Why are so many authors such terrible human beings? Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Faulkner, Joyce etc. Who are some genuinely good people that have written great works of literature?
>inb4 any saints
>>8115488
You'd be surprised how many terrible people who aren't authors. It's just as, authors are any group of people, they'll have their share of the statistic. And mistakes made along the way contribute more to the dramatic capability of one. Combination of things really.
As long as they didn't kill people, I don't really care.
>>8115488
You want your writers to be amiable, loving fathers fresh off their league softball game? Perhaps some sonnets about the kneeslapler Herb in accounting told?
Welcome to the NFL kid
>>8115488
I thought Dostoevsky was a nice dude or something. I heard some story about him being able to convince some people in prison to not kill themselves or something like that. What did the dude do?
>>8115500
cheated on his wife
How is Hemingway bad?
>>8115506
His """""work""""" is a crime against humanity in that it set literature back by half a century.
>>8115517
Coming from an absolute authority who doesn't even understand the premise of sarcastic scare quotes.
B More Pleb -- you can't.
>>8115488
Joyce wasn't a terrible human being though? I mean he was atheist if for some reason that's considered "terrible", but he was loyal to his wife, perhaps slept around before he met her but that's super common among males, was a good father to his fucked up kids, was a kind person around town (apparently), and while he drank a shitload he didn't take it out much on his family that I know of, if at all.
He was not a saint or a demon, just kind of a normal mick all around.
> Hemingway
you can excuse a lot of it based on his possible homosexuality and assorted mental illnesses. And even then he wasn't a BAD guy
> Faulkner
yeah he was a piece of shit
>>8115547
>possible homosexuality
*possible guilt over his possible homosexuality
sorry
>>8115547
what did corncobber do?
M S Wood is a doctor that specializes in treating children with leukemia
>>8115488
oh and to answer your question:
George Herbert
John Milton
Shakespeare
Spenser
Virgil
Dante
Whitman (if you think possible buttsex with men is forgiveable [aka you aren't a religious fanatic] -- he was otherwise a very good person)
William Blake
John Donne
GM Hopkins
I could keep going but point is that the list is almost endless
>>8115488
Stefan Zweig
Romain Rolland
Marguerite Yourcenar
Kenzaburō Ōe
There are plenty of writers who are genuinely good people OP. Romain Rolland could have won a Nobel peace price.
>>8115555
multiple mistresses, abusive to his wife and kids, was a violent drunk and all around asshole in person
>>8115488
>Who are some genuinely good people that have written great works of literature?
John Green
>>8115488
Charles Dickens
Flannery O'Connor
Forrest Carter
Christopher Hitchens
H.P. Lovecraft
Edith Wharton
Jack London
Lewis Carroll
Rudyard Kipling
Ezra Pound
Ernest Hemingway
T.S. Elliot
Dr. Seuss
Just to name a few.
>>8115565
John Milton was a bad man; this is common knowledge
>>8115588
all racist, anti-Semitic, sexist bigots
>>8115589
explain? for being a revolutionary republican or for personal issues?
>>8115588
All of those you listed were pieces of shit in real-life.
>>8115588
kek.
Good list.
>>8115500
Also he may have raped a young girl
>>8115594
Yes and there's nothing wrong with being that so it still constitutes as a list of good people.
>>8115588
Didn't Dr Seuss start fucking other women while his wife was dying of cancer?
>>8115588
What's wrong with Flannery O'Connor? She wasn't even away from home long enough to do much evil
>>8115616
No, that's a lie spread by a leftist cunt who hated him and wrote a fictionnal biography about him.
>>8115565
>Dante
Dante kept fucking guys even after he found out he had HIV. He even had sex with with the specific intent of infecting them.
>>8115576
any links to dis shiz?
Sylvia Plath
>>8115600
That's wrong for Pound though.
He was the greatest friend you could have. He did everything to have his friends published and helped whenever he could. I don't think his anti-semitism makes him a bad person.
>>8115506
Sympathized with the communist side of the Spanish civil war
>>8115701
Pound was a fascist and openly supported Italy in WW2.
>>8115693
What the fuck are you talking about
>>8115699
[minus the part where she leaves two small children alone while she gasses herself in the other room] [just in order to spite her Nazi father by going out like a Jew]
ah yes let me guess, because she's a woman she can't be blamed for stuff like that, she was just >muh victim
>>8115565
Beckett and Chekhov can be added to your list
>>8115713
So what?
He was a bad person because he was a fascist? Was he really a fascist or did he admired Italy's economic policy and its disdain for usury?
>>8115488
Mark Twain
Frederick Douglass
Anne Frank
Victor Hugo
David Foster Wallace
>>8115715
Do you know how to read? I expressed myself perfectly clearly.
>>8115557
>mfw I read that passage right now while in fact being half naked on the crapper.
>>8115488
Melville seemed like a pretty alright guy desu. Real sad though.
>>8115767
sadness has no place in the life of a proper seaman
>>8115668
That's a list of good people.
>>8115780
they're seaman because they're sad. theres nothing for them on land.
>>8115576
>multiple mistresses, abusive to his wife
how is this bad?
>and minions
oh
>>8115488
What defines a 'genuinely good' human being then?
More importantly: goody two shoes aren't interesting people. Damaged, so to say, people are interesting. People who've seen things, done things, those who have a twisted way of looking at things, those are interesting people, and interesting people write interesting literature. Plenty of writers have been good people, always trying to do good, we just don't know their names or know their works because they're both boring. Additionally, a lot of people who are smart, such as writers, are also miserable. Smart miserable people are interesting. Then there's those who are smart, but autistic like those in love with math and science, and they probably aren't that miserable because again autism does strange things.
>>8115807
back to >b with you
>>8115843
What do you mean?
>>8115807
I don't think being smart and miserable is a prerequisite for being interesting. Smart maybe, but there are likely way more miserable dull fools than miserable men of caliber and mystique
>>8115502
So?
>>8115729
>Sure he supported fascism but was he REALLY a fascist
Semantics
>>8115565
Shakespeare was a usurer
>>8115618
That's probably the time to do it, just sayin
>>8115693
lol
>>8115737
Anne Frank was so bad they had to kill her
>>8115892
>I don't think being smart and miserable is a prerequisite for being interesting.
I was trying to say that those who are smart are probably also more often miserable, and as a result of these also more interesting. Not to say there aren't smart and interesting people who aren't miserable, but that I think there's probably more people who are intelligent while also so to say unhappy, or disconnected from life and those around them. I was trying to think of another word than disconnected but I can't remember it.
>but there are likely way more miserable dull fools than miserable men of caliber and mystique
That's probably true.
>'Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.'
Hemmmingway
John Ruskin. Lewis Carroll. Gustave Flaubert.
>>8115942
Youre saying the more misery a humans gone through, the more interesting they are. This is not true, try to apply this logic to yourselfyoursel and tell me and yourself if you are interesting/miserable.
>>8115970
That's not what I said. Maybe it's because miserable, or misery as you use it, isn't the adequate word for it.
>>8115807
Sometimes people also blow the dickishness of famous authors (etc) out of proportion.
Not that a lot of them weren't pretty horrible, but sometimes you see stuff like mental illness or rather simple mistakes put into the category of "horribly unethical things". Sometimes simple provocative rudeness is enough, etc.
>>8115742
>13th century
>HIV
Yes I can read thank you for your concern.
>>8115488
>Hemingway
>Terrible
how?
>>8115997
Then you'll understand what I meant.
>>8116003
He hated gays, Jews, and women.
>>8115993
A similar issue is when people try to judge people in the past while holding views and opinions of today, so many generals of the past and powerful people would be considered abhorrent by "intellectuals" today. Always reminded of this debate:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxQ4TcTcPbI
at one point they talk about Napoleon taking some Egyptian city, I think it was. Napoleon's step-son or some family member had begged of him to spare the city's inhabitants, and Napoleon had agreed. When he approached the city and sent his messenger inside to ask for surrender, they took the messenger and brutally tortured him. I think they ended up putting his head on a spike or something like that. Either way, Napoleon was furious and the siege on the city began. After the city was taken, he let his army run amok inside, pillaging and raping and so on. I think it was both the man Andrews was debating and the spineless moderator in the debate who said what Napoleon did was awful when really it was the only outcome. After they killed the messenger like that, Napoleon's hands were tied. Either he let his men do to the city what the city had done to one of them, or he spared them all, following the wishes of his family member, while being seen as weak because he did not punish the enemy for harming the messenger. Imagine what transgressions could be dealt upon Napoleon afterwards if he did not punish them.
Fuck that idiotic moderator, and his smug British accent.
>>8116011
Suicide is a sin, just for you to know.
>>8116029
Constantine is that you, you fucking tranny faggot?
>>8116014
So?
>>8116042
Same applies but considering the way you write I guess you're not that faggot. Are you a cancerous /his/ tumor?
>>8116014
No he didn't
>>8115506
kgb recruit
commie
europhile
deadbeat dad
alcoholic
mentally ill
narcissist
he kill hissel
>ctrl-f
>no Jonathan Swift
For such a cynic he was a great human being
>>8115767
Melville caused his son emotional pain until he killed himself (see Billy Budd)
>>8116070
being a commie is literally the only way to be a good person
>>8116078
>stalinists
>good
>>8116036
So Dante had HIV in 13th century, hated gays and fucked them?
I clearly have no idea what you're talking about like I said in the first so state what you mean plainly. You original post will still remain edgy for eternity as this an anon board an nobody can point at you and laughs for speaking plainly
>>8115704
As opposed to the fascists? lel
>>8115497
Quality post
>>8116084
I never said Dante hated gays. You were wrong to say that you can read.
Hemingway led a group of French guerillas in WWII, one of the first allied units to liberate Paris. He was tried for the war crime of violating his non-combatant status. They let him off the hook because they all liked him too much. That's Hemingway for you.
He wrote about doing some terrible things. In a personal letter, he wrote about about splattering a defenseless German POW's brains everywhere with a single shot from a .45 caliber handgun (/k/ can inform you of the plausibility of that). He also had a habit of ending letters by remarking that, amazingly, some of this story is true!
>>8116014
But but but
That's exactly how I feel
>>8116293
The societal consensus is that hating gays, Jews, and women is bad. I would agree, but that's beside the point.
If you agree with him, then he isn't a bad person to you.
That's okay.
>>8116076
Probably as a result of his father treating him similarly. Poor guy. His dad basically said he was a retard in his diary.
>>8115737
>David Foster Wallace
that's cute.
Has anyone ever considered that they were just surrounded by stupid assholes?
>>8116330
>The societal consensus is that hating gays, Jews, and women is bad.
Not really. I mean, if you step outside of the mainstream sphere of popular 21st century liberal rhetoric, the dominant religions that thrive in society today are all founded on hatred for all of those groups. Christians hate Jews for killing their Messiah, women for being the downfall of man (in the creation story) and Gays for being idiosyncratic of intelligent design. Muslims hate everyone that isn't Muslim and see women as inferior and Gays as deserving death. Jews have pretty much suffered as subordinates in every state, except for the US, but are universally regarded as conniving and not to be trusted.
I don't relate to any of these views, but they are widely popular and existing if not discussed openly.
>>8115594
>racist, anti-Semitic, sexist bigots
>Flannery O'Connor
you best watch yrself
How has Cormac McCarthy been bad?
>>8116366
humanity is full of powerful idiots of men who don't have their priorities straight news @ 11
Laszlo Krasznahorkai seems like the nicest guy.
>>8116346
I had no idea. I just know that the night that his son killed himself Melville wouldn't let him go see his love interest at a party and had apparently done all he could to prevent them from seeing each other so his son killed himself, then he wrote Billy Budd very soon after a story of knowingly sentencing an innocent man to death, it's a really tragic story to me. Similar to Faulkner's brother flying his plane into a barn accidentally and then AA! was written.
>>8115565
>aka you aren't a religious fanatic
fedorable
Dostoyevski is a cool ass motherfucker, and most russians are, except Tolstoi maybe
The REAL degenerate hacks are the american writers like the beats and fucking Bukowski and faggots like him
G K Chesterton
>>8115488
>>inb4 any saints
Why would we not mention literal saints when you ask us about writers who were good people?
>>8116381
I dont think its just men.
Plenty of women hate jews, gays and women as well.
>>8115488
Well alcoholics tend to be assholes
>>8115807
Are you saying we should tell lies to kids because the suffering makes them cuter and more vulnerable?
>>8116641
I think plenty of people hate you too. But you're just one individual, what does that mean?
>>8116752
But if they're just Jews gays and women, wtf do i care about their feelings?
>>8115804
>>8115693
but HIV didn't exist back then
proust
>>8117222
oh you
>>8115713
who fucking cares. the fact he was imprisoned for this shit shows how fucked the US is
>>8115495
spooky
>>8115488
How are they worse than any of us? How can you call anyone 'terrible'?
I'm sure all of them were trying just as hard as the rest of us. There's no such thing as a saint, stop throwing stones.
>>8117567
>no such thing as a saint
>>8115547
>perhaps slept around before he met her
so you dont know anything about the man and still insist on posting?
being a terrible person (ie narcissism/sociopathy) is what drives somebody to try to create great art in the first place. they believe they're better than other people, and the accolades of having created something great makes it empirically true. now they have a license to treat people terribly.
>>8115506
he liked guns
>>8116793
Yes it did.
>>8115547
Joyce treated his brother like a slave. He was an utterly contemptible, egotistical, manipulative wank stain IRL.
Nora was reported saying to a friend she worry about him, she said he wanted her to sleep with other men so he would know how it feels and would be better able to write about it.
>>8115726
This.
Beckett was a hero, decorated twice and he could have just went home to netural Ireland
>>8117703
On the flip side, there are millions of narcissists out there who believe they're better than other people and are so blinded by their self-love, so much into themselves, that they don't even realize that their writing, their art is complete shit
>>8118281
>Beckett was a hero, decorated twice and he could have just went home to netural Ireland
He also drove Andre the Giant to school every day and was mates with Cioran.
All around top lad.
>>8115500
>>8118350
>m-meany
HENRY MILLER
>>8116773
Because you have mental problems.
>>8117703
Producing a piece of art is obviously a narcissistic act but it doesn't make every artist a narcissist.
>>8116081
>stalinists
>commies
choose one
>>8118350
Where is this from exactly? Who is the author? It reads like a smear.
So much /r9k/ /pol/ edgy shit in this thread, god this is depressing
>>8115713
That is a good thing
>>8115557
That's actually hilarious
>>8115488
Huxley was a pretty good person
>>8115517
Could you be any more of a typical /lit/ pleb?
>>8118547
I think this might be a letter between Nikolay Strakhov (who had worked in multiple literary journals together with Dostoevsky) and Leo Tolstoy. It's common knowledge that Strakhov viewed Dosto unfavorably, but I'm hesitant to call it an outright smear. It's probably exaggerated truth.
Not the poster, btw, just wanted to clarify.
>>8118350
Dostoyevsky confirmed for first robot
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8m9vDRe8fw
authors are prissy little self-important pissants. here is a classic 'argument' between two people who make a point to sound smart with every syllable.
>>8116081
>stalinism
>believing this trotskyite meme
>not understanding the principals of Marxism-Leninism
cmon comrade
>>8116020
Why are British aristocrats still allowed to exist?
>>8118631
And a pretty bad writer.
>>8115502
No he didn't. He had affairs before marriage, and after his first wife died (before marrying again), but he didn't have adulterous relationships.
>>8120994
Strakhov was a prolific liar about Dostoevsky. It is in Strakhov's biography about Dostoevsky that the the famous meme about Dostoevsky's confession to child rape first appears
>>8121046
Gore Vidal was such a shit. He's been gone only a few years and hardly no one remembers him
>>8118350
Pretty much exactly how I imagined he'd be.
