At what point does a work cross over from "emotionally powerful"

it probably has something to do with the distinction between kitsch and sublime

It depends on the reader.

The Japanese, for instance, are particularly unconcerned with separating drama from melodrama, and so you get stuff like Kurosawa's Ran.

It's basically the difference between guilt and shame; feeling guilt is drama, expressing shame is sentimentality.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shame_society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guilt_society
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodrama
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_%28style%29

File: thewallmansdream.jpg (80KB, 670x447px) Image search: [Google]

80KB, 670x447px

A lot of that depends on the reader.

Obligatory DFW connection: Wallace thought IJ was a very sad book.

Here's what's printed in the front of my edition:

"Uproarious" -New York Times

IJ is a "wickedly comic epic"- Seattle Times

"A blockbuster comedy"- Elle

"Brashly funny" -Chicago Tribune

General consensus on lit is that it's very sad, but very funny.

I just think it's sad. But that's understandable. Not everyone gets David like I do.

>>7735405
Yeah, the funny parts of IJ aren't so much, "haha lolz" funny as, "Oh, jeez, that's... yikes, hehe."

To be honest, it seems like a bunch of anti-sentimentalists have developed an art cabal that abhors sentimentalism because sentimentalism is accessible. You see plenty of cultures who love telenovelas/action flicks/romance novels and give not one solitary shit about this sort of extreme sentimentalism, and the anti-sentimentalists say pish tosh and create these stilted, obtuse, opaque works of syndicated art as counterpoint.