/lit/ - Literature

It’s fine. It’s obviously a little corny, but I have a feeling that’s the vibe it’s going for.

>>18788302
Well well well how you be doing Mrs. Laura??? Havent seen you for a while, was worried you might have did yourself a baddie LOL life hard in times of lockdown, gotta watch out for that Delta variant things looking bad here we'll I guess I'm going to head out to Denny's for the Memphis patty melt very simple but filling and you get a good deal with your buck at Denny's always very reasonable prices and free refills on the coffee LOL i drink way too much of it my blood pressure is probably through the roof bc of denny coffee. Who is this nietzsche man who is be posted by many "anon" on the board. He has large mustache and killed god, NOT OK in my book. Need to clean up this board. Let the good times roll, SIGNED SCOTT

>>18788327
This is why I keep coming to this shit pile of a Liberian hentai blogspot. The rest of you need to step it the fuck up.

>>18788292
Really shit and boring
I dont need to justify emotions or opinions, as preference is irrational
The writing just sucks

Some minor edits I would suggest

It was one of those nights when the sky came down and wrapped itself around the world and the rain clawed at the windows of the bar like an angry cat and tried to sneak in every time some drunk lurched in the door, mumbling and stumbling, and through the reek of stale beer and soggy men, tumbling and rumbling, with enough cheap perfume thrown in to make you sick.
Two drunks with a nickel between them were agreeing about what to play on the jukebox until a tomato in a dress that was too tight a year ago pushed the key that started off something noisy and hot, so one of the men shoved the nickel down her throat while the other turned her into tomato sauce, then the two drunks took turns going down on each other.
I was sitting there asking the bartender if there was a cat outside when she came waddling up, looking all the more like a tomato now that she was bruised and red. I refused her advances as I refuse those of all women whose female-minded hubris possess them long enough to approach me.
"Are you sure it's not a cat outside the door?" I asked, continuing my interrupted conversation with the bartender.
He took a long drag and a longer pull from an unlabeled bottle, before he looked back at me,
"It's just the rain. It's one of those nights when the sky comes down and wraps itself around the world and the rain claws at the windows of the bar like an angry cat and tries to sneak in every time some drunk lurches in the door, mumbling and stumbling, and through the reek of stale beer and soggy men, tumbling and rumbling, with enough cheap perfume thrown in to make you sick."
I was about to butt in but he continued,
"Two drunks with a nickel between them were agreeing about what to play on the jukebox until a tomato in a dress that was too tight a year ago pushed the key that started off something noisy and hot, so one of the men shoved the nickel down her throat while the other turned her into tomato sauce, then the two drunks took turns going down on each other."
I had seen this all happen, but I nodded politely to seem interested.

>>18788292
>conversation here is remarkably stupid
>bro give an objective critique on an author's voice based on a couple of sentences

>>18788292
It's like a Tom Waits song.

>>18788342
Well thankya bunches Mrs. Laura tips my ten gallon hat, I'm all cattle AND all hat!! LOL mehr sein als schein as that Prussian proverb goes. Be your best! Become what you are in the words of a Pindar, shit that Rhymes a bit! LOL well i always was a bit of a poet figures

>>18788399
??? Yes? I mean I could do individual sentences, but I'm not sure that would be enough to go off of.

The simile connecting the sound of rain to clawing is overwrought and fails to describe the sound correctly, as anyone who has heard the two phenomena may confirm. Besides, following the previous sentence which gave the outside atmospheric conditions an image of enveloping vastness, there's an additional disharmony when the next sentence reduces it to a small, wet cat.
The following text rolls on in the usual Bukowskish manner, hitting all the usual beats one might expect to find in a downtrodden drink spot, smelly drunks and worn out prostitutes jammed in simple, direct, unornamented sentences.
The short exposition of the bar's looks and dealings leads to a dialogue between one of the prostitutes and the wary protagonist, unmoved by her used up charms.
Besides the cat analogy, the rest is without noticeable faults, but without any stylistic high-points either, just the usual simmer of American hard boiled prose

>>18788711
I kind of like the cat thing as far as its gives a sense that the sky is raining at you, like the rain is something with ill intent but less than malevolent. I agree it's an awkward fit with 'wrapped itself around the world,' though. Probably could have found a better way to get that across.

>>18788369
Read the first paragraph and was gonna say you made it worse. Good job, anon; that was funny.

"Art", and that includes writing, is impossible in 21st century. For this reason, all "critique" threads are fruitless. "Art" rests either on transgression or constructive one-upmanship, it is only possible for an artist to establish himself as THE artist by transgressing previous norms or by notably improving on raw attempts of previous artists. In a long enough time-series all creative act is reduced to either corny repetition if the artist chooses to be "constructive" (one-upmanship) or garbled nonsense if the artist chooses to be "deconustructive" (transgressive). We are at a point in time where art is now impossible, everything is either a corny repetition or garbled nonsense and there is nothing any individual artist can do about it. The only ones truly saved from this predicament are those who take art either as a plumber's job that pays the bills or a self-help physchological necessity that makes them feel "right" and fail to have any introspective awareness about their own mediocrity or choose to ignore it.

>>18789273
Said Jeff visibly distressed in his chair. He often struggled to find a position of comfort in chairs as he was never sure whether he looked right doing it, you know, just sitting and having a drink. Is he overreacting? Is he too hunched over? Is he sitting too straight? He never knew and this always resulted in painful causal loops of trying to look normal while making micro-corrections to his posture until after his fifth or sixth shot, when the alcohol would finally kick in and absolve him from being his usual nervous wreck. I replied with a simple, "Yes, you are right, Jeff" and I meant it. Jeff was almost always right, but what I knew that he knew that I knew, is that he was always right in ways that never mattered. I was happy with my mediocre prose about booze, balls and bulls and my attention now started slipping from Jeff to the long-legged Mediterranean-looking babe that kept eyeing me from the table just next to us. I was going to get some sweet sweet pussy tonight. And I knew, that despite my mediocre prose, I was in fact right in the lone way that mattered.

>>18788292
Raymond Chandler did this style much better a century ago. I think that's enough said. I think whoever wrote this is essentially aping Chandler.

>>18789420
That's funny because whoever wrote this is essentially aping me. I did this post much better a week ago. I think that's enough said.

>>18788292
I love the tempo of it. It moves fast and it's blunt, but there's still a sort of rhythm to it. I think it's these long, sparsely punctuated sentences made up of small, very simple phrases.
>Two drunks with a nickel between them
>were arguing over what to play on the juke box
>until a tomato in a dress that was too tight a year ago
>pushed the key that started off something noisy and hot.
You jam those in one after the other and throw in a brusque
>So he danced with the other drunk.
at the end to unbalanced it, gives it a kind of propulsive, jazzy quality.

First couple lines are a bit sloppy, as others have said, but overall I think this is simple and unambitious, but good. I like it.

Angry cat sucks.