I haven't read all the threads in this forum, but I noticed there are many talking and talking about the books we're reading and others commenting authors or books... Let's try something different. What role do you think Literature must play? Do you believe in "Art for Art"? What Literary Movements do you feel more close to? Which ones do you prefer? And why? I don't believe in "Art for Art"... I worry about the structures and the forms used in Literature, but mostly I care about the contents, the message that is being spread. I think Intervention, Conscience and Imagination must be the key words for Literature. I like love stories, but I don't like ridiculous sentimentality. I also don't fancy "terror books" ( I'm sorry, I don't know the correct english designation for them...). I mean, I don't feel fascinated to the whole situation in which a crime is comited...No offend, but the only thing I find important here is to understand why the hell did the killer do it, with the aim of preventing it from happening again. I love Realism and Naturalism. I identify myself with Positivism and I truely admire an author that can analyse a society and criticise it, showing the bad and the good, the true and the false aspects of it... Anyway, I love Literature, the good and truth one. I hate Light Literature and I feel sad seeing that it is having such sucess these days...
Good questions. I agree with you about literature that analizes society. I really enjoy and appreciate books making social/historical comments. I can pretty much agree with what you said about the rest also. As for the movements, literature wise... I generally love literature from the beat movement, especially Keruoac.
off the cuff i categorize books as negative, neutral, or positive to the greater store of human knowledge. positive - herman hesse , neutral - most mystery novels, grocery store books etc., negative - martin amis.
