The Sword and Laser discussion
What's so wrong with angst?
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It doesn't bother me too much as a rule, but I have to imagine that since most of us have been through various levels of angst in our lives already, we don't want to constantly relive it. Different people's differing thresholds of tolerance will let them overload on it more or less quickly than others. Those who overload faster will probably complain when they find too many books filled with it.That's just my guess though. I'd love to hear from some of those who ARE bothered by it more than I am.
I was not angsty as a teen. Most of YA literature is completely unrelatable. If anything, I envy the angsty teens. But stupid and selfish angsty teens piss me off in books and pissed me off IRL while I was a teen myself.
Wrong? Nothing. But I'm 35years past that and it bores the crap out of me
Sometimes its fun to read a completely emotionally overblown angsty story. The great thing is that we have reviews that tell us what to expect so if someone doesn't like the angst they can choose not to read the story. There is nothing wrong with it, but not everyone has to like it.
I don't have a problem with angst per say, but I do have a problem with too much internal dialog. This most commonly manifests in angsty teenage characters, however I sometimes find myself annoyed with hard-boiled detective types or scorned lovers. Any character who spends more time thinking about why they did something or are going to do something than they spend actually doing things gets on my nerves.As an example, in the fifth Harry Potter book, Harry spends about as much time thinking about how angry he is as he spends acting angry. I can deduce from how he lashes out at his friends and is constantly blowing up at Professor Umbridge that he's going through an emotional phase. I don't need to have that reaffirmed every page or two in his thoughts. (I guess what I'm getting at is it's a matter of show don't tell for me. I'd rather have a character act out their emotions than tell me how they feel or what they're planning.)
I think we all know some angst-ridden teen in real life. Despite our sympathy for their situation, they can be horribly annoying and tedious to be around. I'd just as soon not suffer this from fictional characters.
Doesn't "angst" have a pretty explicit connotation of melodramatic and/or self-absorbed? At least in its popular usage. It's like being a hipster -- everyone hates hipsters, because no one thinks of themselves as a hipster. No one thinks of legitimate grief or anguish as angst. Or is there a widely accepted usage of "angst" that doesn't have these connotations? Maybe I'm not on the right subreddits.
Matt wrote: "Doesn't "angst" have a pretty explicit connotation of melodramatic and/or self-absorbed? At least in its popular usage. It's like being a hipster -- everyone hates hipsters, because no one thinks o..."I think most adults have replaced "angst" with "worry over paying rent, bills, etc" and it makes the "WHY won't someone LIKE MEEEEEE" stuff completely unreadable. They don't like you, there are 7 billion other people, get over it.
I thing "angst," in the most widely accepted definition or understanding, is only interesting when you are experiencing it yourself. There is a reason many adults find Holden Caufield insufferable.
Firstname wrote: I think most adults have replaced "angst" with "worry over paying rent, bills, etc" and it makes the "WHY won't someone LIKE MEEEEEE" stuff completely unreadable. They don't like you, there are 7 billion other people, get over it."b^.^d Very well said!
When a character is frozen in paragraphs of ruminative, self-centered indecision and inaction in the face of a real threat (gun-wielding assailant, car about to go over a cliff, Siberian tiger, etc.), I'm pulled out of my suspension of disbelief. Yes, people sometimes freeze in terror. No, they don't usually freeze because they need to run through the merits, yet again, of love triangle objects Boy A vs. Boy B, while said boys are about to have their brains devoured concurrently by zombies and Angsty Sue has only one zombie-'sploding grenade.
~Geektastic~ wrote: "I thing "angst," in the most widely accepted definition or understanding, is only interesting when you are experiencing it yourself. There is a reason many adults find Holden Caufield insufferable."Ahh yes, tragedy is when it happens to me, comedy is when it happens to you. That has served me well.
I think one problem is when 'angst' is the only or most important trait of a main character. And then its terrible.
Well angst implies self-involvement and in that case the book has to answer why we readers should care about the character. I get that many teens feel they're so different an unique... but they aren't and if a story is just Generic Angsty Teen, then it fails at that. Now, if the story is YA and thus being read by other teens it can provoke self-recognition and the realization that others do, in fact, share these feelings and these issues and it's probably inherently interesting because of that. But for adults who are significantly beyond the teen years (or at least for me), it makes me roll my eyes and mutter "Yeah, kid, you're not special."
Matt wrote: "Doesn't "angst" have a pretty explicit connotation of melodramatic and/or self-absorbed? At least in its popular usage. It's like being a hipster -- everyone hates hipsters, because no one thinks o..."I'd agree with that. I suppose that most of the time, Angst reads as Whining. Most people hear enough whining in their everyday lives, and maybe we just don't need it in our books? It gets tiresome.
Thanks also for defending (kinda) my friends, the hipsters. There's a lot to be said for hipsters, and to an extent, I envy their hipster lifestyle. To generalize: they know the best restaurants, they know the value of a finely crafted beer, they're on top of fashion, they're often very concerned about the environment, and their beards keep them warm in Winter.
Rich wrote: "To generalize: they know the best restaurants, they know the value of a finely crafted beer,"PBR is not 'finely crafted beer'.
Firstname wrote: "Rich wrote: "To generalize: they know the best restaurants, they know the value of a finely crafted beer,"PBR is not 'finely crafted beer'."
Yes, but you have to understand good beer in order to extract the maximum irony from drinking bad beer. (Alternatively, maybe PBR tastes better when strained through facial hair?)
Matt wrote: "(Alternatively, maybe PBR tastes better when strained through facial hair?)"I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I from time to time read books considered Young Adult, or at least targeted in that general direction. Well almost every negative and a lot of the positive reviews of these kinds of books go into how much angst the characters display. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to read something that's nothing but, but it's like these people have completely forgotten what being a teen was like. So I ask the question, what's so wrong with angst?