/lit/ - Literature

Delillo, DFW, Franzen, Coetzee (though anything post disgrace is debatable.) are the standard answers, I would imagine.

Atonement, I suspect.
The Road.

Tom McCarthy. Remainder is great

>>1792949
I'll second The Road, even if I'm not big on McCarthy's other work.

Also, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius is probably the best biography I've ever read, even if it's semi-fictionalized.

>>1793051
>A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

dont read this, terrible waste of time

>>1793063
Yes, Pulitzer finalists are such trash.

Captcha: no

>>1793051
Incidentally, the Road kind of sucks too.

>>1793067
"...the Pulitzer prize for fiction takes dead aim at mediocrity and almost never misses; the prize is simply not given to work of the first rank, rarely even to the second; and if you believed yourself to be a writer of that eminence, you are now assured of being over the hill -- not a sturdy mountain flower but a little wilted lily of the valley."

--William Gass

>>1793063
nah bro

>>1793076
Quote mining + appeal to authority.

God, /lit/. You're masterful at arguing a position.

>>1793082
I agree that AHBWOSG is a fantastic piece of writing, but how is your using the Pulitzer Prize's status any different from anon's use of Gass?

Fuck off, the both of you.

>>1793087
Because one's the opinion of one man, who never won a Pulitzer, and the other is an entire board of people from varying, different literary backgrounds voting on peoples' work.

There is a difference there, even if you don't want to see it.

>>1793082
Learning rudimentary rhetoric in your high school English class doesn't make you a master debater. William Gass is a trusted opinion because he does happen to be a writer of the first-rate and has served on book prize committees in the past. You could stop being a fool and read the entire essay he wrote on the subject because I'm not going to type the whole thing out. We could spend time analyzing every Pulitzer winner and compare it to the other better books published in that year that did not win, or you could do that yourself because nobody really cares that much.

I'm sure we're all sorry that you can't come to terms with Dave Eggers being first a cheap rip-off of DFW and melodramatic adolescent and second just an okay novelist.

Pro-tip: "Logical fallacies" are used effectively in every argument.

>>1793104
not sure what's going on in this thread

but i wanted to say that dave eggers sucks

wahhh
i thought the anniversary made that shit up

>>1793097
No, there isn't. Opinions. That's all.

JF English's _Winning the Culture Game_ is insightful on the subject of literary prizes and how they accrue and distribute cultural capital.

>>1793104
Feel free to show me a valid criticism or bad review of AHWOSG from a reputable source, since you're so found of quote mining.

I could dismiss Gass using the same trivial, vague criticisms you listed for Eggers.

>>1793097
Nigga, you dumb if you think the Pulitzer selection is a democratic process.

>>1792926
I want to know this aswell. Are there any actually important and innovative writers anymore? I've read the road and am judging mccarthy as a shit writer. are there any writers today that are on the levels of the great modernists? people who are actually taking literature to new levels?

itt: people who have never read a book without first reading a selection of critical opinions on it so they can have their mind made up for them

>>1793141
The Road is probably his worst book and a complete departure from his old style. Do not judge McCarthy as a whole on it. He probably just wrote it for cash or something.

>>1793141
classicalist detected.

>>1793191
Are you trying to use that as a mild insult?

>>1793203
No. Just amused because classicalists think just about everything modern is terrible, not realizing that most classical pieces were hated back when they were contemporary as well. You aren't going to properly predict a work's impact or importance in literature in the future. Even things that are universally, and critically, derided right now might wind up being taught in HS English courses two hundred years from now.

tl;dr version: Classicalist mentalities are dangerous and shortsighted. This post IS a mild insult.

>>1793215
Kurt Vonnegut is a good example of a writer that was praised in his lifetime and will likely be forgotten in the next century or so.

>>1793215
mahnigga.jpeg

>>1793235
>mfw you ignore the part about it being impossible to predict the future impact of books.

I never said Vonnegut would still be around. However, judging a work or author's quality based on an incorrect assessment of its future importance is damn near the most ridiculous way to judge art of any kind I've ever heard.

Of course people are of the opinion that classic literature is great and important. It's withstood the test of time and proven itself. Making the same evaluative statements about things that haven't even been around 50 years is ridiculous.

You have no idea what people will value or find important in the future.

>>1793215
I was actually just asking, mr. defensive. I wanted to know if there was anyone like Joyce, for example, who is actually writing in new ways. I'm not of the opinion that there are no great writers anymore, I just don't know of any, people on this board masturbate over writers like Vonnegut, who although is pretty cool, is by no means a great writer.

>>1793259
Define "a great writer."

>>1793215

Wow, you're so insightful. I bet no one thought of this before and they don't like most of the modern works purely because they aren't in the classical canon.

Get real.

>I wanted to know if there was anyone like Joyce, for example, who is actually writing in new ways.

Pynchon, in general. Lish also produced some interesting stuff.

>>1793251
Vonnegut's been published for over 50 years, if that's really the example you're sticking with here. I also never disagreed with anything you said. I actually agreed and was pointing out that the reverse is also true. Also, nobody really cares that you're angry about this so stop posting in the thread. If you have recommendations of good contemporary writers then go ahead.

>>1793262
Somebody who writes cleverly and originally, like Joyce or Faulkner.

>>1793259
You have a confusing time-frame here OP. If you're asking for good post-modern and beyond there is plenty of it. If you're asking for post-2000 that's a more limited selection. So, tighten up your criteria and you'll get more accurate answers.

>>1793274
That's a poor definition.

Seriosly, though, try Gordon Lish. He can be challenging, but he's well worth the effort.