were and why we were there in the first place.

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wistling.livejournal.com

My point is that I get what the film was trying to say, but in the end it still failed for me. So, 'getting something' is not the same as 'having merit'. In a pure critique of the film, I would say it was trying to tap into the humour of a foreign culture, and letting it carry the film. Ultimately for me, it felt like a series of 'hey, isn't Japanese culture funny to Americans?' vignettes that didn't work.

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aaron-mag.livejournal.com

Interesting debate. I'm half asian and I thought the movie was hilarious.

I wouldn't say it was trying to tap into the humor of foreign culture. It was showing the isolation you can feel when traveling alone. It was also showing how quickly bonds can form and how quickly we can claim ownership over each other. Bill Murray's character, for example, was married. And he ended up sleeping with some singer. Yet the feeling of betrayal was not to his wife, but to this girl half his age who he'd just met a couple days ago. In that short amount of time they had become romantically linked in this weird and twisted non sexual way.

Same with when his wife is faxing him stuff from home and sending him carpet samples. That has nothing to do with asian culture and everything to do with the feeling of isolation from your home. You are in another world. Since I travel alot for work I can partially relate. There have been plenty of times on the phone when I wanted to yell, "Honey! I don't give a damn! Paint it purple for all I care. I'm trying to earn a living out here!!!"

But when you get home you're back in the groove. You're back into the homelife. Then you really do care about the color of your study.

So for me it was a commentary about distance and how our physical surroundings become 'our reality of the moment'...

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barbarienne.livejournal.com

It brings us back to the "the readers (or viewers) 50%."

LIT was hilarious to me, because point-by-point it was almost exactly the experience I had when visiting Tokyo a few years earlier (with the exception of me not being a big star on a photo shoot or sleeping with, well, anyone).

I saw it accompanied by my best friend, who is Japanese-American, and who had lived in Tokyo for 5 years; also accompanying us was her husband, a Japanese native, though not from Tokyo. Both of them laughed harder than I did.

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Maybe I'm also being touchy about this because my dear parents read the New Yorker, and they are hardly snobs. My dad's a friggin' journalist and my mom's a HS English teacher, and they both live in the heart of the mid-west. (Northern Ohio)

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barbarienne.livejournal.com

I think the desire to shout "The Emperor's NEKKID!" has less to do with the actual literary merits of a piece than with the writer's or publisher's claims of the literary merits of a piece.

I'm willing to say, "I don't get that, but that doesn't make it bad/fake/whatever."

I'm not willing to say, "I don't get that, but it must be good because [foo] says it is."

I am willing to say, "I don't find this has merit, because it seems to be doing X, and I'm unimpressed by X."

But we're all impressed by different things, and different things have different standards. I like going to a baseball game and to the opera about equally. But I don't expect Derek Jeter to sing me an aria, or Beth Clayton to turn a double play.

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Last week's New Yorker, or the week before? (I loff loff loffed "CommComm," but I quit on last week's a few paragraphs in. Liked the Franzen essay-thing, though. The bit with the mallard ducks.)

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(I may have more to say about this, but I have to go pack up some smice. Perhaps later on!)

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I don't have it with me...don't know the date. But it was a translation piece. Angsty guy goes to city in Mexico to teach at writing workshop. Meets workshop coordinator. They go on long drive and connect in some opaque way in spite of misfiring conversation. Sees pretty view. Leaves town.

I'm sure he's a changed man or something. *shrug*

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Yeah, that was last week's. I didn't bother with it. Didn't grab me. ::shrug::

Um. I'm going to apologize right off the bat if my frustration from a bunch of different posts is bleeding into this one; I've been feeling a bit pigpiled upon. So: I'm sorry if I'm at all snappish here.

I've done a lot of trying to play go-between when it comes to this literary versus genre thing. I'm kind of tired and luckily Janeorben's said most of what I'd say here as far as that goes. And I guess what I really want to say is this:

As someone who feels like she has a foot in each camp and who tries really really hard to write as well as she can--it kind of stings to be called elitist and shallow and without redeeming quality.

I mean, I can take a joke. I can roll with the punches. I can mostly shrug it off and know, "Oh, they don't mean me, and if they do, it's not personal." And if it's true, it's true.

But it still kind of stings.

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...it kind of stings to be called elitist and shallow and without redeeming quality.

Just so's you can be sure: There is not a place anywhere in my heart or mind that called you that. I've loved everything I've read of yours, particularly because of its literary leanings.

I was reacting to a very specific piece, which caused me to remember some other specific pieces that have frustrated me in the past. I'm on a journey here, to discover what makes a published author, to find that golden standard against which my pathetic stories are measured. When I read something that, as far as I am capable of understanding, is standardless, it makes me want to fold up and cry because it means I'm that much farther away from figuring this whole thing out. And it makes me want to give up writing altogether because I don't want to practice this for years only to have all the life and joy and wonder sucked out of my prose.

I use my lj as a tool on this journey. I posted an honest (and valid) reaction.

janeorben and others have given me much food for thought, and I'm grateful to all my friends who posted reactions.

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Nodnod. I know. I know it wasn't personal and I didn't really think for a second that you meant it that way. It's just--sometimes things sting or get pointed in directions they're not meant to be pointed in.

And I don't mean to say that you shouldn't do whatever you want in your journal (or that I even get to say things like that!). It's your journal, and your feelings, and absolutely yours to do with whatever you like.

It just caught me at a bad time, I guess, is all.

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Meh. No worries. I was very glad you posted. The occasional voice of reason is A Good Thing.

I'll be very interested, yanno, to get updates on how things go for you at Emerson. I'm considering an MFA too, because I want very much to be exposed to the modern literary form. But having one foot in each camp, as you put it, can be a delicate thing...

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The trouble with trying to be the voice of reason is, then you have to be reasonable. *g*

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stillnotbored.livejournal.com

I would never ever put one of your stories in the same catagory as the literary stuff I'm thinking of. Your stories have characters I can care about. They have depth and theme and lovely language and they frequently leave me in tears. You have never bored me even once.

And I dare to say that none of the people on this thread who want to point and say the Emperor has no clothes are talking about the kind of stories you write.

I think there are levels to literary stories just as there are levels to genre stories. The stories I've tried, and mostly failed, to read in the New Yorker, The Atlantic and various literary magazines and journals, have none of the things your work has. They have no point I can find. I have no reason to care about the characters. If there is a theme, it is so deeply buried I can't find it.

So don't feel piled upon, at least not by me. There is a world of difference in my mind between what you write and the work I'm thinking of.

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cristalia.livejournal.com

This is actually really interesting to me -- just how you consider yourself to be situated as a writer and where the source of this frustration is. From what we've tossed back and forth over the past few years, I think you and I get very similar in terms of style and mood sometimes, and yet I've never really felt that...sort of split allegiance. Then again, I tend not to feel any genre allegiance: when people ask me what I write, I say "short fiction and poetry, branching into novels".

Can I bother you to exposit, just on the half-and-half thing?

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Oh. I don't feel split at all, really. That's kind of the point. *g* I've said before and I still think it's true--I see genre labels as descriptions, not restrictions.

That is, I don't think there has to be any split or any us-versus-them. Because sometimes 'us' _is_ 'them.' A foot in each camp doesn't have to--shouldn't have to--mean being pulled in two ways.

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kmkibble75.livejournal.com

*points*
*laughs*

Not long.

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