/lit/ - Literature

>>21257377
Nind
Ynother
Rite
Bo
Nully
You
Rvil
Boward

Capote: Well, it has brought about the rise of what I call the Jewish Mafia in American letters. This is a clique of New York-oriented writers and critics who control much of the literary scene through the influence of the quarterlies and intellectual magazines. All these publications are Jewish-dominated and this particular coterie employs them to make or break writers by advancing or withholding attention. I don’t think there’s any conscious, sinister conspiracy on their part—just a determination to see that members of their particular clique rise to the top. Bernard Malamud and Saul Bellow and Philip Roth and Isaac Bashevis Singer and Norman Mailer are all fine writers, but they’re not the only writers in the country, as the Jewish literary Mafia would have us believe. I could give you a list of excellent writers, such as John Knowles and Vance Bourjaily and James Purdy and Donald Windham and Reynolds Price and James Leo Herlihy and Calder Willingham and John Hawkes and William Goyen; the odds are you haven’t heard of most of them, for the simple reason that the Jewish Mafia has systematically frozen them out of the literary scene. Now, mind you, I’m not against any particular group adhering to its own literary values and advancing its own favored authors; such cliques have always existed in American letters. I only object when any one particular group—and it could just as well be Southern, or Roman Catholic, or Marxist, or vegetarian—gets a strangle hold on American criticism and squeezes out anybody who doesn’t conform to its own standards. It’s fine to write about specifically Jewish problems, and it often makes valid and exciting literature—but the people who have other messages to convey, other styles and other backgrounds should also be given a chance. Today, because of the predominance of the Jewish Mafia, they’re not being given that opportunity. This is something everyone in the literary world knows but never writers about.

Playboy: Aren’t you opening yourself up to a charge of anti-Semitism?

Capote: No.

>>21257377
Some good titles but a lot of junk that were forgotten for a reason

>>21257398
examples of each type (good books and junk books)?

>>21257377
They have Gaddis.

>>21257377
Love their book covers

>>21257483
what's your fav?

>>21257489
Ill let you know when I get back from my
Doctor’s appointment to pick up my HRTmeds. I just love NYRB so it is hard to choose

>>21257489
Tough. I liked this book and I thought the cover greatly enhanced it

>>21257377
Every year I buy a bunch of books from them when they do their 40% off sale, been doing it for years and the majority of those purchases are essentially blind and I know little about them beyond the blurb they provide. So far I have only been disappointed twice, they seem to be fairly good at publishing worth while books. The books which dissapointed;
>The Seven Madmen
Arlt is a terrible writer (by his own admission) who had great promise but never developed his skill, but in those endless pages of the worse sort of exposition he had a couple moments of absolute greatness.
>Inverted World
Amazing premise with loads of potential, but ultimately just a rework of Flatland with higher math and poor story telling, main character is a moron and you spend most of the book waiting for him to figure out what is obvious to the reader.

Favorite finds so far, Speedboat and Balcony in the Forest.

>>21257621
I was disappointed by The Invention of Morel but loved Stoner, Life & Fate, and Maqroll. Sell me on Speedboat, the premise on their website couldn't be more vague.

>>21257650
Just buy the book, retard

>>21257668
I need to know what I'm buying. I don't blind-buy because money doesn't grow on trees.

>>21257650
It is explores the idea of ones personal past using a heavily fractured narrative to reflect memory/thought with the narrative jumping around through the major events of the main characters past with odd little interjections of minor events which alter the context of other events. The interjections really make it, they wonderfully reflect how a seemingly insignificant event can drastically alter the relationship to our past. It is one of the best examples of fractured/non-linear narrative and few if any books manage to take it so far without it turning into mess or reading like one of Burroughs' cutups. Everything pulls together by the end without ever feeling like it is disjointed or forced.

>>21257396
So then Ye and Irving

>>21257377
>OP asks us our thoughts on picrel
>doesn’t even tell us what the acronym in the pic stands for

>>21257621
>40% off sale
When do they usually do this?

>>21258284
NYRB is a publisher. It means New York Review Books.

>>21258582
November, I think. It was last weekend. Literally yesterday.

>>21258582
July

>>21258596
wtf why didn't you tell me?

>>21258831
I thought you guys hated NYRB because it was for muh reddit trannies or some nonsense so I didn't even consider making a post.

>>21257377
I love their covers and some of their books are okay

>>21257492
>HRT

rent free

>>21258582
It is around the new year, it is always dead of winter when I get my books. The sale they just did was 30% off collections, the big sale is everything and you get 10% of one book, 20% off two, 30% off three and 40% off four or more. Someone always makes a thread for the big sale, if I don't see one I will make it. You can also just join their mailing list and they will email when it is time for the sale.

>>21257377
They put out a lot of good detective/crime thriller stuff from around the world so they're cool with me

>>21257668
Never buy anything. That one is easily findable.

>>21260315
>Never buy anything. That one is easily findable

>>21257377
For me, it's Everyman's Library.

>>21260386
Not him but yes I prefer even faulty science to literal stone age schizo rumblings

>>21260402
they publish stuff everyone else has

>>21257377
The Criterion Collection of books. Including the pretentious fans.

>>21260717
Sounds kino.

>>21260720
Retard. They just use their jewish lawyers to obtain rights from smaller publishers

>>21260752
They put out of print material back into print. Gems that I wouldn't otherwise know.
>jewish lawyers
/pol/tard detected.

>>21259893
Got some recs anon? I know about Jean Giono already.

>>21260874
NTA but Simenon's (out of print) and Manchette's books, as well as Day of the Owl, Sand, Black Wings Has My Angel, and In a Lonely Place.

they published the complete collection of varlam shalamov short stories so they are ok in my book.
also
>>21257621
i have not read that translation but most of the time english translation of spanish authors suck ass. borges and vargas llosa come to mind, so much of the personal style just gets completely lost, its a shame. not saying that arlt is a genius or anything like it, but i would defend him and say he is more than just a bit more than just a few scattered moments of greatness here and there. he was one, if not the first, south american authors to have such a raw, satyrical style. his work is often chaotic, its an attempt to grasp a bit of the insanity, the vulgarity and the evil that everyone tries to hide or run away from in everyday life, inside characters that are often destroyed or transformed into beasts, idiots or worst, cynics, because of this. keep in mind that he wrote most of his stuff during the early 20-30s, and later big names in southamerica literature considered him one their greatest influences, so much that authors like ernesto sabato almost emulated him in every aspect, and you can trace back hints to his work in authors like cortazar and bolaño.
shame if its translat

>>21260973
>they published the complete collection of varlam shalamov short stories so they are ok in my book.

Literally reading these now and they're great.

>shame if its translat
translation does not give you a straight punch in the guts like it should.

Best descent into madness book?

>>21260979
what are they about? I only know they're about life in the gulag

>>21257377
Full list of titles btw (it's from 2020):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1wsQJ3e8C6WBXByNWam_TXsa4Dhz_nLOMEwTaOvG63m8/edit#gid=0

>>21260774
>t. Recessed chin bugman
How do you explain them forcing Pushkin Press to handover rights to Szerb’s journey by moonlight only to publish an inferior translation

>>21260973
Arlt was a hack, you fucking retard. Stfu

>>21261069
>publisher drama
Yawn

>>21261082
>yawn
Just jewish lawyers working for their jewish client and their bugmen defending them on the internet

>>21261095
If they legally acquired the rights, who cares. Also, serves them right for naming their imprint after a negro mutt. Care to post excerpts on each translation btw?

>>21261069
...

>>21261021
they are various short stories of his time during his imprisonment at the Kolyma mines during stalins russia. he was one of those political prisoners that, because of his status, was pretty much left for dead at the work camps. he writes about the different dynamics that emerge between people under such conditions, how almost everyone turns into a soulless criminal, willing to sell out anything and anyone for a measly piece of bread or a puff of smoke, about how low and debased everything gets when you are taken by a kind of hunger that breaks you and makes you something you dont imagine is inside of you, and his own tale about how he managed to survive that hell.

>>21261123
Okay? Maybe study IP law and realize there are more ways than one to force a company to hand over rights to books, you knuckle-dragging nonce. Maybe you can eat NYRB’a jewish owner’s shriveled cunt before you had back to your pod

>>21261144
It's the same translation, faggot. You said it was inferior, you lying bastard. Unless there's a difference in editions.

>>21261153
Woah, jewish lawyers perform their jewish tricks to get a translator to break their contract! Color me surprised and about time a retarded faggot like you put down the onions to actually look something up for once.

>>21261153
I own the Pushkin one, is anyone has the nyrb one we can compare the first page :)

>>21261160
Fags like you have ruined the board. I’m sure you don’t care but I want you to know you are a nigger and will lead a miserable life

>>21261176
I'd go easy on him, he's clearly mentally unwell

>>21261178
>>21261176
Oy vey, good job defending the spirit of the 6 million. Wasn’t enough Pushkin Press discovered Sverb before them, the rapacious, albeit endlessly persecuted, chosen people needed to get their hands on it!

>>21261183
asides from moonlight, which other szerb novels would you recommend? not bothered about the publisher

>>21261183
You brought up jews out of left field. Par the course. Niggers shoehorning identity politics in everywhere; no different than sjw’s on Reddit; two sides of the same coin. I hate all of you and wish you the worst

>>21261198
I’d do Oliver VII before Journey to Venice

>>21261203
>left field
>in a thread about nyrb
Lmao okay bud

>>21261160
>jewish tricks
You mean offering the translator a better deal? Also, why do you even know this and why did you say the translation was inferior?

>>21261167
This is digital NYRB (ebook).

>>21257621
I've only read Mad Toy but yeah Arlt is really not that good. I don't know why he gets hyped so much.
>>21257650
I thought Morel was kind of mediocre too. Bioy Casares is also overhyped. Mostly he gets recognition for being Borgess friend.

There are a few good argentinian/hispanic writers that get overshadowed by these guys on online discussions, it's sad

>>21260386
Is that you?

>>21261209
Although baptized Catholic, Antal Szerb was ethnically a Jew.

>>21260386

>>21261183
>Oy vey, good job defending the spirit of the 6 million.
>>21261325

>schizo /pol/tard lashes out at American publisher because they offered a better deal to the translator of a book than a British publisher did
>says the translation is inferior but it's actually the same
>calls them Jews and whatnot
>that book they publish (since 2014) is by a Jewish author
...
what's even the message in all of this?

>>21261364
/pol/ is a plague on the board. /r9k/ has been giving them a run for their money lately though. I assume there is a lot of crossover though

>>21257422
tpbp (this)

verif not req

>>21261374
They ruin every thread. We need an option like /int/ has (pic rel).

>>21259847
I made one for the 4th of July sale, bumped it a few times and wound up getting banned for a few days for shilling

>middling 200-page books that cost $20
wtf

>>21260973
>no it must be translation because here are a bunch of things that have nothing to do with what you said nor does it address the book in question
Translation fags. Anon, half the book is a few characters in extended monologue explaining everything wrong in the country to the clueless main character, half of the remainder is the main character struggling with them in some of the worst first person narration I have ever read, the main character literally narrates his own thoughts at times as if he was a third person narrator narrating in the first person. Every character has the same voice, Arlt's. The remainder is decent with two amazing bits. This is not a translation issue, it is a terrible book, reads like a thinly veiled manifesto written in a highschool creative writing class.

Influential does not mean good, just means it was influential. Those two bits certainly had a massive influence on me, still have the book 5 years later despite hating it and still reread those two bits every so often.
>>21261176
It is more fags like you, they will literally stop trolling if no one takes the bait.
>>21261781
/lit/ gets the worst jannies and the mods don't care, part of the game, just reset your router and sperg out until they extend your ban and then forget about 4chan for awhile.

>>21261896
It’s not really bait and there are too many of them that it doesn’t matter if no one bites. They have reached a self sustaining critical mass and feed off of each other

>>21257377
The n stands for nigger

>>21261903
So let them feed off each other, who cares?

>>21261932
Many of the anons who have left or now lurk. You don’t need to defend the shitposters

>>21261953
>You don’t need to defend the shitposters
Sorry, I overestimated your intelligence.

>>21257377
One of the used bookstores in my city has a huge shelf with essentially every single book they've published all for all for 8-10 dollars. Pretty sweet especially since they're all in great condition.

I've read a decent number of them, my guess is around 15, and there's only been a few that I thought weren't worth reading. There is a high chance in my opinion you could pull a random nyrb book off a shelf and it'll be good.

>>21262700
>There is a high chance in my opinion you could pull a random nyrb book off a shelf and it'll be good.
yea, they're very well chosen