The Seer
Reptile Researcher
Hoping that they were telling the truth.
Posts: 48
Likes: 7
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Post by The Seer on Sept 2, 2018 3:51:33 GMT -5
Oh, I see what you meant Teleram. Sorry about that.
Bear, could we try and keep this civil? The "Great Unwashed" is an argument used to separate humanity into classes, and discriminate by whatever resources you have had access to. It has no basis in logic and no place in intelligent discourse, which I hope this could still turn into again.
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Post by Reba on Sept 2, 2018 4:14:15 GMT -5
not really an argument, just a couple of words i used on a cheeky whim, to describe the vast proportion of our population (found in every social class) who do not like or understand art, a people whose existence i hope you'll recognize.
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The Seer
Reptile Researcher
Hoping that they were telling the truth.
Posts: 48
Likes: 7
|
Post by The Seer on Sept 4, 2018 10:46:16 GMT -5
Bear, the use of "Great Unwashed" specifically refers to the lower class. Obviously you meant otherwise, but I thought you should be aware. I don't think this population exists. Please, show me some evidence of this. My point was that defining Vonnegut's art as applying to the aforementioned "great Unwashed" is not true at all. Also, if it was, it doesn't invalidate his work.
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Post by Reba on Sept 4, 2018 12:28:07 GMT -5
Bear, the use of "Great Unwashed" specifically refers to the lower class. Obviously you meant otherwise, but I thought you should be aware. thanks for the heads up. that was the basis of my clever usage, it being the lower literary and intellectual class rather than social class. is it enough to know that a QUARTER of americans have read ZILCH in the last YEAR, whereas the median american reads FOUR books in a year? what kind of thinking population do you think will be churned out by high schools teaching John Green, Markus Zusak, Khaled Hosseini (and, this being my point, Vonnegut) for lit class?
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Post by Grace on Sept 5, 2018 12:11:28 GMT -5
Vonnegut is great! He's essential for his humanity and kindness, and his economical approach to language. I think it's an interesting point that he is so unsnobbish. It's always been what has made me love him, but does it limit him? Idk, I haven't read him in a while. I don't think being unsnobbish (potentially also not a word) inherently limits.
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Post by A comet crashing into Earth on Sept 5, 2018 15:15:33 GMT -5
I haven't read any Vonnegut, and I've never known enough about his writings to take an active interest in them, but this discussion makes it sound like he's worth reading, if for no other reason than to find out whether I have an opinion on him. Which books would you all recommend to give me the most accurate impression of his works, for better or worse?
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Post by Grace on Sept 5, 2018 16:45:07 GMT -5
Slaughterhouse Five is the classic about WWII and written after he was a prisoner of war in Dresden, but ofc it is told in his absurdist style. It's the most famous, but it's probably my least favorite of the ones I've read. Galapagos is interesting. Breakfast of Champions is totally unique, maybe my favorite. Sirens of Titan is essential Vonnegut.
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Post by Reba on Sept 5, 2018 21:55:30 GMT -5
Vonnegut is great! He's essential for his humanity and kindness, and his economical approach to language. I think it's an interesting point that he is so unsnobbish. It's always been what has made me love him, but does it limit him? Idk, I haven't read him in a while. I don't think being unsnobbish (potentially also not a word) inherently limits. reducing your language to a 5th grade level isn't remotely economical, in fact it's greatly wasteful. verbosity (what you mean by snobbish?) can at least have aesthetic value. as for humanity and kindness i find that utterly inessential to art, but that's settled already.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Sept 5, 2018 22:30:57 GMT -5
reducing your language to a 5th grade level isn't remotely economical, in fact it's greatly wasteful. verbosity (what you mean by snobbish?) can at least have aesthetic value. lol you mean like in Sean Penn's novel--a contemporary classic--with sentences like "There is pride to be had where the prejudicial is practiced with precision in the trenchant triage of tactile terminations"? Now that is wasteful. I'd rather take simple and direct to the point over anything coming close to such clumsy verbosity.
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Post by Reba on Sept 5, 2018 23:15:12 GMT -5
you havin a giggle? i said "CAN have." anyway, well steered verbosity simply can't be topped. many who are not known as artists and never engaged in creative writing, still are considered some of the greatest composers of english prose, we're talking Thomas Browne, Jeremy Taylor, Robert Burton, (perhaps more subjectively James Hutton). all those men have received complaints regarding the inefficiency of their presentation, say if you were a student of their respective subjects, and yet their work survives because of the supreme artistry. on the other hand, nobody knows the name of the academic who wrote the clear and concise high school textbook on history, geology, etc. i'll go so far as to say that truly simple (i.e. simplistic) prose NEVER has aesthetic value.
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Post by Grace on Sept 6, 2018 11:34:21 GMT -5
yeah we know bear. you must hate hemingway then.
verbosity is by definition excessive. humanity is essential to art. language is not supposed to obscure meaning but convey it.
which vonnegut books have you read in their entirety?
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Post by Reba on Sept 6, 2018 12:58:15 GMT -5
slaughterhouse five, mother night, and welcome to the monkey house. no i won't read any more. language is not supposed to obscure meaning but convey it. there's another fundamental disagreement, then. to convey something more brilliantly than ever before, you have to allow for the majority of readers to only find outward obscurity. since you brought up hemingway, here's a good analysis from a good essay by william h gass called "simplicities." Out through the front of the tent he watched the glow of the fire when the night wind blew on it. It was a quiet night. The swamp was perfectly quiet. Nick stretched under the blanket comfortably. A mosquito hummed close to his ear. Nick sat up and lit a match. The mosquito was on the canvas, over his head. Nick moved the match quickly up to it. The mosquito made a satisfactory hiss in the flame. The match went out. Nick lay down again under the blankets. He turned on his side and shut his eyes. He was sleepy. He felt sleep coming. He curled up under the blanket and went to sleep. Brevity may serve as the soul for wit, but it is far from performing such a service for simplicity. The economy of most of Hemingway's writing is only an appearance. To shorten this passage, we could have encouraged the reader to infer more, and said: "The fire brightened when the night wind breathed upon it. The swamp was as quiet as the night." If images, implications, and connectives are allowed, a condensation can be sought which is far from simple. "A mosquito sang in his ear so he sat and lit a match." Matches do go quickly out. No need to mention that. Moreover, Nick could be put to sleep far less redundantly. But Hemingway needs to state the obvious and avoid suggestion, to appear to be proceeding step by step. He needs the clumsy reiteration. It makes everything seem so slow and simple, plain, even artless, male.
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Sept 6, 2018 19:59:41 GMT -5
anyway, well steered verbosity simply can't be topped. many who are not known as artists and never engaged in creative writing, still are considered some of the greatest composers of english prose, we're talking Thomas Browne, Jeremy Taylor, Robert Burton, (perhaps more subjectively James Hutton). all those men have received complaints regarding the inefficiency of their presentation, say if you were a student of their respective subjects, and yet their work survives because of the supreme artistry. on the other hand, nobody knows the name of the academic who wrote the clear and concise high school textbook on history, geology, etc. i'll go so far as to say that truly simple (i.e. simplistic) prose NEVER has aesthetic value. tbh the authors you've mentioned aren't much read today anymore. sure, they survived, in that select academics continue to read them, an elite focused on whatever they chose to be their calling, be it history of british lit, or 17th ct lit (and who know relatively little about anything which goes beyond that spectrum).
on the other hand you're also wrong about academics who wrote clearly and concisely about a topic. people of various occupations and lifestyles continue to read Leszek Kołakowski f.ex. for his lucid study on marxism, or John Berger's innovative books on art, or Shirer's comprehensive but accessible book on the Third Reich. of course, aesthetic value wasn't their main occupation with their prose. then again, i have no idea what is considered "truly simple" or "simplistic" by your standards. either way, creative writers that made simplicity their aesthetic, like Hemingway, have done rather well, because art isn't solely about aesthetics, mate.
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Post by Reba on Sept 6, 2018 20:51:04 GMT -5
because art isn't solely about aesthetics, mate. it should be, that's my whole point. of course there are highly reputable academic texts, acclaimed for the integrity of the writing in an educational, not artistic context. as soon as their ideas become irrelevant they are chucked out, because plain and simple prose has no value beyond its message. i dunno what your dig at "select academics" implies-- surely i'm living proof that those authors have reach beyond an "elite" who know nothing about anything except for 17th century brit lit? and the fact that they're all still in circulation by major publishers?
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Post by Poe's Coats Host Toast on Sept 6, 2018 21:40:36 GMT -5
you're telling me you've read The Anatomy of Melancholy in its entirety?
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