One man's pulp is another man's literature

When I first enrolled in this class I had no idea what to expect. My initial thoughts were that it would be an interesting, and even easy class. The class was interesting, but it was not easy. To clarify, I am talking about the lectures only, not the literature.

The literature we studied was, on the other hand, mainly, exceptionally easy to read (with the exception of Los Siete Locos), which was different from the "good" literature class I took, Span 365. This has made me think (though perhaps wrongly so), that "bad" literature can distinguish itself from good literature as being easier to read/comprehend. The books as well were, more or less, interesting to a point; however, upon dissecting them in class, they became less and less interesting as it became apparent that there was little to dissect.

This class was interesting because the concepts challenged my ideas of literature, and covered things that I had never thought about before, such as the idea of the culture and financial marketplace. What I found compelling though, was that the books we read were not necessarily "bad" in the usually accepted way. They were not the pulp fiction that one might find in someones garage sale, but more, books that one would find in a decent bookstore, worthy of buyback. They give promise of being good, but don't completely live up to that promise, as opposed to pulp fiction, which doesn't hide the fact that it is trashy and mass marketed. What I found difficult about this course was that concepts were not so cut and dry and, as a whole, we found it difficult to agree on any one idea. What one person thought made a bad book, another thought made worthy of a good book. The lines of objectivity and subjectivity were blurred and I though I have come to a more substantial definition, I still don't think I truly know what constitutes "bad" literature. I think that subjectivity plays too much into the ideas of good and bad, and though worthy of discussion, these concepts are rarely solidly defined.