/lit/ - Literature

>>21927918
it's because of the wendigoon video, but /lit/ has always been shit

>>21927918
I declare that the holocaust never happened but it will someday. Furthermore, I declare that the following writers are shit: Evola, Guenon, Spengler, and Cormack McCarthy.

>>21927918
Newfag retards don't know that multiple Blood meridian threads have been a /lit/ staple for years.

Ovid sucks btw. Kafka wrote the metamorphs.

lmao

>>21927927
Not this many at the same time with this many replies. Blood Meridian was always popular here because of Harold Bloom but that’s different

>>21927942
In 2019, 6 blood meridian threads in the catalog was the norm. Some occasionally reached 150 replies. How many are there right now? I bet less than 6.

>>21927930
Wrong thread.

>the greatest American novel
Vs.
>quirky sperg poem from the Roman Riddler

>>21927942
>>21927963
Okay, I went through the catalog. There are exactly 6 BM threads with only one in triple digit replies. We have just momentary gone back to 2018-2020 levels that's all.

Secondly, despite what all the discordfags and contrarians might say, Blood meridian is officially a great work in the ranks of the western canon. There are far worse books to obsess over.

>>21927998
>Blood meridian is officially a great work in the ranks of the western canon

>>21928016
Contrarianism won't change facts. We should not be even discussing this with someone well read and aware of the literary scene.

>>21927998
A work needs to exist at least a hundred years before it can reasonably be considered as “canon” in any literary sense

>>21928024
>needs to be a hundred years old
Made up criteria. A work only needs to convince people, readers, critics etc. of its worth. The timeline doesn't matter. Besides, there are safe bets given the direction of the winds.

Even though I don’t like Cormac McCarthy, I can admit that it’s easily the most interesting book written in the last 50 years, maybe 100.

I THINK BLOOD MERIDAN IS A VERRY GOOD BOOK. IT HAS LOTS OF ACTION AND BLOOD AND TJE JUDGE IS SCARY. ALSO THE FORESHADOWING IS GREAT.

>We're hating on a book we previously liked because someone else also read it and liked it
This is where we're at huh? No thanks. It's fine.

>>21928057
Why?

This board has turned into a place for alt righters to practice using a thesaurus

>>21928052
Being of worth doesn’t make it a canon lol

>>21928149
Your categories are as artificial with arbitrary deadlines.

>It definitely isn’t the “patrician” meming /lit/ of old
we just don't come here anymore lol. have you seen the catalogue. this is my monthly stop

Yes absolutely. 4chan is downstream from the mainstream internet culture. You share this space with reddit, youtube, and twitter crossposters - literal children and 'raised by the internet' adult zoomers.

>>21928155
It’s arbitrary but less ludicrous then just saying a book which is a few decades old is a standard with which to literature in a language as old as English. I suppose canonizations within a century is possible if the work is incredibly groundbreaking like Ulysses but a work being a masterpiece of itself I don’t think is enough to say it is part of an English canon until it has endured long enough to be used as a rule and example for other literature to be compared to

>>21928183
The canon is much wider than you are making it out to be. There are multiple works that are neither widely read or widely used as standards of influence on literature to come that are part of the canon because of their aesthetic and tertiary influence. Your canonical list would hardly include 100 books between 18th and 19th century, which is surely a standard that you could use but given how much literature depends upon literature that has come before it, you are sure to run into multiple cases of inflated reputations. (Last of the mohicans is an example)

These discussions should hinge on qualities of the work that makes it a safe bet and its contemporary acclaim.

>>21927918
Found the Redditor

>>21928210
How does a work being “really good” qualify it to be called canon by definition of the word “canon”?

>>21928234
When multiple big name critics and universities and publications and readers start regarding it as such.

>>21928241
No, canon is not an official academic or literary designation

>>21928246
If canon was decided by how many readers read the book or how many writers copied it, then Moby Dick would never have become canon. The book was re-discovered by critics in the 20s and became a canonical text by the 50s. Its actual canonization process in America is only 3 decades long. That's enough time for a good book to garner that opinion once in attention.

The catch ofc is that not all "really good" books are able to do that. Infact, most are unable to do that. The uncertainty in its overall reception is what keeps great books separated from canonical ones.

>>21928264
Moby-Dick was already influencing major literature by the 1950’s, including Ralph Ellison and William Faulkner.

>>21928384
After its canonization.

>>21928384
>>21928398
And it was hardly a major influence on either writer.

>>21928398
No, after its widespread acclaim and recognition, and writers being so influenced and using it as a reference is what made it de fact canon. You obviously don’t know the definition of the word “canon”. Homer is not “canon” because you or I or anyone else calls him that—I seriously doubt anyone has before the 20th Century. Homer is canon because he descriptively is. It’s not an award

>>21928403
Faulker would regularly read it during his creative process to stir his literary inclinations and Ellison was moved by it deeply as a standard in terms that good literature must sound oratorically good, and as a result he would record himself reading his drafts and listen to that recording in order to determine if his prose was weak and needed revision. So it was definitely and functionally a canon for both writers

>>21927918
Blood meridian,Moby dick,dostoevsky, Nietzsche, the bible and benetar make up over 50% of threads at any given time. ITS over

>>21927918
ovid threads have never had much luck getting off the ground here, not that i've seen anyway

>>21928410
Enjoy your 15 books in the "canon" then.
>>21928416
Writers read a lot of books you will never hear of. That doesn't make it influential. Its influence is very marginal in their actual work. In fact, besides Blood meridian I don't think Moby Dick is direct influence on any major, recognised work.

>>21928024
>>21928052
You're both retarded but the anon saying "book needs to be old to be canon" is slightly more retarded

>>21927918
>nooo you can't talk about the greatest work of western literature on the literature board nooo nooo noooo you can't do that!

>Hey fellow patricians, have you ever noticed how groups of young men tend to gravitate toward the same handful of stories? They're all about troubled men wading through hard times, questioning the nature of their existence, and wrestling with the great mysteries or whatever. When you really think about it, isn't this place exactly like Reddit?

>>21928824
>groups of young men tend to gravitate toward the same handful of stories
NPC behavior. The opposite of genuine interest in literature.

>>21928863
>genuine interest in literature
Meaning what, exactly? If you don't have any particular preferences or interests that color your choices in /lit/, then you're reading for its own sake. You're hooked on consumption the same as any retard on their phone scanning TikTok for hours. You might as well be jacking off if you're just shoveling words down your throat, guided by a vague sense of whatever is available or approved of. If you do have preferences and interests and you're congregating with like-minded people, then odds are there will be a lot of overlap in tastes. That's probably why you're here.

its been fucking shit since 2015 newfag

>>21928907
>If you don't have any particular preferences or interests that color your choices in /lit/
You just described le sad 20-something "books for this feel" doomerbois who "gravitate toward the same handful of stories" and shit up this board with their boring takes and questions that have already been answered thousands of times. They read (or pretend to read) the same shit because it's canon-approved or on some /lit/ chart about affirming their ideology of the week. Thinking that your specific taste in literature just happens to line up perfectly with the great books of the Western canon is laughable.

>>21928949
>They read (or pretend to read) the same shit because it's canon-approved or on some /lit/ chart about affirming their ideology of the week
Some, for sure. Still an assumption.
>questions that have already been answered thousands of times
Get used to that. /lit/ is not a single person talking about the same thing every day, it's thousands of people reading books and asking questions on completely different timelines. You have autism.

>>21927918
>It definitely isn’t the “patrician” meming /lit/ of old
you can say that brother, but they will go if the real niggas stay

>>21927926
>Evola
Some stuff cool but too much larp
>Guenon
Entirely larp, not enough cool to make up for it
>Spengler
Literally got everything right, certainly a much better read than Fukuyama
>Corncob Mehearties
Writes a good book. Shame one of them became accessible to illiterate zoomers too attention deficited to read for themselves.

>>21928052
Time is what separates fads from canon. At least two decades before you can canonise sonething.

>>21927918
We need five maybe seven threads of Blood Meridian at any one time. Now look at the name field.

>>21927982
Moby dick mogs it youre delusional if you think otherwise

>>21928108
Why do politics have to invade fucking everything, dude I don't give a fuck about right wing incels or left wing snowflakes or trannies or niggers, id much rather all politicians be put against a wall and we never talk about le right wing ever again this is a FUCKING LITERATURE BOARD

>>21930617
Npc retard

>>21928164
Thank you Captain Obvious

>>21927918

Why are there so many McCarthy threads all of a sudden? Blood Meridian has been discussed here on an off for ten years or so. I thought that everyone who wants to read it had already read it by this point. Same with Infinite Jest.

>>21927918
Blood Meridian is far more advanced than literally any piece of classical literature.