what is literature littered with today?

[cacian]

this is to get an overview of how you feel literature was doing today. terms of content.

thanks for participating in this thread :)

[WolfLarsen]

The literary world kind of reminds me of McDonald's. It's like a big assembly line of airport novels.

Then there is the intellectuals who sit in their armchairs and babble about the great literature of the past like a bunch of baboons screeching while scratching their balls.

What the literary world needs is to be smashed into pieces by a wrecking ball.

We need to save literature by destroying the literary world!

What the literary world needs is a good Sherman's March!

[Pike Bishop]

That's a lot of screeching from someone who claims to not like shrieking. You claim to dislike airport novels and discussing literature of the past, and you claim literature needs to be saved by a "good Sherman's March." So, i have a few questions:

1. How would literature be once it was saved, and how would it be better than the airport novels you deride like a snobby intellectual?

2. How would anyone be able to "save" literature without reflections on, and reference to, the literature of the past?

3. Of what exactly would this "Sherman's March" be composed?

[WolfLarsen]

I think what we need to do is get the entire human race smoking crack cocaine and writing a novel together.

Or, everyone should write their own whatever by their selves, but they should try to write some kind of whatever that has never been written before.

Or maybe we could spray paint our literary works all over the walls of the cities everywhere. Spray paint our literature all over the trains too.

We will build a mountain of wonderful hysteria upon the ashes of the past.

What's so great about the literature of the past? Perhaps we could learn more about literature from the past writings of space aliens.

Personally, I find painting to be far more inspiring for my writing than literature. The literary world is a straitjacket.

[Pike Bishop]

You didn't answer any of my questions. We'll just agree you can't. And all literature becomes the literature of the past once it's published. So, you clearly just don't like literature at all, which is odd for someone on a literary site.

[Bluelemon]

The literary world kind of reminds me of McDonald's. It's like a big assembly line of airport novels.

This man told the truth.

[Pike Bishop]

Did he? He derided intellectuals: so how can he deride "airport novels" without taking an intellectual stance like yours?

Also, if there are only "airport novels," how come so many other types of novels, including literary ones, are being produced?

It doesn't look like he told the truth,

[WolfLarsen]

Aren't the literary novels supposed to help us to sleep at night?

What I find fascinating is how a crab fisherman managed to write one of the greatest novels I've ever read: Working on the Edge by Spike Walker.

He wrote a far better novel than most intellectuals. I have read a few novels. A few. I have a BA or Big *** in English literature. And they even threw in a cum laude. I think that’s for coming a lot. I was a young man at the time.

[Pike Bishop]

Who says literary novels are supposed to make us sleep at night...you?

Also, what exactly makes that novel great? You take an intellectual stance when you claim it is. And if intellectuals are useless, then so, too are your B.A. In English and your cum laude.

And I never said one had to be an intellectual to write a great novel, although many have, so stop misrepresenting me.


P.s. You never said what an airport novel was. Your referring to such novels as such was the same intellectual snobbery you had previously derided.

[Bluelemon]

It is right that it is not very constructive to claim opinion without any probe's shadow. I personnaly think that Wolflarsen spoke something sounded like a truth.
What i mean when man says "literature today is only "airport novels". I don't know the situation in America. I can only mention french situation.

Definition of "airport novels" (what is it behind this expression) : story writted with formated skills, using generic style. The aim is to product a book 1) in a short time delay 2)easy to read 3)Seductive - polemical - subject.

The targets are boring people, who dont know how to spend their 10 euros losed at the bottom of their poket.

It is ok to write "airport novels". The matter is that promotion return only for this kind of "literature". Reasons are simple : "classic" ( >50 years old) literature don't really need promotion to be read ; Death authors don't need to sell their books to survive. Thus, it is more cost-effective to product "opportunist" litterature like "airport novels" adresses to large public than others literatures which makes references and education on their readers.

What i have against "airport novels" is this is over-represented style in modern literature and this is very damagable because that's not the only purpose of this Art, especially "roman".
In France, books are very important, and "airport novels" are progressively invaded all literatures, and we can see specialists and critics praise "airport novels" because editors are owner of the newspapers too. Do you think that is real literature?

[YesNo]

I don't know what an airport novel is. Since I don't fly often I probably haven't read any. However, I would love to write a few short ones.

[WolfLarsen]

Warning: the following piece of writing (which was written on used toilet paper) is bound to be offensive to somebody, especially if they do not believe in sex. If you do not believe in sex then please stop reading. Thank you for your understanding.

An Airport Novel Being ****ed by Wolf Larsen
a lost-brains-episode by Wolf Larsen

I fly like a novel that’s being eaten by all the brains of a playwright who’s being ****ed by a prostitute.

A line of cocaine and a phrase of poetry run across the highway together.

Nobody could **** without their penises, and all the penises had been requisitioned by the government. It had something to do with terrorist penises. Buy a Swiss watch!

But, I couldn’t find the next word because it was hiding in her panties, so I invented thousands of new words! And I came all of the thousands of new words inside of a literary clinic — I mean critic — or did I mean cricket?

You like to play cricket with rocketships and dominatrixes? I don’t! I prefer to stand before Congress completely naked, and testify about all the terrorist fireflies eating through the giant testicles of the Milky Way Galaxy!

What are we ever going to do about that?


Copyright 2015 by Wolf Larsen

[Calidore]

I don't know what an airport novel is. Since I don't fly often I probably haven't read any. However, I would love to write a few short ones.

An airport novel is basically a term for a generic bestseller that people would buy in an airport to read on the plane. Synonymous with "beach novel".

[WolfLarsen]

Oh whoops! I meant to put that somewhere else!

Oh well, maybe nobody will notice. There's always hope.

Have a nice day or evening everybody!

[YesNo]

Well, if an airplane novel is what one reads on an airplane and a beach novel is what one reads on the beach, that could be anything. Even Finnegans Wake. I guess it has to be a bestseller, though.

I noticed the "lost-brains-episode".

[cacian]

Well, if an airplane novel is what one reads on an airplane and a beach novel is what one reads on the beach, that could be anything. Even Finnegans Wake. I guess it has to be a bestseller, though.

I noticed the "lost-brains-episode".

funny you mention aeroplane
i once left a really good book in the aircraft
i had not finish it
so wnt and bought a second copy it was that good ;)
i guess it simply flew somehwere else
and what was funny it was titled speed
may be it liked being in the air haha

[YesNo]

I hate leaving things on an airplane, not that I've ever done that, but I check and double check just like when I leave a hotel room.

Usually what I read on a plane is on my computer or tablet so I can always get that back, but I would hate to leave the tablet on the plane.

Sometimes I'll watch a movie. I guess those would be airplane movies. So here is my stab at some definitions:

Airplane novel: a novel you read on the airplane
Beach novel: a novel you read on the beach
Literary novel: (thanks to Wolf Larsen's observation) a novel you read when you want to go to sleep

[Pompey Bum]

Airplane novel: a book with a great take off, a boring middle, and (hopefully) a smooth ending.

Beach novel: a book read on a doomed flight.

Literary novel: puts you to sleep, but oh the dreams!

[YesNo]

Ah, those are better definitions, Pompey Bum, and the last one hints at a possibly deeper meaning behind WolfLarsen's definition.

[Bartlebooth]

Airplane novel: a novel you read on the airplane
Beach novel: a novel you read on the beach
Literary novel: (thanks to Wolf Larsen's observation) a novel you read when you want to go to sleep

I'm not sure if this is completely accurate, but I've always thought that the terms airplane and beach novel were somewhat derogatory. While you could technically read something like Finnegan's Wake in those situations, I think the term has the connotation that the novel is just something picked up to pass the time. They are lengthy enough to last for a long trip and are generally fast-paced, but lack substance or literary value. Of course, this is just the way people have used the terms around me, so maybe my definition is a little narrow.

[YesNo]

Yes, the derogatory part of the word needs to be included. Would "bestseller" work? Is "literary value" determined by how far away the book is from being a bestseller?

[WolfLarsen]

Warning: if you are a Puritan and are against sex please stop reading. Thank you.

Wouldn't it be fun to smash the literary world into pieces?

Well, we just need an excuse!

In place of the literary world we could have a bunch of Baroque whorehouses all painted with Cubist nudes by the ghost of Picasso.

[AuntShecky]

I Heart the Literary World!
I would heart it even more if it let me in.

[YesNo]

I'd settle for hearting the money I could make if I wrote a bestseller, but that would mean I'd have to get off my butt and write something.

It's not that I want or need the money itself. I just have no other standard by which to judge if something is good enough except for the ka-ching of the cash register.

[WolfLarsen]

Put some whipped cream all over the literary world. Put a strawberry on top. And then eat it.

Or maybe don't eat it. Might be nasty.

Most of the literary world is like Denny's. Not nasty. Comfort food.

[YesNo]

I usually skip the Denny's type of places and go for the side street, far-from-the-interstate, greasy spoons as long as I see other customers in the cafe. The existence of clientele reassure me that I should survive the experience. The cooking in these places can be very creative.

To get back to the OP: what IS literature littered with today? I have time to read only a few books a year. And they haven't all been recently written.