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Harper Lee has died

nytimes.com

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Re: Harper Lee has died

#131

Post by SirensOfTitan »

dvt wrote: post #119
cm2012 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are in fact being a huge literature snob saying that it's insulting to even compare the two. To Kill a Mockingbird was culture changing because it touched on such an important issue to American culture (race relations, etc.), while also being a well written book grounded in the human spirit. It is not objectively better written than ASOIAF, which has surprising depth and a keen understanding of the human spirit i…

I think it's fairly obvious that TKAMB is objectively better than ASOIAF. What next? You'll tell me that Dante Alighieri's 'Divine Comedy' isn't objectively better than Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code'? Or that 'The Grapes of Wrath' isn't objectively better than 'Fifty Shades of Grey'? I don't buy your bullshit relativism.

"every rapper is somebody's favorite" Kanye West

Your arrogance of somehow equating your subjectivity with objectivity is concerning.

How do you define something being objectively better? Popular opinion? Does collective subjective opinion make something objective? Very obviously not.

Many people living probably enjoyed the Da Vinci Code more than Divine Comedy. The former likely is more relatable for a lot of people. That's the funny thing about creative subjective work -- it doesn't have a singular dimension by which to judge. Since judgment of a work is multi-dimensional, one has to determine the criteria by which to judge its total quality on some objective basis. Even if the criteria itself were 100% objective in some way, the method by which the results are compiled together is certainly not.

Re: Harper Lee has died

#132

Post by jpreiland »

rayiner wrote: post #89
douche wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to agree. I wonder if part of the general illiteracy is a reaction to the dreck that we are forced to read in school. At least in high school English classes you get to read some legitimate literature. In middle school, I remember being subjected to an unending string of aggressively mediocre young-adult historical fiction and science fiction that featured teen-aged girls as protagonists by my all-female Engli…

Tolkien is dreck. There I said it. It took my over a year to read Fellowship of the Ring because of how indescribably boring it is.

I feel like I'm in the minority when I say that I actually enjoy the long passages of scenery descriptions. I really like soaking in the atmosphere.

Re: Harper Lee has died

#133

Post by pen2l »

rayiner wrote: post #89
douche wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to agree. I wonder if part of the general illiteracy is a reaction to the dreck that we are forced to read in school. At least in high school English classes you get to read some legitimate literature. In middle school, I remember being subjected to an unending string of aggressively mediocre young-adult historical fiction and science fiction that featured teen-aged girls as protagonists by my all-female Engli…

Tolkien is dreck. There I said it. It took my over a year to read Fellowship of the Ring because of how indescribably boring it is.

Can you suggest some readings, stuff you found especially enjoyable?

(I ask because you're my favorite writer on HN, and am curious as to what things influenced you)

Re: Harper Lee has died

#134

Post by nicky0 »

huntleydavis wrote: post #82
brudgers wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If people find the submission intellectually gratifying then it conforms to the spirit of Hacker News submission guidelines. Given the impact of Harper Lee's writing on US culture, it is not surprising if many people do.

I suppose the free form nature of HackerNews and the wide sprawling community make a lot of topics fair game. I recant my sentiment.

Hacker News. Not HackerNews.

Re: Harper Lee has died

#135

Post by krylon »

chc wrote: post #61
haberman wrote: post #13

I loved "To Kill a Mockingbird" so much when I read it as a kid. The moral of the story seemed really obvious. In the last few years I came across this article which blew my mind and changed my perspective about the book's meaning a lot: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/10/the-courthouse-...

For yet another perspective, consider how you and people you know react to animal rights activists who take an Atticus-like approach to their activism compared to those who take a more militant and hard-line approach. It seems to me that most people find the first group more persuasive and harder to write off.

In one episode of Veronica Mars, Veronica "infiltrates" an animal rights group where this guy gives a speech, ending witht the words, "people wearing fur coats are the target, not the enemy." [Wikipedia says it's episode 3x10, "Follow the monkey"]

It just makes sense. If you want to convince people, you don't want to antagonize them.

There are limits, of course. Some people are just so completely racist, homophobe, antisemitic, whatever, one can't reach them, certainly not charm them into becoming more decent.

But for most other people, the friendly approach is far more promising than the confrontational one. This goes for smaller issues, as well, and is well worth keeping in mind in day-to-day interactions with others.

Re: Harper Lee has died

#136

Post by haberman »

frogpelt wrote: post #90
haberman wrote: post #13

I loved "To Kill a Mockingbird" so much when I read it as a kid. The moral of the story seemed really obvious. In the last few years I came across this article which blew my mind and changed my perspective about the book's meaning a lot: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/08/10/the-courthouse-...

Gladwell is attempting to make the point that systemic racism took more than hearts and minds to be changed. I wholeheartedly disagree. In fact, the only way you can change systemic problems is to convince the minds and hearts of people to change. You cannot simply make new laws and expect everything to go smoothly if few people have changed their minds or hearts. How will you enforce the new laws? And furthermore, h…

I'm trying to be charitable in my reading of your comment, but your argument seems to imply that the Supreme Court should have delayed the Brown vs. Board of Education decision until white southerners had already been convinced to desegregate. Or that the Civil War should rather have been a Civil Conversation, or a Civil Plea.

Also I don't think it's meant as a criticism of the novel at all. It just means the novel is deeper than a simple morality play.

Re: Harper Lee has died

#137

Post by krylon »

ktRolster wrote: post #112
RangerScience wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously?

Then there was this one: http://static1.1.sqspcdn.com/static/f/357927/12493914/130695...

That ... is easily the most unsual political ad I have seen in my life. To put it mildly. ;-)

I am tempted to think it was satire? I mean, this would not have been very appealing to Nixon's target audience, would it?

Re: Harper Lee has died

#138

Post by thaumasiotes »

baddox wrote: post #48
petepete wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not snobby in the slightest. A friend put it best: "George RR Martin is a great storyteller, but he's no great writer"

I find it odd that people would think a great story that's written down isn't by definition a great piece of writing.

The concepts are completely different. Here are several examples:

- Imagine yourself writing down the story of The Shawshank Redemption (hey, this approach worked for Terry Brooks!). How much do you think people would like it? More or less than the version Stephen King wrote?

- Imagine yourself writing the same story -- in Mongolian. It's the same story, written down.

- Tolkien's The Silmarillion has several excellent stories in it, which people will be happy to hear you tell them about after you go through the laborious effort of reading it. It's not a coincidence that the material of The Silmarillion wasn't written for publication.

- http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003X9775Q is an example of a fantasy novel with a fairly vanilla plot and some of the worst writing I've ever experienced.

- Pushing Daisies http://www.amazon.com/Pushing-Daisies-Season-Lee-Pace/dp/B00... is a comedic soap opera with superb writing and no particular plot.

- Imagine two people giving a lecture on the same topic. One of them is entertaining, one isn't. The first one had better writing for the same content.

- Imagine yourself playing Beethoven's fifth symphony as a one-man band. The music is widely acknowledged to be a great work. It turns out that the delivery matters. In the analogy, the music is the story, and the manner in which you actually produce it is the writing.

Re: Harper Lee has died

#139

Post by [deleted] »

dvt wrote: post #119
cm2012 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are in fact being a huge literature snob saying that it's insulting to even compare the two. To Kill a Mockingbird was culture changing because it touched on such an important issue to American culture (race relations, etc.), while also being a well written book grounded in the human spirit. It is not objectively better written than ASOIAF, which has surprising depth and a keen understanding of the human spirit i…

I think it's fairly obvious that TKAMB is objectively better than ASOIAF. What next? You'll tell me that Dante Alighieri's 'Divine Comedy' isn't objectively better than Dan Brown's 'The Da Vinci Code'? Or that 'The Grapes of Wrath' isn't objectively better than 'Fifty Shades of Grey'? I don't buy your bullshit relativism.

[deleted]

Re: Harper Lee has died

#140

Post by rukuu_001 »

peter303 wrote: post #94
gavman wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Harper Lee was a "one hit wonder", but the "one hit" was more than enough in terms of contribution to American literature. Very sad news indeed.

1 + 1/2 hit Also her recently published prequel. And she did a fair amount of the research for In Cold Blood.

In Cold Blood could hardly have happened without her. She ended up being Capote's entre into Holcomb's community.
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