Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 152. page
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That's a really insightful point that you've communicated well. I had no idea people thought of things like that and I now feel much more informed on the topic.
Or, no, wait, you're missing the point that all art is shit. Nothing has changed since Artaud said "all writing is garbage. People who come out of nowhere to try to put into words any part of what goes in in their minds are pigs. The whole literary scene is a pigpen, especially today."
Literary history isn't just people writing great work but people telling other people that it's great work. If you think you somehow exist outside of that, you're dead wrong and need to spend more time thinking about why you're reading the books that you're reading. You're not reading them because they are inherently of worth and you inherently know that but because someone else told you so.
You can judge a book based on whatever you want but you're seriously fucking up the order of operations if your response to "more diversity please" is "nope, only aesthetic worth." Your goal in a university classroom isn't to judge books but to read them and trying to learn something.
You seem to think literary studies are about finding the best of the best and sending everyone else the universally and objectively correct Top 10 list. No, literary study can be just as valid (and arguably even more important) when it focuses on bad texts or ones of little aesthetic worth.
Here's the point you missed while you were caught up in your bad literary studies: when you're trying to make the claim that you read purely on aesthetic concerns and that the writer's identity makes no difference to you, you cannot at the same time say "here's a black guy to back up my point." You look incredibly silly when you point out he didn't like being referred to as a black writer and then insist on referring to him exclusively as one.
It also looks incredibly silly when you say "I just like work of aesthetic worth and it's an outrage that you're trying to get me to read more women and brown people." If it's only books of aesthetic worth, does that mean every book you read had better be of more worth than the last? I mean, what's the point otherwise, right? We're just judging solely on aesthetic worth and we can only read the cream of the crop so that we can better organize the Top 10 list so that nobody wonders anymore what books are good and what books aren't. Hell, we should probably start burning all the books that we already know aren't going to make the cut. Bye-bye, 50 Shades.
If you're just in it for the plot and storytelling, why do you care what other criteria might go into picking books? If you had a room full of all of the best books in history and knew both that they were all literary the best books ever written and that you could only read a finite number of them, what would be the argument against reading only the ones that had blue covers? Or only the ones that are in the Realist mode? Or only books that are shorter than 300 pages? Or only the ones by women? Or only the ones by men? Why is one of these options okay but the rest are utterly unacceptable for a reading list?
Most people read based on aesthetics. And yet somehow we've ended up with a literary history and canon that predominantly celebrates white males. Maybe, somehow, that's not a coincidence? For example, maybe white males aren't the only ones to create texts of aesthetic worth but are mostly the only ones? Sounds reasonable.
After all, we're only reading books of aesthetic worth and it's mostly white men, and any argument that we should we read more women or brown people is met with the outrage and shouting about only reading books based on aesthetic worth. Or is that too much inductive logic?
Even if you walked into a library without having ever seen a book or read a word or heard someone talk about western literature in your entire life, pulled a random book off the shelf, and said "hey, have you guys heard about this Shakespeare guy? He seems pretty cool," you would still be within the context of a library which has limited funds to acquire books and thus will naturally acquire books that someone at some point decided were of value to others. If you're in a bookstore, someone thought it would sell or otherwise had the money to make sure it's printed.
You are not absent from the literary tradition that said, first, that women were not intelligent enough to write, and, later, that, okay, maybe they can write (even though they should not have been educated enough to put together that many words and sentences), but it's just not aesthetically pleasing and that has nothing to do with their genitalia. Or, else you say that the genre that is predominantly female is of little literary value despite being culturally dangerous. You don't need to pick one, you can pick a few because it's a grab-bag.
Jane Eyre actually gets a shout-out on the cover of Joanna Russ' How to Suppress Women's Writing. Here's a gem from Wikipedia regarding the androgynous penname Jane Eyre was originally published under:
Speculation about the identity and gender of the mysterious Currer Bell heightened with the publication of Wuthering Heights by Ellis Bell (Emily) and Agnes Grey by Acton Bell (Anne).[12] Accompanying the speculation was a change in the critical reaction to Charlotte's work, as accusations were made that the writing was "coarse",[13] a judgement more readily made once it was suspected that Currer Bell was a woman.[14]
Do you know what happens when a Victorian publisher thinks your writing is too coarse and/or unlikely to get carried by Mudie's? You don't get published, even if you wrote what would be acknowledge as the best novel in English history. Or maybe you publish under a name like George Eliot so that people won't be looking to define your work based on your genitals.
This is probably the most autistic thread on 4Chan right now.
>writing a essay
>subject is perfectly adressed for undergrad level
>still 7 pages shorter than required
What do I do now? I'm just using redundant theory now that makes the text feels fat of references. What this minimum page requirement is supposed to accomplish? Is this a warning sign of shitty teacher?
it's a sign that you're a shitty writer
>>8228926
>writing a essay
Yup, its just you.
>>8228926
Your problem is that you did not outline your paper. Here's my method:
>The required number of pages is your basic template
>Make a list of subtopics related to the main subject of discussion
>Allocate an equal amount of space for each subtopic within those pages
This is not a hard rule. Obviously, you will have more to say on some points but breaking up the space makes the whole process easier.
>Flesh out any ideas that come to mind
>Fill the rest of the space with fluff or quotations
The mistake that a lot of kiddies make is to treat an essay as a linear progression. Once you have drawn the skeleton, you can start anywhere!
what arguments against the oxford comma exist
>>8228917
it removes hilarious ambiguity
Those at the ceremony were the commodore, the fleet captain, the donor of the cup, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Jones
inb4 who gives a fuck about
/lit/ is nothing but a bunch shitposting and people procrastinating. Barely see any serious discussion on this forum. Only solution is for /lit/ to become one big book circle reading the whole western canon. what is this forum for if not for encouraging reading and enabling serious literary discussions?
And why does this inot already exist?
>>8228880
People here like to pretend only "patrician" books matter but nobody reads that shit, so shitposting about books we haven't read is all that is left to do.
Are you serious? Coming to a forum to post about books you have never read must be the stupidest thing i have ever heard of. Do you really do this?
And yet you post nothing about books. Would ya look at that!
>Some may seize on it as a masterpiece, but it is a bloated monster of a book. (...) The bloat is a consequence of sheer adipose verbosity and an unremitting condition of moral and intellectual flatulence.
nobody that matters said this about IJ
STOP TRYING TO RUIN DFW'S NAME
>>8228870
Not an argument.
Is this is the only book you care about? Have you read a single book in your life or you just shitpost? Why every tenth post here have to be about IJ, where most of the people haven't even read it. No one claims it to be a masterpiece of literature. Yes, it's a good book. Please, get your shit together.
I want to unironically live with no regrets. How can I attain complete satisfaction and be happy with my decisions on my death bed? Does everyone regret something?
>>8228865
stoicism
Look into existentialism. Read jean paul sartre. Look into humanistic psychology like carl rogers,
try dying in your sleep ye
How do I improve my writing, /lit/?
>>8228774
whats wrong with it
>>8228774
Generally: Read more and write more
>>8228774
Read the authors you wish to emulate and write as much as you can. Set realistic goals for writing each day.
What's the Fullmetal Alchemist of Literature?
dunno, can anyone think of any highly overrated pleb books that normies love for some reason?
>>8228763
catcher in the rye
>>8228772
Infinite Jest
What's the best book with the most unintentionally bad writing or unintelligent writer? Fiction or non fiction
my diary desu
>>8228713
Max Stirner
>>8228806
Currently reading the ego and his own in the German original (native, so no problems). Stirner seems like a total idiot, but with a good point.
what are /lit/'s thoughts on alt lit?
>>8228706
I like that they're all contained in their little bubble so I don't have to pay any attention to them.
>alt lit is alive
>alt lit ever was alive
go to bed Mira
What about it makes it 'alt'? Mira Gonzalez is just a shitty confessionalist, Tao Lin is lost in a sea of irony
is the Constance Garnett translation of Brothers Karamazov good?
pic related.
am i a plebeian?
>>8228693
It's not just good it's beloved.
Everyone who disagrees is a newfag who got memed by the jew york times and P&V
>>8228694
i googled it just now after being the book at a used book shop and the New Yorker seems to have their head up their ass.
i know that /lit/ generally hits it on the spot regarding >translations, just wanted to make sure
Get the Avsey translation
>college
>age
>favorite book
>>8228665
amherst
24
moby dick
Universidad de Oviedo
19
Under The Volcano
Yale
20
The Recognitions
Who's the greatest writer of all time?
my diary desu
>>8228666
satan's diary would be very interesting
>>8228690
it really wouldn't desu
what does /lit/ think of these?
>>8228646
Trash.
>>8228646
Worse than Twilight. Not even joking. To be fair the kid was only like 16 but still.
My dad loves them though. Whenever he talks about what a great writer Paolini is I get pissed off. We went to see one of those Hobbit movies and he said without a hint of irony that they were good but that they copied a lot from Eragon.
>>8228646
It was my favorite series as a child.
I am actually afraid to reread them now because I know I'll probably think they're garbage.
never read any bolano. seems like most people on here like 2666 more - any reason to not start with that? is savage detectives more accessible/anyone like that one more?
I read Savage Detectives. I started 2666 twice but never made it past the first 150 pages. I'll go back and take it down one day.
Savage Detectives strikes me as more accessible. It is also pretty awesome.
start with Distant Star
Savage Detectives is still a pretty beastly novel. 600+ pages, constantly shifting narrators, non-linear, etc.
His shorter works are good, and more "traditional", therefore easier to get into.
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