/lit/ - Literature

>>21649269
Gormenghast wins, of course. It’s canonic literature (ctrl + f ‘gormenghast’):
http://sonic.net/~rteeter/grtbloom.html

>>21649299
Bloom admitted that Wolfe was the greatest writer of 'unrealism' ever. Few know this.

>>21649449
I thought Bloom busted fat nuts, veritable webs, over Little,Big by John Crowley.

>>21649455
He loved it, yes.

>>21649449
Source?

Not the one that is dying earth for zoomer tradcaths

>>21649495
Rent free

>>21649521
Filtered Wolfefag

>>21649525
The only one posting in every botns thread is you. You are the wolfefag

>>21649449
Fake and gay

>>21649543
I am the anti Wolfefag, wolfefags seethe over me for exposing their medicore author

>>21649582
Weird headcannon

>>21649586
Wolfefags are the ones who insult the authors that their favorite author stole from
Not me

Since I have read both Dying Sun and Ghormenrghast , I can comment in this because 99% of /lit/ does not read.

So Dying Sun is basically one of the most unique books I have ever read, one doesn't even have to comment on the lofty themes the book touches because its so dissorienting as a reading experience it really touches on the best of postmodern literatures take on the epic. Ghormenrghast on the other hand is more gothic, darker and morose, it has that cruel ironic detachment which Wolfe lacks. In Dying Sun everything is played straight, so straight in fact you cannot understand what the author is playing at or even commenting at in ironic way, its so litteral that it doesn't even work as parable, or even as a fantasy genre fiction. Its more like a surreal futurist story.

What Wolfe did is frustrating to read in part, but it simply cannot be repeated, in the same way Joyce cannot be repeated. Ghoermenghast on the other hand despite its strange form is standard and straight story.

I choose neither

>>21649614
zoomer wolfefag thinks wolfe invented the dying earth genre
fucking hell you people are delusional

>>21649626
Obsessed

>>21649614
Dying Sun? What the fuck is that?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dying_Sun

The Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe, monsieur?

Every character you meet in the story turns up again, hundreds of miles away, to reveal that they are someone else and have been secretly controlling the action of the plot. It feels like the entire world is populated by about fifteen people who follow the narrator around wherever he goes. If the next two books continue along the same lines, then the big reveal will be that the world is entirely populated by no more than three superpowered shapeshifters.

Everyone in the book has secret identities, secret connections to grand conspiracies, and important plot elements that they conveniently hide until the last minute, only doling out clues here and there. There are no normal people in this world, only double agents and kings in disguise. Every analysis I've read of this book mentions that even the narrator is unreliable.

This can be an effective technique, but in combination with a world of infinite, unpredictable intrigue, Wolfe's story begins to evoke something between a soap opera and a convoluted mystery novel, relying on impossible and contradictory scenarios to mislead the audience. Apparently, this is the thing his fans most appreciate about him—I find it to be an insulting and artificial game.

There is simply not enough structure to the story to make the narrator's unreliability meaningful. In order for unreliable narration to be effective, there must be some clear and evident counter-story that undermines it. Without that, it is not possible to determine meaning, because there's nowhere to start: everything is equally shaky.

At that point, it's just a trick—adding complexity to the surface of the story without actually producing any new meaning. I know most sci-fi and fantasy authors seem to love complexity for its own sake, but it's a cardinal sin of storytelling: don't add something into your story unless it needs to be there. Covering the story with a lot of vagaries and noise may impress some, but won't stand up to careful reading.

>>21649645
Is this a goodreads review? Lmao

>>21649670
The unrefuted review by based Sir J. G. Keely.

>>21649681
Literally who

>>21649813
Lurk moar

>>21649475
>>21649546
I already told you. Few know this.

>>21649455
It was a pose.

>>21649626
Anon taking “Lit doesn’t read” to a whole new level.

Maybe next time you should actually read the posts you’re replying to. That way you won’t accidentally make comments without any context or relation to what the other anon has said.

>>21649914
>still no source

>>21650299
>So Dying Sun is basically one of the most unique books I have ever
That's literally what you said, spastic
What the fuck is unique about it?
It's a dying earth ripoff

>>21649495
What kind of wojak is someone who likes them all?

>>21649495
Nightland is unreadable.

>>21649645
Filtered Keely. This faggot got owned by Bakker recently.
>>21649495
Thanks for your persisting contributions, Sir. I don't even need to shill Wolfe anymore!

>>21649299
>>21649449
>>21649455
>>21649462
>>21649475
>>21649914
Why should I care about a fat jew's opinion?

>>21652219
> This faggot got owned by Bakker recently
Source? I only know the exchange from years ago where Keely tears Bakker a new asshole and makes him look like an amateur thinker/fantasist begging for “charity”.

>>21652230
Because he’s smarter and far more well read than you, /pol/tard.

>>21651868
It got shilled and I started reading it for a few pages. The prose was really awful, as you say. I will give it another chance at some point.
>>21649614
>What Wolfe did is frustrating to read in part
Isn't that the best part? It's incredibly engaging because you are constantly being invited to think about what you are reading.

you remember wolfe got sticky when he died?

>>21652519
I think I do now that you mention it.

>>21651868
>>21652504
>wolfefags filtered by hodgsons prose
LOL
>>21652519
>>21652522
proof that /lit/ has shit taste

>>21653325
Hodgeson’s prose is utterly beautiful at times. Though I can admit, at least with regards to The Night Land, that certain mundane subjects of the first chapter don’t always lend well with his writing style. Where it really shines is during his descriptions of the narrator’s emotion and his love for Mirdath, or during the depictions of various monsters and landscapes. Masterful.

>>21653593
I agree. As much as I like Wolfe, Night Land’s language is “weirder” and lends itself better to the utter foreignness of the environment. Wolfe’s writing is a little ornate, but not as strange as I was hoping it to be.

>>21653593
>>21654327
careful don't let the wolfefags see your comments or they'll start seething over people who don't think of wolfe as the greatest writer of the 20th century

>>21655033
Still here? Get a life

>>21655060
says the wolfefag
No, your mid rate sci fi author is not better than nabokov

>>21655115 (you)

>>21649269
there's a middle way

>>21649624
>kike book praised by faggot kike michael chabon
Pass.

>>21649645
I'm low IQ and I never got filtered like Keely.

>>21656363
Nah, he’s on point. Not every criticism of a book is le heckin filtered.

>>21649269
Not really a debate. The Gormenghast novels are better by just about every metric. Peake's prose is flat out better than most classic lit authors, even. BotNS is good, but it doesn't come close to the heights of Gormenghast

>>21656378
He never finished the book. So how is his criticism valid. If he had read them all then he would understand severian is being lead by forces unknown to him throughout the story. The guy didn't even get to the kino little severian or alzabo in the cabin.

>>21656381
LOL

>>21656381
>The Gormenghast novels are better
Nah boring as shiy.

>>21656381
It is a debate because BotNS is much more loved than Gormengast in general. There's more to it than just prose.

>>21656384
He did finish the first book, just not the rest of the quartet.

>>21656387
>>21656389
cope
>>21656549
Loved more by redditors, maybe.
>>21656381
Absolutely correct and patrician opinion.

>>21652235
>I only know the exchange from years ago where Keely tears Bakker a new asshole and makes him look like an amateur thinker/fantasist begging for “charity”.
You got a link to that? Keely tearing down pretentious authors is my favorite pastime.

>>21652230
I actually had to read Flight to Lucifer for a fantasy course I took in college. The day we were scheduled to discuss it the professor's first question was, 'OK, now, how is Bloom's novel different from the fantasy novels what we've read so far?' A bunch of people raised their hand and answered but none of them seemed to be saying what the professor had in mind. He kept saying, 'Yeah, what else?' Finally nobody had anything to say and he waited a few seconds before saying, 'Well, let me phrase it another way. Was there something in Bloom's novel that eluded you?' Silence. 'Something, perhaps, that you would have liked to see, but didn't? Something that was either absent, or hard to detect?' Ah, of course! My hand shot up. 'Yes, Anon.' 'Talent,' I said, 'There was no discernible talent!' The professor and I broke out into hysterical laughter. 'You couldn't discern any talent!' 'None!' he shouted and started rolling around on his desk like a turtle on its back. My face was red and I was wiping away tears. We laughed for about five minutes before it died down to nothing but brief aftershocks of giggles. 'Oh man,' he said. 'Good lord. All right. Remember to read the rest of it for Tuesday, and (shouting over everyone packing up) see if you can discern any talent!' And he pointed at me. 'This guy,' he said. 'Woo.'

>>21656600
Amazing post

Why every single time someone mention Wolfe half of you goes autistic? Did he fucked your mothers or something?

>>21649588
here's that pic you ordered that gets you mad

>>21656605
There's one dude that does that.
>>21656616
There's actually a recent Awake in the Night Land by John C. Wright. Inspired by The Night Land. I'm going to read it after I give Hodgson another chance. Wright is a solid writer, probably my favorite living fantasy writer. Not a great one, but a good one.

>>21656633
Holy shit I am reading this guy asap. What should I start with?

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/186689.Orphans_of_Chaos

>Amelia, Vanity, Colin, Quintus and Victor are the only students at a strict English boarding school. Slowly, they discover that they have secret powers and abilities--and that their teachers are much more than they seem. The adventures, and the tangled Greek mythologies that provide the backdrop, are a great deal of fun and quite exciting. Unfortunately, the author is a little too excited by the prospect of tying up Amelia and putting her at the mercy of lecherous old men. Her heaving bosom and "oh no I think I like this" thoughts are described in rather prurient detail. I liked Amelia-the-squid-princess-from-the-4th-dimension; I hated Amelia-the-bondage-fantasy.

>ETA:The author is a vicious and vile homophobe.

>I realized after a few chapters that it did have something to do with the plot; or rather, the sci-fi plotline was a thin excuse for this porn-hound of an author to revel in his rape fantasies.

>If Mr. Wright is so obsessed with his rape-fantasy porn that he can no longer tell a difference between the women being paid to act out a scuzzy little script from a real-life flesh and blood woman, than I suggest he obtain a good psychiatrist.

>>21656681
His latest, Superluminary, is actually an amazing reading experience with ever escalating scale. It's an adventure story about one of the technological demigods who with his other family members at one point blows up the Sun, fights undead space vampires and has a 40-something planets war armada that's jumping from point to point in space, tracking across the galaxy. It's corny, but played straight and somehow actually works. I haven't read Orphans of Chaos, but Neverwhither is cool and The Golden Age is pretty decent as well.

>>21649269
it's gormenghast, but the image on the right should be the night land

>>21656389
Never seen someone genuinely have that opinion when they've actually read them. Peake's characters are some of the best, and the story is very engrossing

>>21651868
I powered through it and the payoff was glorious

>>21649269
I like Wolfe but Gormenghast is something else

>>21656381
>>21649299
>>21649495
>>21649525
>>21649582
>>21649588
>>21649626
>>21649645
>>21649681
>>21653325
>>21655033
>>21655115
>>21656570
>>21656910
>>21657206
Shameless Samefag by PeakTranny.

>>21657276
What?

>fantasy

I couldn't get through the first 100 pages of Gormenghast super boring and uninteresting. There was no semblance of a story just a bunch of weird encounters that were going nowhere

>>21657388
>There was no semblance of a story just a bunch of weird encounters that were going nowhere
I understand why someone would not find Gormenghast interesting, but it is going somewhere and the seemingly random encounters are all building up something. Much like with Wolfe, really.

>>21657388
>just a bunch of weird encounters that were going nowhere
my favorite kind of kino to be quite desu with you

>>21656363
>>21656384
>>21656387
>>21656389
>>21656381
Overall, I found nothing unique in Wolfe. Perhaps it's because I've read quite a bit of odd fantasy; if all I read was mainstream stuff, then I'd surely find Wolfe unpredictable, since he is a step above them. But compared to Leiber, Howard, Dunsany, Eddison, Kipling, Haggard, Peake, Mieville, or Moorcock, Wolfe is nothing special.

Perhaps I just got my hopes up too high. I imagined something that might evoke Peake or Leiber (at his best), perhaps with a complexity and depth gesturing toward Milton or Ariosto. I could hardly imagine a better book than that, but even a book half that good would be a delight--or a book that was nothing like that, but was unpredictable and seductive in some other way.

I kept waiting for something to happen, but it never really did. It all plods along without much rise or fall, just the constant moving action to make us think something interesting is happening. I did find some promise, some moments that I would have loved to see the author explore, particularly those odd moments where Silver Age Sci Fi crept in, but each time he touched upon these, he would return immediately to the smallness of his plot and his annoying prick of a narrator. I never found the book to be difficult or complex, merely tiring. the unusual parts were evasive and vague, and the dull parts constant and repetitive.

The whole structure (or lack of it) does leave things up to interpretation, and perhaps that's what some readers find appealing: that they can superimpose their own thoughts and values onto the narrator, and onto the plot itself. But at that point, they don't like the book Wolfe wrote, they like the book they are writing between his lines.

>>21656616
>>21656605
Wolfefags will insult the authors their shitty fat fuck stole from
You are subhuman

I really don't understand this debate, they're both great and nothing alike, they're not comparable. Is this just literary console wars?

>>21657910
No, because consoles are comparable.

>>21657910
This place is a shithole, if you don't come here shit/spam on everything it's on you. /v/ stopped being good years ago.

>>21649475
Trust me bro

>>21657929
>>21657910
I meant /lit/

>>21656600
A classic.

>>21653325
Not the prose, but the repeated lifting the cup. Irritating.

>>21657988
Filtered

>>21657910
I guess that Gormenghast book 3 reveals that the setting is actually futuristic, even though there's no explicit tie to our world.

Anyway, burn the Wolfeoids, burn them and bury the ashes deep.

>>21656633

>>21649269
What is a good podcast for Book of the New Sun? Alzabo Soup is kind of helpful because they pick up details I would have missed other wise, but their overall reading of the book is godawful.

>>21658422
>15 minutes of them talking about their gay week of theater/video games
>the rest of the podcast is them hating on Severian

>>21658439
Kek I made this meme

>>21656600
lmao

>>21658442
good man

>>21658422
I started listening to 2 (the one you mentioned and another I forget). Instantly stopped in the first episode for both when they started giving a trigger warning about how Severian is totally heckin sexist and they don't condone that. what a bunch of faggots

>>21649521
the C boomer, glasses wearing, fat jak.

>>21657388
>no semblance of a story
Did you just read the words on the page and not comprehend them? The first 100 pages give you the setting and introduce you to Steerpike, the antagonist of the story, showing you how he began his rise to power, as well as other key characters like Fuchsia

>>21657910
A few fans take it too far

>fantashit is drawing 100 replies
Death knell

>>21660754
>a thread about two novels, one of them being a western canon classic, that have been staples on this board for ages
>death knell
Nice bait
Oh no...it's ogre...we're talking about

>>21660761
>Western canon classic
No, you faggot. It is not canon. It is fantashit, but worse. It is fantashit that doesn't even sell or gets traction lmao.

>>21660784
>it's not canon
>the guy who made the western canon list considered it to be canon
I think i'll listen to the famous literary critic over a random tourist who has probably read less than 10 novels since highschool

>>21660788
>guy who made the canon list
>he thinks canon is decided by some fat jew's list

>>21660799
>anime girl reaction image
Opinion discarded

>>21660808
I accept your concession

>>21660799
>people refer to his canon list when talking about whether or not something is canon
>somehow not decided by his list
You are really throwing all sorts of confusing contradictions at me

>>21660839
>le joos!
You made no argument.

>>21649495
Yep, Book of the New Sun is only popular because it was written by an overweight author.

>>21661090
>still mad
Kek

>>21661090
It's popular because zoomer retards get filtered by literal pulp authors like vance, smith and hodgson so they choose to read the work of a fat hack and his self insert "severian" who if written by anybody else would be ridiculed as cringey adolescent wish fulfilment fantasy

>>21661111
>get filtered by pulp authors

LMAO, we call that having taste. But yeah continue thinking you're based and alpha for enjoying Marvel movies! Hope you enjoy the new Antman!

>>21660754
Both of these novels have been in the top 100 favorite lit book charts for 6-7 years. Only newfags who pretend to be in on the culture don't know this and Gormenghast is hardly even a fantasy at all.

>>21661116
Wolfefag thinks his dreck is anything other then below pulp
Smith was a recognised poet, wolfe has been completely forgotten and rightly so
You've been filtered by literal pulp, you are a retarded zoomer
Keep LARPing as "severian" though you cringey sperg

>>21661134
>wolfe has been completely forgotten
Then why are his books still being published, read, and discussed and why do you make sure that every Wolfe thread gets 300 replies?

>>21661125
Yeah, fantasy isn't really an apt description for Gormenghast. People just throw it into that genre because it's otherwise very difficult to classify. It's also not really Gothic, like it was originally labeled. I just consider it literary fiction and go on with my day. It's close enough, anyways

>>21661259
>I just consider it literary fiction and go on with my day.
I don't really think there's a meaningful difference between genre and literary fiction. But I would call (at least the fist book) gothic.

>>21661277
Aside from the castle setting it isn't gothic

>>21661125
>>21661259
>>21661277
>>21661291
Shut up retards. Don't try to put shitty genre fiction on a pedestal just because the author used 10 more new words than typical genre dreck.

>>21661339
You were already dismissed, no need to continue your little tirade.

>>21661339
Seething wolfefag

>>21661159
Hodgson, Smith and Vance are still being published, read and discussed
Why do wolfefags keep stating that their mid tier sci fi author is better than Nabokov and Proust? and why do they cry and act like victims when I call them and their shitty series out on it?

>>21661339
If you actually read Gormenghast you'd know that Peake was a genius tier writer with some of the best descriptive writing you'll ever read--but here you are, trashing books you haven't even read to seem cool or something

>>21661733
I will have to read the second and third parts. Fantasy has only so many great writers and Peake is one of them and I'll need to finish his best works. Maybe even read Titus Groan again, I read it a while back.

>>21656600
The books prose is so nauseatingly bad that I'm shocked anyone gave it a less than scathing review. Absolutely awful. How can someone so well read turn out drivel, with the building blocks of writing completely ruined?

>>21661733
Some people posted his excerpts in a prose thread and they were just horrible.

>>21661454
I don't see any influence from Hodgson in Wolfe. Did Wolfe ever claim influence deom Hodgson?

>>21657929
>>21657947
Actually this is the best board by far.

>>21662002
Have you considered the fact that you have terrible taste, anon? If you think the work of a critically acclaimed and well loved author is horrible, the problem is likely with you

>>21664274
>If you think the work of a critically acclaimed and well loved author is horrible, the problem is likely with you
Do you hear yourself?

>>21664410
Yeah, and I sound reasonable. If you can't appreciate good writing, that's entirely a problem with you, unless you consider everyone else to be wrong

>>21661365
Obsessed

>>21664434
Retarded genreshitter.

>>21649269
What's so good about this "Grope n' Gasp" book I keep hearing about? What's special about it?

>>21665669
Everything has a genre, anon. You're just an elitist gatekeeper who doesn't know anything about literature yet still tries to seem cool on an anonymous imageboard

>>21665782
I did your mom
how's that for genre fiction, this genre specifically being NON-fiction fiction

>>21665801
not an argument

C.S. Lewis praised Gormenghast, and he sent Peake a letter:
>Thank you for adding to a class of literature in which the attempts are few and the successes very few indeed. . . . to me those who merely comment on experience seem far less valuable than those who add to it, who make me experience what I never experienced before. I would not for anything have missed Gormenghast. It has the hallmark of a true myth: i.e. you have seen nothing like it before you read the book, but after that you see things like it everywhere. What one may call ‘the gormenghastly’ has given me a new Universal; particulars to put under it are never in short supply. That is why fools have (I bet) tried to ‘interpret’ it as allegory. They see one of the innumerable ‘meanings’ which are always coming out of it (because it is alive and fertile) and conclude that you began—and ended—by putting in that and no more. If they tell you it’s deuced leisurely and the story takes a long time to develop don’t listen to them. It ought to be, and must be, slow. That endless, tragic, farcical, unnecessary, ineluctable sorrow can’t be abridged. I love the length. I like things long—drinks, love passages, walks, conversations, silences, and above all, books. Give me a good square meal like The Faery Queen or The Lord of the Rings. The Odyssey is a mere lunch after all.

>>21665929
One genre shitter writing to another one? Everybody clap!

>>21665929
Based
>>21665935
Seething wolfefag lmao

>>21665929
>The Odyssey is a mere lunch after all.
was this a common sentiment

>>21665943
He’s saying it’s short.

>>21665938
>le unique
>le nothing like it!
>le not fantasy! ::angrychudface::
>le not genre!
>le literature
Every single thing also applies to BOTNS. So how does this conclude the debate?

>>21665948
BOTNS is genre.

>>21664434
"Everyone else" is AS A RULE (almost) always wrong you midwit.
>>21665782
>elitist gatekeeper
You have to go back.

>>21665960
Gormenghast is also fantashit.

>>21666056
Nope.

>>21665817
I didn't realize we were having an argument

>>21666066
Off by six hundred.

Will reading Goremen's Gaps help me get pussy?

>>21666049
>You have to go back.
You are the newfag trying to fit in with board culture by pretending to be elitist about two phenomenal novels because of superficialities such as fantastical elements. Grow up and start actually reading novels instead of shitposting.

>>21666078
>Grow up and start reading fantasy novels
I agree with you but that slogan doesn't really work in this context.

>>21666082
There is nothing childish about reading fantasy, but there is something childish in not reading fantasy to appear grown up.

>>21649681
>>21649817
>>21649645
>Sir J. G. Keely
>This faggot has Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on his favorites.
Into the trash it goes, homo

>>21666102
Based. The people on this board who think you have to only read entirely serious works of literature are likely also the least well read people on the board.

>>21666102
There is something childish about reading fantasy because not reading fantasy is perceived as precocious. Tolkien is of course the exception.

>>21666138
>Tolkien is of course the exception
Why is Tolkien the exception when both of the authors up for debate in this thread were better writers

>>21656681
That's hentai tier, based
Not gonna read it though

>>21666148
He planted the forest that later employed the two writers in question also forming the raw material for their housing.

>>21666138
>There is something childish about reading fantasy because not reading fantasy is perceived as precocious.
Good books should be read for enjoyment and the spiritual and intellectual goods they bring as such, regardless of how they are seen by society or retards on /lit/.
>>21666137
That is true as well, but the thing about Wolfe and Peake is that they are both excellent writers.

>>21666171
Gormenghast was published before The Lord of the Rings, anon

>>21666228
People forget, for some reason, that fantasy existed before Tolkien and that not every fantasy is heavily influenced by him either.

>>21666075
If you learn to be like Steerpike, yes. He is funny, nihilistic, and has a wicked sense of humor

>>21667759
This but unironically

>dead thread reaches page 10 over half a dozen times
>inane comment bumps it back to page 1 just in the nick of time
>unique poster count always stays the same
Let it end already.

wolfefags seethe hard when their shitty novel gets called out
it's no different from YA fantasy wish fulfilment crap. a super muscular edgelord torturer with le edgy latin-named sword goes around fucking every woman he meets
this is literally what a 14 year old edgelord teenager would write. fucking dreck

>>21669256
?

>>21669251
You're right, we shouldn't bump threads actually talking about books so that the top half of the catalogue can be twitter and bait threads at all times

>>21669352
Sorry your thread is shit. Didn't mean to hurt your feelings.

Wolfe has never been more popular thanks to you, Hater.

>>21669449
I live rent free in every single wolfefag's head for BTFOing their shitty book series

>>21669553
thank you for showing me Wolfe. He is my new favorite author!

>>21649269
Redpill me on the book of the new sun. Is it good?

>>21669773
Falseflagging unfunny wolfefag
>>21669792
No
It's self indulgent, YA tier trash

>>21669792
Better than Gomen ghastly.

>>21669792
I'm not going to tell you whether it's good or bad. It's written as a memoir from the perspective of a rather strange man. Wolfe presents himself as a translator who has found the work and has translated it from a lost language into English. It takes place in a dying Earth setting, but it's mainly concerned with the main character as he evolves through the story. It's filled with religious symbolism and has a lot of mysteries operating in the background that one could spend an absurd amount of time trying to decipher. Luckily, you don't need to understand that stuff to enjoy the book. Your first time reading it, assuming you read it, might be confusing, but by doing re-reads and discussion things become more apparent. Wolfe wanted to write books that could be enjoyed no matter how many times you read them and wanted you to discover something new each time.

>>21669792
It's great

I think both are great and that this thread is gay. I am the only straight man here. You are all gay.

>>21669863
Not so fast.

>>21652237
>smarter
you can be intelligent and still be retarded
>well read
means nothing, 99% of what he puts on his lists are worthless

>>21669553
What caused you to hate Wolfe so much? I don't think BotNS is as good as everyone makes it out to be, but it's still fairly good. Nothing about it is bad enough to warrant going on a shitposting crusade whenever Wolfe is mentioned

>>21670840
As I have explained multiple times before, because Wolfefags state that BOTNS is the greatest book of all time and that wolfe is BETTER than nabokov, proust, than actual literary fiction authors. I've seen wolfefags state that BOTNS is the greatest book of the 20th century
BOTNS is mid tier speculative fiction obviously better than 90% of most of the genre but nothing special, wolfefags are delusional zoomers who think it's the second coming of christ who are unaware of how much it steals from older, better authors

>>21670853
>how much it steals from older, better authors
Snigger.jpg

Books are made out of books. Those older authors also stole from somewhere else. BOTNS is wholly original thoughever. It is the most influential serious sci-fi/fantasy after Tolkien.

>>21670880
Ah, yes, stealing from Vance and Smith, so original

>>21670853
YNWBAW. Cry harder.

>>21670897
Vance and Smith were also stealers. Smith in particular was a less imaginative Lovecraft copy but for fantasy.

>>21670925
You will never be literate
You will always be a LARPing zoomer sperg who believes that BOTNS is the greatest novel of the 20th century
>>21670948
Lovecraft COPIED smith you retard, lovecraft was inspired by smith and even said his writings were inferior
And nobody is saying that Vance and Smith were wholly original, unlike wolfefags, who in this exact thread stated that BOTNS is wholly original

>>21670974
BOTNS is a contender though. No other book from 20th century has such a complicated and multi-faceted plot with deep themes.

>>21669863
>I think both are great
Most do in the thread. I prefer Wolfe, but Peake was a very good writer and that's obvious enough.
>>21669792
It's my favorite novel and I've read it 5 times by now, each time enjoying it just as much as the first time.
I loved the thick, misty prose because it created an incredibly vivid experience in my mind's eye, I loved the fact that there are always layers and interactions of the plot, symbols, and broader themes in every scene. He wrote excellent characters, they are all incredibly authentic and always feel like they are really parts of a society far away from ours in every way. I found it engaging because it's a sort of a puzzle and as a reader, you are constantly engaged with the story, thinking of the world and the story, trying to make sense of the often bizarre events.
>>21671084
It's certainly unique, I have never read anything quite like it and I've read plenty of novels by now.

>>21671084
Gormenghast does, and is the better book anyways

>>21671252
>"Gomen for writing this Ghastly book" has a plot as complex
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA No. No it doesn't.

>>21671252
What is complex about the plot of Gormengast? It was pretty simple. Not that it's a bad thing, but I don't see how it's complex.

>>21669792
I'm reading it just now and it's weird. Dunno if I like it or not.

>>21649645
Lmaoing that this turned into a pasta

>>21671370
Anything can be a pasta nowadays

>>21649614
You type like a faggot and your shit's all retarded
Lofty? Bruh

>>21669251
It just reached page 10 again, so I'm going to bump it solely to make you seethe

>>21649269
I'll say this. I read Shadow and Claw and Gormenghast at about the same time around 12 years ago. I remember very little about Shadow and Claw other than the ending of the first and second books. But for Gormenghast, I remember almost everything. There are certain scenes that are seared into my memory because of the incredibly vivid and stylish writing. The entire sequence towards the end of Titus Groan with the duel in the tower is one of the most vivid action sequences I've ever read.

Both books are good, I won't shit on Wolfe at all, he's definitely a strong writer and I enjoyed Shadow and Claw, I just didn't continue because I think it got lost in the shuffle. But I think Gormenghast is exquisitely written. Perhaps it's a more straightforward story than The Book of the New Sun, less postmodern and experimental, but it is absolutely dripping with style and has the substance to back it up.

>>21674791
>There are certain scenes that are seared into my memory because of the incredibly vivid and stylish writing
Post passages. Prose looked shit when one guy was shilling it 1 month ago.

>>21674869
>Clouds had moved over the moon. Not even the bright sword in his hand could be seen as he moved it out into what had been moonlight. And then it came. A light more brilliant than the sun’s – a light like razors. It not only showed to the least minutiae the anatomy of masonry, pillars and towers, trees, grass-blades and pebbles, it conjured these things, it constructed them from nothing. They were not there before – only the void, the abactinal absences of all things – and then a creation reigned in a blinding and ghastly glory as a torrent of electric fire coursed across heaven. To Flay it seemed an eternity of nakedness; but the hot black eyelid of the entire sky closed down again and the stifling atmosphere rocked uncontrollably to such a yell of thunder as lifted the hairs on his neck. From the belly of a mammoth it broke and regurgitated, dying finally with a long-drawn growl of spleen. And then the enormous midnight gave up all control, opening out her cumulous body from horizon to horizon, so that the air became solid with so great a weight of falling water that Flay could hear the limbs of trees breaking through a roar of foam.”

Honestly though, the power of the writing comes from immersing yourself in Peake's flow, which can take some adjustment. The scene in question comes basically at the end of the book after a long buildup. But also it's intended to evoke the Gothic. It's "overwrought" in the sense that almost every detail is enumerated, but that makes it all the more intense. This entire part of the book came hit like a fucking brick.

Anyway, anon, I'll post some more excerpts but you should just give it a try. I have a boner for florid prose so I might be biased and it might not be everyone's taste.

>>21674941
This is one of those shit ones lmao.

>>21674946
Alright friend, then it might just not be for you. Some people don't like this style of writing and that's okay. I still highly recommend giving it a shot but all power to you bud.

>>21669792
Stop reading about the book. Read the book instead.
I refused to read it for years because shills made it sound edgy and overcomplicated. It is neither. But it is:
>action packed
>pensive
>a dialogue
>an introspection
>sci-fi
>fantasy
>devastating
>uplifting
>straightforward
>obtuse
And that's not me trying to act mysterious -- the book really is all those things. Want a swashbuckling adventure? It's there. Want a dissertation [name your topic]? It's there.
Read it. If you don't like it, stop.

>>21649269
ITT: two autistic spergs find each other in the same thread and predictably, sperg out.

I thought both had their merits, but in the end have to give the edge to Peake. Gormenghast is simply not classifiable genre fiction and in fact predates a lot of the worse offenders, while BoTNS occasionally suffers from holdovers from pulp. I feel like Wolfe would have liked to write less genre-shit but he knows what sells. If anyone’s read Wolfe’s book Peace that’s a genuinely good novel that’s not mislabeled as sci-fi same as Gormenghast as fantasy, so he had it in him.

>>21675495
Shut up retarded Peaketranny

>>21651868
Night Land is kino of the highest order.
>a man that doth carry a maiden, forever

>>21649449
no one cares about Bloom outside US and Youtube.