/lit/ - Literature

I'm a journalism major, and a professional freelancer came in to talk to my arts criticism class. It seems like a really shitty life. What have I done?

>>3848872
She's just lucky she came from porn-friendly Germany.

>>3787141
>,,,tries to turn women into something they aren't

I've been wondering about this increasingly as of late.

>you will never attend Bennington in the '80s
>university will never be like The Rules of Attraction

I'm a sophomore and I still haven't gotten laid.

To answer your question, neither. I write prosody and have no interest in marketing.

If I ever end up attending Ivy League, it'll be for graduate school/something higher than a bachelor's.

I guess I wasn't a holistic enough prospect -I never played sports, so didn't have that on my transcript, and wasn't particularly civic-minded (I only did volunteer stuff my senior year of high school); oh yeah, and my family isn't terribly social so no connections. My grades were top-notch though, and I went to a really nice high school. Also, at the time I couldn't justify shelling out that kind of cash for my undergrad (in journalism), but now I'd justify anything to get out of Temple. But then I'm basically going for free, and it's got a noted journalism program, and a really good study abroad program, so I guess I'll persevere.

>mfw I didn't even bother applying to UPenn and I likely would have gotten in.

You can major in art history at Harvard and go on to run a bank; anyone who thinks Ivy League is a scam is just kidding themselves.

>mfw also the meritocracy

>>3431208
Hmmm...edifying.

To be completely honest, I'm not as happy at my current uni as I'd thought I'd be; my initial reaction to this was "Well, I'll just tough it out," but why do this? Not to mention I'm having serious doubts about journalism (not that I didn't before) and an inkling of a desire to jump major ship to English.

I think I've sagged somewhat academically, nothing major though -I just get more Bs than As nowadays, since I spend most of my time leisure reading as opposed to doing actual work.

She read from NW at my library, and when this woman was praising the pitch-perfect slang I said to the guy sitting next to me "It's almost like she wrote it," and for some reason he busted out laughing and she looked our way a little.

I liked NW quite a bit but from more extensive Smith readers the verdict seems to be that it was only published because it's Zadie Smith; this fact seems a little harsh to me, but then I've only read the first fifty pages of White Teeth so I can't comment on her fiction as a whole.

Just finished reading Changing My Mind not too long ago. Listening to her wax poetic about lyrical realism, only liking movies pre-1950s, and just inevitably being a bit pretentious got a little boring, but most of the pieces were good. (That was a weird general critique of the book: she came off as too pretentious. At first I thought this was plebs being plebs but hot damn if she doesn't sound insanely posh at times.) I have a feeling most people read that collection for the DFW essay, though personally I really liked the piece on accents. There's a line in that one, "It's like being born twice," which has stuck with me.

>pic related, it's her hero

>>3341594
He wrote straight poetry in addition to vernacular, but white folks loved them some good ol' jive as opposed to his traditional verse. It's like how the only Gwendolyn Brooks poem everyone knows is "We Real Cool."

I've been writing quite a few short pieces since school let out. Just got a rejection email from McSweeney's about some list I submitted.

>I've read Lolita, American Psycho, and Delta of Venus right in front of my parents without them batting an eye.
>Whenever I watch It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia when they're around, they call it "filth."
>mfw

My high school pressured everyone to take it at least twice (though no more than three times), but I got 1940 or something the first time around and left it at that. I didn't apply to any "reach" schools, and if I do ever feel like transferring they're only going to be looking at my grades in my actual college coursework.

I don't remember the breakdown of the scores but I do remember my Writing was the highest, Math my lowest. I also took some of the SAT Subject Tests; did really well in U.S. History, quite mediocre on Bio with little preparation.

I've hardly read anything by Marx, but I find myself often taking a Marxist stance when analyzing some work. I've actually got more knowledge in the realm of psychoanalytic literary theory, but I'm not really a fan of looking for dicks in every book I read.

sighchortlesigh.tumblr.edu

I've only been active in spurts, trying to be more regular about it.

>>3102825
Nathanael West's stuff has an element of hilarious self-loathing to them, though I'm not sure how he personally felt.

Dorothy Parker was pretty fucking harsh about her stuff towards the end of her life, almost unnecessarily so. I had a nice, electricity-less day/night in reading "The Standard of Living" and some of her letters (would have loved to correspond with her, she's /lit/'s manic-depressive pixie girl) in The Portable Dorothy Parker today.