are some books objectively good? (the truth behind literary awards)

[@TimeTravelReads]

I have a thought about objectivity. Please bear with me. I've heard a professional book reviewer talk about the difference between a professional book review and an amateur book reaction. A professional book review says "Regardless of whether I liked the book or not, here are its merits. I will judge this work within its tradition." For example, say you're reviewing a biography. A professional reviewer has probably read several biographies of the same person. They will compare and contrast the new biography in question with the previous biographies of that person. An amateur reaction will just talk about why the reader liked or disliked it. I'm guessing that the judges of book prizes are probably professional book reviewers, who have practice in the art of appreciation. You can appreciate what a book is trying to accomplish and how well it does that, without actually enjoying the book. That's a form of objectivity. However, that doesn't mean they're infallible or apolitical. Of course not.

[@MrRosebeing]

Yeah, you go with that. It's all subjective. If you can give an objective review of my comment then kudos.

[@ahaxd9317]

Your opinion on a book will always be related in some way to your personal preferances but things like style and exploration of topics presented in a work of fiction can be done objectively poorly

[@ЮлияК-ч3р]

It was strange. In literature, as in any art, there are objective criteria. This includes language, stylistic devices, character development, a new look at things, and exploration of the human soul. That is why Dostoevsky and Oscar Wilde, for example, are objectively great writers, but Ali Hazelwood is not. Not because her books are bad. But because her books have none of the above. She does not explore souls, does not invent new stylistic expressions of feelings, does not play with structure. She makes entertaining literature and she is good at it.

[@thomascromwell6840]

As someone who believes some books are better than others, I only have to answer the question of 'better for me in what regard'.

[@ЮлияК-ч3р]

@@thomascromwell6840 Some books are indeed better than others in some ways. Just like some people are better than others, and so on. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't like it. There are absolutely pointless but popular books, and they are deservedly popular. They may have a light style or catchy characters. But they are not literature with a capital L.They have other strengths: marketing, a catchy setting etc. Conversely, great classics may seem boring and incomprehensible to you. That is, yes, the question is in what way exactly one book is better than another. But what is objectively good literature is a fact

[@c1aud55n]

3:24 i just want to mention that AI is absolutely not objective. the same criticism you have of elitism in judges that are all professors and renowned critics applied to AI engines. The people coding and training AI are all biased and that biased if engrained into these systems. If the people training AI on literature are all professors and literally critics or their research papers and articles are used to code AI you run into the same problem. I recommend everyone looks into how biased AI can be

[@markreadsbo]

To me normal books are universal story set on an individual level, But great books are individual story on a universal level.

[@DesertsofHibernia]

I don't know what that means, and you don't either.

[@markreadsbo]

@@DesertsofHibernia so here's what it means, All books are stories that should entertain the reader, some may be better than others. From romance about people falling in love or crime finding out who did it. With both of these are stories most of us will go through. However a great book will tell it in such away that readers will see something in the novel no matter how different it is from their on lives that connects them in some way to the story on a basic level no matter what the books about. . However the

[@San-li9ml]

​@markreadsbo I can see your goal in that line of thinking, but even so that is still very subjective. Who knows, maybe a Dr. Seuss book will give someone that experience of connection, that even at a basic level of understanding, will cause readers to react in uproar. What you consider a normal book, may be a great one to someone else.

[@TimeTravelReads]

As far as I know, the biggest American literary awards were born of a desire for American literature to be taken seriously by Europeans. The novel as a form hadn't developed into as many genres and subgenres as it has today. When the creators of those awards talked about literature making contributions to humanity, they probably had a different frame of reference than we do, being more attached to a white, western cannon that claimed to represent universal human experience. Now, I'm not sure if those awards are trying to guess which books will be studied by historians and assigned in university classes. I think a multi-genre literary award would be a mess. A better solution would be to make a wider variety of genres' awards prestigious in the public's mind.

[@xnlo]

Well said!

[@PromisingPod]

Yeah, this is a great video topic. I do think there are certain types of books that have more going onto it than just your average reading. It's not to do with what most people think today. Today a good book is considered one that uses imagery and literary devices, and those are all important tools, but you can use a lot of that and still not say anything meaningful. What I'm saying is that I don't care about style or writing in the particular way we associate a modern book to sound like. A great book or masterpiece says something to us, teaches us something. It reveals. Words are so powerful that they can change the world. It requires a thoughtful and willful writer to act as a guide. As far as the judges of these works, you're right that the book award committees don't always read everything, and lots of books probably fall into the cracks. I can't say too much about current book award standards, but old book award winners, like the Newberry Awards or other book awards, actually do a good job of selecting excellent works of literature. I do recommend these books, because they seem to be very varied and more objective and open-minded than today's writing. All kinds of weird book types are included, including books that are strangely written with regional writing. Still, not all books get noticed at first, so it is possible for a book to be rediscovered later on. Honestly, I think with today's culture where there's so much content to consume and a specific vision for what a book should be, it's more challenging to find excellent books. It's too easy for anyone to just write anything and get it published and with AI writing, it means millions of auto-generated stuff is being produced. There will still be judges and awards, but their value has dropped, because there is so much content out there. For book writers, I would say write your books with originality, with intentionality, and do it your way, and tell me something about something. All right, thanks Skylar.

[@jjerikajimenez]

I think romance is very repetitive and lacks uniques, it’s lack luster. There are many factors to judge a book and romance lacks in the majority, in my personal opinion the only way to judge romance is via feelings and overall a subjective opinion because of the lack of creativity and uniqueness. Don’t get me wrong I love romance but its so repetitive I need a break more often then other genres. My conclusion is romance is just the same book written by different authors 😅 the same is happening to some fantasy books.

[@DesertsofHibernia]

I think there are levels of objective quality: Bad, Mediocre, Good, Excellent, Great. As far as ranking works within each level, that's a little more fuzzy or subjective. Artistic criteria include depth and deftness of characterization, the frequency of memorable passages, economy and aptness of language, freshness of approach, organicness of structure, avoidance and subversion of cliches, distinctness of narrative voice, etc. All of this requires a good writer and a good editor. I would say that the most objectively well written and edited book according to these criteria is A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, but you may prefer Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5. That's subjective, because despite both hitting all of the markers of quality, they do so in very different ways. But, if you tried to nominate something like Mistborn or Fourth Wing, I would tell you those are objectively bad choices, I don't care how much you enjoyed them, because they hit almost none of these markers. But also, many of the books that win these literary awards are at best mediocre by such standards. It's a lot of circle-jerking and political posturing.

[@Kirsten.shergold]

I think there is a stigma around romance books it has been a thing for years but reading romance a lot of the time is seen as being anti-intellectual and often times is looked down upon. I think it is impossible to remove all or even any bias from the book awards and because of that books that are stigmatlized such as romances often get ignored even if they have the ability to cause a major impact.

[@Kirsten.shergold]

@@DesertsofHibernia I feel like you are proving my point, there are so many romance books that cover deep and meaningful topics and can have a huge imapact, for instance seven husbands of Evelyn Hugo or in my opinion any TJR romance book, Seven husbands covers a the systematic issues within Hollywood in the 1950s. It is deeper than a lot of the romances you are thinking of because you have a narrow view of romance novels, icebreaker or an elle Kennedy book isn't going to win an award but to say no romance book has ever been worthy and all romance books lack substance is a narrow view to have.

[@San-li9ml]

It doesn't help that the bestsellers in Romance tend to be poor books. Such as Colleen Hoover.

[@anonymes2884]

Hard no from me. I'm a pretty full-on "death of the author" subjectivist (about art). Plenty claim art is objectively good or bad but i've yet to run into anyone that can list the qualities of e.g. "objectively good" writing - for every rule proposed there'll be at least one widely considered classic that breaks it and for anyone brave enough to try to describe "objectively good" writing _without_ using clearly _subjective_ words like "good", it _always_ eventually boils down to "Well, I know it when I see it" (which i'd say is as neat a description of subjectivity as you'll find :). Nah. When people claim "objectively good" they're really just saying "lots of people's _subjective_ opinions agree" (IMO :) and _that_ isn't what "objective" means - it's not a majority (or arguably in the case of book awards, canonical classics etc. a privileged minority) rules game, things that are objectively true are true whether 0, 1 or a billion people agree, that's kinda the whole point.

[@emillyborret9206]

I don't actually think it's even a matter of opinion, books can be good and bad. I think the point where people get confused with books is the 'fun aspect', you can have a good time with a badly written book any time, it does not mean that is a good book as a whole. I don't know why with books some people have such a hard time to understand that, but nobody will give an Oscar to a 2000' parody comedy movie, like Dude where's my car. And I had a great time watching it. The maid is the most clear example, I love Freida's books, because they are funny, but they are so so bad, the writing, the plot holes, the unidimensional characters, there are SO many problems, and I always get surprised to rated as 4 stars on good reads.... It's not 4 stars at all!!!!

[@gabbylikestoread]

I agree that most book awards lean more towards literary fiction and comes with an elitist air to it. I don’t put too much stock in Book Awards. Except the National Book Awards, I’ve had quite a few books that I’ve liked from that one.

[@mansaurus_wrex]

i don’t think there can be any objectivity when it comes to art since the whole idea i think is that it’s an attempt at some sort of connection between the artist and audience and that’s just inherently gonna be a subjective experience. but i do think there’s consensus; like if 90% of ppl agree that a book is dope that obviously doesn’t mean it’s objectively good, just that a large majority thinks that it is good. awards, bestseller lists, popularity polls, etc are just attempts to build some sort of consensus. but as touched on in the video ppl will have their own person povs and biases when looking at anything so no matter how equatable the consensus is there’s inevitably gonna be some bias somewhere. i think as human beings we just like categorization and want to be able to say “this is good, this is bad,” and so on but it’s rarely that simple. especially since ideas like “good” and “bad”r definitely subjective even if we might like to think they aren’t. a big idea about art, and literature especially, is to provoke connection and communication between the artist and audience but also between the audience and audience, and contrasting opinions don’t necessarily have to lead to conflict but rather connection maybe, and perhaps a search for some sort of objective standard would actually make art worse and more stale and less interesting because there would be no conversation about “well i think…” and “well i disagree because…” bc everyone would have the same taste and opinions. this is good and this bad and that’s that.

[@julia_irl]

Love your thoughts and the interesting comment section you inspired.

[@lesyablackbird]

lol i actually got Quicksilver because of your vlog. i mean i got a good heads up of some of the crazy shit i will roll my eyes at, but at the same time, now that i know where it ends, i want to see it all for myself. as to the objectively good or bad. i don't care. like at all. i'm actually quite annoyed at all the reviews that go on and on about the technical craft or the impact and how important the subject is. because that says nothing. i have hated the reading experience of many a 'good book' so being recommended something on that basis is useless to me. i'm more interesting in what the person thought or felt reading the book. if they liked is and why. or if they hated it why. there are some hate reviews that make me go, huh, i dont hate that. i want to read that.

[@sabiha.sayeed]

I think books can never be objectively good but they can be objectively bad (eg. painfully bad writing, poor editing, undercooked plot, etc.) in extreme cases. What makes a good book is very subjective because we as readers value different things in books. Even people with similar tastes. I haven't met anyone whose recommendations I 100% enjoyed. There are always outliers.

[@TalesofTheEndTimes]

I hated reading Shin Sekai Yori. All that happens in it is cruel, horrific, and incredibly tragic. All the good presented is beautiful, and utterly farcical. All the love shown is real, and wrong. All forms of trust, every rule demonstrated: will be betrayed and overturned to devastating consequence for the characters depicted as people. I will repeat myself: Shin Sekai Yori contains truly vile content - reprehensible stuff, that which any self-respecting person of any morality I have known should malign with great spite and true hatred. Shin Sekai Yori is among the greatest I have ever read. It challenges you to consider, and I mean truly consider, your own worldview; everything that makes you: you. But is it an objectively good read? Of course not. Such a thing does not exist, or cannot while those who would judge a book on its merits come also with the baggage of having lived, and learned as they have, and are taught to judge by people who cannot understand their charge. All there is left: Is it legible? In its original Russian (and French represented with Cyrillic characters), War and Peace is a marvelously complex work centered around a terribly interesting time and fascinating persons. But if you cannot read the Russian, let alone the French: Isn’t it worthless to you? You can only hope that the translation you find of it will successfully convey Tolstoy’s intentions. But you will fail to find them whole in English characters writ in Helvetica typeface, and translated by a man who lived more than a century after it was first written. … Another: does it enter into dialogue with us? If you are unchanged as a person from the moment you picked up a book to the moment that you put it down; having learned nothing, having felt nothing, and having thought nothing of it: Then what was the point of having read it? Frog and Toad might have made you laugh, or made you think, or made you cry. In extracting from its reader any one of these responses, or myriad others: it has spoken to, and been spoken back to. An incredible, wonderful, magnificent, magical exchange has taken place between persons. Even if it was a small response; even if it is forgotten in a minute or a day: it lives through that dialogue, and in having lived? It has great worth. Finally (I should well hope)… Is it fun to read? Do the flowery descriptions enchant you? Does the dark and seductive language ensnare you? Does the whimsical fluff spark with unfettered enjoyment in you? Does the rhythmic meter empower every line that punches into you? If any of these are true, I posit: The book you read was not bad. Whether it be formed from cerebral enjoyment, made of snappy synapses responding to word-play and the how well the piece was structured… or it be from the heart, wrenched and wracked with the ache of catharsis… or it be from the belly, tickled and trembling with uncontainable titters: It was fun. Nno matrr i f ‘twus fill wtih typOs end incerect lnaguage. No mattering, the forms,,, grammar they break and malign and misrepresent and defile in every manner conceivable. So long as it is at all legible, it creates a dialogue with you, and you enjoyed it: It was good for you to have experienced it.

[@MrRosebeing]

No, no it can't.