Let's talk about the novella. How do you feel about them? Like them? No? Why or why not? Do you think they can do anything interesting (structurally, narratively, etc.) that neither short stories nor novels can do? What are you favorites?
Their shortness allows freedom of structure, it can't quite disregard structure like the short story can but it can develop structure beyond what a short story can. Your picrel is a good example, it has no structure as far as theme development is concerned, it handles all that in an adhoc fashion alongside the plot which primarily provides the forward momentum and context; its shortness allows for the author to rely on memory to find all the pieces instead of providing patterns for the reader to latch onto as the novel would require. The short story can work identically but providing the required context for developing theme to the depth which Train Dreams does would make it into something very different. This relation to structure is actually what separates short story from novella from novel from maximalist door stopper, not word count or page count, the shorter the work the less reliant it is on having a cohesive structure. I like them more than short stories but prefer the novel and really prefer the maximalist door stopper; I love structure and those door stoppers develop and rely on structure more than anything else. Novels can be more subtle with structure and quite interesting, but novels often cheat and break their structures when it works to their advantage, which always kind of irks me.
>>25090598Fascinating insight, anon. There's a lot to chew on here.Follow-up: either I don't actually know (though I thought I did) what structure is or you're using it differently than I'm used to. Could you define structure?
>>25090609Study Shakespeare. People get taught three-act structures in school because teachers don't know any better, but it's much better to think of stories as five acts. There's a really good blog post by Film Hulk about it, if you can get past the all caps typing.
>>25090609Structure is what is used to develop and communicate theme. The old fashioned way was plot and character, theme develops linearly as the characters progresses and develops, each event building on the previous to develop theme. Train Dreams works mostly in this way but Johnson relies on the reader being able to remember most everything that has happened and randomly leverages past events for developing theme with nothing to clue the reader in on it, simply relies on his understanding of reading, writing, and the limits of memory. Going back to the naturalists we see character as structure almost completely removed from plot, works like Germinal and Growth of the Soil use each character as a mostly independent instance of theme, each developing theme within their context as they progress through the novel, plot provides some context but mostly is used to provide the forward momentum. Plot in this case is still a structure, just not the structure used to make the point. >>25090628The three act structure/thee paragraph essay is at the core of even the most structurally complex works, they are taught because you will be lost if you don't understand them. The three paragraph essay is a better way to look at things when it comes to complex works but they are essentially the same, one is just tied to plot, the other isn't.
>>25090544A novella is when you have an idea for a novel but can't flesh it out enough. That's what Pynchon basically said about Lot 49 (maybe that's not technically a novella idk but it's close enough).
>>25090656>Structure is what is used to develop and communicate theme.OK, I think I see what you mean. So you said novels contrast with maximalist door-stoppers structurally. How so? Did you have a specific one in mind or did you mean in general? I've read the meme trilogy if you want to reference one of those.>>25090628Ok I googled it and I can't get past the all caps. Do you know if there's a lower case version?>>25090665Hmmm....that doesn't sound right but I don't enough about what Pynchon said about that (or anything really) so I can't disagree.
I like novellas. Often times there's absolutely no reason for a book to be several hundred pages. Maybe it's a stupid comparison, but it's kind of like how many video games have a very simple gameplay loop that becomes boring after 4 hours, but for commercial reasons the game gets stretched out into a 50 hour experience because people want to feel like they're getting the most bang for their buck.Sure, sometimes you just want to get lost in fantasy slop for 700 pages, but when it comes to artistry I much prefer tighter experiences.
>>25090670The longer the work the less the writer can rely on memory, so you either sacrifice complexity or provide the reader with some way to know what is important to remember, which pretty much means structure. >ijPretty much an extension of the naturalists, every character is an instance of theme. DFW extends this by exploiting our natural tendencies to shoehorn things into a stereotype which he makes easy by making every character a stereotype in context of theme; he can have a character show up for one page, mention that he is a nationally ranked jr tennis player that wears Armani sweats and repeatedly explain his constant twitching as something he has had since birth and we will fill in the pieces; his jetset parents did not love him enough so he filled the hole with cocaine and tennis, and we have a full instance of theme. DFW goes a step further and makes everything a full instance of theme or a sideways exposition on theme which is also a full instance of theme but we can't see that util we have most everything figured out; character X is f, m, and t in context of theme q, e, and d. >grWe have three plots and each is traveled by Slothrop; that which is real, that which is not real and that which may or may not be real, and we have lets say three ideas which develop alongside those plots and develop much like characters do in traditional character driven novels; Pavlovian conditioning (mommy issues in DFW terms), the conspiracy (daddy issues), and the rocket (tennis/weed). Once we understand this we can push each bit of the copious amounts of data Pynchon gives us into its proper bin, which changes both the data and the bin but each time we do it the changes get smaller and we get closer to ticking the master instead of just ticking his servants. >ulyssesThis is an odd one because theme is completely removed from Joyce's goal of an accurate representation of life within the constraints of literature; life is not a constant, we grow and change and an accurate literary representation must grow and change just like we do. On the surface we have the most generic modernist novel comprising all of the generic modernist plots but a bit deeper we have all those references that no one can understand but can accept within their current understanding and get a great deal from while reaching one of the various generic modernist themes in a way that seems very pertinent to our time and place regardless of how removed it is from the time and place of Joyce and the novel's characters. Joyce was not a maximalist, he was a modernist and focused on the individual but unlike the other modernists, he was more concerned with the individual that was the reader than the individual he created for some contrived purposes. In maximalist terms, structure is the reference, something we can never understand fully and that is the point, each reference is an iteration on theme, that we can never really understand, rather Pynchonian.
>>25090897...
>>25090656>The old fashioned way was plot and character, theme develops linearly as the characters progresses and develops, each event building on the previous to develop theme.This is so retarded and false.
>>25090936Use your words. >>25090940Use your words.
>>25090941What words? You're the IJfag who repeatedly speaks out of his ass as if he knows what he is talking about. You don't know shit about writing and I am tired of your waffling. Setting up a book to develop a theme is not new, we call it allegory and has been avoided by writers of any serious worth. Now you'll waffle on about "ackshually what i am saying is different because i deluded myself into believing this or that"
>>25090957>What words?Address what was said instead of getting triggered. I never said or implied that setting up a book to develop a theme was new, I strongly implied it was not new by bringing in the naturalists. Setting up a book to develop theme is the novel, something which should not need to be explicitly stated as being as old as the novel, but that does not mean how we go about it does not change.
>>25090964That's called a variation, retard. No shit. Even the Victorians weren't rewriting each other's novels. If you think that's worth waffling on then you are in dire need of reading more than the postmodern shit you keep clinging to. Moreover, cheap allegorical writing has nothing to do with naturalists. Henry James is closer to a naturalist than either dfw or pynchon. You can't be a naturalist if you have no capacity to look at the real world unless it is wrapped up in ideas. Ideas in naturalism spring from real events and the writer's only interference is in the choice of their inclusion in the book. dfw and pynchon artificially move the pieces on the board to generate an interpretation (that's all their characters and plots amount to). That's not naturalism.
>>25090976>You can't be a naturalist if you have no capacity to look at the real world unless it is wrapped up in ideas.That is pretty much naturalism was and Zola's entire point, the idea is what mattered and contrived situations of realism destroyed the idea, it was a larp. I never said DFW was a naturalist, I said he extended their techniques. I made no connections between Pynchon and the naturalist. DFW probably did not extend the techniques of naturalism, at least not directly, the post modernists did that and they were where he got it from. Postmodernist lit is mostly an extension of naturalism, the removal of contrivances outside of the ones innate to literature, they just built off of the contrivances innate to literature and removed the last bit of contrivances that Zola and the naturalist could not remove if they wanted to have any relevance. Also, you moved the goalposts.
>>25090995You're literally just making shit up. If they went back to being allegorical then they didn't extend any technique or movement. You can't have scientific objectivism in storytelling if the entire plot becomes a cheap contrivance forced to conform to the writer's ideas already. Postmodern lit does not come from naturalism.
>>25091018Naturalists where not allegorical, that was part of what Zola was pushing against, that and the larp. DFW and Pynchon also were not allegorical. Postmodernism is literally modernism + naturalism, you seem to be conflating postmodern theory with postmodern lit, they are only related by time period. Also, strawman and goalpost moving.
>>25090941I had no words, just felt a need to respond to a post by someone who actually reads.
>>25091023You fucking think that postmodern theory is allegorical? This thread just proves how full of shit you always were.You make the plot just contrivance for muh theme and that's just an allegory now. You're just throwing random words together.
>>25091032Give it a try, might surprise yourself. >>25091034When did I say postmodern theory was allegorical? I never called anything allegorical and explicitly stated that Zola, Pynchon and DFW were not allegorical. Goalposts are not even on the field now. At least give me something worth responding too, something which takes some effort and not just pointing out the glaring errors in your logic.
>>25091032Lol
>>25091050You're a retard who is repeatedly avoiding the finer points of discussion while projecting his inability to articulate onto me.Zola is not allegorical, but dfw and pynchon are. That's the entire mode of their writing. I explained it clearly above and you've done nothing but deflect without providing an answer.
>>25091023>Postmodernism is literally modernism + naturalismLet me guess, autodidact? This is the stupidest thing I've ever read.
>>25091093Your missing their point does not make them allegorical. >>25091097Explain why or fuck off.
>>25091108You're stupid as fuck and avoiding the question
>>25091217What question? Only question asked was clearly rhetorical.
>>25091242>>25091217
Denis Johnson isn't a good writer. No need to discuss any of his works.
>>25091397Idk, I liked OP pic, it was well written and I am looking forward to reading more of him. What did you find bad?
>>25092426Most here can't into minimalism unless it is wrapped up in a Hemingway wrapper so they have something to do while they miss all the subtext. I have also only read Train Deams, it was quite good, the writing was amazing. Got Jesus' Son and Tree of Smoke on the shelf in wait.
Anyone have some recs for novellas? I read OP and Ice, enjoyed both. Think those might be the only novellas I have read.
>>25093253Rolling.
>>25093253Damn I needed something exactly like this. Thanks anon. I love your presumably white ass. If it was a black ass or a yellow ass or another color ass I still love you. I love your multiethnic ass. Saved and rolling
>>25093325>the viceroy of ouidahEven though you did not technically roll. It is a quite good and what I got on my first roll off this chart all those years ago. Here is the other one. Rolling.
>>25093253>>25093364Amazing. Never even seen these in a charts thread.
>>25093364>catcher in the ryeI have never successfully rolled this chart, always get something I have read. Rerolling.>>25093467We used to make a lot of charts and most have been forgotten.
