/lit/ - Literature

>>12299334
Unfortunately that only makes them more relatable.

>nothing really happened

>>12299343
Only when they are aware of their own unlikeability.

>>12299394
Like me?

Then Lolita is the worst book ever written

>>12299747
Humbert being strangely likable despite being a terrible person describing terrible urges is part of the point of the book

>>12299762
As much as I liked Lolita I couldn't stand Humbert. He was an arrogant creep but Nabokov is really good at coming up with characters like Humbert because he was also an arrogant creep

>the prose was turgid, heavily embellished and totally convoluted

Kurt wasnt a brainlet wtf

>>12299334
My wife uses this line to justify not liking the books I recommend to her

>>12299780
Same, I've rooted for some pretty terrible people in fiction (Julien Sorel from The Red and the Black is one of my very favourite characters), but never liked or rooted for Humbert.

>>12300168
>tfw liked Kurtz but not Humbert

>the names were weird/hard to remember

>why does he talk about whales so much

>>12300250
this is a legitimate criticism for 100 years of solitude
whys everyone got the same fucking name

>the prose was bad

>there were too many hard words like the writer's just trying to show off

>>12300851
It's easier to us latinoamericans. You wouldn't understand, gringo.

>>12299782
I once started reading a book that suffered from this. 5-7 pages about curtains and walls, the season, a chair, etc. Many, many similes. Vocabulary that didn't fit and no reason for it. I couldn't do it.

>>12300962
>heralding the lack of diversity within your culture as good

>>12299334
Majority of people I write aren't likeable.

>>12301020
Didn't you got the memo? Nonwhite = diverse.

>>12300851
Nah, I'm neither Hispanic nor American and it was easy for me.
Even worse when people complain about Things Fall Apart, where every name is unique.

Interesting note that while /lit/ will excoriate someone who tries to pass this as legitimate criticism for a work of fiction, but this is 99% of the form of the criticism I see here for philosophy.

>>12300851
this is why there's no good Muslim/Arab fiction (also because their religion despises artistic expression). There's only so many Mohammeds and Ahmads and Alis you can use before you run out of character space.

I have an English Lit degree from a beddy good University, and people (women) would turn up to tutorials with this exact criticism.
>whine whine the main character was an asshole and I just couldn't relate to them so I didn't enjoy this book

>>12299334
>Why do their names keep changing?

>>12301438
Why do women even try to understand literature? They clearly can't sympathize with male ambition or rationale. It's fine to be involved with pulp women-centric "muh feels" fiction but they shouldn't claim equality when it comes to literature.

>>12301477
Most literature can be summed up as “muh feels”. Masculine and Feminine books alike both generally contain characters whining over something.

>>12301477
On top of this>>12301477 , it's hardly "male ambition" or "rationale" that these people have an issue with, because you see the same arguments against characters like Madame Bovary. It's because they seem to think media should be PSAs where the protagonists are either role models or explicitly in the wrong. They dislike moral complexity and subtlety and want didactic books with simple morals that tell you how to feel.
It's dumb to turn this into a man vs woman thing - it's probably mainly women for >>12301438 because English Literature is studied by mainly women - at least in the UK, it's like 80% women currently.
Look at female writers like George Eliot, Virginia Woolf, Flannery O'Connor and the multitude of female academics who have a deep appreciation and understanding of literature.
Don't perpetuate this idea of a gender war.

>>12301686
Good post.

>>12301477
>male ambition or rationale.
Aren't these both 'feels'? Why are male things more important than female-centric things? Is it only literature if it involves male ambition?

>>12301391
Haha you are very knowledgeable and worldly.

>>12301477
As if we don’t have similar threads on /lit/ on the daily
>god this book by [not white male author] sucks, i don’t give a shit about [not white male] problems!

>>12301856
show me 14 examples

>>12302002
Every Jane Austen thread has some numpty complaining that it isn't proper literature because it involves women and their ambitions and desires

>>12300259
same people who truly believe that ishmael is the narrator throughout

Pic related: a take so shitty it may be galaxy brained.
Imagine being unable to relate to another human because they lived 100 years ago - a very short time in the grand scheme of things. And then they probably call other people lacking in empathy. Joyce isn't hard because of that, he's hard because she's not educated enough to understand his books.
Actually triggering me because most of my favourite writers were white men in the nineteenth or early twentieth century, and I'm neither white nor male and can still relate to them. On that note, I can still relate to works written 2500 years ago. Guess I should just start identifying as nineteenth century male.
But maybe I'm the brainlet and not woke enough to keep up the superior denizens of twenty first century twitter who know so much better than actual academics.

>>12301697
>>12301686
Samefag. There’s no way you could read that whole post in 2 minutes

>>12302433
Could I photoshop this in 2 minutes?

>>12302445
I don’t know how photoshop works, but yes

>>12302458
You're greatly underestimating the time it takes most people to photoshop and overestimating the time it takes your average person to read. 4chan posts don't exactly require time to process, and just the mechanical process of reading a few lines can easily be done in a minute.

>>12301844
>posts the only good modern Iranian book
wow epic anon.

>>12301347
Philosophy doesn't have characters.

>>12302445
Are you retarded. You can snip that, open in Microsoft Paint, select a box of post-background, cover the first (You) with it, save, and post in less than a minute.

>>12302619
On a macbook (look at the filename, that's how osx saves screenshots) no paint equivalent :^)
But really, I'd have to have seen his post and decided edit my screenshot at the moment it was posted, and have quick photoediting skills. What are the chances of that?

>>12302646
>are you retarded
>on a macbook
+1 for answering my question
I agree that you probably aren't samefagging though

>>12299782
>Turgid prose
>TURGID
>PROSE
What does anyone ever mean by this?

>>12302672
I always believed in showing and not telling.

>the characters weren't likeable

Hey /lit/, can you guys form me an argument on why this criticism is stupid? It's for a later use.

>>12300851
At least it had a family tree to help

>>12302294
>he doesnt set the scene
Its fuckin Dublin what more do you need

>>12299334
This argument is only invalid if the characters were intentionally unlikable. Otherwise, it's a perfectly valid criticism.

>>12302517
It's not even close to the only good modern Iranian lit. The 1900's gave way to a literary movement which attempted to break away from the strict requirements of Iranian institutions. This gave way to many interesting pieces challenging their culture and government.

You could have learned this all using google and 5 mins.
You could have even just searched "good book Iran."
But instead you choose to vomit retarded thinking.

>>12302734
I liked that whale.