so is literature just shitty philosophy with a bunch of pretty

Only according to plotfags

>>7575284
Nah senpai, literature is pretty language with some philosophy around it.

>>7575284
i think about this all the time

like all the great novels are really just dozens, or even potentially millions of encoded messages meant to be translated into the readers internal language

like virginia woolf intentionally wrote her novels in order to convey a message about the way the mind wanders, and the manner in which we place emphasis on certain things and how a single moment can sometimes capture a persons entire life in microcosm.

and so its like, she knew all that shit, and then wrote a code, Mrs. Dalloway, which we are then all meant to decrypt so WE can know it too.

then take Ulysses, renowned because of the breadth and depth of the decryption required, because unlike Mrs. Dalloway where the only real knowledge necessary is our own experiences in social scenarios Ulysses forces us to have a familiarity with Shakespeare, the Greeks etc

Bloom sees his reflection and it has a shitty, patchy beard, and souless eyes. we set about decoding it: ok hes describing shakespeare but twisted. shakespeare - 1. Bloom is seeing himself as a shitty shakespeare. Joyce sees himself as a shitty imitation of Shakespeare.

and its almost like regardless of what Joyce actually meant, he meant SOMETHING and then wrote the passage as its code

Tolstoy is even more obvious, hes saying something about the passage of time and one's resting state in Death of Ivan Ilyich. How someone can become old and decrepit in just a few moments, from youth to the grave in moments but also decades. Ivan doesn't need a full novel, thats intentional, because lives gain momentum and it requires concerted effort to keep the passage of time slow.

but these are philosophical ideas, can they really be the point of art? of novels?

>>7575284
Mostly yeah. The thing is, people remember philosophical lessons (and things in general) better when you attach a story to it. The story of Hanzel and Gretel can basically be reduced to the phrase "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is" but people wouldn't have remembered that lesson as well without the witch trying to eat the kids.