Which is probably what's generally meant by "transcends its genre", an expression I have shockingly few issues with.

I guess - except I don't think you have to transcend the genre to be read as literature. You can be entirely genre, just better written. If James Joyce took every trope of a western and invested all his writing skill into it then I wouldn't say he'd transcended genre.

In the interest of accuracy--IIRC, this was deb.

Yep. Or, I'm sure it wasn't me at least.

(And, FWIW, when I use the term "litfic," I'm referring to its modern incarnation, not the classics.)

Teppy if you read Moby Dick and you hate it you're jake with me. I disagree, but if you put the time in and read the whole damn thing then you're beyond reproach.

S'cool.

Like Carver, and Ann Beattie, and Robert Olen Butler and them?Cause that's what I think of.(I mostly like them, btw.)

For the record (not all relevant to this forum):

• I hate Moby Dick.
• I still like Robert Heinlein.
• I hate romance novels.
• I like identity poems, although so few people do them right.
• I still believe rap is poetry, and the natural evolution of formalism.
• I believe comic books are literature, although so few do them right.
• I hate Madame Bovary.
• I think the "Master of Balantre" is highly underrated.
• I like Jane Austen just fine, thank you.
• I believe that the only reason that Hawthorne is taught in schools today is because there wasn't anything else from that period worth reading.
• I believe it's unfair to compare Clinton's memoirs to U.S. Grant's, as Clinton is still very much alive, and Grant's were dictated on his deathbed, to MARK FRICKIN' TWAIN.
• I think American poetry is plagued by static and basically narcistic ideas about poets' overrated sense of self.

That was cathartic. Kind of a upswell of many conversations around me, both IRL and online.

Like Carver, and Ann Beattie, and Robert Olen Butler and them?

Not familiar with their works.

I liked "Bovary"...It made me a little depressed, but it fit. Not read Moby Dick...someday, maybe. It's not speaking to me right now. I don't read much SF, honestly. Sometimes romances are fun if they are light-hearted or comic. I like personal poems. I believe rap is art. I also missed the meeting on appreciating it for the most part. They're fairly famous litfic short story writers, Susan. I guess they're not who you had in mind, if you don't know who they are.

I guess - except I don't think you have to transcend the genre to be read as literature. You can be entirely genre, just better written. If James Joyce took every trope of a western and invested all his writing skill into it then I wouldn't say he'd transcended genre.

The intransitive sense of the word means to rise above or extend notably beyond ordinary limits, which seems to be what you're saying he'd be doing. Someone who creates something that feels fresh, new, and true while sticking to that which is old and familiar has managed to transcend genre, in my opinion.

It's that old 110% BS or something.

They're fairly famous litfic short story writers, Susan.

Ah. That explains it--I'm not a short story reader and am therefore pretty much ignorant of the big names.

Hmm. Who do I mean? Sleep-deprived mind drawing a blank. What I have in mind are the kind of books that typically get read in book clubs or in programs like "If all Seattle read the same book." But I'm blanking on author names.

I'm kind of hesitant to say anything although I did want to post about different things.

I've been trying to read more books that I probably would have read in high school and in college if I ever really was able to meet a challenge in high school and, well, finished a semseter in college.

Actually I kind of started off last summer with Middlemarch, which I read on the beach and it still smells like sunblock. I liked Middlemarch a great deal and even when I was exasperated by the characters I was still rooting for them. The edition I read has notes in the back to explain a lot of the references that Eliot put in the book that someone from that era would understand but might not be apparent to the modern reader.

I also read To the Lighthouse which I mentioned before finally clicked for me. I always had a problem getting my head around the language and then one day it sounded lovely instead of confusing.

I keep starting books and then getting distracted and never finishing them, or moving through them slowly. Right now I have these books started: David Copperfield, Sons and Lovers, the Odyssey, A Passage to India, Moby Dick, and Master and Commander.

oh and Crime and Punishment.

I like most of them but I keep stumbling in parts. Right now Master and Commander is giving me fits because I like the characters and I think I like the story but there's so much about the ships and the time period that I just don't understand that sometimes I feel like I'm flailing. I want end notes like I read in Middlemarch.

I figure in a few months I'll give Austen another whack. I like to go back and try things I don't think I like and see if anything's changed. That's how I discovered I like strawberries, aspargus, and To the Lighthouse. Of course I still don't like tomatoes and 2001 no matter how many times I've tried them so maybe Austen will be like that.

Let me add a disclaimer that this is my own way of dealing with things I don't like.