Some days ago I saw a thread where multiple people described someone's favorite works as "good, but basic". That inspired me to think about what makes literature complex.
I only read literature either for fun or for cultural awareness and I don't consider whether a work would be complex before I choose to read it. I rarely read something, understand it and consider it "complex". Now I'm wondering if I'm missing something. Can /lit/ give an example of a complex work they have read and give a brief explanation for why you think it is complex?
Here are some works I thought were difficult to grasp:
The Stranger - for it's ambiguous message and character intentions
Paradise Lost - for it's heavy use of references and difficult language comprehensibility
Arabian Nights - because of the cultural disparity
A Treatise of Human Nature - not /lit/ but still a good example. "A cause is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it, that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other." I can read this, but it takes my full concentration and much backtracking and have to rely on commentary at times.
People often mistake complex for good, thats why you get comments like that.
>>9624267
>people often mistake complex for good
>good but basic
>>9624275
The implication being there's some diminished quality for not being complex.
"Its good, but.." statements are always softeners for what the person really thinks.
>>9624264
"Good, but basic" could mean any number of things and so could "complex".
To me complex means "expressing an idea that is complex".
Can you give some examples of the works that got classified as "basic"? In the above context it could just mean "entry level".
>>9624278
It does acknowledge the subjectivity of the judgement. Are you saying that someone's subjective preference is mistaken?