/lit/ - Literature

>>11200678
cause yir no fucking scottish

>>11200693
get tae fuck

>>11200678
I pity the white male

shes a cheeky cunt in she

>>11200678
Amis?
Faulk?

>>11200747
>"OI LIKE WHY IS DA GUVVERNMENT WELL BAD INNIT REMEMBER GRENFELL"

>>11200749
>Please do not mention Martin Amis

>>11200678
Good point anon. And has anyone else noticed that the Empire doesn't seem as big as it used to be? And it may be my imagination, but we don't seem to be turning out quite so many steamships as we once did either. It's almost enough to make one think we're going through some kind of decline.

>>11200768
Summers used to be warmer, too.

>>11200678
Amis may not be a great novelist but his reviews are first-rate.

>>11200758
Whoops. One of these days I will read a post before responding to it

But not today

A.S. Byatt is still alive isn't she?

pullman, philip (?)

>>11200747
She's so fucking shit. Lowest common denominator dirge as is 95% of spoken word poetry.

>>11200678
Britain has always been shit tier in literature. Never mind contemporary writers there were no truly great British writers in the last 200 years. British culture is simply just awful and its institutions more awful still, its not conjusive to art clearly

>>11200851
>what if Narnia with fedora tipping

Atrocious

>>11200749
Faulk? That ridiculous BBC serial low brow tory twat?
Have you ever even read good lit?

I just found out Anthony Burgess, John Fowles and William Golding are all dead.

You are fucked, bongs. Better start learning to appreciate the potatoes and the other alcoholics to the north of you

>>11200874
>Britain has always been shit tier in literature.

lmao brainlet

>>11200949
Its true. There's Shakespeare and a couple of the Romantics. The rest are utterly disposable.

>>11200678
Your country's situation is probably similar to the United States': that generally the talented creative people go where the money is- film and television.

>>11200973
>"It's true, there's the greatest writer in history and some of the greatest poets in history but the rest are disposable"

As I said, brainlet.

>>11200949
He's right. A single writer doesn't save the shit tradition, even if he is sublime. He is the exception to the rule.

People are reading William Hazlitt. They are calling him the most under rated writer of all time.

>>11200908
>>11200693
what is this meme about scottish lit? its complete rubbish unless you have a wide palette for nonsense

>>11201004
Melville is honorary english

Zadie Smith is excellent
There are is also a solid tier of above average writers like Self, Ishiguro, Mitchell and even Mantel, though Mantel having actually sold books probably disqualifies her in /lit/s eyes

They might all be solidly middlebrow authors but no more so than the vast majority of writers venerated on this board

>>11200949
>>11200973
>>11201004
>>11200908
>>11200874
Britain is usually trashed here because almost no writers from this country directly address the obsession with existentialist or experimental writings that the younger readers on this board are always chasing. Celine, Camus, Mishima, Nietzsche, Pynchon, Dosto, Kafka, Beckett, Hesse etc. are exactly what most late teens/early twenties men want in literature yet that's exactly what Britain, for various reasons, is very opposed to producing in art. These are things that writers in America and the continent are far more interested in creating.

>>11201045
Not in the least. Melville was Scottish descent and it shows

>>11201009
Irish not English

>>11201071
So what I am extrapolating from that is that the British mind is a much stronger mind? Much less prone to feeble feelings of existentialism?

I agree.

>>11201073
He was also Dutch descent. Does that show too?

>>11201099
Not as much no, you could argue some relation with his nautical fascination but I'm nowhere familiar enough with Dutch cultural traditions to comment

>>11201031
Alasdair Gray is tits

Trainspotting and The Wasp Factory were good edgelord fun

>>11201096
Instead the strong minds of Britain can write about elves and wizard schools

>>11201096
I secretly agree with you but for the sake of keeping up appearances I'll say that my main point was that British literature is not bad its just something that (especially in the context of this board's attitudes) you develop a taste for when more adolescent concerns take a back seat.

>>11201071
It's interesting that. There is no substantial edgecore in British lit. Larkin is closest but he's more in the vein of a Hardy than an Eliot; buttoned down depressive. I suppose there is something in the British character that finds all the showy moaning a bit undignified and silly.

>>11201088
Born and raised in England to an English Mother and an "Irish" PROTESTANT Father.

Nice try, Seamus.

>>11201138
One drop rule, he's Irish
Presbyterians aren't English either

>>11201115
Actually I was mocking you because the entire concept of 'sensing' someone's ethnic background through their novels is ridiculous.

Ishiguro has one great book (The Remains of the Day) and several other good books. I think he qualifies.

>>11201135
Burgess had some edge to him.

>>11201144
Yes because the cultural background of your family could not possible influence works profoundly. Fucking imbecile

>>11201140
>Presbyterians are totes Irish!

Stahp. If it's not Catholic it's not Irish. Even Wolfe Tone.

>>11201045
No he's not. But even if he were that wouldn't change anything.

>>11201130
>>11201071
So go on then, name these """mature""" British writers that the simple children can't get. Will Self?

>>11201151
>cultural background
Yeah definitely because late-18th Century Scotland was such an exotic and wildly different land from England. Had a HUGE impact didn't it? Fuck off.

>>11201071
What are some English novels of great literary merit which are similar to pic related?

>>11201154
Nah its blatent in Hazlitte's writing he had a critical Irish mind. An Englishman could never be so discerning

>>11201165
Scottish people have their own attitudes, traditions and humors very seperate from English people. This is in no way a controversial observation

>>11201096

No, it's because British people don't care about reading about other parts British culture and British writers don't put any thought into writing for an international audience. Except y'know the really successful British writers like Pullman and Rowling who rely on simple tropes to sell to an International audience. Some middlebrow writers like McEwan will succeed (how?) but not many because publishers are way more likely to publish your shit if you're writing about McZimbabwe's cultural experience or if you're a quasi Brit like Ishiguro.

Good fucking luck my brit lads. You'll need it.

>>11201159

Not who you responded to but Ishiguro, Rushdie, Zadie Smith, McEwan are all great British authors.

>>11201186
>Rushdie, Zadie Smith, McEwan
Pic related,
Ishiguro is acceptable, I'll give you that

>>11201168
Those are extremely American novels but pic related is a Scottish counterpart that you might enjoy. Its a parody of a 19th Century German philosopher who transcends an existential crisis. Carlyle was a significant influence on Melville and Nietzsche, plus he wrote in a very epic prose style.
>>11201159
I'm not gonna draw up a canon list for you but George Eliot was a psychological master who is sorely underappreciated on this board.

>>11201172
>attitudes, traditions and humors very seperate from English people
and these are observable in a distant half-Dutch American descendant? just stop

>>11201210
Look I don't care, this point was just a response to someone calling him honorary English

>>11201073
>>11201115
>>11201151
Except if you actually pull up Herman Melville's family tree and go through his ancestors you will see only his Great Grandfather was Scottish, who ended up marrying a woman of Irish extraction.

Melville's Grandmother Priscilla Scollay appears to be of full English descent, thus making Melville more English than Scottish.

Never trust Americans when it comes to reporting their heritage or the heritage of others. They are utterly clueless.

https://www.wikitree.com/genealogy/Melvill-Family-Tree-6

>>11201224
Huh, so he's Irish and Scottish, interesting

>>11201169
>Nah its blatent in Hazlitte's writing he had a critical Irish mind.

Despite not having a drop of Irish blood in his veins. Incredible!

>>11201229

No, he's American.

>>11201241
Ireland is a country not an ethnicity. You're confused with Gaelic

>Your Dickens, your Austens, your Shakespeares

Srsly though, England has no great contemporary writer for the same reason there's no great contemporary USA writer. The academia-media-publishing industrial complex has created a homogenised and uninspiring environment.

>>11201257
This is true, though I think this has been the case in Britain for the entirety of the 20th century and it has just taken hold in America

>>11200693
Kek the nuscots showed their true selves when they decided to keep their mouth firmly at the taint of the UK

>>11201186

I wish you'd read my comment. It's the one directly above yours.

>>11201257

Greatness is often largely unrecognized in it's time. 50 years from now, there will be authors of today who are looked back on as great and genius, once the full scale of the writing styles and authors they influenced has had time to bloom.

>>11201257
Why do people always single out Britain and America as being victims of this? Are there any 'great' contemporary writers in France (don't say Houellebecq) or in Germany?

>>11201273
This is true but it requires a literary culture with a genuine interest in conducting such an archeology. Rather than doing the exact opposite and manipulating historical amnesia to claim everyone in the late 20th century were blown away by Toni Morrison

>>11200745

I know you're joking but this is Britain in a nutshell. I don't think there's a single thing about British culture that feels designed to appeal beyond the next quarter. It's in a state of serious decline.

>>11201273

No. See above.

>>11201287
Houellebecq

>>11201296
>consumerism only exists in Britain
get a broader view of things, mate

>>11201303
Its not that consumerism only exists in Britain but that consumerism seems to be the only thing that exists in Britain. There is a genuine effort to shut down any perspective of life that has a more profound perspective than a Guardian article

>>11201296

You act like there isn't trash like this coming out of every country on Earth. What connection does a book written for preteens even have to the decline of culture and literature? It's a complete nonfactor culturally and won't be remembered for anything.

What about Ishiguro?

>>11201328

>It's a complete nonfactor culturally and won't be remembered for anything.

I was using Zoella as a metaphor.

>>11201346
I'd like to use Zoella as a metaphor if you get my drift ;)

>>11201349

Give her one for me mate.

Crabes?

>>11201334
He said English

>>11201531
Wrong.