1. As a fantasy writer and reader, same rules apply in it as in any other genre, if you talk about people we all know how a person behaves and what can be possible and what not(in term of emotions), for example a good and kind person with no mental issues is shown to us and after a few chapters we see him killing and raping and if you dont show us how that person became this second one than no one would buy it as that is hard to believe, as for other creatures more or less is the same rule as they are given "human" characteristics or at least some of them so that we can relate to them easier. And this is the sort of thing i look for in a story a solid character that i can believe is "real". 2. Every good story has some deeper meaning, ex. Lotr- that as long as there is hope your not defeated, Assassin's apprentice- loyalty Sometimes you can find a story that you can read just to find out how it ends, but more often after a week a fail to recall much of its events. 3. If you figure out the book by the time you reach the middle of it than the writer has failed, if i cant figure the answer and need to keep turning pages than for me the writer did his job I'm starting to admire Robin Hobbs cause she used a simple trick but that worked great, she made us love a puppy(who dont like puppies) that the boy got, later the puppy is taken away and to be killed as to teach the boy a lesson, we feel sad for the boy and for the puppy, after a few years the boy now teenager travels to a far away place and finds out that lord had his puppy now some what old, and they became friends again and the dog saves the boys life by sacrificing itself...we are sad again and she just killed the dog twice and i really did believe she killed it the first time but suspected the second one but was still sad though(brilliant yet simple trick) There are other things for me that make me judge how well is it for me, like i dont like footnotes i find they break my focus from the story and more often tend to ignore them, just to find out later that the writer wrote something more than he/she should and revealed something very important for the plot in the notes. redundancy issues dunno why some do it maybe to fill in pages or remind readers but i find it annoying when a writer retells me what happened couple of chapters ago I'm feels like insulting my memory. Speaking of memory for me a good writer should give more credit to his readers and not insult their intelligence. man do i talk a lot...
It's not an objective term. The doctor will tell me I'm unhealthy because I have habits he deems unhealthy - in fact, my vitals are always well within the healthy parameters, I rarely get sick, I can do the same physical labor that people half my age have trouble with. In more general use, how many times have we heard that watching certain types of programs isn't healthy, that reading certain types of books isn't healthy - when it really boils down to how the individual reacts to those programs/books? And don't even go into what a 'healthy diet' consists of. But what is profound? What one person considers profound (deep) another will find pretentious. It may excite the brain, but not for the same reason. Any food is unhealthy if eaten to excess, or without exercise, or without balancing with other foods. I happen to think McDonald's french fries are better tasting than I've had elsewhere, including fancy restaurants. And it's not 'low class' - it's economical, and doesn't pretend to be anything else. (Incidentally, I've eaten in 5 star restaurants and find paying $50 for a tablespoon each of three items to be ridiculous.) I never said that. I did say that anything other than the technical aspects of writing (spelling, grammar, etc) is subjective, and since there are no rules for how the other aspects must be done, I don't see how it can be any other way.
I agree with the other two points. I mostly agree with this point as well, though I'd like to clarify some things. I believe that the author's intent is important to a certain extent when looking at characters. I've mentioned Dostoevsky's characters in a few other threads. His characters represent symbols or ideas rather than actual people, which I think is important to know before reading any of his books. Therefore, comparing his method of characterization with someone like, say, Tolstoy isn't very fair since their motivations were different. Basically, I do think the writer's intent matters to a certain extent when we judge his/her work. I'm not sure where to draw the line, but knowing a bit about the background of the writer and the piece in question certainly helps. What do you guys think?
Point 1. So you're saying health is objective, but healthy things, like activities, food, etc, is subjective. OK, fair enough, I'll buy that. Point 3. This seems like a case of I say one thing and you say another. It is economical, but its also low class (according to multiple standards, at least), and I don't like many 5 star restaurants either. Let's focus on point 2 for a minute, on the matter of profound. I have taken two stanzas, 1, from Simon and Garfunkel's Sounds of Silence, and 2, from Kesha's Blah Blah Blah. Explain to me how the second could ever be conceived as profound as the first by anyone. Bear in mind, I am not bashing either song, not saying one is better than the other. But I do believe that the depth of meaning that something can contain is to some extent objective. 1. "And the people bowed and prayed To the neon god they made And the sign flashed out its warning In the words that it was forming And the sign said, "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls And tenement halls" And whispered in the sounds of silence" 2. "Stop talking that Blah blah blah Think you'll be getting this Nah nah nah Not in the back of my Car-ar-ar If you keep talking that Blah blah blah blah blah"
That's like trying to make a point by taking one of Frost's poems and comparing it to "Mary Had a Little Lamb". But then comparing two pieces is not the point. It's taking one piece and trying to say that all readers will find it profound. If "profound" is objective, they all will. But if some readers find it pretentious - then are they stupid? Lacking in insight? Or do they, via their own education, experience, and wisdom see it for what it 'really is'? Objective standards are things that say 2+2=4. If there's room for interpretation, it's subjective.
The books I read are all chosen with care and so I do not think I have ever bothered to read a book that is not considered wonderful by any standards. The Dune series was orgasmic. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Immortals After Dark. Even the Inheritance Trilogy, which is often criticized, seemed wonderful; I had only watched the Star Wars and Lord of the Ring movies once when I was younger, and have read the Hobbit but not the LoTR book. Lovercraft's short stories all sound wonderful too. I really suck at writing vitriolic critiques.
A good book provides you a good, capital experience and you have to make way for it. You sit down, you open yourself to relaxation with the character building, the plot unfolding, the critical spread of ideas through the work. This is why I can't read Proust's tome at this moment. I don't have the time. But I can read a 'pop' text just like that. I treated myself today and read a few stories from Annie Proulx Close Range Collection. Unbelievable. And there was one story, The Blood Bay, that thoroughly knocked my socks off, it was so funny. But it was the way it was constructed - the exacting, imaginative cowboy language circa 1880s, the natural elements, the Wyoming chilling cold and then the severed feet in the boots – that was simply overwhelming. It's a catharsis - Proulx gave me - I was taught, that helps to identify great art. I have found that Emily Dickinson was an inexact writer as far as bits of grammar, verb tense and spelling were concerned. But there was a human depth to her work that, if you let yourself go with it, as with Hawthorne, Hemingway and a few of the other greats, you will experience a deeper catharsis than with - shall I say Harry Potter? I like the quick page turner. But I certainly get more out of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - I read it much slower - than I do out of, say Nora Roberts or even of James Lee Burke and Sue Grafton. Great literature, I believe, you always grow with and continue to experience. What I read even in college of Huckleberry Finn, or recently mentioned, The Red Badge of Courage, I can enjoy with better understanding and appreciation today. Lots of times, I am sure these great works are accidents that can come from hack writers. The important point, as that they last to be enjoyed and to entertain throughout one's life, is that they are full of human depth. The Bluest Eye, certainly uneven, is one of Morrison's early works. But the book has depth and human scenes I cannot forget. The woman (black) who did not to experience the required sex with her married man but knew it was necessary. I can still hear her troubled, embarrassed pull through the sheets. Everyone likes sex, right? How dare Morrison defy convention and expose its rare, unliked functionality. How singular are the eyes of the artist shared by the great writer and the painter, say, Corot's The Stone Breakers, ah!, and Toni Morrison. Special human instances like these come from great art. (I am slowly rereading the Brothers Karamazov. I hope I can do it, because I am not sure I want to say his characters are primarily idea types, even though they may well be. Secondly, a few years ago, I practically forced a literacy class to read the first chapters of the Count de Marte Cristo. The purpose was to experience the unthreading of a literary soap opera. Alas, cut for time! I've always had better success reaching depth with Achebe's Things Fall Apart.)
