Is it really so rare to find people who enjoy both genre fiction

Elitism. You lose your "patrician" status if you admit to reading pleb stuff.

>>7668594
no, you lose your patrician status when you pretend they're actually good instead of simply guilty pleasures; having guilty pleasures is fine, having shit taste is not.

>>7668591
For the most part, it's not a distinction between genre and literary so much as a distinction between mainstream and avant-garde fiction.

Mainstream fiction (which includes the vast majority of both genre and literary fiction), especially since the 1950s, tends to be extremely uninspired and one-note compared to avant-garde fiction because the primary purpose of mainstream fiction is to serve as commercial entertainment, and commercial entertainment has to follow strictly defined formulas to be viable.

On the other hand, avant-garde fiction prioritizes artistic expression above entertainment, which is a stance that's alien to those who have internalized the sensibility of the mainstream past a certain point. When one is conditioned to think of all media primarily as entertainment rather than art, there's a tendency to reject anything that doesn't offer an easily digestible, inoffensive, and formulaic experience.

Genre fiction is more stringently mainstream than literary fiction, because it has more mass appeal, but literary fiction is largely a stagnant circlejerk full of the same types of people putting out the same types of books for an increasingly dwindling audience. There's more freedom with avant-garde fiction but odds are no one's going to read it, because it doesn't conform to the expectations of an average reader of genre or literary fiction. There's no built-in audience for it.

It matters not the actions of those who are not you

>>7668882
but senpai, how will i feel good about myself if I can't make fun of others?

>>7668591
I forgot how much I loved that cover.

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The key is to read 'good' fiction. Good fiction, at least for me, is fiction that is working on more than one level of storytelling, usually through the use of symbolism, allusion, and allegory. Both literary and genre fiction can be 'good,' and both of them can be 'bad.' It just so happens that the vast preponderance of genre fiction is 'bad' under this definition.

A lot of genre fiction writers only ever read and draw influence from other genre fiction writers, and so they never participate in the wider literary tradition. This means the degree to which they can employ multiple levels of meaning is limited.

>>7669081
Sennnpaii ohh sennpaaii oh oh seeee

>>7668591
What's happening is part of a phenomenon I wrote about a couple of years ago when I was asked to comment on Rowling. I went to the Yale University bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.

But when I wrote that in a newspaper, I was denounced. I was told that children would now read only J.K. Rowling, and I was asked whether that wasn't, after all, better than reading nothing at all? If Rowling was what it took to make them pick up a book, wasn't that a good thing?

It is not. "Harry Potter" will not lead our children on to Kipling's "Just So Stories" or his "Jungle Book." It will not lead them to Thurber's "Thirteen Clocks" or Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows" or Lewis Carroll's "Alice."

Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

Our society and our literature and our culture are being dumbed down, and the causes are very complex. I'm 73 years old. In a lifetime of teaching English, I've seen the study of literature debased. There's very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she'd been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn't even good nonsense. It's insufferable.

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>>7669101
>He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

the more I read literary fiction, the less enjoyable I find genre fiction. I basically can't read it now without wanting to vomit.

>>7668876
This anon is right, most of literary fiction that's popular is entertainment oriented to a different (not even smaller) section of society.

>>7669094
But, what makes symbolism, allusion or allegory, any good?

>>7669257
not much, its just wank for academics

the best stories more or less keep it simple and simply display the outcome of actions. My favorite example is the tale of Narcissus

>He was proud, in that he disdained those who loved him. Nemesis noticed this behavior and attracted Narcissus to a pool, where he saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with it, not realizing it was merely an image. Unable to leave the beauty of his reflection, Narcissus lost his will to live. He stared at his reflection until he died.

Because genre fiction doesn't make you think.

When has anyone ever said, "GRRM sure made me view the world differently" unless they are from /r/books?

>>7669347
dude, that is a COMPLETE load of bullcrap. Some of the trashiest fiction has helped me understand the world better. Hell, I aced a philosophy course because of a fucking webcomic.

Your problem is that you have a very solid image of what it means to be intelligent and everything that deviates from it is retarded in your eyes. You can't image any intellectual endeavor that society doesn't tell you is intellectual

>>7669347
im sure it makes you look at the world differently but not in any valuable ways

you might start imagining a medieval parallel of yourself in your day to day life and projecting it onto all of your relationships

I think both have a place. I don't see genre fiction as "less intelligent" just because it follows a form. I find it interesting to contrast what authors in a particular genre do with the standard form.
However, I admit that I'm not going to find a new favourite book within genre fiction. The majority of them are mediocre at best. But I don't see a problem with reading it IF you are open to other things as well. Reading only Stephen King over the course of your life won't do anything for you.

>>7669378
Yes, what webcomic

>>7668591

I honestly don't know.

It's like movies. There are some times I want to watch an avant-garde film, and sometimes I want to watch a dumb comedy, or something in between.

Same goes for books.

>>7669402
homestuck.

seriously.

I learned a significant amount about gnosticism, existentialism, determinism, and genre conventions just from reading it

>>7669433
I almost forgot homestuck existed

>>7669380
That's only if you read Cervantes, which is literary fiction.

>>7669101
Oh my God its this guy

It's really appropriate you spend your time here.

With that out of the way, you seem angry and jealous.

I can't remember, we're you the same one who's wife knew Stephen King kind of sort of and you were pissed about his success and compared him to David Lynch?

I've tried reading genre fiction a few times in recent years and I just found it badly written and uninteresting. I'd simply prefer to spend my time reading more serious books.

>>7669433
pleb af
tumblr af
snowflake af

Is someone trying to justify why they read shitty Harry Potter?

>>7670385
If i read any fiction its by an author i feel has something interesting going on.

Big boys mostly read nonfiction so i dont get all the elitism between genre and literary, its mostly the same shit in varying levels of diction

>>7670429
Lol wasnt really meant as a reply to you but fuckit

Some genre fiction is fine, in fact it can expand your mind and introduce new ideas.
I've read Hyperion books recently and despite enjoying and reading different kind of literature, I don't think that literature could make me think about AI, universe and destiny of mankind in such way. perhaps

>>7670445
Most literary fiction is far too mundane in its themes to go in the direction the highpoints of sci-fi go. It has its place like anything else

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>genre fiction is only GRRM, Harry Potter and Stephen King
This thread.

>>7668591
because appreciating pleb fiction for any reason other than its deconstructed value ie. learning tropes and story structure demonstrates your pleb nature.

its good entertainment fodder for the proles but you sure as shit wont learn anything from it or become a better person.

>>7668591
It's not. I usually find that people that enjoy reading and read a lot are not as averse to good genre fiction as your average /lit/ poseur. It's just that for them reading that one sci-fi novel their friends like so much isn't as big of a deal as it is for "Look! I've read The Stranger and The Republic and now I'm starting Infinite Jest! Am I patrician yet?" guys.

>>7669644
It is a quote.