Literary thoughts

[captain_elessar]

We read Flannery O'Connor for my lit genres class and I had read Revelations by her for the creative writing class I took last semester at Butt(e) with the sex/rape teacher.  I wasn't too fond of the story, even though it was tame by O'Connor's standards.  I've come to the conclusion that I really don't like her work.  She writes the grotesque.

Comments

[captain_elessar]

We read.. A Good Man Is Hard To Find, Good Country People and I read Revelation for the creative writing teacher. Revelation was ok and tamer, but it was weird. Good Country People was weird too, I mildly liked that one but it's not something I'd recommend to anyone. But the Good Man one, about a serial killer that kills the whole family and stuff, it's certainly not the violence that gets to me, it's not gore, it's not anything like that. I don't know, I just really don't like her. And I've written about some of these concepts, like.. serial killers. I think a lot of it is that stupid shock value, and a lot of it is just sort of like.. the point is..what? Why are we analyizing the hell out of this, and what is there to analyize and what if she just wrote a story without wanting it to mean anything and when she was done..she made up a bunch of stuff about what it meant and then people go "omg so deep!" and get all excited. Maybe I'm getting cynical (and exhausted, which causes cynicism for me I guess), but it seems that that's

[qa]

I thought that Serenity had a very deep meaning.

You can't create a perfect society because of the imperfect element of humanity, and that some of the greatest achievements are made by the least likely individuals.

[captain_elessar]

That's very true. But *whispers* it's sci-fi and no one takes that seriously. Because.. apparently.. it's not "realistic" or whatever. pfft.

[qa]

Pfft, what do they know anyway? A bunch of pretentious individuals who only appreciate art-house movies. Serenity's way better.

[valefleur]

I think part of this is a problem of multiple definitions of the word "good." I'm sure each person's definition is slightly different. There's good as in entertaining. For example, my brothers thought 300 was one of the best movies ever made, as was Transformers, because of the entertainment value. Then there's good as in the deeper meaning you mentioned with Children of Men. (By the way, I think liannis has a point with Serneity. There was a deeper meaning there but most people didn't look for it.) There are probably more definitions (like something that deeply affects your emotions could be considered good) but those tend to be the two basic ones that I've run across and you need some balance of both for a movie, book, etc. to be good. Death of a Salesman, while chalk full of symbolism and a deeper meaning, was not at all good because it was boring as all get out

[qa]

Well thank you.