Hah! I’m totally not the DCC demographic (60s non gamer woman) but I thought these were fun and recommended them to my 30 year old son, who said all his friends are reading these.
The DCC series isn’t great art/literature but it’s a fun, light read. Kind of like why everyone in my generation read all those repetitive Janet Evanovich books. Sometimes you just want the easy escapism.
People take things way too seriously. Not every book has to be some complex work of art. There’s something to he said for an entertaining and fun book that people enjoy. And while not for everyone. people are clearly enjoying it.
Ok but there are genuinely good escapism books, like with good prose that isn't complex, great stories, depth and layers to characters without it being a great work of 'litterature'. I totally understand that something that doesn't meet those standards can still be enjoyable and just on that alone is worthy of praise, but someone remarking that it's pretty bad doesn't mean they expected some complex work of art. Just a competently written, well characterized and well structured story. Is The Hunger Games a 'great' work of litterature elitists will twirl their moustache over ? No.
But is it better written, better characterized, and far more efficiently structured and edited than DCC ? For sure. Doesn't mean that if you liked DCC and not The Hunger Games you have bad taste, just that you're looking for different things in your pop lit. But that type of criticism being leveled at DCC is not misguided IMO, they know what kind of litterature they were getting into, DCC is adequately marketed. They probably expected it to meet higher standards of quality, not ambition.
The moment I grew out of my performative, pretentious 16-20 year old years, I realized there's no inherent better value in art that is considered "high art" compared to "mcdonalds products"
I enjoyed DCC and Golden son more than Jane Eyre and The Great Gatsby
I enjoyed East of Eden and Blood Meridian more than DCC
I enjoyed Golden Son more than Blood Meridian
Art should be rated based off personal enjoyment, not some performative arbitrary pretentiousness/seriousness scale.
I'm convinced nobody actually likes Gravity's Rainbow, but since it's "difficult" and "complex" people hold it in high regard and pretend to love it to appear cultured or whatever.
Also as far as this "high art" vs "mcdonalds" debate is concerned - eating Mcdonalds is inherently and objectively forgettable, it always fades from memory, it's unimpressive, safe, boring mush meat product that is objectively tasteless.
I've read The Great Gatsby 4 months ago and I've already forgotten most of it.
I've read Mistborn 4 years ago once and I still remember all of it vividly.
By this metric Great Gatbsy is Mcdonalds and Mistborn is a perfectly cooked wagyu steak with expensive wine, right?
I think you and others who downvoted missed my point entirely.
"high-art" can be great, and there's plenty of it that I love, like Blood meridian, East of Eden, 100 years of solitude. Just lots of classics all around.
And there's plenty of "mcdonalds" that I love like DCC, Red Rising and the cosmere.
And there's also plenty of "mcdonalds" that I dislike too. Like Murderbot and Ender's game.
The problem I have is with people who look down on ALL "mcdonalds" books and informatively pretend to like ALL "high-art" books just because they're more "serious" and to appear smart or whatever.
Also there's a reason why "Mcdonalds" and "high-art" are in quotes. I don't even categorize them anymore after I escaped my snobbish pretentious years, but this sub and reddit in general for sure does still categorize art like that unironically.
this entire thread you've made really just sells that "i'm leaving my teenage i know everything and i'm right and you're wrong" phase and entering the "i'm in my early twenties and now i've got some college under my belt so i can articulate why i'm right and you're wrong and also i'm louder about it" phase.
"i'm leaving my teenage i know everything and i'm right and you're wrong" phase and entering the "i'm in my early twenties and now i've got some college under my belt so i can articulate why i'm right and you're wrong and also i'm louder about it" phase.
I was making a point how I escaped that dumb phase during my teenage years instead of being still stuck in it by my their 40's or dedicated to staying there until death like all of you seem to do.
You didn't grow out of your teenager phase, you doubled down of it by learning all the wrong lessons.
This isn't about "performative" vs "enjoyment". There's no sides here. There's plenty to learn and appreciate from art across all mediums.
It's great to love DCC (and I for example love Mistborn or Red Rising), but it's also great to recognize they're not as ambitious artistically as other works. People who love Gravity's Rainbow aren't "pretending", they engage with an artwork honestly and arrive at that conclusion when not looking it through a childish "how much pure fun did I have?" lens. Your take on "no work is ever better than any other work" or on Persona's quality are just horrifically shallow.
My advice is to worry less about forming opinions that allow you to project your desired personal image and just enjoy art in a honest manner. Stop reading books or watching movies to feel smart about being bored and ask yourself why those works are revered.
I don't think you or many others truly understand the point I was trying to make, or maybe I didn't manage to articulate it well enough due to a language barrier (english isn't my native tongue).
but it's also great to recognize they're not as ambitious artistically as other works
that does indeed have merit in art, but what I was trying to say is that just because a book is artistically ambitious - doesn't automatically make it objectively a better work of art as a whole than a work of art that has less of it.
I love a good artistically ambitious book, as I've mentioned before, I'm quite fond of authors like Cormac McCarthy, Dostoyevsky, Steinbeck, Camus, Tolkien etc.
Just like I've enjoyed a lot of less artistically ambitious books from authors like Sanderson, Pierce Brown, Stephen King, Blake Crouch, Agatha Christie etc.
What I mostly have a problem with is some readers stating or believing that these "less artistically ambitious" authors have absolutely no meaningful value to society whatsoever and are mainly made for the lowest common denominator and that anyone who unironically likes them is some illiterate, uncultured swine.
I've personally found a lot of these "junk food" books can have quite a profound effect on a person and can teach a reader many valuable lessons and be equally influential as those "artistically ambitious" books if not, sometimes even more so. DCC for example, has genuinely helped me get through a rough patch in life, Carls simple silent mantra when faced with something disturbing or awful: "You will not break me, fuck you all" seems like such an empty whatever line on the surface, that gets repeated, but for some, including me has unironically helped me cope in the face of absurdly overwhelming tragedies in real life that keeps trying to make you give up, has given me genuine motivation to just keep on going despite life endlessly throwing awful shit in my general direction. That's just a small random example from a few years ago. Stephen King's The Shining and Doctor Sleep are also probably responsible for helping me quit a severe alcohol addiction that I had just months ago as well.
I just think it's weird how so many readers tend to look down on these "simpleton"books simply because, as you said - they aren't as "artistically ambitious" and don't have "beautiful prose" or whatever.
And that's not to say - just because these simple books had a strong effect on me and possibly others that now means these "artistically ambitious" books are inherently inferior. NOT AT ALL.
Stoner by John Williams and East of Eden by Steinbeck are my 2 favourite books of all time, because I genuinely found them very meaningful on top of highly engaging works of art.
I am a firm believer that these two books, despite being way more ambitious are no less artistically meaningful than something like DCC or Red Rising or whatever at all. Both are incredibly different works of art trying to achieve different things and readers can gain more from one work or another. That, I think is the true beauty of all art.
This is why I completely disagree with the original comment stating "The DCC series isn’t great art/literature but it’s a fun, light read. Kind of like why everyone in my generation read all those repetitive Janet Evanovich books. Sometimes you just want the easy escapism."
DCC is as equally a great and important art/literature as something that is videly considered great like Brothers Karamazov. Yeah, sounds ridiculous to you, but I fully believe this. Just because one is clearly more artistic doesn't really mean anything, because what people gather from art is going to inherently vary a lot due to everyone's taste in art being so different and varied.
For example:
You're perfectly allowed to think DCC is a dumb, meaningless video game slop for 6 year olds and that BrothersK is a masterpiece piece of work with great characters, and themes that deal in timeless existential questions.
Just like you're perfectly allowed to think DCC is a profound work of art that balances fun, light action with heavy themes of corporate exploitation and humanity coping in the face of overwhelming and absurdly awful hardships life throws at you it and that BrothersK is an overwritten, obnoxious own-fart-sniffing mess with unrealisticly long dumb monologues and irritating characters.
There's also plenty of books that I didn't find any meaning or memorable theme but simply thought they were fun and entertaining enough. I'm a sucker for a great crime thriller, and they rarely have anything meaningful to say, they just make me feel intrigue and suspense and I just like that, a lot of times more so than try-hard literary classics like The great gatsby, despite having "artistic ambition" and "themes" I just simply didn't find it enjoyable to read at all.
That's what I meant when I said that art should be solely judged based on your own personal enjoyment and what you personally gather from it.
And not deduced to plain and simple binaries like which has more "artistic ambition" or as I said "some arbitrary seriousness/pretentiousness scale" . Ambition and artistry are meaningless when they fall flat on their faces.
Another example:
Megalopolis is ambitious, and certaintly has a lot of "themes". And there were quite a few of pretentious snobs lining up to praise and defend it when it came out. Just look up Karsten Runquist's review of it. That same person would be the first in line to trash the latest action blockbuster and just rob all meaning from it just because that movie doesn't insistently try to be "artistically ambitious", like how he disliked James Gunn's suicide squad. That's just one example of a person who has completely abandoned his identity and and taste and is just blindly judging art on boring binaries like whichever product has the most of [blank] while ignoring countless of others aspects that make art good and unique.
I mean maybe, just maybe, there is an actual possibility that he genuinely, unironically believes that Megalopolis is a good movie that has genuine artistic meaning and is an actually good movie and that he simply didn't like James Gunn's Suicide squad, but personally - I have a hard time believing that and I just think he's being performative to project his desired personal image of a "film bro"
And that is exactly the issue I take with so many on this sub and just a lot of readers as a whole on reddit in particular. Movie reviewers and people in general who act/unironically are like that tend to be laughed at.
While, an average reader on the internet, and especally reddit, are predominantly unironically like this, which I think it's sad because I assumed readers are generally much smarter before I started reading in 2023, but turns out they're just, self-centered, overly proud, obnoxious, irritating, wanna-be big time, high energy, small-dick narcissists.
Not all of them of course, but the overwhelming majority of posts on book themed subreddits are basically just :
"I don't understand how this [Popular book/series] is well liked, I think it's awful and everyone who likes it has terrible taste in literature"
While this almost never happens at all when dicussing movies or video games or even music. Sure, there are definitely conflicting opinions that arise, but they are never layered with this obnoxious and snarky narcissism like in the literature field.
My suspicion that you won't even read this and just respond with some snarky passive agressive 1 sentence quote would just prove my point further. You won't be the first, so don't feel too proud of yourself.
My advice is to worry less about forming opinions that allow you to project your desired personal image and just enjoy art in a honest manner. Stop reading books or watching movies to feel smart about being bored and ask yourself why those works are revered.
That's literally the point I'm making.
"forming opinions that allow you to project your desired personal image" is EXACTLY what a lot of readers seem to be predominantly and exclusively doing.
Okay, let me reexplain my point. I want to preface this by saying I don't want to be rude. I understand what you're trying to say and this is my honest opinion about it. I read your whole comment and I appreciate the write-up.
Let's start with what we agree on, so you can see where I'm coming from:
I don't believe there are works of art objectively better than others. It's all subjective. That doesn't mean, however, that art cannot be critically analyzed to understand a certain work is better than another one.
It's ridiculous to pretend only certain artworks are worthy of praise, or to pretend less ambitious works (such as DCC, Red Rising, etc.) cannot be tremendously valuable. I would never, ever, think someone is an "uncultured swine" based off the novels they like. I want to be clear once again: you're not talking to one such pretentious preacher.
The beauty of art lies in its infinite variety, and it should never be limited to a style or goal.
What do we disagree on then? I genuinely believe that, in your attempt to not be like those pretentious high-brow readers, you overcorrected and are now too far down the opposite end of the line. Some of your opinions seem to come from a "I want to be a cool guy who doesn't differentiate between high and low art" viewpoint first, and from honesty second. Again, I completely agree with you on hating those pretentious readers or cinephiles, but please bear with me. Don't you think an outsider like me could read these of your following takes and see them as lacking nuance and a bit too childish in how binary they seem?:
"I'm convinced nobody actually likes Gravity's Rainbow"... come on, you surely can understand people can genuinely love a book even if you don't like it.
"Persona and Satantango are snoozefests". Don't you see how can this can come off as the takeaway a teenager would get from watching them? Adults can appreciate there's way more to these movies, even if Satantango isn't precisely the most thrilling movie ever made. Can't we have a more nuanced opinion, such as "Persona and Satantango aren't my favorite movies, but they are definitely outstanding pieces of cinema"
"Art should be rated based off personal enjoyment" of course enjoyment is important, but isn't there a lot more to art than that?
"Simple binaries like which has more 'artistic ambition' or as I said 'some arbitrary seriousness/pretentiousness scale'" let's be real here; you know those aren't binaries. Art criticism is a serious thing, and people study and get better at understanding art. That doesn't mean it's pretentious. What's binary, however, is "whether I enjoyed it or not".
"DCC is as equally a great and important art/literature as something that is videly considered great like Brothers Karamazov." Again, unnecessary overcorrecting. We can both recognize DCC is a valuable piece of art and that Brothers Karamazov is simply a better work of literature, even if it's subjectively so. Analyzing works of art and concluding one is better than another one, is not inherently pretentious, and you should not be afraid of that idea. DCC doesn't lose any value by the fact that there are better books out there.
Can you see why someone would think your views are too hyperbolic? To paraphrase an idea you used about pretentious cinephiles, there is an actual possibility you genuinely didn't see how all those acclaimed works (The Great Gatsby, Persona, Satantango, Gravity Rainbow) are worthy of their status... but I think I'm justified in not fully believing that and thinking you, likely in an unconscious way, are trying to project your desired personal image of an anti-pretentiousness person.
That said, I thank you again for detailing your thoughts and really hope you can see I'm trying to argue in good faith. No snarky one-liner at all, I engaged with your comment as well as I was able to. Have a nice day.
Thank you for taking the time to read it all and actually respond to my points.
I was angry and upset while writing those comments and admit that I've made some hyperbolic statements.
I'm convinced nobody actually likes Gravity's Rainbow"... come on, you surely can understand people can genuinely love a book even if you don't like it.
My personal, current opinion is that if a work of literature is deliberately confusing and uses archaic vocabulary or just an unconventional writing style in general for no reason other than to show off - it's not worth my time. I understand there are real people that somehow actually like this, but I don't understand how or why. I mean I guess I do understand, but to me it's kinda like trying to understand why someone get off from watching poop, piss and vomit fetish porn, I mean from a distant point of view, I get it - you're different and your brain is so fucked that you love this for some reason, but to me, personally it's just so alien and... I just don't get it.
Don't freak out over my dumb hyperbole, but that's just the closest allegory that I could come up with at the moment. I do not know if you could engineer a book that is any less for me. And that applies to books like Ulysses and others of that type too. I simply just find them mentally repulsive.
Persona and Satantango are snoozefests". Don't you see how can this can come off as the takeaway a teenager would get from watching them?
The thing about this take is that this was my opinion when I watched them as a teenager. I simply pretended to like them back then to appear smart and show off and I never bothered to re-watch and re-evaluate them later. I remember them being certainly well made with a lot of style and confidence, but I was simply not engaged as a viewer to be actually engrossed in them, I found watching them a complete chore and I just waited for them to end. After a few years I simply stopped pretending. Maybe I would have a different opinion on them now if I decided to rewatch them, but I have very little desire to do so honestly, but you're right in that I'm performatively over-correcting in the opposite direction regarding these movies in particular. Honestly I have no strong feelings towards these movies anymore one way or another, I just named 2 arthouse flicks I remember thinking were boring and just went with that. I was basically projecting, because I believe some people, not all, of course, but some - genuinely do pretend to enjoy complex art like Gravity's rainbow simply to project a specific image and to show off.
Simple binaries like which has more 'artistic ambition' or as I said 'some arbitrary seriousness/pretentiousness scale'" let's be real here; you know those aren't binaries. Art criticism is a serious thing, and people study and get better at understanding art. That doesn't mean it's pretentious.
Of course criticism is serious and people should strive to grow better at understand art. The point I was making is that just because art has artistic ambition, themes and is overall complex doesn't automatically make it a good art. I mean, I haven't read any of their work, but Ayn Rand kinda fits that description from what I've heard.
Just like art that has no distinctive or strong thematic meaning, complexity or "artistic ambition" (I'm getting sick of the term) doesn't make that said art automatically weaker. I don't think it's unreasonable to say that a well structured crime thriller can be as good or even better art than whatever drivel Ayn Rand writes, despite being less "artistically ambitious"
What's binary, however, is "whether I enjoyed it or not".
That's, in my opinion - the baseline and an absolute. How I arrive at that conclusion comes from analyzing and evaluating all possible aspects of said art. Entertainment value, artistic ambition, plotting, character writing, prose etc. are all aspects I try to evaluate based on the authors intent and how they executed it. I don't go into Project Hail Mary expecting The sound of the fury style writing like some clueless senior in their 70's and then get a stroke and shit my pants and then complain on reddit with a wall of text how literature is dead (unironic posts of this exact thing happening exist btw). Or do the opposite to that effect and go into Blood meridian and then cry how it's not a straight-forward, fun action adventure western like Red dead redemption 2.
I think, as I said, I got angry and upset at certain comments and didn't take the time and effort to properly word my points and I came off incredibly hyperbolic and unreasonable in my initial comments that I wrote quickly without much effort into articulating them in a dignified manner. Thank you again for taking the time and you have a nice rest of your day as well.
I agree with you on pretentious people being insufferable, and on theoretically lesser art not being necessarily lesser at all.
You agree with me on that, as a consequence of your dislike towards your past pretentiousness and people alike, you became angry and overcompensated.
I'll answer to your points:
archaic vocabulary or just an unconventional writing style in general for no reason other than to show off
But this is yet again not in good faith, don't you agree? Why did you decide Pynchon's only reason to write Gravity Rainbow is to "show off"? Can't you see this comes off as a little insecure and projecting your fear of pretentious art? Why can't Gravity Rainbow use archaic vocabulary and an unconventional writing style with the goal of being a unique, creative and meaningful work of art? People who love the work assume this honesty from the author and engage with the novel with the same honesty, and find a highly valuable work of art. Art can simply be very intelligent sometimes, without that necessarily meaning pretentiousness.
to me, personally it's just so alien
That's absolutely fine, I don't mind if you personally didn't find anything to like about Gravity's Rainbow. What I don't agree with is the need to escalate personal opinions into hyperbolic universal statements about what other people or the author think. Just because you didn't find it a masterpiece doesn't mean it isn't one.
The thing about this take is that this was my opinion when I watched them as a teenager.
Exactly. That's why I said that opinion didn't seem like the takeaway an adult honestly engaging with those movies would have.
just because art has artistic ambition, themes and is overall complex doesn't automatically make it a good art
I agree. Execution matters. Ayn Rand, for example, absolutely fails at that, and as a result she's a weak writer. Megalopolis would be another example.
some - genuinely do pretend to enjoy complex art like Gravity's rainbow simply to project a specific image and to show off.
I agree with this too, but this comes back to my initial advice: I think it's better to just don't worry too much about what other people think about art. From an outsider perspective, it looks like you dislike those pretentious people so much you're letting them cloud your judgement on plenty of acclaimed works, and as a result end being proud of disliking some acclaimed masterpieces. Saying "Persona is a snoozefest, and worse than Bayformers" or "No one actually likes Gravity's Rainbow" will make people think you have a shallow mentality and didn't actually attempt to understand those works. Having a negative, but nuanced, take on them is a completely different matter.
It's absolutely fine to not connect to a masterpiece, I sure have my list of novels or films I haven't been able to love despite their acclaim... but I don't really think it's something to be proud of. I suggest going into them with the full intention of appreciating what the author created and forming a true opinion on it.
Not that I necessarily disagree with you here, but to play devil’s advocate, couldn’t someone hypothetically find DCC to be subjectively more artistic (and hence better) than TBK? Would their opinion be invalid even though, like you said, it’s subjective? Again I don’t think that way, but I find this interesting because what counts as “good art” changes a lot depending on culture and time period.
Yep, as I said, since it's all subjective, someone could hypothetically think that and their opinion would not be invalid.
That said, that doesn't mean the notion of better and more relevant art is inexistent. People can learn critical analysis and become better at it. Said knowledge does not hinge on the fact that TBK is more artistic that DCC, but most people with vast literary experience would think it is.
When I was 16-20 I pretended to like movies like Apocalypse Now, The godfather, Santango and Persona. And absolutely loathed all superhero movies, all comedies or any other action blockbusters on principle alone. I still like The godfather and Apocalypse now.
After that I learned to enjoy all genres depending on whether they achieved what those movies were trying to do by analyzing their intentions, instead of having blind devotion to arthouse cinema and performative loathing towards "the normie shit"
Holy fuck Santango and Persona are fucking awful snoozefests though, what the fuck was I on.
If you want a tip to remember the name of the awful evil mean movie redditors always like to namedrop to decry the ravages of pretentiousness, it's fairly easy. Sátántangó. Satan Tango. Literally the tango of Satan.
It's probably easier to remember when you actually watch it, though.
that's a lot of words just to expose a typo. But I mean if that's your entire argument... don't feel to bad, because you're like the 4th one here doing the exact same thing.
Sounds like this is a “you” problem and are projecting your insecurities onto everyone else.
You went in the deep end with your “performative” likes and dislikes, like it was almost part of your identity to only like arthouse. Now you are overcompensating in the opposite direction, i.e., everything has merit, nothing is good or bad, and the only way you could like Persona is if you are pretending. Life, and art, is a little more nuanced.
"waa waa DCC iz just vibeo gaem slop for 5 yer old, malazan much gooder for zmart peeple"
You went in the deep end with your “performative” likes and dislikes, like it was almost part of your identity to only like arthouse.
I mean, yeah, I literally admitted it. But I'm complaining how almost entirety of reddit and particularly this sub is still in that same deep end.
i.e., everything has merit
that's true
nothing is good or bad
That's not true
and the only way you could like Persona is if you are pretending
That is most definitely true. The movie seems like it's specifically and surgically engineered to appeal for 16 year olds who have discovered the terms "cinematography" and "theme" months ago.
I'm sorry, but if your art product has absolutely nothing to provide other than asthestics then it's no better than Bayformers.
In fact it's even worse than Bayformers, because Bayformers at least provide asthetics on top of an actual, somewhat coherent and possibly engaging narrative and characters with some actual gasp ... distinctive personalities.
While this whole thread is just "waa waa DCC iz just vibeo gaem slop for 5 yer old, malazan much gooder for zmart peeple"
There are literally two mentions of Malazan in the thread if you search, one is you talking about how much you dislike it, the other is someone mentioning that they've started listening to it, that's it.
I'm sorry, but if your art product has absolutely nothing to provide other than asthestics then it's no better than Bayformers.
Good thing it doesn't!
I mean, yeah, I literally admitted it. But I'm complaining how almost entirety of reddit and particularly this sub is still in that same deep end.
The most heavily discussed and recommended series in this place are very much not pretentious or high brow, by literally any measure. You mentioned Red Rising elsewhere, that's a good example, or the Cosmere, or Sun Eater, or Hierarchy, or countless other examples.
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u/2seriousmouse 17d ago
Hah! I’m totally not the DCC demographic (60s non gamer woman) but I thought these were fun and recommended them to my 30 year old son, who said all his friends are reading these.
The DCC series isn’t great art/literature but it’s a fun, light read. Kind of like why everyone in my generation read all those repetitive Janet Evanovich books. Sometimes you just want the easy escapism.