Has any artist ever denounced his own work? Like in interviews or in his own writing saying he failed on a certain project? just wondering
Tolstoy, after he became a Christian Anarchist or whatever
Kafka wanted all his shit burned. His brother published it.
>>8003927
That's probably just because it wasn't finished yet,
David Foster Wallace - pre IJ stuff
Thomas Pynchon - Lot 49
John Barth -pre Chimera stuff
would this be sacrilege for someone to do? to be so candid about that sort of thing... I imagine it would only piss people off or maybe even get turned off from them entirely.
>>8003907
Houellebecq and Platform
>>8003933
>Thomas Pynchon - Lot 49
Can someone please kill this meme
Faulkner considered The Sound and the Fury a failure, but he still remained fond of it, especially the character of Caddy.
Let us not forget the most striking instance of self-loathing in modern literature - Ezra Pound's assertion late in life that all of his work was incoherent and malicious.
>>8003950
Pynchon said he failed to apply the lessons he learned while writing V. to Lot 49. Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
>>8003957
Oh yeah, I did forget. Ezra Pound is probably the best example of this.
>>8003960
not a disowning either
he failed to apply those lessons in Gravity's Rainbow too
Lots of composers withdraw early works for reasons of aesthetics or quality.
>>8003927
He asked Max Brod to burn everything that wasn't published including all his diaries, he didn't mind leaving his already published work out there.
>>8003907
No artist has ever done that.
Martin Amis wrote a strategy guide to arcade games in the 80s, which he is reluctant even to mention.
>>8004036
kek
i meant author. it autofilled artist. nice catch
>>8003907
Harold Bloom, The Flight to Lucifer
>>8003937
why would it be sacrilege? I would rather an author speak about his work in a critical way rather than be pretentious knobs and think they do no wrong. or even worse the author who never talks about his work.
Stephen King and The Tommyknockers
Hemingway with the short story Out of Season. He thought he carried he iceberg theory too far because none of his readers understood that the old drunk was going to kill himself that day.
>>8003907
Dostoevsky on Prince Myshkin in "The Idiot".
Rimbaud
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>>8004440
Could you elaborate on that or leave me a source? I'd be interested to learn more.
>>8003907
Wittgenstein, famously.
>>8003907
Kafka, Gogol, all the others mentioned in the thread, and so on and so on
It's not uncommon
I kind of like authors more when they shit on their own work lol
>>8003907
This is distinct from the OP prompt (artists/authors routinely regret or re-think their earlier work, since they are the ones closest to their own work), but specifically, it regularly happens that artists /destroy/ their own work. A painting is painted, and thrown out. A sculpture is smashed, etc.
After an artist or an author dies, a whole area of scholarship springs up going over the creator's estate, spending another few decades piecing together the detritus and correspondence left behind. This leads to catalogue raisonne (complete works) in art-book form, the complete works of Marx and Engels which occupy a few dozen volumes, and this archaeological process generally gives academics reason to live and work.
Nabokov wanted his unreleased shit burned like The Original of Laura
>>8003950
Didn't he say it was a potboiler?
>>8003957
he must have been the last person to realize that
>>8003957
Well kind of, but not really. He said that the Cantos was a conceptual failure as a whole but that is pretty obvious to anyone. Doesn't mean he rejected any value in it (or his earlier lyrics)
>>8004866
To be fair, he almost burned Lolita and ditched the project. He was a bit of a firebug when it comes to his own work.
Virgil wanted his Aeneid destroyed
>>8004860
>the complete works of Marx and Engels which occupy a few dozen volumes
Its closer to 5 dozen these days.
>>8005282
Thank God (almighty) he never went through with it.
>>8003907
Who gives a shit about the author's view of his work?
Ivan Gundulić disregarded all his early, profane works when he became a massive religiousfag.
Artists in general... Kraftwerk ignore their first three albums completely. Pink Floyd also have criticized a lot of their early albums (I remember them talking about Piper and AHM specifically).
>>8005313
>Virgil wanted his Aeneid destroyed
...in case he dies before it's finished. (I mean, he did die before he finished it, but he didn't want to destroy it himself)
>>8004051
Also, not quite a disowning, but I remember he said he was so high he doesn't even remember writing Cujo and a couple other books, so it's pretty close.
I don't care about /lit/'s opinion on pop authors, I like him.
>>8005998
DEATH OF THE AUTHOR
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>>8003931
>probably
Your comment is pointless.
>>8006150
king is objectively the best writer alive
>>8003956
sort of ironically though, it's about the 'failure' of communication, among other things
he could just as much be saying "I had down's syndrome when I wrote that, but it's still not bad, eh?"
![1462524087454[1].png](https://i.imgur.com/gh4jTNT.png "1462524087454[1].png")
>>8004045
>>8003907
I'm looking for a Schiele folder
anyone?
>>8003907
Chaucer when he was about to die and a priest got to him
>>8006144
They cant say shit about piper, that was syd's
>>8003950
He called it a potboiler and a failure, anon
