necessary?
Let's say picrel was here and could very accurately capture the spirit and story of our generation in a great novel.
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 CRIME Shirt $21.68 |
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IS A GREAT NOVEL OF OUR TIME
necessary?
Let's say picrel was here and could very accurately capture the spirit and story of our generation in a great novel.
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CRIME Shirt $21.68 |
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Yes it's necessary and no he could not as in order to be able to capture the spirit you'd have to grow up in this century and experience a wide range of experiences unique to this time. Getting a man from the 19th century in your time machine and bringing him here wouldn't result in a great novel, only a stroke for our boy Dosto as he collapses in fear at something completely mundane to us.
I just mean his equivalent today
Picrel was it till recently.
But really I mean one of us.
Houellebecq does capture much of the feeling of the 21st century and that's why he's famous. But his works are objectively vulgar and not really attractive to most people, and he has nothing to say about our generation, the youth raised on the Internet. If someone from our generations is going to create an era-defining work of art like the great novels of the 19th century (Anna Karenina, Les Miserables, crime and Punishment) then they have to contend with the impacts the Internet has had on the world. They also have to find a way to make a work of art have a large degree of importance at a time when art is becoming obsolete. Art is so commodified and lacking in soul that it's being outsourced to be created by robots.
The latter is actually the most difficult part. If people really study and train themselves to write then they could probably craft a great story for our time, the issue is getting anyone to care about it. It might be wiser to make a movie at this point than write a novel.
By that logic, it would make more sense to make a series no?
As it stands, would you agree that this place is the closest to a depiction and explanation of our generation?
>series
Yes actually, this is the best medium to convey a profound work of art with sociological depth just like the great novels of the past. A miniseries would reach the widest audience while affording enough time to get into the details that movies can't capture. The problem is that serials and shows are not considered art on the level of cinema and won't receive as much critical attention and therefore won't have as much of an influence, which is incredibly stupid but it's just how it is. I've given this a lot of thought because I've outlined such a story but realized it would be pointless to write it as a novel since no one would read it
>this place is the closest to a depiction and explanation of our generation
I don't know what you mean by this
Thanks for weighing in.
I meant that as it stands, is it fair to say that IQfy posts/archives are the most honest, precise and complete monument to our lives?
What are some of your other thoughts on a work that would capture the zeitgeist.
I lurk this website sometimes but rarely post. IQfy is far more honest than most of the Internet and it gives good insight on the psychology of our generations. Some posts on this board, past all the garbage, are more insightful than many articles I read and definitely more insightful than anything on Twitter. For how I believe a great artist of our generation could emerge, I think that people need to contend with what Tolstoy said about art. Art for art's sake is pointless. This idea can't exist at a time when everything is a commodity and people are losing interest in anything that isn't TikTok. If someone is going to become a major artist then they have to be unique and they have to be an intellectual force. They need to have a voice that stands out. They have to transgress against the dominance of liberal democracy and capitalism. They need to situate all of their work in the context of art itself being at risk of obsolescence in our age. Their art needs to have serious moral and political implications. Their words need to be necessary, not for personal enjoyment. And so someone with a quality of originality and importance needs to emerge, but at a time when most people are completely mediocre, homogenized and have no ambition, this is almost impossible to imagine. Most writers today are extremely boring people. We'll be reading biographies of Dostoevsky 100 years from now, no one will read a biography on Franzen
I wonder how one can accomplish these things without falling into the trap of propaganda and perpetually political (lifeless) literature
OP mentioned Dostoevsky and I mentioned Tolstoy. They succeeded in balancing social criticism with art. Everyone should just learn from them. They're considered the 2 greatest for a reason. To capture artistry, you don't just document events. You don't talk about what happens and what the characters believe. You talk about how these events affect them and how their beliefs make them feel. How does the mundanity of the 21st century shape young people? How does the Internet mold their social interactions, and what do these interactions consist of? How does the popularity of progressive values impact a person's life, where will these beliefs lead to them to? What kind of contradictions can be depicted from these character traits in a way that comments on both humanity and society? Raskolnikov preaches the "great man theory," that's social commentary. But he's also a loser with no greatness, thus making his character a contradiction. That is art. These are the things we need to consider.
What impact do you think an equivalent of their works would have now?
Would it be important to people?
Could ithepp them out of spiritual death and suicide?
Ultimately art will only be received by a society that cares about art and the ideas that stories convey. Our society at least in the West is not such a society. People from other cultures have a much better chance at creating great works of our time imo. It's no wonder that 2 Russians were willing to scrutinize modernity more than other writers, and both of them were influenced by Dickens, the storyteller in Britain most willing to scrutinize his society. Today, no one wants to hear that liberal democracy is bad and that the post-WW2 order is bad. So no one says it.
But the demand for truth is overwhelming, as evidenced by our addiction to truthful anonymity.
Would IQfyners, for instance, be moved by it?
Would critics react to it? Would it deep into the mainstream, if properly done?
I would expect the IDEA/propose of such a novel would be to locate a source of hope in the face of the surroundig obliteration of culture and meaning.
At least that would be my purpose.
To identify a new anchor so that we don't all suicide from wmptiness and despair.
We don't have an anchor and we don't have a purpose, that's the problem. I do have an answer, it's God, but that's not an answer people in the West are receptive to hence my abandonment of my own planned novel
Can one approach God in a new war perhaps?
Why would you say this call, which is also Tolstoy's and Dostoyevski's and Leskov's, doesn't anchor itself in our souls?
What exactly caused you to abandon your novel?
There's no point in writing something that no one will read. I wrote the outline as a screenplay instead but it's even less likely that I'll somehow make it into a movie, however practical it might be for the kind of story I wrote. I vented about this in one of those wwyom threads once. I guess eventually I'll express this story in some way. I've spent too much time over the years writing it and outlining every little aesthetic detail to abandon it completely. It's my ambitious attempt to capture our modern world in art and think of a better way forward.
Can you tell me some more about it?
It tries to balance popular appeal with genuine depth, so it is my take on YA fiction but more mature. It follows young zoomer characters aging into adults in college. Has little direct plot, more of a panoramic overview of our society with several intertwining characters, motifs and storylines. Emphasis on how people experience mundanity, decadence and boredom. Large focus on how people engage with pop culture and consumerism from all eras today. Main theme is a paucity of civilizational potential as boomers die out and the online generations inherit the world. Way too many other ideas and motifs to go over but that's the gist
What is it that torpedoed your project? Which point did it seems like you just wouldn't be able to make?
No more data mining for you
Ok, I appreciate you anyway
Would people read this?
yes, its at least interesting
There is nothing honest about this shithole. It is all just anger, irony, and lies.
Paul Town's books struck me a Chekhov stories of the millennial/zoomer generation
He was in my mind when I clicked on this thread too. I didn't fancy his fiction. The collections of essays were really great.
I think he is a genius. An extremely prolific polymath genius.
I don't feel qualified to agree or disagree. I'm biased by the parasocial attachment I formed from his live streams.
I have a lot of respect for him. Reading the It Is series shifted the trajectory of my life. He pointed out the flaws in many of the loops I had been ensnared in. I'm working my way out thanks to his insight. I don't know if I ever would have if it wasn't for his books. I'm very privileged to have discovered his books through his streams when I did.
>necessary?
no, because of this.
>the youth raised on the Internet
The youth now are inundated with so many stories at such a young age that novels don't stand out like they would have in the 1800s. We have TVs now also, so it's very easy to convey a story to multiple people in a quick and easy way. I think the generations of TV + internet accessibility have killed novels by this virtue. I myself read, but never about some boring story some guy made up. I want to learn about actual real world concepts if I read. I can just bullshit with friends, and come up with an entertaining story that way. Writing for that purpose is just kind of irrelevant nowadays.
What about if we move it to a different medium, for example a miniseries?
Is there a necessity for a work that shows and explains these 2 generations to themselves, and attempts to feel out a new source of hope and live in the surrounding emptiness?
>Is there a necessity for a work that shows and explains these 2 generations to themselves, and attempts to feel out a new source of hope and live in the surrounding emptiness?
Dao De Jing
To rephrase the question:
Could our experience and lives make for a Great Novel?
>Could our experience and lives make for a Great Novel?
Yes. Not everyone is a cubicle jockey.
There is no great novel of our time and there isn't even a great film of our time, although some movies come close. As for literature no one has captured the zeitgeist yet. This is because 1. literature is dead, and 2. there is no ambition to analyze our world through literature the way that people did in the 19th century. People like Dostoevsky were studied by the brightest minds because his words were necessary. Now there are no necessary words, literature and art in general is commodified disposable slop
But the cream of anon thoughts is at the level of Dostoyevsky, no?
Which movies anon?
Yi Yi (2000)
Burning (2018)
Her (2013)
Wall-E (2008)
He is obviously not as good as Dosto, but isn't that Houellebecq's gimmick?
Why gimmick? Do you find that he didn't capture the zeitgeist?
I didn't mean gimmick in an insulting way.
In some ways he does, in some ways he doesn't.
he is just some incel loser that doesn't capture the current zeitgeist
He only really writes about French Boomer and Xers, for the most part. You don't think he captures their zeitgeist?
No. I think history shows clearly that the primacy of the novel corresponds to a particular period of time. We need to adapt to the digital-internet and the great failure of our generation thus far is failing to do that. We can’t keep clinging to a dead medium and hoping that it just magically becomes important again while the so-called elites of our nations are busy watching shit on Netflix.
Areb't imageboards the ultimate medium? Is this not why we are here "forever"?
We are here due to the addictive nature of this site. We are old ladies at a slot machine.
Slot machine, no censorship, anonymity
There is plenty of censorship here. Worse, what isn't censored is drivel. Further, nobody is anonymous on the internet, simply pseudonymous.
But still, this is the place where we have these features more than the rest, plus a large enough flow of people to bring it all to life
You are confusing tribalism for freedom, don't import nationalism into cyberspace.
But anarchists or internationalists can present their views here too without being banned.
This is the liberal fallacy of the free marketplace of ideas. In any case, readdesert.org .
I have. How does it contradict what I've said?
If I read desert, will you read Siege?
Video games aren't literature.
The book Siege lol
Link it. If it is right-wing garbage, I will consign it to the flames.
Bigot
Why is the novel dead?
Is the feature film also dead?
Should the goal be to create series?
After all, an author would want hua creation to be digestible in format.
should i write it? i have it all figured out.
That's the big question!
A question of purpose
I only read the first part of notes from underground. But that may be the most important book pertaining to your question.
The main thing anyone should take from that book is that people were the same back then and always will be.
>Let's say picrel was here and could very accurately capture the spirit and story of our generation in a great novel
he already did
In Notes?
It does read as absolutely current, I've just reread it.
But then, things gave transpired since. Is Notes the complete description and explanation of ourselves that we need?
Dostoyevsky point to repentance and Christ as the way to untangle the impossible knots of life.
Houellebecq thinks that this won't work, that some new religion of movement is necessary to revive us.
I wonder if you could find that same man if you went another 150 years back to 1700 though. Such a maladjusted analysis-paralysis ourvboros.
Has anyone read picrel?
How well would you say it captures the zeitgeist?
How meaningful is this work?
Pic
Jordan Peterson
Lol
In my opinion, he did have a moment of brilliance and genius whes he read the Cain and Abel lecture. It was an artistically talented perfoenabce in addition to the moral certainties he wanted to bring across.
His books struck me as very plain and disappointing in comparison to that high point.
>*enters your thread*
I don't think I'm familiar
Does he represent the current zeitgeist? Does he pose or answer any questions that are importan to millennials/zoomers?
gen x are just a continuation of boomers, millenials were an intermediate, zoomers are the first generation to truly be living in "globohomo"
Gen x had a distinct nihilism and edginess. Out of the 4 disastrous cohorts, I would say they are the least pathetic.
The Pale King pretty much did it already.
>ITS SET IN THE 70S!
don't be a plotgay.
It hits the spot even now?
This is the time period he was actually writing about. Most of the character are literally zoomers, even have a trad larper.
What is the gestalt of that book?
I guess that would be life inundated with information and how that affects our relation to information and our meaning/purpose in life. Most of characters are patterned after various common sorts of today, people who grew up asking Google and never really learned to think or question or how to find answers or even identify a problem, why bother when you can just ask Google? And it goes on into various related topics like the effects of constant stimulation and the avoidance of boredom and how/why vast amounts of information is boring even though it offers limitless stimulation. &c &c.
Wow. Those ARE very current issues.
It is very relevant to our times but also effectively shows that the the problem is not even remotely new, only thing new is the scapegoat.
If you are alluding to Dostoevsky’s worst novels, then, indeed, I dislike intensely The Brothers Karamazov and the ghastly Crime and Punishment rigamarole. No, I do not object to soul-searching and self-revelation, but in those books the soul, and the sins, and the sentimentality, and the journalese, hardly warrant the tedious and muddled search. Dostoyevsky’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity – all this is difficult to admire. I do not like this trick his characters have of ”sinning their way to Jesus” or, as a Russian author, Ivan Bunin, put it more bluntly, ”spilling Jesus all over the place." Crime and Punishment’s plot did not seem as incredibly banal in 1866 when the book was written as it does now when noble prostitutes are apt to be received a little cynically by experienced readers. Dostoyevsky never really got over the influence which the European mystery novel and the sentimental novel made upon him. The sentimental influence implied that kind of conflict he liked—placing virtuous people in pathetic situations and then extracting from these situations the last ounce of pathos. Non-Russian readers do not realize two things: that not all Russians love Dostoevsky as much as Americans do, and that most of those Russians who do, venerate him as a mystic and not as an artist. He was a prophet, a claptrap journalist and a slapdash comedian. I admit that some of his scenes, some of his tremendous farcical rows are extraordinarily amusing. But his sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes are not to be endured for one moment—by this reader anyway. Dostoyevsky seems to have been chosen by the destiny of Russian letters to become Russia’s greatest playwright, but he took the wrong turning and wrote novels.
I would call him a psychologist-tgeologist, rather than a mystic or a literary figure.
Can you explain a little what you dislike about the sensitive murderers and saintly prostitutes?
Psychologist-theologian*
Dosto is essentially sadomasochistic, he loves dwelling on characters who revel in how depraved they are, but who also prostrate themselves in the just punishment or humiliation of their depravity. Again, sensitive murderers and soulful prostitutes imply the exact situation he adored, all the violence and sexual intrigue he desired so much, but with the approval of his super ego since they ritualistically degrade themselves in a kind of spiritual fetishistic pleasure in confessing, being punished, and then being "redeemed". It's lurid and partakes of a sick kind of gratification in self flagellation.
But from experience, this is accurate. Even now, almost nothing depicts the underworld and poverty as accurately. I have met these prostitute saits, and been in the shoes of a sensitive brute.
Reading him in jail, the psychological realism was uncanny.
How does Dosto purport to redeem these aspects of humanity? Is it to integrate them? To accept that they are rightful parts of the human experience and to work with them to self actualize; to transcend and include? No. His worldview firmly states that they must be brought before a higher power, judged as sinful, and repressed forever. As I said before, this enterprise is utterly futile, since its objective is to destroy what is human, to snuff out the very spark that is humanity. Thus the cycle of indulgence (the inescapable humanity) and self flagellation (the divine judgement that such things are sinful and abhorrent). There is nothing profound, nothing transcendent here, just shallow fetishistic pleasure taking of the lowest tier followed by the harshest condemnation and repentance. Both sides of this coin forever restrict the other to its worst form, forever traps the victim of this ideology to a lifetime of misery and self hatred. It's vile in the extreme.
What you say presumes that no overall moral improvement can occur as a result of the accumulation of morally good acts, that the godly tide couldn't lift all ships at once, and therefore the cycle of evil and remorse will never shift.
Does Dostoyevsky share this presumption?
>accumulation of morally good acts
Shame and guilt does not equal "good acts", it just creates more misery.
A great novel could not exist now. We are too atomized to rally around one novel. And if we did the novel would be suppressed. It would suddenly go out of print and never be seen again
A lot of old stuff is still relevant today but it is nice to have something that captures your own generation. I never really liked Tao Lin but at least it captured the internet age. Its the same with like music, every generation wants their own sound that sets them apart
As if the ESL op wasn't bad enough, this thread is filled with braindead zoomers parroting their moronic beliefs and liberals trying to enforce their opinions as facts.
Kek
What's your take on this, then?
I mean for example Alyosha Karamazov teaching the boys to be kind.
hi, you must be new to IQfy.