What are your favorite literary excerpts?
>and she was a hurricane
Is this a misprint?
>>7533304
nope, just John "cuck" Green
>>7533313
This is how John Green writes?
Holy shit, I thought you people were just making jokes about him.
>>7533300
L'odeur si enivrante des ancolie en sortait de toute part comme un poison exquis et subtil.
Columbine emanated from it like an exquisite and subtle poison.
Floréal was the second month of the spring quarter (mois de printemps); it started 20 April.
In Floreal, an animal which drinks in the breaths of cosmic love, and feels the sap of April rising and boiling in its veins.
Columbine intoxicating is exquisite, like a subtle poison, and the smell of the whole world to sing.
The intoxicating perfume of columbine poured out from every part of it, like an exquisite and subtle poison.
>>7533356
>Not fuck, like in those movies.
The lassies love it, tho.
>>7533300
>Not fuck, like in those movies. Not even have sex.
Are fucking and having sex two different things? Did I miss that part of sex ed or what?
whats the name of this book...please
>>7533392
Looking for Alaska by John Green!
He fucks a monkey's asshole, the animal is enclosed in a basket; while being sodomized, the monkey is tormented in order that its anus will constrict about the libertine's member.
>>7533392
The Fault in Our Looking For An Abundance of Alaskas
>Houellebecq, Platform.
>>7533392
greetings, reddit!
>>7533300
Can someone provide a well-worded critique of this, I know a girl who's really into Cuck Green and especially this book (and the excerpt here in particular is something that gets brought up), and all my attempts at explaining why I think it's shit have failed
>>7533425
it's a waste of time. it's like trying to explain to your dog why eating shit is bad for him.
>>7533425
Because you're a fake.
>>7533300
> Not fuck
> Not even have sex
Is John Green actually retarded
>>7533482
Yuck
>>7533300
It would be hard to find someone who couldn't appreciate the last few paragraphs of the dead.
>>7533300
Jesus, I like John and all (vlogbrothers) but this is just terrible.
>>7533517
I just don't understand it. He has good taste and he went to a good college. Why did he choose to write bad YA lit?
>>7533378
u missed that part of 50 shades of grey, but it seems like jun gren heard his wifes boyfriend quote correctly when he was being ckeucked
>>7533433
oh my god
>>7533524
I'm pretty sure he just knows his audience and as he grew up he began to prioritize making money over making good art. Really, who wouldn't write hacky shit in order to rake in millions? The only real backlash is from people on a russian rugby discussion board
>>7533425
"Essentially a writer for very young people. Certainly inferior to Hemingway and Wells. Intolerable souvenir-shop style, romanticist clichés. Nothing I would care to have written myself. In mentality and emotion, hopelessly juvenile. Romantic in the large sense. Bogus."
Nabokov said this about Conrad, but I think it is better addressed to Green
1/2
>>7533567
What book is this?
House of Leaves forever.
>>7533587
Its shit
"God is a faggot. God is a nigger. The Lord God Jesus Christ is a worthless faggot. I kill everything I see. I can’t stop fucking. I wish I could have sex. I want to fuck so bad. I can taste your fucking vagina juice. I am a nigger. I am a stupid stupid fat fucking nigger. God is Hitler’s faggot. There is no such thing as a faggot." - John Green, 'An Abundance of Katherines'
>>7533574
Biography of Kafka by Reiner Stach. Think that this was from volume 2
>>7533587
That's bad. I'll give it to you that taking stuff out of its context can make it seem pretty weak, but that poem can't stand as a poem, and a lot of the other stuff in this thread is pretty good by itself.
>>7533671
Sorry. I rotated them in picasa, and they're the right way on my iPhone, but for some reason that's all forgotten when they get uploaded to 4chan...
>>7533671
Sorry about that friend, honest mistake. I took another picture just for (you) (^:
>>7533678
Anon, here's something to help you.
When you import the pictures, spend an extra second or two to open the image in Photo Viewer and rotate it before posting it on 4chan.
>>7533705
This isn't me.
>>7533671
I fixed it for you. Sorry for the inconvenience. I hope you enjoy the excerpt.
>>7533741
You just can't do a single thing right, can you?
>>7533741
Just take a landscape photo of it, holy jeez.
>>7533758
I wasn't sure and my New Year's resolution was to follow Christ's commandments better... so, yeah.
>>7533758
I've seen a lot of autism on this site, sometimes I can't tell what's autism and what's bait.
The reason I find the OP exert so cringe-worthy is because I know it's insincere. I've been a teenager, I've been a teenage male, I've felt the high hormonal and instinctual drives towards fucking and plowing girls, testosterone was sloshing through my system and my eyes were on ass, mind on the tiddies.
My friends and I late at night would talk about all the different hot girls and teachers at school, how fucking nice their asses were, how badly we wanted to fuck them, etc. This was from as young as 12 onwards, it was what we did and it was fucking normal.
There is no way, no fucking way that a teenage guy would sincerely choose 'coddling and sleeping together' over bending over and fucking the girl. And if you were cuddling a girl, your dick became hard, your primal instincts kicked in and you wanted to cum right the fuck inside her.
Any teenage male deluded enough to think he would prefer cuddling over fucking is psychologically tricking himself, he is doing this because he is beta male and knows that his chances of actually fucking a girl is slim. Believing that cuddling is as close as he can reasonably get at this stage. He twists this into some sort of virtue. Making his sexual inadequacy into a virtue, condemning those he is jealous of and lashing out with his virgin hatred at those 'dumb alpha males who aren't nice guys like me who treat women with respect, wow movies that show sex are stupid and insincere and not at all innocent like me'. It's the beta virgin version of slave morality.
In the end though, it is all futile. The alpha males are fucking the women, the alpha males are happy. The women are getting fucked and they are happy with the sex. The bitter /r9k/tier cuckgreen sits with his shitty apple that he totally, definitely absolutely wanted all along, fuck those grapes man, He's a pure, innocent nice guy (;_: fucking whores, ;-; they won't sleep with me)
>>7533802
Nope, that is not why its bad. Try again.
This thread's too fucking funny. Anyway my favorite excerpt would have to be the grand inquisitor from the brother's karamazov. Mostly just because it works so well as a stand alone piece and pretty much sums up this new world order we're living in
>>7533425
I've read all his books (please no bully, I liked Looking for Alaska when I was 13 and kept up out of loyalty and the fact that his books take about an hour to read) so I'll give it to you. All his protagonists are the same character (which we can assume is him): insecure, above average intelligence, angsty, and vaguely introverted. All the love interests are the same: manic pixie dream girl/boy. Then there is a likable friend with little substance. The protagonist is troubled with a shallow philosophical problem and every novel culminated with an epiphany that only trouble teenagers could have figured out, and then there is an embarrassing epiphany at the end where the character finds out the incredibly obvious answer. Along the way there are references to actual literature and history that he explains to make the reader feel smart. So he wrote Looking for Alaska with that formula (whose elements all existed in YA already), and it's great if you're in 8th grade and are a girl who has been reading books about makeup and cliques and babysitting, or if you're a sensitive boy who has been reading mediocre adventure and fantasy, because this is a little edgier and realistic. So now he shits out the same book and changes the setting and one aspect of the main character, like he makes them have a crazy IQ or cancer. The books are generic and mediocre, nothing more.
The real cancer is the YouTube videos. You only need to watch one to see how despicable a human being he really is; I can't imagine hating a human being more.
>>7533932
What's so bad about this videos? I think he has some good insights.
>>7533944
If you were serious, oh god I have no idea where I would even begin.
>>7533300
the only people for me are the ogre ones, the ones who are ogre to belch, ogre to fart, ogre to be layered, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never mind their P's and Q's or say an intelligible thing, but belch, belch, belch, like fabulous layered onion-farts exploding like bagpipes across the swamp.
Libra, Don DeLillo
>>7533300
>and she was....and I was....and she was...and I was...and it was...and........and.......and
fucking kill me
“Then came the march past the victims. The two men were no longer alive. Their tongues were hanging out,
swollen and bluish. But the third rope was still moving: the child, too light, was still breathing...
And so he remained for more than half an hour, lingering between life and death, writhing before our eyes.
And we were forced to look at him at close range. He was still alive when I passed him. His tongue was still
red, his eyes not yet extinguished.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
"For God's sake, where is God?"
And from within me, I heard a voice answer:
"Where He is? This is where--hanging here from this gallows..."
That night, the soup tasted of corpses.”
― Elie Wiesel, Night
We had to read this shit to pass high school literature. It really did change something in me.
>>7533378
You should watch the movie Kids (1995).
>>7534311
>we wuz
Anyone else read that in Jessie Eisenberg's voice?
>>7534311
What an absolute load of embellished, exaggerated shit.
We saw a cloudwall hung many miles to the east and hawks floating the in the unforced motion that makes you think they've been up there the same two birds since bible times. There were stones tumbled in a field, great bronze rocks with carved flanks. I felt my wife at my side. We saw dust blowing off the dark hills and a pair of abandoned cars flopped in forage grass, convertibles with shredded tops. Everything we saw was ominous and shining, tense with the beauty of things that are normally unseen, even the cars gone to canker and rust.
>>7533932
pretty on point
>>7533932
I'm a rather ridiculously huge Young Adult Fiction fan, so maybe I'm not the best judge, but I liked his book "An abundance of Katherines" a lot, actually. I thought that his use of footnotes were a pretty clever / experimental(?) idea. The sort of full-circle created by the first and last Katherine is really beautiful
>>7534408
I don't think you read enough.
>>7534408
>experimental(?)
Sorry, but no.
>>7534416
can you please explain how altering the narrative flow in a new way isn't "experimental"? I've never seen any other book do the same thing, so I don't get how that isn't considered experimenting?
>>7534430
Like, I know this is bait. But I'm posting a response to it.
In all seriousness though, it's not a bad literary device if used correctly.
from The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, by Alain de Botton
Favourite recent literary excerpt.
>>7534449
Ya got me. I didn't think twice I just wanted to shut 'you' down lol. And now I understand the psychology of the baitee.
>>7533871
Ha, I recommended this exact passage for something in a thread a few days ago, and some anon tried to call me out for suggesting it could ever be read outside the context of the work as a whole.
>>7533425
Well I ain't no college boy but I'll see what I don't like about the passage. I'm just talking about the paragraph, not the line above it.
>From a hundred miles an hour to asleep in a nanosecond.
I don't like nanosecond here. It's juvenile, which fits the tone of the book I'm assuming so I'll let that pass, but I also don't like the transition from "in a" to "nano". Not terrible, mind you. The word itself is a bit of a mouthful. Hundred miles an hour and the general rhythm give it a bit of speed, but nanosecond just brings it to an awkward stop, and no, John Green hasn't done this on purpose. Again, not awful just irritating, personally.
The next sentence can omit the "next to her" part, as the latter part of the same sentence has "wrap my arms around her". Her is being used twice which is a bit awkward, and anyway if he's wrapping arms around her it's pretty obvious that she's on the couch and that he'd be next to her.
>Not fuck, like in those movies.
Pandering.
The Just Sleep Together sentence has too many "s" sounds near the end, and could be better written anyway. The protag is making me want to kill myself by this point with his stupid bullshit.
The next run on sentence is a painful attempt at something poetic. John Green is sure as shit no McCarthy. He does at least try to match every two pieces together rhythmically but it's a pointless sentence.
"I'm a chickenshit." There. No need for grade school theatrics.
Last sentence is deceptively clever/poetic. It's garbage. Any similar comparison could be made, but because rain and hurricane rhyme (the rhythm is fucked but whatever), fat girls having their first period post it on tumblr a lot.
"Back in my room I collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were maymays, I'd be a Wojak, and she'd be a Pepe"
Just pronounce Pepe like a fat old white woman and it rhymes.
>>7534384
I think the first anon was talking about the line "Where He is?"
Second anon was definitely referring to how Wiesel tried to pass all that shit off as autobiographical. Never read Night, so I dunno how it is as a work of literature, but I'm not one to judge so harshly just because the author lied when I know he had been lying. The Painted Bird is another example of this. It is a pretty good novel (although I could've done without the graphic descriptions of the rape of little children, that's really the only part that I wish I hadn't read and there is a lot of nasty shit in that book), what do I care that Kosinski lied about it all being autobiographical back when it was first published decades ago? Still a wonderful piece of literary art.
>>7533425
Point out that breaking into someones house to sleep next to them would put him on a sex offenders list.
Like most shit that comes from betas it's borderline creepy.
You can also mention the cohersive nature of making it sound as if "wanting to fuck" is a bad thing.
>>7534492
Good post
>>7534492
I agree with all of your points, but I don't know if OP's cuck green loving friend will be swayed by a critique that is almost all about sound and rhyme.
>>7533300
Holy shit, this is about as beta as you can get.
From Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust
>>7534508
>>7534514
fair enough I got bored but most of those points I made are kinda nitpicking.
My main beef with it is the protag's voice. This is subjective, and women aren't going to give a shit, but he comes across as a fucking twat.
He ramps up the tension by laying down next to her, arms wrapped, then sleep, which throws you off, and then he completely dismantles any masculinity or hope of something fun happening by quickly pointing out how much of a le gentlesir he is. Of course, John Green is just one of the kids, right! So he throws fuck in there to make little girls feel all grown up.
Then he differentiates fuck from having sex. There's no difference. Unless "those movies" means porn, but girls are reading this so no. I guess he's distinguishing between giving a girl a good deep dick pizza and "making love".
Of course the more "romantic" of these two options has the word "even" in it, meaning that it is somehow a loftier goal than just fucking, but he doesn't EVEN want to do that! Wow, what a nice guy, eh? kiss my ass with this mickey mouse bullshit
He throws in innocent for good measure to make sure every woman reading is completely dry, then points out that he lacks courage and some other painfully obvious shit that the reader figured out the moment this guy didn't lay some fucking pipe like a real man.
its trash
>>7533300
I love men too — not merely individuals, but every one. But I love them with
the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love
because loving is natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no “commandment
of love.” I have a fellow-feeling with every feeling being, and their torment
torments, their refreshment refreshes me too; I can kill them, not torture them.
>>7534488
I feel it benefits greatly from being read in the context of the book, just as the whole book benefits from this piece. But it can also be read and understood perfectly well on its own, after all it's presented in the book by Ivan as a stand alone piece
>>7534558
That's basically what I said in response to that other anon.
We also used it in my moral philosophy class when I was in college and it sparked some good conversation between myself and the couple other students who took the shit seriously and were capable of at least halfway decent analysis and original thought.
>>7534558
Old but gold.
I like to wheel this out whenever people mention "Urban" fiction.
>>7533425
Sure
>"Shhhh,"...Just like that.
This is confusing as you are reading on a first take purely from presentation. Obviously the girl says the word sleeping and then immediately falls asleep. That is what is going on, but
>Just like that. From a hundred miles an hour to asleep in a nanosecond.
Defeats the purpose of what is being said. If something very quick is happening it helps to say it quickly. There are obviously exceptions and you can do creative things with spending lots of time going over a detail that is very brief and fleeting, but here it doesnt work. The bitch is just going to sleep quickly, this is a small getting from A to B detail. It doesnt need to be all flowery. That being said, it can be flowery AND brief, but John Green isnt talented. Think of a haiku, it says something about a specific event in nature in about three lines but reveals an emotion or something spiritual/philosophical. The rhythm and speed carries the punch of being brief.
The reason I am focusing on this so much is this criticism follows throughout the page. The writer isnt lining up what is going on and how he is presenting it. (Also the word nanosecond is weird unless that is a theme in this book. But fuck cosmic romance)
>I wanted so badly to lie down next to her on the couch, to wrap my arms around her and sleep.
This is an OK A to B detail. Contrast with the nanosecond line.
>Not fuck, like in those movies.
>Not even have sex
>Just sleep together, in the most innocent sense of the phrase
He just said the same thing three times and nothing was gained from it. Repetition can be used to cause urgency but this doesnt work. There is no word play, no rhythm besides the phrases being short. It is just there when this line
>..my arms around her and sleep
was just fine. Got it, you dont want to fuck because you didnt say "sleep with her".
>But I lacked...fascinating
Run on sentence trying to create the feeling of being breathless or his mind is running a mile a minute. Falls flat because the narrator is boring idiot. This sentence has no shame, the shame a hormonal teenage boy would have at thinking such a thing. If he hates himself so much he would need to be more self-aware. Of course here I but and referring to add more David Foster Wallace to the story.
>So I...hurricane
Old metaphor for anyone who reads, go home loser. Whats next, hes space and shes the stars? Boring, no emotion. This is a fucking teenage boy trying to become romantic with a teenage girl and instead I am watching an elementary school adaptation of the kid friendly version of Romeo and Juliet.
>>7534568
Yeah honestly it hit me pretty hard, I saw way too many parallels to today's society and human nature/ego. Basically why it's my favorite piece of writing.
>>7534578
It's all good bro it made me read your post and I fucking lol'ed
>>7533741
Perfect, absolutely perfect.
>>7533652
>>7534649
Always struggled to understand the seraphs part... what he sayin?
>>7533300
Hahaha holy shit
>>7534346
>kings
>>7534657
he's saying that this little cunt was what the angels wrongfully envied in their envy of man.
also, here's my favorite excerpt:
Stephen closed his eyes to hear his boots crush crackling wrack and shells. You are walking through it howsomever. I am, a stride at a time. A very short space of time through very short times of space. Five, six: the nacheinander. Exactly: and that is the ineluctable modality of the audible. Open your eyes. No. Jesus! If I fell over a cliff that beetles o’er his base, fell through the nebeneinander ineluctably. I am getting on nicely in the dark. My ash sword hangs at my side. Tap with it: they do. My two feet in his boots are at the end of his legs, nebeneinander. Sounds solid: made by the mallet of Los Demurgos. Am I walking into eternity along Sandymount strand? Crush, crack, crick, crick. Wild sea money.
crushin them sand dollars like a boss
>>7534683
are u ok
>>7534657
Humbert aestheticizes his behavior throughout the text and condemns anyone who might disapprove as unrefined, but it's never convincing. The point is to suggest that he's conflicted about it on some level.
actually, going back and reading it again, i realize that nabokov was essentially saying
>i like to fuck kids
>that means angels want to fuck kids
>if angels can fuck kids, why can't i?
>>7534700
i'm ok. u ok?
more good shit:
Mr Bloom walked behind the eyeless feet, a flatcut suit of herringbone tweed. Poor young fellow! How on earth did he know that van was there? Must have felt it. See things in their foreheads perhaps. Kind of sense of volume. Weight. Would he feel it if something was removed? Feel a gap. Queer idea of Dublin he must have, tapping his way round by the stones. Could he walk in a beeline if he.hadn’t that cane? Bloodless pious face like a fellow going in to be a priest.
>>7534683
Who /umbilical cord time-machine/ here?
>>7534808
is it weird that every time i get into a conversation about it, or look up an excerpt from it, i suddenly get sucked in, and look up 20 pages later? i really need to stop farting around and go back and reread that book.
>>7534728
What book?
>>7534959
ulysses, my friend.
>>7533944
White people suck: the videos
>>7533671
It automatically rotates the picture you dumbass, you'd know that if you'd actually comtribute in the threads
>>7533356
Memes are ultimately very real.
>>7533433
I laughed desu
