Literary fiction in crisis as sales drop dramatically • Hacker News Board

Re: Literary fiction in crisis as sales drop dramatically

#41

Post by kybernetikos » Sat, Dec 16, 2017, 1:56 PM UTC

galeforcewinds wrote: post #10

kybernetikos wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a strong status separation between SF and literary fiction. If you get someone to read SF that has literary merit, they'll try to tell you afterwards that it wasn't SF.

The lack of vehicles for SF delivery have at times impeded literary acceptance and broader adoption -- take H.P. Lovecraft for instance, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._P._Lovecraft#Literary Format adaptations have catapulted some great SF into the pop culture stardom: The War of the Worlds was published in 1898, and though looked upon favorably, it is rarely mentioned today without also mentioning the 1938 radio br…

Many of the works that have received the most cultural success have been science fiction.

Of the five top grossing films, Avatar and Jurassic World are very clearly science fiction, Star Wars and The Avengers are arguably science fiction. It's only Titanic that couldn't be claimed to be science fiction.

The situation is probably similar for TV Series too.

The status problems of science fiction are arguably related to its extreme popularity.

Re: Literary fiction in crisis as sales drop dramatically

#42

Post by indescions_2017 » Sat, Dec 16, 2017, 2:04 PM UTC

"A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us." -Kafka

John Le Carre, Salman Rushdie, John Banville, Anthony Horowitz. All had superlative novels out this year.

Also just started Francis Spufford's Golden Hill. Absolutely sublime way to spend a snow bound winter night.

The crisis is obviously in readership. Not writing. And the chaotic divergence of attention.

It may be true that the text no longer acts as Bildungsroman. The primary method to impart moral and spiritual character to young influence-able minds.

But then the Mountain must come to Muhammad. And the great works rendered as digital classics.

http://joycestick.com/

Re: Literary fiction in crisis as sales drop dramatically

#43

Post by theoh » Sat, Dec 16, 2017, 2:16 PM UTC

scandox wrote: post #31

The negativity here about Literary fiction is interesting. A lot of people implying that readers don't enjoy it or that it's elitist or a status symbol etc... I think it's important to accept that there is a group of people - perhaps small - that love reading literary fiction. It's not reasonable to assume bad faith, just because you can't see the merit in something. There maybe people that use it as a means of ident…

That's all well and good in the abstract. In practice, literary culture has long been notorious for cliqueyness and big egos (even narcissism).

Affirming general propositions of the form "just because X, Y is not necessarily true" is logically fine. It is just a bit odd to be using glittering generalities to defend, of all things, literary fiction (which is concerned above all else with nuance and particularity).

Re: Literary fiction in crisis as sales drop dramatically

#44

Post by pebers » Sat, Dec 16, 2017, 5:44 PM UTC

akvadrako wrote: post #23

elorant wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not entirely true. The "The Three Body Problem" trilogy had a lot of literature tone and it's considered one of the best SF works ever. Obviously not for that reason alone but what I'm saying is that nobody seemed to bother by the prose as long as the science part was solid and the fiction original.

That's usually not considered in the top 1000 best sci-fi books ever and it was written in Chinese, so it doesn't really fit into the english literature categorisation.

It won the Hugo award in 2015, which makes a pretty strong case that in fact it is in the top 1000.

Re: Literary fiction in crisis as sales drop dramatically

#45

Post by akvadrako » Sun, Dec 17, 2017, 11:14 AM UTC

pebers wrote: post #44

akvadrako wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's usually not considered in the top 1000 best sci-fi books ever and it was written in Chinese, so it doesn't really fit into the english literature categorisation.

It won the Hugo award in 2015, which makes a pretty strong case that in fact it is in the top 1000.

How do you figure? I would guess winning a Hugo means the book has a 50% chance of being in the top 10 for that year, but you would expect the yearly contribution to "top 1000 ever" lists to vary wildly.

2015 is too soon to really judge it's staying power and it's hard to judge how much of the praise is because it's non-Western.

Re: Literary fiction in crisis as sales drop dramatically

#46

Post by pebers » Mon, Dec 18, 2017, 1:14 PM UTC

akvadrako wrote: post #45

pebers wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won the Hugo award in 2015, which makes a pretty strong case that in fact it is in the top 1000.

How do you figure? I would guess winning a Hugo means the book has a 50% chance of being in the top 10 for that year, but you would expect the yearly contribution to "top 1000 ever" lists to vary wildly. 2015 is too soon to really judge it's staying power and it's hard to judge how much of the praise is because it's non-Western.

I figure that "top 1000" is a lot of books, and there've only been 60 or so Hugo awards, so it seems not unlikely it's in there. I'd also rate winning the Hugo as likely to be better than half a chance of being in the top 10 for that year, I guess that depends how much your personal tastes align with theirs though.

Re: Literary fiction in crisis as sales drop dramatically

#47

Post by akvadrako » Wed, Dec 20, 2017, 8:10 PM UTC

hardlianotion wrote: post #30

akvadrako wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's quite true. My favorite SF author, Gene Wolfe, is sometimes found in the Literature section in bookstores. On the other hand, 99% of SF does not have much literary merit, even the well regarded stuff, so if you're interested in the cross-section, Literature might be the more reasonable department to file it under.

We can quarrel about the merit of most fiction, literary fiction included.

I said "literary merit", not merit in general. Sci-fi is very much not about the words used and how they're put together.

The authors that can combine the two are very rare - Wolfe, Douglas Adams, Ursula K. Le Guin, and often Russian authors, though that might be from the translation too.