/lit/ - Literature

>>12403845
American literetue is better.

>countries

Yes, I'm very interested to hear more well-informed and learned opinions from you.

"I like Dostoyevsky" is what people mean when they say they like Russian literature:

I can't imagine there's more than one or two people who shit this thread out every day. I think everybody understands that Russian lit is good bro.

>>12403845
There lives suck and it’s really cold. Two ingredients which contribute to a tendency for rumination and reflection.

>>12403845
Not so fast, Ivan

>>12403845

Stories require conflict in order to be interesting (or: stories at all), which also suggests suffering. Russia has very, very good knowledge of conflict and suffering, because these categories constitute a large part of Russian life. So, Russians are very good at making interesting literature.

>>12403845
>I LOOOVE RUSSIAN LIT SO MUCH XD
>Slovo o polku Igoreve? Never heard of that.
>Russian futurism? Nah, I don't like sci-fi
>Formalist theory? Fuck that, literary theory is a kike conspiracy
>Yeah, I read Nabokov's translation of Evgeniy Onegin, and P&V versions of the other Russians
I wish people like you get shot in a duel.

>>12403867
>I like Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy
ftfy

>>12403851
>can't even spell properly
>WE WUHZ MOON LANDERS
kys

>>12403909
North Korean literature must be the best in the whole world then.

>>12404848
It might be, not like we can know

>>12403845
It just translates well, oddly the translations enhance the works. Read it in Russian and it's complete garbage

t. Burger "I RED DOSTOEVSKI AND WENT TO CHURH ONCE BECAUSE OF THAT, DEEP RUSSIAN SOUL OMG" Burgerson

>>12403845
True art can only be expression of the most sincere suffering.

>>12405368
>They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart.

Its not stop falling for memes

>>12404862
Its boring af. There is no writing for its own sake, and the only acceptable topics are the Kims, the Manchurian Guerillas, being a good citizen, or nationalist themes

Its really just okay. Tolstoy and Chekhov are widely considered the greats, but really what are Tolstoy and Chekhov compared to writers like Joyce and Shakespeare?

>>12403867
So?

>>12404867
>that's what EOPs actually believe

>>12405379

>>12403867
>>12404340
>>12405368
Does anyone on /lit/ actually enjoy discussing literature or do you guys come here just to shit on other people for discussing literature? Granted, it's annoying that this thread is made ever other day, but still...

>>12403915
> Gaelic is basicaly dead language
> all big name Irish writters wrote in English

>>12406173
Maybe the good literature is suppressed

>>12406300
Retard. They're actors. They're people pretending to be characters. That IS literally him.

>>12404340
Do such people actually exist? I mean I was under the impression Prince Igor opera, Yefremov's Andromeda, Zamyatin's We or Little Golden America by Ilf and Petrov is not something obscure for the average foreign reader.

HELLO I DEEPLY ENJOYED P&V DOSTO, I EVEN CONSIDER HIM ONE OF MY FAVORITE AUTHORS. I READ OTHER GOOD SHIT TOO. IS THIS ALLOWED????

>Claims to like Russian lit.
>Doesn't know who the Strugatsky bros were.
Disgust

>>12403845
it has good authors and it has exceptional authors
like most other notable countries
it has bad authors
like every other country

>>12406300

Travis shouldn't be associated with those memes.

>>12406484
By this logic, all so-called American literature is in actuality English literature. Also, Gaelic isn't a dead language.

>>12407629
American literature obviously IS English literature. It's called "English" class. "British literature" is the term you're looking for.

While this sentiment warms my cold Russian heart and I do think our literary tradition is only second to the French, I have to concur with other posters that "I FUCKING LOVE RUSSIAN LIT" redditry by people who have only read Tolstoyevsky or Gogol at most is cringy and opfag should kys himself.

>>12404356
I agree that american literature is better and I'm russian

idk bro

>>12407904
>our literary tradition is only second to the French
Mind to elaborate at least a bit? I'm not suggesting anything, just interested in your opinion.
>I have to concur with other posters that "I FUCKING LOVE RUSSIAN LIT" redditry by people who have only read Tolstoyevsky or Gogol at most is cringy and opfag should kys himself.
As a Russian I do concur. Having your culture praised by shallow retards is worse than having it criticized to the bone. I mean it's anecdotal, but I swear to fucking god, I have met a person who thought Marx was Russian. And these people probably couldn't even actually read War and Peace that they praise so much.

>>12408052
As a Russian, could you rec a Russian book that is slept on in the West?

>>12408089
Being Russian I can't really be comprehensively sure what is slept on and what is not in the West, and "the West" is a pretty broad therm to begin with, but from my perception of what I usually find foreigners being unaware of:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woe_from_Wit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fathers_and_Sons_(novel)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lower_Depths
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapayev_and_Void
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruslan_and_Ludmila
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Two_Captains
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Queen_of_Spades_(story)
Some of these are not strictly books (stories, poems, novels). It's what come to my mind right away, my personal perspective of what I'd like a foreigner to have read in order to so to say catch the drift of what Russians are culturally.

>>12408089
And I can't resist posting this piece of literature, since it's my favorite since like 4-ish years old when I learned every word from it by heart.
http://borodino.hrest.info/borodino-english.htm

[...]
And eyes aflame, he spoke his mind:
«Hey lads! is Moscow not behind?
By Moscow then we die
As have our brethren died before!»
And that we'll die we all then swore,
And th' oath of loyalty ne'er tore
Neath Borodinian sky..

Some day it was! Through flying smoke
Set out in swarms many a French bloke,
And e'er for our redoubt.
The lancers in their motley guise,
Dragoons with horse-tails with loud cries –
They all would flash before our eyes,
They all were near about.

You 're never to behold such fights!..
The banners would fly by like sprites,
In smoke would glimmer fire,
The blade would sound, the grape would shriek,
The fighters' hand to thrust grow weak,
And muzzles have no space to seek
O'er bloody heaps e'er higher.

The foe that day had many ways
To feel what daring combat weighs,
Our Russian hand-to-hand!..
As did our chests – earth's hollows trembled;
The steeds, the men all disassembled,
And cannon volleys' sound resembled
A moaning o'er the land...
[...]

Because being Russian was suffering.

>>12406300
None of these characters even experienced real suffering. Except for maybe Alex but fuck him.

>>12408903
wasn't travis a vietnam vet? i'd say that counts.

>not one top tier writer in the entire 20th century

Nabokov is an American

i only read ancient bantu funeral rites. i'd list the authors but they were handed down orally from the great mother sun.

>>12409129
>Nabokov is an American

>>12409129
based and looking-to-start-an-argument pilled

>>12409129
dude spoke with a goofy ass dandy English accent with touches of Russian

>>12407794
This is off-topic, but Irish literature in the English language is not British Literature. Anyway, my original shitpost.. actually fuck it I just don't care.

>>12408089
Pelevins books, it could be difficult to understand them though, without russian cultural context

You get the feeling reading Chekhov and Dosto, especially Chekhov, that there was a certain prescience among late 19th century writers that Russia was on the brink of catastrophe.

I think contemporary America and its fellow travellers are in the same position, and it makes Russian /lit/ feel urgently relevant.

Pic related. One of the murderers of the royal family stands over their hidden, buried bodies.

>>12409129
>double whammy shit bait

>>12403845
What an embarrassing post.

>>12406308
I mean, yes, but its true Burgers overplay Russian lit and barely get past Dostoevsky

>>12411147
Russia has a cultural output which is astonishing in proportion to its traditional characterization as a backwards civilization.

They have produced some of the greatest writers of the post Enlightenment epoch and seemingly out of thin air, perhaps with Pushkin as a foundation (I havent read Pushkin, but he seems to be referenced everywhere by the Russians I've read).

It's a very good question, to wonder where all this came from. It seems to me that Russia was producing the greatest literature of the late 19th century whereas one would expect the more linguistically proximate inheritors of Shakespeare, Cervantes, Goethe or Dante to have done so.

>>12403845
They had their golden age late enough that we have all of their good shit but it was short enough that it’s manageable unlike other places. Post-roach Greece is the same.

>>12404340
Formalism is a Stalinist meme

>>12410502
True. Dreyfus affair era France has the same feel desu

>>12411188
>It's a very good question, to wonder where all this came from.
France, Germany and Shakespeare.

>>12411188
One absolutely mad lanklet shoved Enlightenment down our collective throats until great works of art started springing up like mushrooms after rain.
>tfw no beard tax

>>12411231
Elaborate, for sake of fruit.

>>12403845
anything more like this?

>>12411188
>its traditional characterization as a backwards civilization
"Traditional" as in literal russophobic propaganda.

>>12411188
>I havent read Pushkin
https://russian-crafts.com/russian-folk-tales/ruslan-and-ludmila.html

>>12409129
it´s difficult to write when mr stalin is watching over your back

>>12408903
I'd say Travis went through the pain of loneliness and isolation.

>>12407964
Sure

>>12411212
You really made an idiot out of yourself, but this is /lit/ and nobody seems to notice. Oh well.

>>12404356
Fuck you bitch. American literature is on a completely different level compared to the rest of the world. Our history is both dense and compact, making it a treasure trove for art to flourish. You have the early history where the settlers arrived, creating tales of sleepy hollow and the Salem witch trials, the american revolution which made it possible for the common man to become a hero, the civil war which showed the difficulties of being a new nation, the expansion of the west making the myths of cowboys and the fabled wild west, the roaring 20s and the great depression being so contrasted yet so close to each other. the stories of soldiers returning from both world wars and eventually the Vietnam war. America has fostered some of the best authors the world has ever seen; Melville, Nabokov, Poe, Hemingway, Steinbeck, the list goes on. You make your insults of america being dumb or having no culture when the US is rich in it.

>>12414242
*blocks your path*

heh, nothing personal kid

https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/113.Best_Russian_Literature

>>12403851
American literature is actually at the bottom of the pile

don't even @ me

Literature Prestige by Country

British>French>Russian>German>Spanish>Czech>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>American

>>12403845
Tee bee aitch, yank literature is definitely the best. Some crazy stuff, hard to believe Americans, knowing their current form, produced that.

only an am*rican could enjoy their "literature"

>>12403845
Russian Soul.

>>12414452
>Czech
What's Czech literature? Also what's a good piece of lit from Spain, besides Don Quixote?

>>12414514
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Czech_literature

>>12414514
I have yet to read other Czechs, but Hrabal is pretty amazing

Gogol is my favourite writer.

>>12414514
Pedro Calderon
Luis de Gongora

>>12403867
Dosto is pulp trash writing wise. Tolstoy and Lermontov are better.

>>12414452
>British
Begone, Nigel.

>>12403845
Existential depression is required to really understand human suffering. Since the best literature is written by people who have been through the harshest times, the Russians are the best writers. There's a reason nobody smiles in Russia. They are a tough, hard people that have seen more abuse than most people can imagine.

>>12403978
Beat me to it. Nobody has had as harsh a history as the Russians have.