/lit/ - Literature

god she's so pretty

>>18875099
She could get it

>>18875121
>>18875131
>OP's picrel is 10/10 in /lit/land

>>18875135
Except for maybe Clarice Lispector, can you name a single woman author who actually looked good?

>>18875099
Only religious women. You will notice that you'll never see your garden-variety thot writing great literature. Women can only become /lit/ when they chase after God instead of dick.

>>18875099
a very select number of women are more like men, it happens.

>>18875279
Me I'm actually a 10/10

>>18875287
>religious women
>not taking casual dicks
Kek you don’t go to parties much, do you

>>18875302
I'm not talking about your garden variety preacher's daughter, Anon. I'm talking about the serious ones.

>>18875099
They sure can.

>>18875296
Yes but ywnbaw.

Yes they can :^)

and don't forget Rossetti

>>18875279
One (1).

>>18875344
Anya Taylor Joy biopic when?

>>18875279

Anna Kavan
I'm reading her short stories now, I liked them a lot

Yet to be truly impressed by a female author beyond Woolf. Open to being blown away.

>>18875630
>Woolf
Either you don't read much or you're a giant pseud.

>>18875624
A BRIGHT GREEN FIELD

IN MY TRAVELS I am always being confronted by a particular field. It seems that I simply can’t escape it. Any journey, no matter where it begins, is apt to end towards evening in sight of this meadow, which is quite small, sloping and in the vicinity of tall dark trees.
The meadow is always beautifully green; in the dusk it looks almost incandescent, almost a source of light, as though the blades of grass themselves radiated brightness. The vividness of the grass is always what strikes people first; it takes them a moment longer to notice that, as a matter of fact, the green is rather too intense to be pleasant and to wonder why they did not see this before. The observation once made, it becomes obvious that for grass to be luminiferous is somewhat improper. It has no business to advertise itself so ostentatiously. Such effulgent lustre is unsuited to its humble place in the natural order and shows that in this meadow the grass has risen above itself – grown arrogant, aggressive, too full of strength.
Its almost sensational, inappropriate brightness is always the same. Instead of changing with the seasons, as if to underline the insolence of the grass, the field’s brilliance remains constant, although in other ways its aspect varies with the time and place. It is true that, besides being always bright green, the field is always small, always sloping, always near big dark trees. But size and colour are relative; different people mean different things when they speak of a small bright meadow or a big dark tree. The idea of a slope is flexible, too, and, although a persistent divergence from the horizontal is characteristic of the field, the degree of steepness fluctuates widely.
The slant may be imperceptible, so that one would swear the surface was as flat as a billiard table. There have been times when I couldn’t believe – until it was proved to me by measurements taken with a clinometer – that the ground was not perfectly level. On other occasions, in contrast with what may be called an invisible incline, the meadow appears to rise almost vertically.

>>18875970
I shall never forget seeing it so that thundery summer day, when, since early morning, I had been travelling across a great dusty plain. The train was oppressively hot, the landscape monotonous and without colour, and, during the afternoon, I fell into an uneasy doze from which I woke to the pleasant surprise of seeing mountain slopes covered with pines and boulders. But, after the first moment, I found that, with the mountains shutting out the sky, the enclosed atmosphere of the deep ravine was just as oppressive as that of the flat country. Everything looked drab and dingy, the rocks a nondescript mottled tint, the pines the shiny blackish-green of some immensely old shabby black garment – their dense foliage, at its brightest the colour of verdigris, suggesting rot and decay, had the unmoving rigidity of a metal with the property of absorbing light and seemed to extinguish any occasional sunbeam that penetrated the heavy clouds. Although the line kept twisting and turning, the scenery never changed, always composed of the same eternal pine forest and masses of rock, pervaded, as the plain had been, by an air of dull, sterile monotony and vegetative indifference.
The train suddenly wound around another sharp bend and came out into a more open place where the gorge widened, and I saw, straight ahead, between two cataracts of black trees, the sheer emerald wall that was the meadow, rising perpendicular, blazing with jewel-brightness, all the more resplendent for its dismal setting.
After the dim monochrome vistas at which I had been looking all day, this sudden unexpected flare of brilliance was so dazzling that I could not immediately identify the curious dark shapes dotted about the field, still further irradiated, as it was now, by the glow of the setting sun, which broke through the clouds just as I reached the end of my journey, making each blade of grass scintillate like a green flame.

>>18875972
The field was still in full view when I emerged from the station, a spectacular vivid background to the little town, of which it appeared to be an important feature, the various buildings having been kept low and grouped as if to avoid hiding it. Now that I was able to look more carefully, and without the distorting and distracting effect of the train’s motion, I recognized the peculiar scattered shapes I had already noticed as prone half-naked human bodies, spreadeagled on the glistening bright green wall of grass. They were bound to it by an arrangement of ropes and pulleys that slowly drew them across its surface and had semi-circular implements of some sort fastened to their hands, which they continually jerked in a spasmodic fashion, reminding me of struggling flies caught in a spider’s web. This tormented jerking, and the fact that the grotesque sprawling figures were chained to the tackle pulling them along, made me think they must be those of malefactors undergoing some strange archaic form of punishment conducted in public up there on the burning green field. In this, however, I was mistaken.
A passer-by presently noticed my interest in the mysterious movements outlined so dramatically on the brilliant green and, seeing that I was a stranger, very civilly started a conversation, informing me that I was not watching criminals, as I had supposed, but labourers engaged in cutting the grass, which grew excessively fast and strongly in that particular field.
I was surprised that such a barbarous mowing process should be employed merely to keep down the grass in a small field, even though, in a way, it formed part of the town, and I inquired whether their obviously painful exertions did not jeopardize the health and efficiency of the workers.

>>18875975
Yes, I was told, unfortunately the limbs, and even the lives, of the men up there were in danger, both from the effects of overstrain and because the securing apparatus was not infrequently broken by the violence of their muscular contractions. It was regrettable, but no alternative method of mowing had so far been discovered, since the acute angle of the ground prohibited standing upon it or even crawling across on all fours, as had at times been attempted. Of course, every reasonable precaution was taken; but, in any case, these labourers were expendable, coming from the lowest ranks of the unskilled population. I should not pay too much attention to the spasms and convulsions I was observing, as these were mainly just mimicry, a traditional miming of the sufferings endured by earlier generations of workers before the introduction of the present system. The work was now much less arduous than it looked and performed under the most humane conditions that had as yet been devised. It might interest me to know that it was not at all unpopular; on the contrary, there was considerable competition for this form of employment, which entailed special privileges and prestige. In the event of a fatality, a generous grant was made to the dependants of the victim, who, in accordance with tradition, was always interred in situ – a custom dating from antiquity and conferring additional prestige, which extended to the whole family of the deceased.
All this information was given in a brisk, matter-of-fact way that was reassuring. But I could not help feeling a trifle uneasy as I gazed at the meadow, compelled by a kind of grisly fascination to watch those twitching marionettes, dehumanized by the intervening distance and by their own extraordinary contortions. It seemed to me that these became more tortured as the sun went down, as though a frantic haste inspired the wild uncoordinated swinging of the sickles, while the green of the grass brightened almost to phosphorescence against the dusk.
I wanted to ask why the field had to be mown at all – what would it matter if the grass grew long? How had the decision to cut it been made in the first place all those years ago? But I hesitated to ask questions about a tradition so ancient and well established; evidently taken for granted by everyone, it surely must have some sound rational basis I had overlooked – I was afraid of appearing dense or imperceptive or lacking in understanding – or so I thought. Anyhow, I hesitated until it was too late, and my informant, suddenly seeming to notice the fading light, excusing himself, hurried on his way, barely giving me time to thank him for his politeness.

>>18875979

Left alone, I continued to stand in the empty street, staring up, not quite at ease in my mind. The stranger’s receding steps had just ceased to be audible when I realized that I had refrained from asking my questions, not for fear of appearing stupid but because, in some part of me, I already seemed to know the answers. This discovery distracted me for the moment; and when, a few seconds later, my attention returned to the field, the row of jerking puppets had vanished.
Still I did not move on. An apathetic mood of vague melancholy had descended on me, as it often does at this hour of the changeover from day to night. The town all at once seemed peculiarly deserted and quiet, as though everyone were indoors, attending some meeting I knew nothing about. Above the roofs, the mountain loomed, gloomy, with pines flowing down to the hidden gorge, from several parts of which evening mist had begun to rise, obscuring my view of the slopes but not of the meadow, still vividly green and distinct.
All at once I found myself listening to the intense stillness, aware of some suspense in the ominous hush of impending thunder. Not a sound came from anywhere. There was no sign of life in the street, where the lights had not yet come on, in spite of the gathering shadows. Already the houses around me had lost their sharp outlines and seemed huddled together, as if nervously watching and waiting and holding their breath. Mist and twilight had blotted out colours, all shapes were blurred and indefinite, so that the clear-cut bright green field stood out startlingly, mysteriously retaining the light of the departed day concentrated in its small rectangle, floating over the roofs like a bright green flag.
Everywhere else, the invisible armies of night were assembling, massing against the houses, collecting in blacker blackness beneath the black trees. Everything was waiting breathlessly for the night to fall. But the advance of darkness was halted, stopped dead, at the edge of the meadow, arrested by sheer force of that ardent green. I expected the night to attack, to rush the meadow, to overrun it. But nothing happened. Only, I felt the tension of countless grass blades, poised in pure opposition to the invading dark. And now, in a first faint glimmer of understanding, I began to see how enormously powerful the grass up there must be, able to interrupt night’s immemorial progress. Thinking of what I’d heard, I could imagine that grass might grow arrogant and far too strong, nourished as this had been; its horrid life battening on putrescence, bursting out in hundreds, thousands, of strong new blades for every single one cut.

>>18875982

I had a vision then of those teeming blades – blades innumerable, millions on millions of blades of grass – ceaselessly multiplying, with unnatural strength forcing their silent irresistible upward way through the earth, increasing a thousand-fold with each passing minute. How fiercely they crowded into that one small field, grown unnaturally strong and destructive, destruction-fed. Turgid with life, the countless millions of blades were packed densely together, standing ready, like lances, like thickets, like trees, to resist invasion.
In the midst of the deep dusk that was almost darkness, the brilliance of that small green space appeared unnatural, uncanny. I had been staring at it so long that it seemed to start vibrating, pulsating, as if, even at this distance, the tremendous life surge quickening it were actually visible. Not only the dark was threatened by all that savage vitality; in my vision I saw the field always alert, continually on the watch for a momentary slackening of the effort to check its growth, only awaiting that opportunity to burst all bounds. I saw the grass rear up like a great green grave, swollen by the corruption it had consumed, sweeping over all boundaries, spreading in all directions, destroying all other life, covering the whole world with a bright green pall beneath which life would perish. That poison-green had to be fought, fought; cut back, cut down; daily, hourly, at any cost. There was no other defence against the mad proliferation of grass blades, no other alternative to grass, blood-bloated, grown viciously strong, poisonous and vindictive, a virulent plague that would smother everything, everywhere, until grass and grass only covered the face of the globe.
It seems monstrous, a thing that should never have been possible, for grass to possess such power. It is against all the laws of nature that grass should threaten the life of the planet. How could a plant meant to creep, to be crushed underfoot, grow so arrogant, so destructive? At times the whole idea seems preposterous, absolutely crazy, a story for children, not to be taken seriously – I refuse to believe it. And yet . . . and yet . . . one can’t be quite certain . . . Who knows what may have happened in the remote past? Perhaps, in the ancient archives kept secret from us, some incident is recorded . . . Or, still further back, before records even began, something may have deviated from the norm . . . Some variation, of which nothing is known any more, could have let loose on the future this green threat.

>>18875986

One simply doesn’t know what to believe. If it is all just a fantasy, why should I have seen, as in a vision, that grass, fed on the lives of bound victims, could become a threat to all life, death-swollen and horribly strong? In the beginning, when the whole thing started, did the threat come before the victim or vice versa? Or did both evolve simultaneously out of a mutual need for one another? And how do I come into it? Why should I be implicated at all? It’s nothing to do with me. There’s nothing whatever that I can do. Yet this thing that should never have happened seems something I cannot escape. If not today or tomorrow, then the day after that, or the next, at the end of some journey one evening, I shall see the bright green field waiting for me again. As I always do.

>>18875279

>>18875099
In some contries they can even vote...or so I heard

>>18875279
Anne Sexton was an actual model

>>18875896
This. Woolf is for retarded women who major in English because they have no discernible intellectual skills and matriculated into the university purely from affirmative action.

>>18876330
whoa mama

>>18875099
My mom is writing a novel.
She's a woman.
Therefore, women can write.

>>18875279
Sylvia Plath was cute

>>18876330
Bitch looks like Velma lmao.
Gonna have to pass.

>>18s875356
he looked so cute in that interview, I really wanted to make love to her

Of course! Not as well as men but still!

>>18876827
That’s going to lead to societal collapse lol

>>18876827
Seems implausible.

>>18875279
Virginia Woolf

Easy.

>>18879985
> t. only seen the profile image

>>18875279
George Eliot. Middlemarch is possibly the best novel written by an English person

>women can write

>>18880039
Middlemarch is great but Eliot is considered to have been unattractive.

Plato said a woman can do anything a man can do
They just can’t do it as well as a man can

>>18880082
a reasonable, if short-sighted, inference for a man to make in the context of a deeply patriachal society

>>18875279

>>18875279

>>18880142
Flannery takes aim at /lit/world.

What did we think of this classic?
Is it based?
Is it a toxic positivity? Was she a manipulative bitch?

>nobody has posted my girl Jane yet

Unless your favorite male author is literally in the Canon she probably mogs the shit out of him. And even then, I'd pit her against some of the male writers in the Canon. She's in the Canon too, after all.

>>18880090
You seem to think that’s an argument? It’s not.

Plato was actually too kind to women imo.

>>18877443
This

>>18875279
Unfortunately she photographed horribly and there are few photos of her where she does not look like a freak.

>>18880163
I do have a thing for Carson, something about her.

>>18875099
She was too dependent upon religion in her writing and it often starts to feel formulaic, like a gimmick and an easy out. She had some skill but religion ultimately held her back, she never really developed that skill.

>>18875099
The fact that women are able to write decent fiction is why I don't read fiction. You will never catch a woman writing good philosophy

>>18875279
HD was cute