“There is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world...not the United States. The US is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature...That ignorance is restraining.”
Horace Engdahl, former permanent secretary of the Nobel Prize.
Only the truth.
>>7894561
Maybe before the twentieth century, but Pound alone makes the US a contender in the literary scene; and if you also consider Eliot, Crane, Ashbery, Faulkner, Nabokov (technically), Gaddis, Hawkes, Barthelme, Barth, McElroy, Mano, Burroughs, Coover, Vollmann, Theroux, Wallace, and Gass--my personal favorite--it becomes obvious that, for the latter half of the century, at least, America was, in terms of literature, the most wealthy country in the world. Though, I have to say, France comes pretty close.
>>7894593
He's talking about the contemporary literature.
>>7894605
Oh, well, then it's a little different.
Where do I start /lit/?
masturbating in a jail cell to loli seduction stories.
Start with the greeks.
anti-justine
de sade a shit
>Fiction in any form has always intended to be realistic.
Thoughts?
Most of the oldest literature is completely preposterous and based around stories about gods, monsters, and superhuman heroes
>>7894597
That stuff was real
How's the writing career coming, /lit/?
The only way I can convince myself to start writing is when I suddenly catch a visceral sense of motivation about once every 2nd day or so. Then as I contemplate the idea of writing I enjoy this imagined sense of superiority over all the people I know who have made efforts artistically and who I'm going to be better than. I enjoy knowing in that moment that I am a special talent that just hasn't gotten round to action.
I then realise that this motivation to write only exists as means to be revered and respected as a great and I figure that to be truly great...
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I've finally accepted that I'm only good at academic writing. So I'm finishing my master's and enrolling for a PhD, to become a badly-payed academic for the rest of my humble existence. I'll literally only be a footnote in history.
"I'm doing badly, I'm doing well; whichever you prefer."
Who's more realistic, Huxley or Orwell?
>>7894405
why do people think its either x or y? why cant you agree to a personal medium?
Huxley is already happening to be honest, Marcuse and Adorno all predicted the same scenario.
>>7894405
Orwell desu. Huxley got a lot of the social stuff right, but the digital surveillance network the US government is currently assembling is straight out of Orwell. Personally I thought Huxley's vision was also generally less true to life because of the Christcuck Mary Sue protagonist.
I have a fedora tipping friend who is barely literate. The only book he has ever read in it's entirety is The God Delusion, and he spends all of his free time, arguing with people on facebook about religion,
he even starts conversations with strangers in public about religion, I guess you could say he is an evangelical atheist.
He just told me he has started reading pic related.
I told him he is a choir demanding to be preached to, and he responds by saying "Hey as long as it motivates me to read."
Kys OP
I, too, remember when I was 16.
Are the Bible and the Quran similar in a poetic-story way?
I started reading the Bible 6 months ago and even though the version I have states that most of "the law" shows the culture the priests had at that time; it isn't so similar than things in m*slim countries today. And I don't know if the culture of the law is going to be different in the whole book
Is the story at least different from the Quran?
I'm really ignorant and I never received Christian education, I live in a fedora country so I may be wrong on everything I said
Bump :(
>>7894250
The Qur'an mentions many characters from the Old and New Testaments, Jesus more than any other. There are also several stories from the Bible told in the Qur'an, although with some rather significant differences. The teaching in Islam is that the stories in the Bible are corrupted and that the Qur'an provides the correct version.
THE KORAN IS NOTHING BUT SATANIC LIES MADE UP BY A GOATFUCKING PEDOPHILE.
THE BIBLE IS THE TRUE AND AUTHENTIC ACCOUNT OF YOUR MUTHERFUCKING LORD AND SAVIOR AKA JESUS CHRIST
Hey there /lit/
Help a pleb out, please
Recently, I developed a real interest in reading
I've only read Faulkner and Camus so far
Today I managed to buy Ulysses and Moby Dick for ten bucks, which is really cheap where I live
Which one should I read first?
>reads Camus
>goes to Ulysses
I admire your insanity. Attempt Moby Dick first.
Fuck the teachers, fuck the Canon
I would love for you to go straight to Ulysses, anon
It's a pretty big task to take on, but you'll have fun
>>7894248
Joyce is actually one author whose works it's a really good idea to read chronologically. That means starting him with Dubliners. Moby Dick is a good read; just be aware that there are cetology sections that might not seem interestingbut actually are.
Sum up a novel in one image, I'll start.
>blood meridian
Odysseus Weeps
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
Finnegans Wake
The infamous rum chapter
>he wants to be an author
www.xenosystems.net/the-market-from-hell/
go to bed nick land
>>7894144
What's new? There's a big difference between "I hate my job and would like the freedom and acclaim I imagine writers enjoy" and "I have written a novel that isn't just masturbation and will now try to sell it."
Based Nick
>itt authors better on audiobook than in print
i'll start
>Gass
>Gaddis
>Joyce
>Kafka
>Burroughs
>McElroy
>>7894141
The Tunnel being an an audiobook is extremely strange to me, even if it is narrated by Gass himself.
>>7894141
I started listening to Joyce in audiobook format when I was 15 and even then it was too hard for me.
Gaddis in audiobook feels like it would be very awkward, unless there was more than one person doing the back and forth dialogue.
Is it worth it to read In Search of Lost Time even if it's going to be in a translation? I've heard a lot of good things about Proust's prose and wanted to try it out, but I'm afraid that some of the "mastery" will be lost in translation. This definitely happened a little bit to me with certain authors like Kafka and Dostoevsky. If yes, which translation is best?
>>7894051
>Is it worth it to read In Search of Lost Time even if it's going to be in a translation?
For sure it's time better spent than the one you're wasting here.
>>7894051
I read Moncrieff's translation of Swann's Way. It's super comfy, definitely worth the read.
Yes. The Moncrieff translation is magnificent and considered by many to be the best English translation of all time.
The book doesn't lose its psychological insight and chilled atmosphere in Moncrieffs translation anyway. Proust had a great understanding of relationships and obsession.
Are there any books that you love but don't exactly have the best prose?
harry potter
new to /lit/, what do you guys mean when you say prose? I've looked at the definition and can kinda guess but id like to know for sure
>>7894181
how aesthetically pleasing the writing itself is
Why does it seem like most e/lit/ist are old (50s) while /v/irgins are all teenagers?
Don't be a moron; most /lit/ posters are in the early twenties age range, they don't know any better than any other board on this website, they're just better at pretending.
>>7893983
You got it wrong, friend. Most /lit/ browsers are pretentious undergrads who won't have anything worth saying until they reach an age when they'll no longer want to be here.
>>7893993
are you a girl? if not, then take estrogen and anti androgens
Where do I download free real ebooks?
I don't want to end up downloading some Chinese knockoff shit with incorrect text.
Libgen.
Torrent sites.
slsk
also a good way to keep in touch with other lit-tards