/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11547664]

Why did everyone decide in the last half of the 20th century into the 21st century that if a novel is "serious" it needs to have either a boring cover or an ugly as fuck cover whereas in the first half of the 21st century people actually put effort into aesthetically pleasing covers like the one for The Great Gatsby?

[Anonymous No.11547678]

>>11547664
Because it's bleak and 'ugly' in subject matter. That cover looks fine.

[Anonymous No.11547714]

>>11547664
i looked up some books to check and yeah theres some pretty bad ones out there. id say theres a subjective component where what seems like it looks good now will look ugly or boring in the future, but i also think theres an objective component where publishers have to put more thought into books as an object after the internet cut print sales

[Anonymous No.11547726]

>>11547678

Except it's not the only one that's literally just "let's just slap the title and author on a blank background."

[Anonymous No.11547728]

>>11547664
Because art nouveau and Bauhaus died, while designers are the second people most worried about being perceived as artists, second only to artists themselves and tied with gamers, and their brainlet line of thought thinks "serious = artistic"

[Anonymous No.11548160]

>>11547664
Because visual art forms began to completely overtake literary art in terms of cultural influence and consumption. Back in the day a flashy cover on a literary novel might move a casual reader to pick up something more difficult and out of his comfort zone, but today the people who pick up difficult books are doing it knowing what they’re getting into, because it’s o my counter cultural rebels who real tuff stuff, and it’s so niche. Reading literature is a counter-cultura act; people who do it can’t help but see it as a kind of rebellion against the pervasive easy screen entertainment to which the majority is in thrall. They don’t want this sense of rebellion and feeling of cultural superiority they get by reading Joyce of Delillo sullied by a flashy cover that makes what they’re reading look like another piece of shallow entertainment. They want what they’re doing to look like what it is: a counter cultural act embraced by a select elite who enjoy challenging and inaccessible art

[Anonymous No.11548164]

>>11548160
Only* read*

[Anonymous No.11548178]

>>11547664
The Road is such boring tedious bullshit can't believe there are people who think its good at all

[Anonymous No.11548354]

>>11547664
it'd look cheap if the cover was some desolate landscape or a father holding hands with his son, think about it, this was the elegant decision