[nostalgk]

Exactly. Reading any good book and fully understanding it takes a lot more than a simple once-through hearing. Sure, you might catch the themes and be able to have a water cooler conversation, but the best books are the ones that aren't page turners; ones that you spend all night on, and only make it through 20 pages.

Besides, when I read something really good, like Hitchhiker's Guide, I usually flip it over and start it again!

[wildleaf]

The idea that consuming fiction is a waste of time always irks me. The entire concept of 'wasting time' is so contrived it makes my stomach churn. It reminds me of people who become a doctor for the money. You're mistaking the game for reality.. play whichever game you want but make sure you're doing it for the right reasons.

[Bakary]

It's a consequence of absolutely every aspect of life or thought being commoditized in some form.

[umadon]

Right, and the enormous pressure constantly put on the average person by advertising and work to somehow be a super being: fitter, happier, more productive, etc, as the fella says.

[TeMPOraL]

> It reminds me of people who become a doctor for the money.

The flip side of that is that the career you want to be in very rarely looks like advertised; people going in for the money are the ones who end up the least disillusioned when they enter the job market.

[noxToken]

>Sure, you might catch the themes and be able to have a water cooler conversation, but the best books are the ones that aren't page turners; ones that you spend all night on, and only make it through 20 pages.

Going to have to disagree with you here. I don't think you're wrong, but your stance is personal matter of taste that's somewhere between 20 pages per minute and 20 pages per hour.

I prefer fantasy and sci-fi (both YA and non-YA), because I like to explore the world building. I don't mind the simplicity of YA novels. I use reading as relaxing entertainment where I can shut off a few cylinders. Though I do enjoy heavier stuff like Sanderson's Stormlight Archives.

[Kiro]

I'm pretty sure most fiction books I read don't have any deeper meaning. You make it sound like everything out there is some deep philosophical hard sci-fi. I would never want to read something where I spend the whole night just to make it through 20 pages. Sounds exhausting and not enjoyable at all.

[jimhefferon]

> most fiction books I read don't have any deeper meaning

That's fine; keep doing what you enjoy. But there is life-changing fiction, so it is not as though there is nothing a person could choose to read that would be great.

[Kiro]

Both you and the post I replied to seem to imply that fiction books without any deeper meaning cannot be good or great.

[Veen]

Both you and the post I replied to seem to imply that fiction books without any deeper meaning cannot be good or great.

They can be good or great entertainment, but that's not what is generally meant when educated people say that a book is great literature. The artistic value of a book is almost independent of how entertaining it might be.

(I say "almost independent" because people who care about the "deeper meaning" get great pleasure from taking their time to discover it.)

[nostalgk]

This is not what I meant to imply. While I prefer heavier reads, my point was that a cursory reading of any piece of literature pretty rarely results in a full consumption of it. The Great Gatsby is a pretty easy read, too, but it is steeped in symbolism that would be tough to fully interpret in a cursory read. Complexity != Quality

[jimhefferon]

I think that the best books, including fiction, are ones that I find myself reflecting on later. Sometimes years later. I don't find that airport mysteries do that for me.

Although, sometimes I read those and enjoy them, mostly in an airport. No harm done.

[richardthered]

I think what you get out of a book is more about the person reading it, and what they are looking for, than it is about the story itself.

Dr. Seuss's "Oh, the places you'll go" could be read by one person as just a whimsical children's tale. Someone else, though, might see it as an interesting allegory on the journeys that a person might face in their own life.

Likewise, I might look at a squirrel burying nuts in the ground, and see just a squirrel. But a buddhist monk might derive some great wisdom from watching the very same thing.

[hawski]

I know that I'm in minority, but could you tell me what do you find great about Hitchhiker's Guide? I find it ok-ish. It feels overly chaotic for me. Like it really tries to wave the idea of improbability at me and eventually shove it. Of course everything is exaggerated for comedic effects, but for me it's like it tries too hard. The result is very incoherent.

It reminds me of a few movies I enjoyed dearly when I was a kid. After a rewatch they seem like a bunch of good gags, that tell a miserable story. If I would judge the scenes by themselves, I would say they are nice. However if you put them in order, it seems forced to put a story together.

I had similar thoughts after reading Pratchett's The Colour of Magic. Though after I started reading The Light Fantastic it fell into place. I would say that those two books should be inseparable. Whatever happens in the first does not make sense until the second book. Now I can say that I enjoyed it more then Mort and Guards! Guards!, but at the moment it's all I read from Discworld, do maybe my opinion is yet to change. I wonder if it's the same with Hitchhiker's Guide. But I'm on 19th chapter of 4th book and although this one feels much better, whatever happens in previous three still does not make any sense.

I'll pass if you will tell me it should not make sense, that's figurative 'it' and I get it as it is. Because coherence is what makes a story for me.

[nostalgk]

Really, from my understanding, you're right: it should not make sense. It's pretty much an absurdist book, it was adapted from a radio show and was more or less just comedy sketches centered in a ragtag, nonsense setting. None of them really have much to do with each other, nor do they really build off of each other, but I find Douglas Adams writing and ability to come up with what he does to be endlessly engaging and uplifting.

You mentioned judging the scenes by themselves; this is how I view Hitchhiker's Guide, as a compilation of great scenes that each occasionally do have some great meta-commentary on the world at large, and almost all are funny and self-contained. There isn't so much "development" as there is a progression of in-jokes.

The characters are more or less used as puzzle pieces to fit into a scene; while they might not really "develop" so to speak, they are fun archetypes that are thrown into silly situations, and we recognize them by what they do and say. They don't compare to most novels or literature when it comes to character development, but it can often be a gag as well just how far they've come without developing whatsoever.

It definitely does try hard, and it definitely is incoherent. This turns it off to a lot of people, and that's totally reasonable. For those who essentially want to read Spaceballs, however, it is a work of art comparable to Plato's Republic.

[richardthered]

It's comedy. Most sci-fi and fantasy novels are serious, so having a comedic bent is unusual, which is interesting.

Beyond that, though, comedy itself can be interesting because it looks at life from a different perspective. Much of comedy is based around the idea of looking at the mundane aspects of life, and getting a fresh perspective.

Why do we drive on 'parkways' but park on 'driveways'? etc.

We have governments, and bureaucracy in our daily lives.

What would that look like if you extended that concept to an intergalatic civilization? You'd have a race of bureaucrats that end up destroying our planet to make room for a new construction project.

It's common for sci-fi stories to focus on the fantastical and awe-inspiring aspects of the story, like teleportation and faster-than-light travel.

This, however, focuses on the mundane aspects of life. Yes, there are fantastical elements to the story, like 'improbability drives' and such. But the focus of the story is on the banalities of life. The daily quirks and joys and annoyances that affect us all.

Arthur Dent is dealing with local red tape, and the local pencil-pushers try to destroy his house to make way for a highway. His universe then grows dramatically as he learns that there is a vast universe out there, teaming with intelligent life. And guess what? He's still stuck dealing with bureaucrats that want to destroy his home.

Life isn't always about psychic powers and laser guns. Sometimes it's just about crushing on a girl that you like, and having her run off the with asshole with a better ride.

That's an interesting story, even if the asshole has two heads and the 'ride' is a spaceship.

[kthejoker2]

Yeah ... HHGTTG is like a super extended standup routine or vaudeville act. Reading for "coherence" or "an idea" is missing the point.

[C1sc0cat]

It was a radio show originally

[asark]

Books that set out to be comedy don't really work for me. HHGTTG is probably the best I've read but even that was just... tolerable. Biggest laughs I've had came from "normal" fiction, sprinkled in here and there. Dickens is good at that. Best laugh I've had from a book may have been from a set up chapter followed by a punchline first sentence of the next in Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora, a book that's otherwise occasionally funny but not at all a comedy. I had to put it down for a while to stop laughing.

By contrast, comedy's almost the only thing that works for me in silent film. And not just the slapstick (though that's great) but also visual-narrative comedy. That and mind-blowingly-large-scale spectacle, like the epics usually manage for some part of their runtime. Serious, personal drama? Nope. Books or talkies for that.