/lit/ - Literature

He's garbage. He's even more popular than he should be.

>>19555183
Why would you want your favorite author to be read by more people?
Are you a cuckold or something?

>>19555189
Cringe mentality

>>19555183
>wanting normies to ruin him

>>19555183
Resurrect him and teach him to write.

>>19555183
He was well known for a Sci-fi author
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZvcKB9vQO0

>>19555269
A Literal cuckold

>>19555183
We don't. He's the king of science fiction and Fantasy. Nobody will surpass him in a hundred years.

>>19555183
How? Why?

>>19555187
>>19555496
I don't know why you guys are hating on him but I just finished BOTNS and its honestly the best sci-fi I've ever read.

>>19555504
Before watching this I never imagined Wolfe to say in casual conversation
>You can be a son of a bitch motherfucker if you want

>>19555529
>best sci-fi
The "best sci-fi" is still leagues below legitimate art.

>>19555605
not even most literary academics believe this you know

>>19555183
It's depressing that the /sffg/ general doesn't talk about him.

>>19555555

>>19555714
We did, endlessly. Do the time honored tradition of shilling it and getting your own fresh discussion.

BoTNS filters too many people, and I personally think the Severian books aren't as good as Long Sun and Short Sun. I think the Latro books should be pimped out more, they're the easiest way to get someone into Wolfe and are really excellent books.

>>19555714
Shame really, Gene Wolfe is an great author and writer. All /sffg/ talks about is some obscure literal who leaf author.

>>19555183
Gene Wolfe is forest anon's favorite fantasy writer so based on that alone he's good in my book

Why? So it can be adapted into a shitty cashgrab amazon series for normies?

>>19555187
>>19555605
nah

>>19555644
SCHOLARS DISAGREE

Two options
1. You are a professor and you put Peace on your class reading list and eventually people realize that it's an incredibly overlooked book (precedent: Blood Meridian)
2. BotNS gets an extremely high-budget adaptation
1 would be based but 2 is more likely since he doesn't have a highly protective estate or anything as far as I know

>>19556069
I'm curious as to Aramini's results with number 1, as he has had classes read Wolfe

>>19555714
/sffg/ has been unusable garbage for months now

>>19556507
Shame. I want to talk about Wolfe and people just spam some guy named Bakker.

Complimentary Pringles on readings

>>19555183
Exhume his corpse and hold a second cadaver synode, I suppose. That would surely make the news.

>>19555725
I enjoyed Long Sun and Short Sun more too.
I've read A Borrowed Man and Interlibrary Loan recently, but I feel filtered, especially by the latter. Maybe on re-reads they will make more sense.

>>19555183
Actually talk about his books.

>>19556507
I just checked /sffg/ and outside of a few posts, the most recent discussion isn’t even about books but some schizoid talk. What the fuck happen?

>>19555504
It's a shame more interviews with him don't exist. There's only a small handful on youtube.

>>19557312
The fate of generals happened. A couple nolifes use it for their autistic parody of socialization.

>>19557318
Most of them are in print and I doubt they've been transcribed.

>>19555183
go back and rewrite his work to make it competent.
>>19555187
this. the guy's a hack. the only people impressed with that tier of literature is because they've been slumming it in the sci-fi fantasy genre their entire lives.
>muh theseus' ship
>muh ambiguity
>muh unreliable narrator
absolute trash heap author.
PKD can't even write and he had infinitely more talent.

>>19556349
Aramani's a literal crazy person so preferably someone else

>>19557489
Read Peace and see if you still hold that opinion

Guys, I live 6 hours from where he's buried, alls I need is an Alzabo gland, a wingman, and a couple bucks for gas. C'mon, if we can trick a few anons into eating cum brownies, we can definitely do this! Who's with me?

>>19555183
Bit unrelated, but right now I'm in a bit of a reading rut after finishing something so massive and so great a couple weeks ago that nothing I pick up can hold my focus or attention like at all. Same thing happened to me last year, and the way I got through it was by reading some light fantasy/sci-fi for a few weeks and then I managed to get back on track and enjoying real, proper, serious facking literature. I'm thinking of re-reading the first two volumes of BOTNS, even though the first time I read them a few years ago I just remember really not enjoying them, but for some reason nothing else that I have appeals to me in the slightest. Is it worth me reading them lads?

>>19557577
read more trash? no thanks. it's the same way with all you pleb fuckers "oh you didn't read the right one! oh no this will prove it!" the guy can't write, you're a pleb. be happy you can enjoy it yourself, stop foisting your pleb garbage on me.

>>19558325
The problem may be you.

>>19557489
>>19555187
>>19555496


Ascian zoanthropes detected.

>>19558342
yes, i have standards. it's a terrible vice.

>>19558325
No, I just mean that Peace is more literary, you can't hang up your own enjoyment of it on it being genre fiction
It's all good, but Peace is the kind of good where if you say it's bad, you're obviously just trolling

>>19558934
i'm glad you have things you like anon

>>19558948
No you're not, you're miserable

>>19559031
lol get over yourself.

>>19557330
>The fate of generals happened. A couple nolifes use it for their autistic parody of socialization.
Why won’t mods or Jannies do anything.

I just started Shadow and I love it

>>19557312
Shitposters took it over unironically; and then people tried to shitpost even harder to counter-act the original shitposters and make them leave, and some anti-anime/anti-webnovel/anti-manga/anti-wuxia anons started a fight with anons who wanted to talk about webnovels and manga and all that shit, and then ANOTHER war started because the anon who makes the generals kept choosing anime artwork instead of more traditional fantasy/sci-fi artwork and other anons tried to outdo him and make generals before he could, and then the other anons said they actually liked the anime artwork, and then another flamewar started...
and it devolved from there. At this point its completely unusable, its all memes and arguing and almost no actual discussion, the jannies should just nuke it

>>19559330
>Shitposters took it over unironically; and then people tried to shitpost even harder to counter-act the original shitposters and make them leave,
Seems retarded to do considering shitposters don't give a shit about the state of the thread.

>and some anti-anime/anti-webnovel/anti-manga/anti-wuxia anons started a fight with anons who wanted to talk about webnovels and manga and all that shit,
So, some anons were having a bitch fit because other anons were reading and discussing stories involving fantasy and science fiction, but in webnovel form? The fuck are they doing in /sffg/ then?

>and then ANOTHER war started because the anon who makes the generals kept choosing anime artwork instead of more traditional fantasy/sci-fi artwork and other anons tried to outdo him and make generals before he could,
Again, I had to check the thread, but when was dieselpunk considered anime? Or is this one of those times where anything they don't like is anime? I mean fuck, there's nothing anime about the pic.

>and then the other anons said they actually liked the anime artwork, and then another flamewar started...
Anon, from what you're telling me, it seems only an extremely select few are actually just shitting up the thread for no rhyme or reason. How are they able to get away with it

>>19559460
>but when was dieselpunk considered anime?
Genre fiction, by its very nature, is anime.

>>19559460
>having a bitch fit because other anons were reading and discussing stories involving fantasy and science fiction, but in webnovel form
Said web "novels" tend to be unpublishable machine translated shounenesque chinkshit. You could read an end user license agreement in less time than it takes to finish one of these 'books' and get more from it

>>19559600
>get more from it
Why does everything have to be about having literary value. Webnovels are just fun. I don't understand why reading for pleasure is something that is looked down upon by /lit/.

>>19559600
So, it is people throwing a bitch fit because other anons are read fantasy and science fiction stories in webnovel form. Why are you guys doing in /sffg/ if you get mad at people reading sff? Seems counterintuitive.

>>19559758
"Getting more" also includes actually includes having fun too, retard. Stop trying to defend shitty garbage with muh fun, as if the alternative is no fun ever. Stop being such a fucking brainlet.

>>19559837
Why does it bother you that people are reading different things?

He already have all the popularity he needs. In Quebec city, we even have a monument dedicated to him.

>>19559837
Ludo is fun game but so is chess while being intellectually stimulating. I'm not going to go around telling people how they can get more from playing chess than just fun, and how Ludo is "garbage".

Why does it bother you that people are enjoying a certain thing?

>>19559600
>>19559837
A few anons are derailing /sffg/ because other anons are discussing science fiction and fantasy stories in the Science Fiction and Fantasy General? Are they sick in the head or what?

>>19559758
>Why does everything have to be about having literary value. Webnovels are just fun. I don't understand why reading for pleasure is something that is looked down upon by /lit/.
it's actually only readers of literature that derive true pleasure from the act of reading itself, as in the very parsing of words and sentences and paragraphs, because only literary works place value on the "how" and not just the "what" of writing. in the case of genre fiction, fanfiction, webnovels etc the writing is "intentionally" poor - since nobody cares - and reading is just a chore performed in pursuit of something else, to find out what happens at the end, to learn about "lore," to develop imaginary friendships with the "likeable characters" and so on. what the genre reader calls "fun" is the same "fun" offered by video games - an endless unhappy chase after a dangling carrot. the literary reader, liberated from the rat-race of "fun having," sits in a sentence like in a hot bath.

>>19557312
Sinoboos got upset when other posters made fun of their poorly-written garbage and started falseflagging as "anti-anime posters" in an attempt to make the people criticizing them look stupid. Now the general is run by a small group of people who do nothing but pretend to argue with themselves. It's probably one of the dumbest things I've ever seen on this website.

>>19560294
>what the genre reader calls "fun" is the same "fun" offered by video games - an endless unhappy chase after a dangling carrot. the literary reader, liberated from the rat-race of "fun having," sits in a sentence like in a hot bath.
Great for you then I guess. I'm quite happy with "chasing after the dangling carrot".

>>19560337
Feel like you’re lying considering that it seems a select few are just mad that people were discussing webnovels

>>19560381
What's the difference?

>>19560465
>What's the difference?
One group wants to discuss the stories they read, including webnovels, and the other group, for no reason, is shitting up the thread to the point it can’t be used because the former group is talking about stories they read.

>>19557312
Just took another look at /sffg/ ands it becoming clear that it’s only a few anons who are ruining the general for the rest for whatever reason.

>>19555183
>How do we make him more popular?
Give him an actual TV Show instead of the Shit of Time.

>>19559818
>>19560290
>Noo you can't gatekeep and try maintain the bare minimum of a standard
au contraire

>>19561156
What bare minimum? It’s just spam at this point?

>>19561474
I would consider bakkerposting more of a spam than a few anons talking about web novels.

>>19560294
Wait, is the guy saying this the same guy shitting on Wolfe?

>>19561496
Anon, I think he was saying the same thing.

>>19561503
yes

>>19561060
I also notice that whenever /sffg/ calms down for a bit, there's always a shitter trying to start shit. I legit wonder if they even have any lives if trying to derail a general is all they're doing.

>>19560620
Webnovels are awfully close to the part of sci-fi we aren't allowed to talk about on here. They bring a bad crowd.

>>19561529
You're an idiot.

>>19555183
His own flavor of Pringles

>>19555183
Wolfe being dead means that his family will now sell rights to make adaptations that serve a political agenda.
You will see Severian depicted as transgender in your lifetime.

>>19561693
Not him, but how is he an idiot?

The masses will not understand. But he will be remembered. Don’t worry about it.

>>19556069
God no, BOTNS should never ever be adapted. A movie would completely defeat the purpose. Same with any other visual medium

>>19562124
I've posted about it before somewhere but I think an adaptation of BotNS could work if you were very selective with the scenes you chose
I'd start with just telling the story of Sev and Thecla in the dungeon, end it with him getting Terminus Est
That alone would make for a decent streaming movie or pilot
Then go on with Agia and Dorcas, most of that would be fine, go from there
The only stuff that I think is really unfilmable is the plays and potentially what goes on in House Absolute, though honestly a really good director might prove me wrong

Unless you mean that "the purpose" of BotNS is hiding the scifi imagery, in which case I think you are missing the forest for the trees
The book has its own purposes of slowly revealing Wolfe's thoughts about humanity, but a film adaptation could succeed at milking individual pieces of it

>>19562195
Not just the visual ambiguity, but the meta textual aspect of it. The ambiguity of the narrative. It sort of ties together all the religious and epistemological ideas. There is no real “platonic identity” of the plot, or of what really happened; either severian is insane, or he is lying because the book is ultimately a political memoir. Plus the framing narrative of Wolfe discovering the book after Sev threw it into a black hole is just too cool, and couldn’t work in a movie

>>19562258
Not to mention working out the more “puzzle-like” aspects of the world and narrative is really fun. I guess that aspect of it could work in a movie, but it might take some creative liberties with the story for it to work

>>19562258
>either severian is insane, or he is lying because the book is ultimately a political memoir
Sev lies a few times but the cases where he "might" be lying are pretty clear-cut things you could work around
Forging execution orders, etc. You just make the decision as a director whether you show one thing or another happening in those cases, or don't film them and script around them
>the framing narrative of Wolfe discovering the book after Sev threw it into a black hole
That didn't even exist until well after the original 4 had been published
>working out the more “puzzle-like” aspects of the world and narrative is really fun
Sure, but it's also just a good standalone hero's journey with a lot of unique visuals and spirituality
Plus a lot of the "puzzles" have an answer rooted in some version of "humanity must be saved by a Christian redeemer God," and I think a big-budget adaptation would look to skirt that theme and take things in more of a general deist direction anyhow

It doesn't have to be something Wolfe would have liked
American Psycho (the film) carried American Psycho (the book) across generations, even though BEE thought it missed the point

>>19562426
Were the appendices not included in the original publications? For such a small thing it really added a lot to it for me

>>19562457
Wolfe as a translator was present but the idea that it made its way to our world via black hole is from Urth

>>19559330
>, the jannies should just nuke it
Why haven't the jannies done their jobs and clean up /sffg/?

>>19555183
Literal who?

>tfw Wolfe is one of my literary heroes and a major influence on my own writing
>tfw I wrote to him several times towards the end of his life but he did not respond
>tfw I always wanted to meet him but then he died

It's depressing, bros. He was the only living author I truly wanted to interact with. And now he's not living any more.

>>19562670
Sounds devastating.

>>19555183
Bald people don't deserve to be famous

>>19560294
God, you sound like a fucking pseud.

>>19562959
Anon, there are people here who delude themselves into thinking they can write enduring aesthetic value novels. Most people on /lit/ don’t write, much less write something of value.

>>19562670
Where would you recommend starting with his work as someone who’s always been interested?

>>19562990
His first book.

Wolfe's prose sucks. I've tried and dropped botns twice because it's so plain to read. He never did anything interesting or stimulating with the language.

>>19555187
>>19555189
>>19555479
>>19555496
>>19555505
>>19555524
>>19556507 But you make every thread there.
>>19557312 You keep using that one word, that's how we know you Moogy.

I didnt want to parse through the rest of the replies to this thread but you really need to get over the fact that people dont want to read shit like Cradle and Reverend Insanity.

>>19559330
>nd other anons tried to outdo him and make generals before he could
Oh, I wasn't aware that you had the monopoly on making threads.

Accept defeat, shitter.

>>19559330
There is literally one you (You) who is making the threads and advocating chinkshit.

>>19561496
Not my problem.

>>19562015
They can make it, that doesn't mean I have to see it.

>>19559330
Seems you hit some kind of mark if they’re coming here to shit on you.

>>19562670
that's a shame, anon. over a decade ago I sent an e-mail to my then-favorite author and he responded. I was ecstatic.

>>19564351
Who was it?

>>19562670
To be fair, he was barely living at the end of his life. You weren't days or months too late, you were probably at least five years too late to have any meaningful conversation with him.

I read shadow & claw a couple months ago. I really enjoyed them. I'm about to start sword & citadel, hopefully I haven't forgotten too much about the first two books.
is there some website I can check afterwards in case I'm too much of a brainlet and see what I missed?
for example the painting of the knight being actually the picture of Neil Armstrong on the moon completely flew past by me.

>>19564372
There's a podcast that covers a reread chapter by chapter
Reading Urth also tells you a lot of "hidden" stuff

>>19562670
Gene Wolfe and Cormac McCarthy are the only living (or, formerly living in Wolfe's case) writers I actually respect and actually wanted to contact at some point; I was devastated when I heard Wolfe died, and Cormac is going on 89 years old and has always been reclusive so there's no hope there. I'm sorry Wolfe didn't respond to you though, anon

>>19564357
I purposely didn't include his name on my post because in retrospect his books were really cringe but it was Tucker Max lmao.

>>19564372
Lexicon Urthus is a good companion, I remember reading a website that had an overview of references like that which also really helped untangle things like the story of the sea labyrinth.

>>19562258
>Final scene of movie is a dusty tome falling out of the night sky onto Josh Brolin's prosthetic bald head, record scratch and fade to black
Just take me home now, Lord Jesus
>>19562047
If those were your criteria for what constitutes real literature, to read BoTNS and decide it's genre fiction would make you an idiot.

>>19564398
Devin?

>>19564468
>to read BoTNS and decide it's genre fiction would make you an idiot.
Anon, he’s a pseud. Just take a look at the new /sffg/ thread and it’s extremely obvious he’s a shitter.

He wrote exactly one (1) good thing in his miserable life and it was likely an accident

>>19564594
>Just take a look at the new /sffg/ thread
Thanks, but it doesn't seem worth it. I'd rather get trolled by fake retards for all eternity than put too much effort into identifying them.

>>19560337
This. Bringing shit anime like novels to /sffg/ is what ruined the general.

>>19564979
You can stop samefagging.

>>19564988
Are schizos really?

>>19564994
Probably moogy still seething.

>>19564979
I’ll say the bakkerspam is what’s killing /sffg/.

>>19564999
Accept defeat.

>>19564999
Ok, but who asked?

>>19564999
This

>>19564999
Those trips don't lie.

>>19564999
I think the Bakkerspam was the beginning of the end; it was part of the problem undoubtedly

>>19564979
This

>>19565040
Eh, I'll say the Bakkerspam is what really killed it. Whenever they fucked off, /sffg/ was useable and had discussion.

>>19564999
No, not really.

>>19565088
Dubs of truth.

>>19565083
>Bakkerspam
It was actually dying. They had to make a new boogeyman just to extend it. Don’t even know why they come here, since they go to Reddit, and Bakker’s forum or whatever.

>>19565100
Dubs of truth.

>>19564999
Does it trouble you?

>>19564999
I'll say the Bakker-posting is the best part of /sffg/.

>>19559330
>some anti-anime/anti-webnovel/anti-manga/anti-wuxia anons started a fight with anons who wanted to talk about webnovels and manga and all that shit
A noble goal

For me, it's Fifth Head of Cerberus

>>19565219
It's only one step removed from sci-fi's retarded cousin. Less than a step in some cases.

>>19565219
Shame /sffg/ is killed.

>>19565339
Quite the opposite, actually.

Is Wolfe the Schelling of fiction?

>An early master of six languages, Schelling began his studies of Leibniz's Monadology and Plato's Timeaus, both in their original languages, before the age of fourteen. This fact alone presents serious challenges for contemporary scholarship, particularly in regard to transcribing his journals and notes. Written in any combination of seven languages, some modem, some ancient, there is no longer any one scholar capable of tracing all the contours of Schelling's intellectual landscape. This difficulty is com-pounded by the fact that the subject matter Schelling wrote about was even more varied than the languages he employed in his writings. Biblical exegesis and scholarly philology; philosophy of nature and transcendental philosophy; aesthetics and the poetic arts are included in the wide spectrum of topics Schelling approached—few scholars risk an attempt at accounting for how they all may fit together.

>>19555183
He's too highbrow for normies

>>19565339
Don’t they have their own discord? Why kill /sffg/?

>>19566041
Can I get a source for the Schelling quote?