Good fiction requires conflict. An examination of the problem of creating a worthwhile universe, assuming pragmatic omnipotence, that was sufficiently serious as to address actual difficulties in the process, would constitute an installment in the Fun Theory sequence.
While your statement is true, Daniel seems to be trying to construct a short bit in the same vein as the HPMR chapter 64 omake. In that regard, this does fit the basic approach to many of them.
This is one of the main reasons I’ve always been confused by people’s assertions of the Bible’s great literary value. The only permanent character basically doesn’t have to deal with conflict.
God is for most of the Bible in the backdrop. The actual good literature is generally in sections with minimum amounts of divine intervention. Much of Samuel and Kings falls into this category. Some other well done literary sections are the sections where the characters are in conflict with God. See for example the story of Jonah.
Note also that even if this were not the case, there would still be literary value because of the immense influence the Bible has had on Western literature.
This may be a definitional issue then. I’m not sure how to make the notion of literary value at all precise since I only have a vague intuition. I do however see sort of where you are coming from. In your view, to have literary value, the literature itself needs to be somehow worth reading independently of whether other later actually good texts were influenced by it. Is that the relevant distinction?
Good fiction requires conflict. An examination of the problem of creating a worthwhile universe, assuming pragmatic omnipotence, that was sufficiently serious as to address actual difficulties in the process, would constitute an installment in the Fun Theory sequence.
While your statement is true, Daniel seems to be trying to construct a short bit in the same vein as the HPMR chapter 64 omake. In that regard, this does fit the basic approach to many of them.
Ah, now this makes some sense!
If this was the idea, however, it seems like there was probably a way to frame it that wouldn’t have resulted in sixteen downvotes.
This is one of the main reasons I’ve always been confused by people’s assertions of the Bible’s great literary value. The only permanent character basically doesn’t have to deal with conflict.
God is for most of the Bible in the backdrop. The actual good literature is generally in sections with minimum amounts of divine intervention. Much of Samuel and Kings falls into this category. Some other well done literary sections are the sections where the characters are in conflict with God. See for example the story of Jonah.
Note also that even if this were not the case, there would still be literary value because of the immense influence the Bible has had on Western literature.
I don’t think that having an immense cultural influence is a sufficient condition to constitute literary value.
This may be a definitional issue then. I’m not sure how to make the notion of literary value at all precise since I only have a vague intuition. I do however see sort of where you are coming from. In your view, to have literary value, the literature itself needs to be somehow worth reading independently of whether other later actually good texts were influenced by it. Is that the relevant distinction?
Yes.