/lit/ - Literature

1. Does anyone else think that books / art is needlessly hyped up as a source of wisdom? I'm not a huge amount smarter after reading lots of great books. Id probably have gained more by reading SICP.

2. Is good writing / prose in the literary world the equivalent of being a pretty girl IRL? People pretend everything you say is meaningful and important, and other people are ignored.

So Pynchon's ramblings get treated like gospel yet there's probably some 300 IQ guy who can't get (his much more intelligent musings) published because he can't describe grass or curtains well enough.

I was more of a pleb back when I read his books but I liked all of them, with his big 3 (see picture) being eternal goat tier.

Mysteries of Pittsburgh fills me with so much nostalgia for the life I don't have. It's my favourite book about young people.

>>4624845

>“In the immemorial style of young men under pressure, they decided to lie down for a while and waste time.”

>have posted numerous topics on /sci/ about having a project that I have barely worked on for over 3 weeks

top kek, my own life imitating art (quote from michael chabon, probably my favourite authors)

and you?

>>4255337

fuck off troll

He's probably my favourite author. Telegraph Avenue was shit though.

>>4147931

Finally someone posts about him other than me.

Telegraph Avenue was rubbish but his GOAThood can't be denied.

>>4061799

What the deuce did you just fucking say about me, you uncouth plebeian? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in Cambridge English Literature, been involved in numerous 17th century book analyses, and I have over 300 confirmed interpretations of Ulysses' first page. I am trained in critical reading and and am the top critic in the entire USA literati. You are nothing to me but just another pretentious teenager. I will criticise your shitty poems and prose with intellectual wit and fury that hasn't been seen since Oscar Wilde. You think you can escape retribution because you're using a medium devoid of culture? Think again, pleb. As we speak I am contacting my secret network of librarians across the USA and your library ID is being traced right now so you should prepare for the revenge, you filthy urchin. The revenge that will remove all the trash manga and graphic novels from your library. You're banished to /h/, serf. I can read any language from any period in history, and I can theorise over seven hundred philosophical reasons for the meaning of life, and that's just when I assume there is no God. Not only am I erudite and well read, but I have access to all shelves of the United States Library of Congress and I will use it to its full extent to clean the academic community of your exrecable presence, you little philistine. If you only you had the critical thinking skills to know what vengeance your rejoinder would render upon you, perhaps you would have stayed clandestine. But you failed, you floundered, and now you're going to face my fury, you feckless, fustian fool. I will logically destroy you and you will beg for mercy. You're pulp now, lout.

Okay, describe a novelist/novel in a funny way and try to guess who it is. I'll start with an easy one. Guess the novelist. This is how they write a novel.

>write 100 page novel
>put at least 2 blank pages inbetween each page
>go to wikipedia and click random page
>copy-paste contents to fill in a blank section
>repeat until finished

Honest to god, I'm not some ADD riddled /b/tard who doesn't read books.

But what are Nabokov's best books other than Lolita and Pale Fire? I just gave up reading Bend Sinister after the first (short) chapter because it's just the most purple, overwrought prose I've ever read. It was shit. I normally give books a good chance but the only book that made me give up so quickly was The Atrocity Exhibition.

I also gave up on The Real Life of Sebastian Knight at about half way because it was just so dull. I don't read for plot, but nothing was happening at all.

Despair and Pnin weren't anything special at all. Although his short stories can be pretty good, especially that lollable one which is basically one giant >tfw no gf fantasy.

something like this?

>my only hobbies are reading and lifting and 4chan
>CVs need an interests section, and I don't have any extracurricular clubs

Would you ever mention specific authors? Do you even mention reading in your CV? I was told me to be specific with interests. Should I mention that my favourite authors are Nabokov and Michael Chabon? I'm not applying for anything related to literature btw.

Reasons for:
>If I don't, they'll say might think I only read 50 shades etc
>Personalises it a bit more

Reasons against:
>I'm doing STEM, so if an English major interviewer asks me about the continental philosophy undertones of stuff, I'm fucked.
>People might see it as pretentious

>inb4 "hurr durr, who needs interests on a CV".

You need it if you're a uni student with no experience.

Surely we should also put on "For Whom The Bell Tolls" under Hemingway? Other than that, it's pretty good.