Can you answer for the 20th century /lit/? Why, with the exception of Ulysses, did it produce nothing even approaching the greatness on the scale of Moby Dick, Middlemarch, or Portrait of a Lady? 21st isn't shaping up too hot either.
What planet do you think you're living on?
Read:
Camus
Cioran
Chesterton
Debord
Beckett
Steinbeck
That's just off the top of my head desu. There's also particular novels like Catch-22, Great Gatsby and Brave New World.
>>8186562
I went to hs too darling, none of these are great, some are straight up bad, and most are short or not even novels.
>>8186575
>Everything I've read is bad so nothing is good
>Only Ulysses is good
Don't bite the hook
>>8186575
>none of these are great
Oh shit we got a connoissaurus over here.
>>8186544
It produced an overwhelming amount of greats, actually, including The Recognitions, Under the Volcano, At Swim-Two-Birds, In Search of Lost Time, The Lime Twig, Gravity's Rainbow, Pale Fire, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country, The Sot-Weed Factor, The Lookout Cartridge, The Sound and the Fury, The Public Burning, and Double or Nothing.
>>8186596
this is literally not even a controversial take, camus is trash, steinbeck, brave new world, and catch 22 overrated, chesterton light fun, who's given a fuck about a beckett novel, great gatsby is good but slim, and cioran and debord weren't really novelists
>>8186613
>this is literally not even a controversial take
[citation needed]
>>8186609
forgot about proust
ok this is an actually good list, but head to head I don't think they match with the 3 I listed
>>8186609
At swim two birds sucks
>>8186613
Wow its almost as if pedagogues can't find good things to say about decent books huh no book is perfect so why does he gouge books?
>>8186635
decent not great except for gatsby
idk what you're getting at
and on second reading only half the books on the other list are good/novels
>>8186613
>who's given a fuck about a beckett novel
lmfao holy shit
>>8186625
Most of them more than match up, if you ask me.
>>8186632
I mean, it doesn't, but whatever.
>>8186544
NAKED LUNCH
>>8186609
>too many Americans
Let's add to this The Trial, The Magic Mountain, The Man Without Qualities, Death on Credit, To the Lighthouse, The Rainbow, Petersburg, Ferdydurke, Molloy, Woodcutters, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis, If on a winter's night a traveler, and plenty of other books by the same authors, as well as others.
You're all missing the scale part, don't enter things that are like 200 pages.
>>8186798
I was just picking books people would probably be familiar with, but yes--those are all just as great as the 19th century novels op mentioned.
>>8186562
pleb
>>8186562
Summer sure is here.
>>8186862
Kind of weird list, though. Beckett, Debord and Cioran seem a little out of place on it. Anon must have found out about them here, I guess?
>>8186632
Found the faggot
300 pages into Portrait of a Lady and its nowhere near as good as you make it out to be. Middlemarch is excellent and so is Moby Dick but you should have chosen Anna Karenina if you wanted to make it a competition.
>>8186562
consider suicide
>>8186544
Borges
Pessoa
Mann
DeLillo
Pynchon
Beckett
And DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
>>8186890
has she even gotten married yet? keep going
>>8186609
Why in the heart instead of the tunnel?
if you actually read books you'd realize the 19th century was a shitshow and the 20th an amazing explosion in quality. but keep jacking off henry james and pretend you're into literature.
>>8187086
I agree with you but Henry James is the greatest novelist of all time, bitch. Though everyone knows his best novels are from the 20th century...
>>8187106
golden bowl was ok
not GOAT but ok
>>8187106
o shit he did revise and (to most people's tastes) deepened and improved Portrait in about 1908
my own argument...crumbled
but I guess not if I tap in the Russians
No one mentioning what's possibly the best 20th century novel, The Man without Qualities.
Oh yeah shit I forgot, /lit/ isn't well read at all
>>8187143
lrn2ctrl+f
>>8187143
tl dr
germans are bad at doorstoppers anyway
>>8187143
he couldn't even finish writing it lol
coincidentally, you surely couldn't finish reading it either
>>8187143
Eh its pretty good General Stumm? Sturm is hilarious whatever happens. Its a good book, its amusing when you finish its unfinished form and realise no events actually really happened for around 800 pages.
>>8187058
As much as I love The Tunnel, ultimately, In the Heart of the Heart of the Country is what Gass will be remembered for.
>>8187816
Read the first two stories, was unimpressed. Are the last three any better?
>>8188156
I mean, if you didn't like the first two, you probably won't like the rest, which is a shame, because, like the first two, they're great.
>21st isn't shaping up too hot either.
How many 20th century masterpieces were made within the first 16 years and were known to be a masterpiece within that same 16 years?
>>8188462
*15 years
>>8186544
>Portrait of a Lady
so good
it btfos new sincerity
>>8188462
This. And this century has had some pretty good books already, like Middle C, Europe Central, Cannonball, A Naked Singularity, The No World Concerto, and 2666.
Middlemarch and Portrait of a Lady are two of the most dull, ponderous novels ever written, I can't stand that 19th century way of writing novels where they got paid by the word
>>8188993
sigh
>>8188993
top pleb
>>8186625
>Proust doesn't match up with H. James
wtf are you on about?
>>8186613
This guy is actually right on everything, except Beckett's Molloy trilogy is pretty good.
>>8189121
no he's in with the Ulysses exception is what was meant
>>8188462
There's Henry James' late novels. Of course, everyone who isn't a pleb knows that Javier Marias is the Henry James of the late 20th/early 21st century.
>>8188505
2. many. americans.
my argument remains
undefeated
>>8186613
I'd be genuinely interested in hearing why you believe Camus' writings to be total trash. I think the first person movement from nihilism to absurdism in The Stranger culminated in a beautiful finale. Do you dislike Sartre's plays and Kierkegaard's Seducer's Diary too?
Fuckin desk fans. Suck on that you overheating Victorian fucknuckles
>>8191874
what are desk fans
>>8186544
>greatness
see ya kid
>>8186575
>none of these are great
>fucking Beckett
Consider offing yourself immediately.
>>8193544
A fan that you have on your desk.
How about Bataille?
>>8194646
No shit that was obscure af
>>8194676
Eh, plutôt Céline.
>>8186613
ok what about me, Pynchon?
