/lit/ - Literature

>>21749718
Books are for fags. Seriously though they have a fine literary tradition for such a young, sparsely populated country

>>21749718
they lost their powers by race mixing with the asians
they can no longer produce anything of value

>>21749718
The anglo nation of shopkeepers tend towards anti-intellectualism but occasionally something good gets squirted out of the sheer misery of having to live on that dreary isle. Put the anglo in the sun though and it’s over, whether it’s the gold coast or the costa del sol.

>>21749718
Convict blood or it might be the geography, shit climate full of poisonous cretins and abbos hardly could inspire anyone to write

>>21749718
Short history and a tiny population until recently (they had under four million people at the beginning of the 20th century, compared to thirty million in England and seventy-six million in the USA).

>>21749718
Because materially rich societies can’t produce good art. You need pain. At least to a degree.

>>21749728
They never had powers.

>>21749718
>main language is English
there's your answer

>>21749867
It’s the same language as the UK and the US and they have been able to produce great literature.

Read Graham Oppy.

>>21749718
ahem, observe, the great Australian novel

>>21749718
also

>>21749718
"grungelit" was a thing in Australia and at its best it was glorious, pic related

>>21749909
>He really believes that ..

>>21750147
i hate the anglosphere as much as the next guy, but lets not kid ourselves now...

inb4 Woolston shows up to shill his book

>>21750190
He's a fat fuck, so it takes him 15 minutes to move his arms

>>21750190
Has anyone actually read it or is he pissing in the wind?

>>21750238
He pays goodreads users to read it and review it

>>21750239
Really? I didn't know that was a thing.

John Kinsella
John Forbes
Sarah Holland-Batt
William James Chidley
Michael Farrell
Judith Wright
Joyelle McSweeney
Dorothy Porter
Patrick White
Gerald Murnane
Nathan Shepherdson

>>21750285
Literally Who?

>>21750290
Not my fault you're a charter

>>21750295
Literally whos?

>>21750297
oh and Simon Hanselmann

>>21750312
Who?

>>21750314
The greatest author the shittiest island has ever given us. A true master.

>>21750314
Helen Garner

>>21749718
we got doubly hit by women's lib, Shielas were already going to toe-to-toe with the wildlife and thought themselves equal to her father or any man of the land, then the rest of the west told her she could drop that act and double down on it if she added victimhood to her repertoire. Uppity beach whores are not that fun to write poetry for or entertain, rather put your creative energies into entertaining kids.

>>21750239
Do you have proof of that?

>>21749833
that's why all the good art you see in galleries was commissioned by ultra rich aristocrats, sure buddy...

>>21749718
the spiders come and snatch up the promising talent in the night. it's horrific but it's for our sake.

>>21750414
They were made in violent and/or struggling contexts. Do I need to remind you the life of Caravaggio? That was a wilde ride. You need pain.

Their government doesn’t consider cultural export a priority

>>21749718

>why is it devoid of any literacy merit [SIC] when it's [...] Western and their main language is English?


ANSWER IN QUESTION.

>>21750593
>blocks your path

>>21749718
Garth Nix is pretty cool

"..."
Unironically a better version of Lord of the Rings, except rather than the ring it's all the paranoid delusions you all have.

>>21750987
might check it out, any more info for us?

>>21749759
>>21749812
>>21749833
A sort of combination of these three are widely theorized to be responsible by Australian intellectuals themselves. We're small and far away from everyone else so we were/are isolated from European high culture that could've inspired us, we're too comfortable and rich so we're lazy and we've inherited a deep skepticism around authority from our convict past that doesn't really distinguish legitimate authority worthy of respect from the illegitimate worthy of scorn that leaves us quite anti-intellectual. A perfect storm for a cultural wasteland.

>>21750987
Schlock

>>21749718
>literacy merit
Lol.
Anyway, I think we have some good writers but we tend to be best at novels, such as Patrick White and Peter Carey. I like poetry the most but our bush ballads tend to be a little too sing-songy for other cultures used to English iambic pentameter, even if it's enjoyable to me. Paterson and Lawson are giants in poetry, as well as short stories. I think Adam Lindsay Gordon is highly regarded, but I've yet to read through the Poetical Works I bought.

>>21751613
It has nothing to do with LOTR, evident in Patrick White winning a Nobel prize and Tolkien never being regarded well in any literary circle beyond C.S. Lewis. That anon is either trolling or has read maybe a handful of books to compare it to, if he has even read it.

>>21751633
Lawson is legitimately one of the greatest short story writers of all time, and long before it became a standard form.

>>21751656
I love that goanna corpse story and the one with the union member's funeral. He was sometimes morbid, but funny about it.

>>21749718
Patrick White is a bit of a poofter desu. That’s why he’s good.

>>21750716
I remember reading the weekday series he had, pretty good children's literature.

>>21751645
Schlock

>>21749718
It's a resource exporting country, if you're born with a decent iq and aptitude for an in-demand skill you leave for Asia or the US in your late 20s and comeback in your 40s or 50s (usually with a foreign wife). Australians do produce value they just don't do it for their own country. The culture is anti intellectual and working towards exceptionalism is consistently discouraged by the people around you. High school here is reading the Outsiders every year until you hate reading, unless you're rich enough to attend a private school that costs 25k+ a year or live in the inner cities with good teachers. Growing up here kids that read would be mocked for being faggots and sometimes beaten up for being 'smart cunts' by your local bogans. There is probably something to be said about the lack of effort required to get sex here so not many people are really internalising and expressing that desire in other ways. 44% of the country also reads at a grade 6 level. This kind of atmosphere tends to develop a country where writing doesn't even come into the calculation of what you're going to do with your life.

>>21751696
>here kids that read would be mocked for being faggots and sometimes beaten up for being 'smart cunts' by your local bogans
I only got berated by a dumb wog for reading. Most quiet girls in my classes in high school would be told off by the teacher, for reading books during "quiet time" too. I know for a fact a literary agent said that Australians buy a lot of books, and I wouldn't doubt that considering wine mum reading groups, country people having nothing else to do but read, and our inner city pseuds who spend all their day at University in Arts degrees they don't need.
>Grade 6 reading level
>This kind of atmosphere tends to develop a country where writing doesn't even come into the calculation of what you're going to do with your life.
Not necessarily true. I know so many people who have grade 6 writing and reading abilities, but still insist on being writers. I moreso blame our publishers (like Allen & Unwin) who don't ever want to branch out from the usual biographies, popular histories, histories on ANZAC battles or expeditions, and sports books.

>>21749718
Aussies hate themselves and find their own culture to be cringeworthy. In fact, their term "cultural cringe" is pretty much where modern cringe culture (e.g cringe compilations, etc) comes from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_cringe

>>21751737
This is sadly true. I try to read about colonial history or bring up many interesting convict stories, but people immediately get touchy about colonisation or at least find it "cringeworthy."
Even my mother thinks Ned Kelly "was just a criminal and people glorify it," but she doesn't even know his story. My father thinks the history of Australia can only be summed up as: Aboriginals were so hard done by and that all whites are evil. This makes no sense considering his dad's side of the family came from the First Fleet, but it's due to trying to look "morally good" under neoliberalism.

>>21751696
Can confirm, i remember some bogan knuckle dragger kid coming up to me in school and asking me "how come you're reading? You a faggot?"
It's entirely possible, actually quite likely, that we have had Shakespeare/Dickens level genius in this country but our culture and our public schools would have stifled it for sure.

How true is tall poppy syndrome in Australia? Any anons here experience it?

>>21752263
You should’ve punched him in the face. Schoolyard/prisonyard rules 101

>>21749718
>criminal island

>>21750987
I tried reading Patrick White but I must be a midwit because I have a lot of difficulty following his writing. I should give Voss another try one of these days.

>>21751633
Do non-Australians even know about Ned Kelly? He's so deeply ingrained in our culture with multiple books/movies about him, but I feel he's only interesting if you were born here.

>>21752554
Elements of it are true. Compared to America, you are definitely expected to be humble and play down your achievements. When I was in America I was blown away by how openly people promote themselves and celebrate their achievements. To be honest, it comes across as arrogant to me and makes me very uncomfortable, but I also recognise that it is a cultural difference and not necessarily inherently bad. Comparatively, people are pretty embarrassed by their success in Australia and you're not really meant to bring it up unless it is forced out of you.

Australians call themselves laid back but we are actually still very British in our proclivities and adhere to a lot more unspoken social norms than we realise. In fact the reason we don't realise is probably because it is unspoken. It's not as extreme as the extreme face saving cultures of Asia, but it's much more prominent than in America.

With that being said, it's not like ambition itself is discouraged, however you might say that in an environment that discourages bragging about achievements it might be harder to be ambitious.

>>21752642
One of the benefits of tall poppy syndrome is that it extends to authority figures. Australians are highly sceptical of anyone in power (while also doing nothing people who abuse there power).
There also isn't much in the way of celebrity worship like there is in America which is nice.

>>21749718
Gerald Murnane is better than your favorite writer

>>21752613
I’m a fellow colonial (of the maple syrup variety) and I’ve read a few stories about him. Could you recommend any further reading, preferably from before society got all uptight? I’d love to learn more

>>21752613
I know Americans who knew who he was, but others who had no idea.
One American assumed he was Pentecostal for some odd reason, even though he was Irish. Due to the lack of Catholic churches in Greta, I think Ned ended up usually just attending whatever church there was in the area. One of the priests denied to look after the Kellys during the trial, even though Ned became pretty devout when he was in prison to be hanged.

>>21752683
The best coverage I read was Alex Castles' Last Days; he goes over all the court proceedings and, as a law professor and law historian, showed how it was pretty much an overreach of government and a sham trial. One of the political leaders at the time, Robert Ramsay, made sure to bend the law to get the Kelly Gang eradicated. There were even protests here to release Ned once he was arrested and awaiting the death sentence.
Other than that, read the Ned Kelly Encyclopedia to get a good idea about who all the people were, like Ned's tutor, Harry Power.

>>21749718
>it's highly educated
That's what's wrong with it.

>>21752698
Thanks m8, I think you’re gr8 (no b8). Added to my reading list

I enjoy Henry Lawsons poetry

>>21752703
The sad thing is that all our universities are corporate and only really fund the sciences because of mining, defence, pharmaceuticals, research for corps, etc. Law is hard to get into but that's most of the best students, or so I hear. Economics and business schools don't tend to innovate from what I hear, at least not globally.
There are a bunch of vocational degrees that probably have nothing to do with higher education, but they are there because I assume they don't fit into TAFE (or the universities want more income flow from student fees when the Government will usually pay quite a lot of the fees if they're Commonwealth Supported Place).
The rest of the degrees are pretty Mickey Mouse tier, so I wouldn't call it education at all. I don't think many of the students in those courses know what the hell they're doing in life. That's why you get so many domestic students swapping majors or dropping out.
>TL;DR
Our universities aren't really for education; they are there for making technical workers for industries, or to babysit people who can't do anything else in our high unemployment society.

Are there any good Australian novels that DON'T explore the them of British civility coming to odds with Australia's brutal landscape? I swear this is the most common theme in Australian art, even shit like Mad Max fits the bill. It's common to the point of being tired.

>>21751696
>>21751721
>>21752263
Pretty true and very unfortunate. There's also this tendency to reduce the value of anything that's not sex, drugs/alcohol, or sport to its ability to make money which leads to a dismissal of a lot of high culture among even the less caustically ignorant and uncouth. Not unique to here by any means, but very common.

>>21752554
I feel like Australians aren't super eager to bring you down for the sake of it, but will do it when on the defensive, e.g. calling someone who criticizes their unreflective tradition or "common sense" (no matter how gently and diplomatically) arrogant regardless of whether it's actually true while implicitly (and arguably quite arrogantly) holding that they and their beliefs are beyond reproach. Let me put it this way: if you had to smear someone politically here, it'd be more effective to make them seem elitist than incompetent. That being said, as >>21751737 points out (and I worry that I'm taken as exemplifying) there's a very large minority of people who will overcompensate in the other direction and say that this country can do no right and will be keen to build others up to the detriment of Australia.

>>21751758
It is indeed a shame. Even disregarding our history which is far more interesting than we tend to give it credit for, in spite of all that I've said, I think that you can find real virtues in the Australian character in spite of how easily things can go wrong. At our best our irreverence is mitigated and simply an intolerance for bullshit and pomposity and not simply nihilistic populism and our tendency to side with the underdog manifests as genuine and open-mindedness humanity towards the other and not pathological hatred of excellence. With regards to a kind of intersection of interesting history and national character, I was really surprised about the friendship between Alfred Deakin (whose intellectual background surprised me a lot, with him making a pilgrimage to Emerson's grave on a visit to the U.S.) and the American philosopher Josiah Royce (who wrote some essays about his time in Australia and NZ informed by that friendship, calling us "the second New World").

>>21752613
I've encountered a few Americans from the south who idolize him. In a way he embodies the American dream, and is like the 19th Century's answer to Marvin Heemeyer.

>>21752723
This made me realize what's wrong with Australian lit. As a people, they arrived at modernity's post-history the fastest compared to their founding out of all the western nations. They literally have nothing to write about, and that's why they don't.

>>21752613
I remember when I was in primary school our entire class had to draw an image of Ned Kelly. For my drawing I put him in the Australian desert with Uluru and the MCG in the background. I imagine the American equivalent of this would be Jesse James standing in front of the Grand Canyon and the Talladega Superspeedway.

>>21751758
For some reason, even otherwise moderately conservative boomers get on the whites bad train. I was telling my father a story I heard recently from a friend who is a teacher in the Durack/Inala/Forest Lake area in Brisbane, an area which has a huge number of foreign-born residents. Apparently, a school bus for a school with something like 70% foreign born kids got pelted with rocks pretty badly. My father assumed it was poor angry racist white people instead the more obvious answer; some retarded ethnic feud between the local Vietnamese and some Africans, which it inevitably was.

>>21752263
>>21751696
Sorry but you guys must have just been annoying kids which is why you got bullied, not because you read books. I was a nerd in school at a pretty trashy Brisbane highschool (at least one classmate was convicted for a brutal murder about 10 years ago) and at worst the bogans and wogs would call me a "nerd" without any real venom and for the most part would leave me in peace because I didn't treat them with contempt and was able to banter back or just talk normally.

>>21750285
Olga masters
Peter Carey
Peter Porter
Henry Lawson
David Malouf
Frank Hardy
Paul Jennings
Kenneth Slessor


Some say Les Murray, but he is way too catholic for me

>>21752733
There's plenty to write about. "People are cunts" the thematic underpinning that won Patrick white the nobel

>>21751596
>we've inherited a deep skepticism around authority from our convict past that doesn't really distinguish legitimate authority worthy of respect from the illegitimate worthy of scorn that leaves us quite anti-intellectual.

Being "intellectual" in the classic sense of the term is never about deciding on the right authority to worship. People with something to say do not need the crutch of authority and institutional backing to make themselves seem legitimate and worthy of entertaining intellectually by others.

>>21753494
I agree, but I think you know full well that the masses don’t. A shame for sure, but fuck those stupid cunts, yeah?

Marcus Clarke, Henry Lawson, Nevil Shute, Les Murray, Tim Winton, Peter Carey are all worth reading. Australian culture just doesn't get the exposure outside of Australia other than Americanised movie bullshit.

>>21753509
I don't know, I come from a similar place as well and I think being skeptical of all authority is a much healthier attitude to have than going full american and being bigoted, and being bigoted about something retarded on top. People should strive to be like jelly, escaping through the fingers of whoever who would wish to subjugate them.

>>21752711
>law
>hard to get into
>best students
Kek good one, cunt

>>21753525
For me it’s like water or sand but I love the jello analogy. May I steal it and espouse as my own?

>>21753534
>best students
That's just what I heard from professors.
>hard to get into
It should be harder than Arts and some Sciences since ATAR selection is around 98 with an entry exam.

>>21751596
What do you define as anti-authoritan? The country is 97%+ vaccinated for peoples 16 and above for instance

>>21753652
Even smart people are still just people anon

Australia is the perfect example of how shit a country is when mediocre white women are in charge

>>21753664
Why haven’t you kept your Sheilas in line Bruce? I thought you lads were tough. Serious question

They have other literary talents.

>>21753662
You're missing the point, were Australians that blindly anti-authoritian and anti-"intellectual" you would think there would be alot more resistance to the measures implemented over Covid, or the gun laws post-port Arthur for instance. Australians are only "anti-authoritian" in directions that are either meaningless or pushed for by the system,

>>21753693
Kek
Anyone got the moot screenshot saying he hates Australians so fucking much

>>21753719

>>21753709
I think you’re missing the point, but whatever. Have a good one m8
>>21753693
Glorious

>>21749718
You're stuck in the past, there is a new wave rising, a new genius to lead a movement

>>21749718
But it has good authors.

>>21754487
Do you get up at 6:00AM to shitpost your book? Not a dig, just think it's admirable.

>>21751596
Then why don't Australians make good prestige TV? Even south Americans can do that

>>21754509
Well actually i get up this early because i have to go to work but i spend half an hour or so having a coffee and scrolling through the interwebs and if the opportunity for a spot of shitposting presents itself...

I like Tim Winton and Richard Flanagan

>>21753494
>Being "intellectual" in the classic sense of the term is never about deciding on the right authority to worship
I'm defending respect and forbearance, not worship. It's about presuming that the aspects of higher culture, or the very idea of superiority as rotten because of their origin , not their nature in themselves. >>21752652 gets at something with regard to our politics that is illustrative: we're so broadly skeptical of politicians as a class that we're useless at making a distinction between the bad and the good (or if you like, the bad and the really bad) and acting on it to better the country. As I get at here >>21752730, at our best I think that we're genuinely admirable with it when we get the balance right and it's just a case of aversion to bullshit and pomposity.

>>21753652
>>21753709
>Australians are only "anti-authoritian" in directions that are either meaningless or pushed for by the system
I would actually agree with this. I didn't use the term "anti-authoritarian" because it really is a far more vague and ineffectual phenomenon (as has been gotten at above with the talk about politics). It's far more of a cultural force than a political one and ties into the "tall poppy syndrome" that is being mentioned.

>>21754517
We do occasionally, but it's almost exclusively comedy.

>>21751737
>Convict stain is another manifestation of cultural cringe. For several generations following the cessation of penal transportation, many Australians felt a sense of shame about being descended from convicts, and many did not even attempt to investigate their families' origins for fear of finding convicts in their lineage

Hah, never knew this used to be a thing.

But yeah, FUCK BOGANS. I would rather another million Chinese come than one more retard with a rat tail.

>>21755578
>I would rather another million Chinese come than one more retard with a rat tail.
Yeah, I'm thinking he's based.

>>21752608
Tree of man

>>21750285
>>21753341
Where is Banjo Paterson faggot?

>>21755981
Unread, on the ten dollar note.

What about McLeod's daughters? I want to bank Becky from season 1-3.

>>21756302
*bang of course no anglo merchantry implied :^)

>>21750143
mid

Winton is a poorman's competent litfic author. Bottom of the top league, and best Australia has at the moment.

They have no culture, essentially. If you listen to the way the talk, what they consume, how they live, etc. You see its mostly a mix of Americanisms (lifestyle) and Briticisms (dialect, slang, and pretentious self-concept). They also have a political obsession with the US that filters down into ordinary conversation. Lurk any Australian forum and they will bring any domestic political or social discussion around to references to the United States, particularly in the form of blameshifting. Not even Brits are that obsessed with the US.

They just don't measure up to US, UK, or even Canada culturally or economically. Their professionals are low quality. They're whiners too, and are incredibly soft and weak willed. If its not murdering aboriginals, its too hard for them.

They live under the umbrella of protection provided by the west, especially by the US, and don't have to earn their keep, and its basically stripped them of cultural value.

In terms of contemporary writing, what does /lit/ think of Trent Dalton? I had fun reading Boy Swallows Universe. A nice easy read with some nice language peppered through a good story.

>>21756351
Good YA book.

>>21750712
That's not culture. That's just wildlife. Terrain, nature, wildlife, etc. are just there, were there before Australia, and they'll be there when the culture and nation is gone.

That's one of the major mistakes Australian authors make, emphasizing the landscape as though it can substitute for cultural substance. It can't. Its inert. You need more.

>>21756335
Are you from New Zealand or something? Can you greentext us the source of your salt?

>>21749718
>when it's highly educated

You've clearly never met an Australian, or seen the Australian education system.

>>21756419
Case in point.

>>21756515
I’m Canadian, I’m just curious where an Australian touched you. I’m guessing you’re Chinese living in upside-down land

The only author from Australia I know is Colleen McCullough

She wrote The Thorn Birds as well as many historically accurate books about the fall of the Roman Republic which is how I learned of her

>>21756541
Yeah, yeah, yeah, you're Canadian. That ashamed of your heritage?

>>21756565
I’m Canadian. What heritage? Hockey and beer? I hit the nail on the head didn’t I pengyou?

>>21756569
It's so weird the obsession Australians and Canadians have with the Chinese, not even we have that obsession with them and we're their main adversary. Australian, Canada, etc. are our protectorates and stand cowering behind us while we confront the big bwad bwully that scares them.

Anyhow, I ask the questions. Most of your ilk are migrant workers in my country, and I'm sure I've subsidized the lifestyle of members of your family if not also you.

>>21756580
And yet your family chose to immigrate, and you’ll never be accepted back into your native culture. Fascinating. Also, what’s your question?

>>21756602
You have been dealt with. Now your hands fart in place of your flapping mouth.

That is all. Proceed. Claw at relevance.

>>21756630
It’s patently obvious you’re lying. No American would ever be so buttblasted over Australians. The behaviour you described is akin to hero worship on the part of the Aussies for the US, and justifiably so. I pity you

>>21751696
>High school here is reading the Outsiders every year until you hate reading
Kek I'm a first year high school teacher and we're doing The Outsiders this year. I remember doing it in my high school too - didn't know it was so ubiquitous. Can confirm the literacy skills of kids, at least in outer suburbs, is tard level. I've got quite a few year 8s who read and write at a grade 5 or 6 level. Their families never encouraged them to read, and the books on the curriculum are boring contemporary YA fiction for the most part, so I can't blame them for not thinking reading is dumb bullshit. Was talking to a few of my students and they were shocked at the idea that I actually enjoy reading in my spare time, and one thought that I tell them to read because I get paid to say that. Reading among boys in near-non existent bar a few nerdy kids. Reading among girls is quite common though. Not ubiquitous, but not at all out of the ordinary. I think that's part of why so much contemporary fiction coming from Australia is trite contemporary female author mediocirty. So many of these boys are animated with real fire, but put absolutely zero of that energy into any sort of intellectual pursuit because they think it's gay.

>>21753291 is also right though. If you know how to banter and don't act like a faggot no one will ever really bother you for reading. So much of the 'bullying' that happens could be solved if the 'victim' knew how to take a joke or had the balls to hit back.

>>21755981
I can't handle bush poetry. It makes me want to grow a beard, buy a Subaru outback, and bang on about how there is no discernible difference between labour and libsto the 17 year old cashier at aldi

>>21757279
>not a Nissan X Trail with your blue heeler tied up in the back seat
Ngmi mate.

>>21749718
Genetics.

>>21752642
Because even as a lion vaunts over a freshly killed gazelle, so to does the American vaunt over his McDonald's.

We are the heros of Homer reborn and modernized. Look upon us a despair, for you shalt not achieve what we hath wrought. Look upon us and delight, for we are creative fire and shining liberty.

Nay, though our crippled children, Canada, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Angola, etc. fail to shine, we shineth for them.

>>21749718
Greg Egan is the best. He absolves everything

>>21753516
>Australian culture just doesn't get the exposure outside of Australia other than Americanised movie bullshit.
You could literally replace Australia with any other place, and that sentence would still make sense.

>>21749718
They're too busy shitposting to write anything of value.

we have some good ones, you're just racist
dumb yank cunts

>>21756794
God that's depressing, surely there must be bright intellectual kids out there somewhere?

>>21758546
Find a homely nerdy girl and assist her to pop some out and raise them. Help us Obi-anon, you’re our only hope

>>21758623
I have a better idea, i'll donate sperm at every clinic that will have me. Lesbian couples and about to hit the wall roasties will have my babies without ever meeting me. Potentially hundreds of kids all with my /lit/ genetics. Surely one of them will become a great writer and lift this nation out of its cultural mediocrity.

>>21757364
Australian isn't a race, moron. They're hardly even a nation.

And yank means "person from the Northern part of the United States" so it doesn't even make sense to single those particular Americans out.

>>21750238
I read the two collections. First one is better than the second, which is more autobiographical and although heartfelt kind of embarassing. He's alright, as far as /lit/ goes the first collection was as good a read as Nesmer, Weedman or L.A.L., just more down to earth.

>>21758999
I thought the second one was better, different strokes I guess but I agree he's one of the better writers from this place

>>21758938
>yank is a pedantic cunt
what a surprise

>>21749727
Fpbp

>>21758938
Yank is short for yankee, which means American in some countries. Pic rel is from an American dictionary. See def #2.

>>21759040
I thought we’d established that he’s a sad little asiatic you bogans have bullied into larping on the internet and shittalking aussies to make himself feel better. Keep up the good work on that front btw

>>21749718
It's where the bongs sent their prisoners and all the other people who were too retarded/troublemaking to be anywhere else.

India was for the merchants
China was for the wannabe conquistadors
America was for the religious schizos
Australia was for the convicts

>>21759660

>>21750146
I can smell the hashish and dirty flannel off that cover

>>21759723
That’s the spirit. Now stop selling them all your real estate

>>21759493
Words shouldn’t have multiple definitions

>>21759753
Words shouldn’t have fixed meanings

reading is for poofs

>>21759493
The common usage within the United States is all that matters. Dictionaries only matter for machines and nerds.

Its always a pleasure watching the protectorates and smaller nations get so bitter about the United States.

>>21759920
>small longneck cunt

>>21760314
It's called a stubby, foreigner.

>>21760266
>The common usage within the United States is all that matters.
"The common usage" is varied (who outside of the South uses "yank" to refer to the quite vague "northerner"?) Obviously this is anecdotal, but I'd say that I'm fairly immersed in American culture and I've never heard "yank" used in your specified fashion by an American outside of a civil war context. By contrast, "yank" used to refer to Americans in general is omnipresent in the non-American Anglosphere. Even "yankee" used to refer to New Englanders crops up more in my encounters with American culture (through literature, film, etc.) than "yank" meaning "northerner". Disregarding all that, though, why? Why should people across the world only use a word the way that you see fit?

>Dictionaries only matter for machines and nerds.
Do you not see the tension between this and the prescriptivism of your first sentence?

>>21760276
How much of it is getting bitter about the United states due to nationalistic insecurities and how much of it is getting bitter about individual Americans being dismissive and antagonising? I actually like a lot about America but I wouldn't blame someone who regularly encountered conduct like yours from Americans for feeling quite different.

Went to some normalfag bookstore when I was in Australia, 90% of the books in the politics/political biography section were about Americans. Multiple books on Obama. Baffled to this very day.

>>21758546
There are, but in my school they're all Indian lol

>>21760869
our whole corporate stucture is like this as well. Any major corporation I have worked for are Australian contractors sucking American cock and adopting the worst of american culture.

>>21760869
We've been part of their imperial hegemony since the end of WWII. Most living Australians know more about American politics than our own political system.

>>21760810
You are dismissed and antagonized by Americans in proportion to your overstepping your relevance.

You have to earn your voice, and when it comes to intercultural dialogue that means having as much to show with your culture as the other person. Australians and Canadians cannot do this. No chance. No mouse was ever treated like a lion, and demanding it won't make it so.

>>21760886
That's because our population is less than 0.5% of the world. I'm sure Canada is similar. I don't care what Americans think of us, but they can't expect to come to our country and be treated like we enjoy them at all. We're convict stock after all, so we will treat you like shit.

>>21749718
say that again. i dare you.

>>21757303
If and only if the blue heeler only gets to do laps around a 1/4 acre leftover patch of cooch grass, crashing into the crooked colourbond fences in a vain attempt to kill itself.

And a recycle bin full of hardly read copies of the herald sun

low population is literally the reason.

Chopper is a fantastic Australian book btw.

Haven't read much else from down under but I'm sure they have some good stuff

>>21760886
>You are dismissed and antagonized by Americans in proportion to your overstepping your relevance.
If I'm not mistaken, this initial chain of posts was prompted by an objection to an anon's claim that "we have some good ones" and a supposed misuse of a word. Noone here has claimed that Australia is some kind of first-rate cultural force. As has been made quite clear throughout this thread, we Australians are the first to note our flaws and relative insignificance. Where are we overstepping our relevance here? This thread is specifically devoted to Australian literature after all, so talking about ourselves is hardly gratuitous. How much experience do you have with this overstepping elsewhere?

>You have to earn your voice, and when it comes to intercultural dialogue that means having as much to show with your culture as the other person. No mouse was ever treated like a lion, and demanding it won't make it so.
I'm going to go out on a limb and propose that you might be the one with the problem if this is actually your attitude because it is just insufferable bombast. Maybe what you're picking up on isn't an overstepping of relevance, but a resistance to being browbeaten by some tactless, cocksure, self-appointed representative of culture. It's surely the case that one has to earn esteem, but the idea of having to earn one's voice seems to me contrary to the very spirit of dialogue. It seems to me that intercultural dialogue is going to have a hard time even taking place with your presuppositions let alone doing so fruitfully. An obsession with "having as much to show" seems to me to be just an invitation for pissing contests that would ensure that noone ever listens to anyone else when there's a shadow of a doubt about how the cultures measure up and a simple lecturing of one culture's representatives by another's otherwise. Cultures may be imagined as lions and mice according to their supposed significance, but cultures only interact by means of their human representatives who ideally aren't mere posturing beasts (the quality of which is not necessarily reflective of that of their culture) and in this interpersonal interaction, humility, charity and the desire to learn are paramount.

It is incredibly easy to get published in Australia and if you're studying literature and have done the bare minimum to become literate you can bang every zoomer girl that has decided to adopt the dark academia aesthetic.

>>21749718

Picnic at Hanging Rock
Greg Egan
Patrick White

Eh..That's all I know of Australian literature

>>21755981
Fuck Banjo. Mawkish boring cunt.
That is the worst part of australian poetry.
It is either about colonialism and idpol bullshit or some fuckhead talking about budgies and kookaburra shits cascading on wanking wattles.
Fuck all of that bucolic meandering written by inner-city tossers. I am so sick of it.

>>21760894
They can expect anything they like, they're Americans. The 7th fleet is the only thing between China and Australia.

>>21761050
This is an example of needing to earn your voice. I'm not going to read all that unless you can prove you're American.

>>21761050
The argument with the American was initiated by someone getting butthurt over his answering the thread's question in an impolite way, which dragged the conversation off topic.

>>21749718
Too hot. The real answer though is that the paedophile jew neo-liberal cultural marxists (all real true facts) took over the country in the seventies and tried their hardest to erase our past, destroy our relatively nascent culture, society and blood. Who’s ever heard of William Baylebridge these days? No-one even knows our supposedly great writers like Patrick White. Fucking traitorous nanny state shitskin-lovers. Hope the chinks nuke us all.

>>21763419
China owns America and Australia, anyway.

>>21763423
I didn't read this or the post that you're responding to because I don't know whether you're American or not, but I thought that it was important to weigh in with my contribution, which is nothing, in this thread about a national literature that I've already dismissed.

>>21762307
I always get rejected by Meanjin, Island, Overland, Crodite, and that crowd of flaming wokescolds, but I have publications overseas. What gives?

>>21760886
American cultural process
1. Pick any one of the myriad implicit definitions of faggot
2. Do everything to become that

>>21763737
have you tried writing 'reminder: colonialism = bad' on a piece of paper? you'd be a shoo-in

>>21763948
I'm a bumba bumba yorta yorta gumba jumba wumba woman mate. Only 1/8 though, and actually mostly Lebanese and Scottish. Anyway, here's my poem:

White man came
MADE ME CRY
The dawn fell over the rimed sea
And I threw a spear with my woomera
Bumba
And then the little bird ran and flew and glided
Bumba
I'm a woman
I'm a black woman
Your ships came
Bumba
And made me scream ya white dooooggggggg
Bumba

>>21763465
Baylebridge was a terrible writer though.

>>21749718
too many anglo descendents

>>21763737
I reckon the vast majority of Australian literary rags are low key financially unviable and survive off a combination of ideological subscribers and patrons, arts grants, unpaid work, and attempts to turn would-be writers into subscribers. I assume a state of affairs like this causes the rags to double and triple down on the ideological boxes they must tick to meet the expectations of this crowd. As a result the literary value of your writing is not important... you need to be the right type of person, or reciting the party line, or just be mates with the magazine staff. They are playing a strange game incompatible with your pursuit of excellence or success.

>>21756794
I'm not obligated to engage in chimp culture I said as much in highschool and got into a fight. Fortunately for me I'm actually pretty big so I just violated the dude and that was the end of it.

Not a real country.

>>21756335
Australians have way better purchasing power than Canadians what are you on about

>>21763991
This would unironically win an award and be praised by all the Melbourne faggots

>>21765938
But it is.

I’m not a /lit/ guy, but I saw this and decided to post it here.

https://youtu.be/sRF6Lxj7TWM

They lost a war to birds lmao nobody takes them seriously.

Any good Aboriginal writers?

>>21767504
How do children interpret this?

Australian here. It's because it's a hot country, that's just it. The best writers come from cold places. Warmth makes you lazy and complacent. Melbourne has the best writing scene in Australia by far, and is of course a cold city.
Also>>21751696 no Australia is not an easy place to get laid you fucking mong, it's easily in the top 10 hardest countries to get laid in, only surpassed by Germany, Sweden and the like. If you aren't literally chad your only chance is >>ugly<< ethnics

>>21767504
God, why can't we just abolish the ABC?

>>21767762
Im from aus and have women hit on me, the women here are easy and im an average looking man.

>>21749718
They minimise all culture that isn't basic bitch white. You need variety for spice.

Even for a place where all the animals want to kill you there isn't even a strong horror scene.

>>21767762
Uh, Australians are fucken root rats. What's your problem? You don't bother trying for emotional compatibility unless you've tested their 5.25" floppy dick drive.

>>21769146
>Even for a place where all the animals want to kill you there isn't even a strong horror scene.

I think you don't understand Australian horror. Go watch Lantana.

>>21769153
And for that matter Wake in Fright; Chopper; Stone; Blue Murder; Sunday too far Away; Mad Max; Mad Max 2; Picnic at Hanging Rock

Horror in Australia isn't about suffering…that's going to happen anyway. Horror in Australia is about unpreparedness.

>highly educated
The far left totally took over our state education system, listening to lies for more years than our European counterparts is not education.

National literacy and numeracy fall every year, it's common to encounter people born in Australia who simply don't speak English at all, and its very common to meet liberal faggots who have spent 18 cumulative years in the state education system and believe they know everything.

>>21769645
>why yes, I did flunk of first year uni, but only because I was to smart too study. How did you know?

>>21767600
https://archive.org/details/kadaitchasung00wats/page/n7/mode/1up
This was pretty unusual but I do hate the writer's cringy SAlt politics.

>>21770388
Why is our fault that we don't want to learn about queer, postcolonial studies in fucking Dickens? It never changed my mind, really, since I'm more convinced that literature shouldn't have let women in after dropping out of a PhD.

>>21770455
Do STEM and read as a hobby. What, you’re not good at math? I don’t know what to tell you friend, Greeks with string and sticks were able to figure that shit out. You have string and sticks in Australia, sort it out m8

>>21770473
>Do STEM
Why? It's boring as shit and too competitive. Only literal bugmen and calculators get any good at it. I've already worked in fields where engineering and math are needed, but I legit never had to use it. The economy doesn't need specialised autists as a whole; they only make up a small proportion of technocratic jobs.

>>21749718
Currently re-reading ‘Picnic at Hanging Rock’

>>21770864
Well carry on bitching and moaning then I guess. It’s what you fags are best at

>>21771073
This is 4chan. I'm not sure what else you expected. I set myself up for failure so I can blaspheme against the stars and curse Creation for having birthed this abortion of a tainted soul.

>>21771279
New Bruce, are you a poofter? Because I'm about to fuck your bum bum.