Finally a story that stays focused and actually entertains the reader from beginning to end. Makes me wonder if he actually spent some time editing this one instead of just spewing it out in his usual stream of conscienceless style.

No complaints, damn fine writing, I actually felt for the poor fish! Best post I've seen from him.

I felt that way when I first started reading his stuff, but now it's kind of a relaxing thing. The writing style just pulls you through, and at the end you feel like you've learned something of significance. It is a nice break from the more hectic style of reading I do online. At least, that was my experience after reading his post on the properties pattern.

I'm not saying I didn't like the article. I did: it's the first Yegge I've actually cared to read in its entirety. But people, particularly people who aren't word people, tend to attribute superlatives to things that they like, and the word "literature" in particular is one that bugs me.

This was a good story, absolutely. It was heartfelt and sincere. But that's only a part of what makes good writing good. Literature is about the art of crafting words, of putting them together in ways that are aesthetically pleasing. There are people who can write great yarns who aren't writing literature. And this blog post, while it's very good for a blog post, isn't literature.

Which isn't to say it's not worth reading! Some people assume that literary merit is all that makes writing worthwhile; those people miss out on a lot of things that are beautiful and worth reading, just for the manner of the prose. I don't think that's true, and I agree with you with everything else you said. Just... don't assign attributes to a thing needlessly. It's like people that listen to a rap song and praise its harmonies. There are other ways to compliment a piece of writing.

Excuse me if this was unwarranted with your writing. I'm hoping this didn't come across entirely as somebody's being a dick needlessly. It's just something little that sets me off, and it provoked my writing something this time.

'Literature' is not a superlative.

But I use literature as a very specific phrase. I don't hold it to encompass all of writing. I use it to define a very particular branch of writing: the sort of writing that has an emphasis on language. However, I don't dismiss things that I don't call literature, either, and I don't hold literature necessarily on a level above everything else, either. For instance: I think that the Narnia series is better-written than Harry Potter, and that it's a more literary series. However, I think that Harry Potter is a better story, and I think that it has more about it that interests me than Narnia. I think the characters are more interesting, the arc of the story is more powerful, and I think that Rowling singlehandedly changed the face of the "children's literature" genre. If I were to pick which of the two series to keep and cherish for the rest of time, I'd go for Harry Potter.

So, as I said. Take what I said precisely for what I said. I'm not dismissing Yegge's article. I'm just saying that I take the term "literature" to define writing that is memorable for its aesthetic. Steve Yegge is an interesting writer, and at times he's compelling, but he is not particularly good with using the English language. He isn't bad, he just isn't good.

Ah, see, this is where we diverge. I too am a wordsmith, but to me, literature is defined by what it is that it leads the reader to. A fantastically written piece of poetry that has no deeper meaning is, to me, not literature. A piece of vogon poetry with a deeper meaning is also not literature, mind you - there has to be some basic level of craft. In either case, I consider the meaning to be more important than the form.

Amateurish as it might be, this piece had a Truth to tell, and to me, that makes it literature. Your point of view is just as valid as mine, so I think we'll just have to agree to disagree :-)

You think Narnia was better written than Harry Potter. That is cool, and you are entitled to have your own asshole. What makes your opinion any better than anyone else's? What gives you the credentials to define the word "literature"?

If you want to say you didn't like Yegge's work, that's cool, if you want to say you don't think it is literature, that's cool too. But to say no one else is allowed to consider it literature .. that is not cool at all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Versification

It's about poetry, but all of the devices of poetry, including meter, are useful in prose.

This is one of those arguments that can't be won outright, but that doesn't mean some opinions aren't better (better reasoned, better informed) than others.

FWIW, I love Yegge's essays, but they ain't literature. They're too careless and breezy on any number of vectors -- more like a better than usual newspaper feature article. You know, something about the local Pumpkin Festival or whatever.

It's possible to determine aesthetic quality, but no measure is by any means accurate. However, aesthetic is absolutely present. The easiest way is to determine how things sound when spoken aloud. There's no "formula" to it. It's entirely a matter of personal taste. However, Steve Yegge is not somebody who writes for the sound of his language. He writes to express ideas. Is it worth reading him? Yes. Does his writing have aesthetic merit? No, and he doesn't care, and swombat probably doesn't either. As I first said: I didn't post that to try and be a writing nazi. It was just something stewing in my mind, and I wrote it down as a response to something small that swombat wrote. I upvoted both swombat and the story itself: this was not meant to be an assault on either.

If you don't think there's a such thing as aesthetic in writing: read Joyce. Read Nabakov. Absolutely read Beckett. All three are writers with immediately identifiable styles, and each one certainly has a powerful aesthetic about his writing. "Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins." There's a coupling of ideas (light/fire, life/loins). There's the name Lolita itself, which Nabakov expands himself in the story's opening paragraph. It flows. It spikes in the beginning, stretches out in the second and third phrases. These are all things that you can discuss. Compare that to "I write a column for computer programmers called "Stevey's Blog Rants." The second is informative without any styling whatsoever. And there's nothing wrong with that. It just isn't literature.

Narnia almost certainly is better written than Harry Potter. Don't take my word for it: read both. Narnia focuses on its language much more than Harry Potter. That's not saying Rowling writes without meaning: I wrote a minor dissertation about the first line in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone once, because I thought it was interesting and because I like picking things apart. Harry Potter has moments where it sounds beautiful, but those moments are few and far between, and Rowling does resort to clichés rather often. That doesn't make Harry Potter bad: I think that it defined a generation, my generation, and that the final 200 pages of the final book move me like very few things in writing do - that despite its lack of emphasis on beautiful language.

My credentials? I write. I've written since the sixth grade. I've gone to programs where I learn how to write. As such, I've developed informed opinions on things. My opinions are better than many people's opinions, because I've taken time to think about what I mean when I say things about literature. Most people don't think about how they define the term. I do. Therefore, I already know what I think about this.

I'm certain other people have other opinions, but they haven't responded yet. Why would you call Yegge's article literature, if you do? We could talk about that, and chances are both of us would learn something new in the process. I don't want to dictate literature and its definition: I only wanted to start a discussion.

http://xkcd.com/451/

If this goes on, I promise to be down-to-earth, and to never once mention Derrida or deconstructionism.

i'm sorry but to me what you are doing is very much like trying to measure program quality by counting lines of code. it's like you spent all these years trying to understand the details of writing you have gotten stuck in one mindset and don't realize that there are many other ways to see the world, there are many others forms of beauty out there.

For example Hemingway's famous six word short "For sale: baby shoes, never worn."

My standard for literature: does it touch your heart? Yes? It is art.

[tl;dr]

Of course there are other forms of beauty. Do you not read the statements I've made? Reread what I said in response to you, regarding Harry Potter versus Narnia. I'm pretty sure I said specifically that I liked Harry Potter more, and considered it a more valuable story, despite its not being as well-written as Narnia. I think that some people were masters of aesthetic, but never learned how to tell a good story: for that reason, I dislike Steinbeck quite a lot. I think the opposite can be the case.

My statement, as I've already clarified, was made against the use of the phrase "literature" alone. I use the word "literature" to describe writing that has aesthetic merit. When I read It, I call it a damn good story. I would not call It literary because Steven King is not a literary writer. He is literate, but not literary. He is a good writer who excels in substance and falters in style. I'm over-describing this, I think, but that's because my more concise explanation seemingly had no effect.

Another example: I think Isaac Asimov wrote damn good stories. I think that he was a master of logic, and that he wrote some of the best intellectual fiction I've ever read. I don't call his writing literature. I call it fiction. If somebody said in front of me that Asimove was a cornerstone of literature, I'd tell them that I disagreed, and explained why. I think he's a valuable part of the history of fiction. I think he's a masterful storyteller. If I were to make a list of writers to recommend to others, or even to history, I'd ditch both Hemingway and Faulkner and put Asimov on instead, though I'd admit that's not a popular opinion. However, I would not call him literature.

Whether something touches you or not doesn't make something literature. It doesn't make art, either. There's an art to being capable of drawing emotions, and that is an art that makes some writers memorable. However, you can draw emotion without any finesse whatsoever: witness Nick Sparks and his movie adaptations. People openly weep at The Notebook. That doesn't make it a well-crafted movie. I wouldn't call it an important movie in terms of cinema, in the same way that I'd say the novel is not an important piece of literature. If somebody asked me how to write a tearjerker, though, I'd point them there before I'd point them to Citizen Kane or Ulysses, though I'd probably point them to something like To Kill A Mockingbird first. (It should be noted that To Kill A Mockingbird is expertly written, tells a compelling story, and manages to draw tears all at once. These three things require separate skills and Harper Lee had all of them. Do you understand what I'm trying to say yet?)

[/tl;dr]

You can't ignore the connotations and meanings of the words that you choose. (Well, you can, and clearly you are, but you shouldn't.) There is a difference between being able to tell a story and being able to craft a good sentence. There's a difference between both and being able to draw emotion. The three are not linked immutably, though many good writers absolutely could do all three.

I'm not ignoring beauty. I'm not stuck in a mindset. I'm just particular about the words I use. Call it the mark of a writer. I posted, I will say yet again, because I thought it was worth a side discussion on what constitutes literature. I will say yet again that I liked Steve Yegge's post. It was an article that was worth reading. That doesn't make it well-written. That doesn't make it literature. It makes it, plain and simple, a good article. I don't object to people who like it because of that; I object to people who use the very specific term "literature" to describe the more general idea of "good writing."