/lit/ - Literature

Curiosity: how old are you and how long have you been reading regularly?

>>3332954
21, most of my life

I don't think I've ever taken any recommendations from /lit/ before actually. I mean, I heard about books from /lit/, but I read them for different reasons.

>>3332968

What about the book led you to believe you were being 'trolled'?

>>3332954
Curiosity: how trolled are you and how long have been coming to /lit/ regularly?

>>3332973
Not OP, but I'm gonna guess the poop scene.

>>3332973
Everything, it's a shit book.

got me good

I see why it might appeal to some people on 4chan, but it's worlds away from deserving all the attention and praise it gets on this board.

>>3332981
No way in hell did he make it to the poop scene.

>>3332984

Do you have any more specific criticism, or were you just not a fan of the style? Of the characters? Did you find it thematically vacant?

The Great Gatsby
One Hundred Years of Solitude

aka boring books people read to appear sophisticated

Shoplifting from American Apparel.

Thanks /lit/. I'm sincerely grateful.

>>3332990
Some people have actually read Gravity's Rainbow and found that they didn't like it.

>>3332981

I thought the sex scenes were often unnecessary, but fun nonetheless.

They did set the scene to perversity though.

>>3332995
>people can't like things i don't like
>they must be pretending
>everyone is secretly me

dilettante thinking at its finest

I should have just trusted my instinct

>>3332998
You wouldn't be being trolled though as the quality of the text would still be apparent

is confederacy-of-dunces really bad???????

>>3332995

You really thought One Hundred Years of Solitude was boring? I say it's a shame /lit/ never talks about it. Seriously one of my favorite books ever. I'm even dedicating myself to learn Spanish just to read the original.

>It was the last of a past whose annihilation had not taken place because it was still in a process of annihilation, consuming itself from within, ending at every moment but never ending its ending.

Sentence related. One of my favorite sentences in any book ever.

You guys would troll me if it turns out that Catch-22 is bad, but till now I have nothing to complain about.

>>3332992
The writing style was extremely annoying and most the characters' potential was wasted.

>>3333006
But Gravity's Rainbow is a shit book.

>>3332945
double that emotion. before /lit/ i've never heard of Pynchon. Pretty good author though...

>>3332986
why tho

I love this thread already.

>>3333017
Unless you can substantiate that statement with actual criticism, it was probably 2deep4u

It's one thing saying you don't like it, but calling it a shit book it another.

Unless you're making reference to the aforementioned pooping scene.

>>3333016

I don't understand. What about it did you find annoying? What in his style was lacking quality? How were the potential of his characters wasted?

It's not like the aim of the book was to be straightforward and direct. It's an experiment in form and language. There's nothing quite like it in the English canon

>>3333016

I liked the writing style when he was lucid. When he was describing a hallucination I usually skipped words.

/lit/ reads books that are not enjoyable. /lit/ reads book that are only good because of the words and the way the language is constructed. No one actually enjoys these books. Scholars might get some enjoyment but only because they want to create an illusion of superiority and importance.

/lit/ forces themselves to read books they secretly dislike because they think they are eating cultural vegetables.

>>3333029

I don't think the characters' potentials were wasted. That section about Pokler working on the V-2 was magnificent. The wandering into Dora especially.

>>3333035
Just because you're incapable of getting enjoyment out of a book for it's aesthetic merits doesn't mean everyone else it.

>>3332995

You yourself are trolling.

>>3333029
>It's an experiment in form and language.

A failed experiment. You've obviously already decided that anyone that doesn't like it is wrong though.

>>3333035

How can you pretend to know what I find enjoyable?

This book was a pretty big hit for Pynchon, and not just in scholarly circles. Get off that pedestal.

>>3332989
>acting like a nobel winner is solely rated because of lit

>>3333035

But the language is enjoyable. His description of the paint factory that Franz worked at, for example, was beautiful and enjoyable. His associations are like puzzles - the benzene ring and the ouroboros and the circular orgy on the Anubis; the allusion to Lewis Carroll's paedophilia and white rabbit connecting to the descent towards Peenemunde; the Japanese boatman as Charos.

The book is a neato puzzle bro.

>>3333048

How is the experiment failed?

I'm not trying to push an opinion, I'm trying to hear some criticism that isn't entirely vacant.

>>3333035
>No one actually enjoys these books
GR and pynchon in general sell incredibly well

>>3333058

Yeah. People buy books to appear sophisticated.

>>3333052

Your post might make sense if Steppenwolf was the only thing Hesse ever wrote. It's not.

>>3333061

Prove it.

>>3333061
no they don't

>>3333035
>/lit/ forces themselves to read books they secretly dislike because they think they are eating cultural vegetables.

Do you honestly believe this? That everyone is just pretending to enjoy well-crafted prose? That we're all faking it?

Come on.

>>3333061
you do

>>3333065
>>3333066
>being this naive

>>3333066
They clearly do. Not all people do, but a lot of people do.

>>3333035
enjoy your Orc stories

>>3333061

I bought the book because it was about London and V-2 rockets. I opened it and couldn't read it. I tried two years later and fell in love with it.

>>3333065
>>3333066
Not him, but I could imagine a big number of people get books to actually appear intellectual. Seriously, there are people who get a shitload of classics cause they look nice in a bookshelf.

And I can imagine that people will get GR to put in the bookshelf or to impress others with it. They might not read it, give up after 100 pages or simply read a summary online.

Not saying everyone does it of course, but I think there are enough people who do it.

>>3332998
I'm one of them, I just doubt he made it that far. I didn't really dislike it but I find it hard to see it as a very good or near perfect piece of art. It has many pages of very good writing but overall I think the amazing scenes are easily outweighed by un-profound, boring passages.

In other words it's not a straight through amazing piece of work, it's up and down everywhere, so I love parts of it and feel no passion for hundreds of other pages.

>>3333062
It was heavily cited when he got the award
>This personal crisis found its magnificent expression in the fantastical novel Der Steppenwolf (1927) [Steppenwolf], an inspired account of the split in human nature, the tension between desire and reason in an individual who is outside the social and moral notions of everyday life. In this bizarre fable of a man without a home, hunted like a wolf, plagued by neuroses, Hesse created an incomparable and explosive book, dangerous and fateful perhaps, but at the same time liberating by its mixture of sardonic humour and poetry in the treatment of the theme. Despite the prominence of modern problems Hesse even here preserves a continuity with the best German traditions; the writer whom this extremely suggestive story recalls most is E. T. A. Hoffmann, the master of the Elixiere des Teufels.

>>3333067

see

>>3333003

What are your five favorite books, OP?

>>3333035
>cultural vegetables.
Nice.

>>3333013
Not the same guy but One Hundred Years is easily one of the most boring books I have ever read, that's not including the hundreds of books I've not bothered to finish. I was on a "magical realism" kick at the time and found much better books, for instance The Famished Road.

I thought it was the translation, until I heard Marquez likes the English translation better.

>>3333035
>mfw pretending aesthetic enjoyment doesn't exist gets you 7 replies in ten minutes

10/10 apparently

>>3333107

On a slow board too.

>>3333107
its because its true and /lit/ is one of the most insecure boards

>>3333035
I love posts like this, the truth always gets a good reaction.

>>3333104
nigga wut ? I don't say it's the best magical realism book since Pedro Paramo is in my heart forever and ever... but to say that 100 years is a boring book - something got to be wrong with you. This book is so Ulysses since it's all in the same time a memoir, a parable, a fairy tale - it starts with the Creation and it ends with the Apocalypse and in the middle - the development of the human society reflected through the exotic of the South America. Give book a chance, nigga pls.

>>3333111
trolling /lit/ is really remarkably easy

>>3333115
lol

>>3333104

The House of the Spirits is better than One Hundred Years

>>3333125
Yep, if I think the opposite of you, I must have something wrong with me, very egotistical of you.

You never thought we have different interests and tastes, that my reading history may contain better books/more exciting books?

I gave the book a chance, it didn't deliver. I kind of liked the start with the dad making loads of crazy shit in his laboratory.

>>3333143
Maybe he hasn't read it. Realize when people say "This is the best book ever" or " this is the best magical realism book" they mean from what they have read and if they don't mean that they're idiots.

>>3333144

we are cool man. go back to ayn rand now.

>>3333143
you are comparing Isabel Allende to Gabo. Are you serious ? Oh, I get it - you must be a woman.

>>3333011
No. It's absurd and the main character is a frustrated asshole with delusions of grandeur, but the book is hilarious and entertaining as hell.

>>3333039

>>3333136
Ah the good old "I was trolling all along" back down

>>3333165
Never read her books brother, never plan on doing it either. I'll stick to my exciting lit.

I was never trolled into reading a book because I usually read stuff I want to read not stuff that /lit/ wants me to read.

The problem with /lit/ is that everyone reads things that are posted constantly on /lit/ like they were the only books to be published instead of venturing out to different authors.

I can understand this problem though, many people don't like researching novels that is the reason why everyone asks "what book should I read next" or I liek X, Y and Z what recommend me something" It is part of what /lit/ is. And people like you OP and the people posting in this thread are most likely one of those people.

>>3333090

>Implying the Swedish Academy knows what the fuck they're talking about.

>>3333172
You are doing it wrong. Read the book for what it is, a piece of expression by a human being.

This author is famous, it must be good, this author is female, it must be less good. You're limiting yourself and coming off as an immature kid.

It doesn't matter if there is a writer that has won a billion awards and another that has won none, the author that has won none can still have a better book(subjectively).

>>3333209
>implying you know what the fuck you are talking about

>>3333210
now you are crying like a bitch and you are proving me right. I've read Allende and despite the fact she's pretty decent author I don't find House of Spirits comparable to 100 years. And I really don't give a shit about awards and etc. it's like that.

>>3333205

/lit/ purposely reads a certain set of books so we can discuss them as a group.. or at least that was the original idea.

If you read a random literary book released in 2012, the chances that someone else on /lit/ has read it are very low.

fucking Against the Day.

I'm already 950 pages in so I'll force myself to finish it, but I should've stopped a long time ago.

>>3333256
I doubt that is the reason why the same authors and books are cycled through. It is just a 4chan thing which can be easily solved with real conversations about literature ,but that will never happen.

People like Dennis Cooper, John Hawkes and Beckett's novels have rarely been spoken about.

>>3333298
*novels have rarely been spoken about and all of them were writing before the 21st century

>>3333298
>implying we haven't had a waiting for godot and text for nothings thread in the past two weeks

where did all these trolls come from

>>3333237
I was a different person man. I haven't read Allende.

>>3333292
Damn I was going to read it soon.

Two questions.
1. Have you read V.? and did you like it?
2. Why don't you like Against the Day?

>>3333302
Read my post I said novels.

>>3333325
I've seen Molloy discussed in the past fortnight

>>3333325
I've seen the opening line of Murphy on here a few times

"The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new."

Serious lols at the plebs who think 100 years of solitude is bad.

U guys checked out the newest game of thrones

>>3333363
That isn't a discussion. I seen it mentioned as well but that is it. Most of /lit/ just reference books not discuss them.

>>3333334
Really? I guess I wasn't on during that time.

>>3333313
No I haven't read V and maybe its just me but I hate the pages and pages of digressions on shit that I will never understand like all the pointless math quandaries and obscure European history.

Also, Pynchon seems to focus mostly on the more annoying characters that can't make up their minds on anything. And it seems much longer then it needed to be.

>>3333448
Good luck with Mason and Dixon and Gravity's Rainbow.

>>3333448
Yeah you kind of fucked yourself over by going straight into Against the Day. I never read that one myself but I am reading his work by publishing order and I hear that is the most recommended method to truly get the feeling of his writing.

>>3333472
Minus Inherent Vice, which could be read first but V. is a very good start.

>>3332945
Never could finish 'GR' -- the concept was good, but it was pretty obvious that the book never saw an editor.
It had a distinct "fuck it, let's publish the rough draft" vibe.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but this particular sausage is not something I want to see made; I want precision-tooled, clean writing.

(Looking forward to reading 'M&D', it seems a much cleaner and careful work.)

>>3333783
I can't stand experimental writing. Even if it's technically brilliant like I suppose Ulysses is.

It's just a pain in the ass to read that's all.

>>3333952
why did you dig up this shitty thread to tell us your wildly unoriginal opinion.

>>3333960
looks like you already answered yourself

>>3333970
to have someone ask you why you dug up a shitty thread to tell us your wildly unoriginal opinion?

>>3332953
>>3332945
These two have been on my ereader unread forever.

Forget how they got there. Probably /g/. Should I really avoid?

>>3334807

No. Yes. Maybe. Who gives a fuck?

Stop taking advice from the internet, please.

/lit/ trolled me into starting Shoplifting From AA. I got maybe 1/4 of the way through before giving up. My jaw just about his the floor the first page: it was so obviously shit I thought the novelty of it might carry it through. But when it became apparent it was one long pointless post-hipster post-ironic cliche I gave up (see: also, The Comedy)

>>3333980
to torture yourself

>>3334815

Don't lie. You were told it was shit and picked it up anyway.

>>3334815

The Comedy is hilarious and beautiful, though. Tao Lin doesn't manage to pull off either.

>>3334812
>Stop taking advice from the internet, please.
It's one of the best places to get advice.

>>3334815
2deep4u

>>3334962

I seriously hope you don't think this.

Asking /lit/ what you should read is like asking Richard Simmons what to wear.

>>3334977
For a lot of people, /lit/ is one of the best places to ask for advice as for what to read. Other options would be family, friends and teachers who are more well read than /lit/. A lot of people don't have those. And often family, friends and teachers have worse taste than /lit/.

I would listen to the advice of /lit/ over that of an English professor any time. Angry young men deliberately seeking out a place to quarrel over books feel much more strongly on the subject than some comfortably entrenched tweedy motherfucker.

About 100 pages in I finally caught on.

>>3334986

Loud shouting doesn't make for quality opinion.

At best you'll get the average handful of classics, a few contemporary choices, the modernist go-tos and some fucker telling you to just read DFW or Tao Lin.

This board's favorite books are The Stranger, 1984, Crime and Punishment, Infinite Jest, Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow and similar. You're talking to a group of college students with the occasional magic sword lover thrown in.

>>3333783

You, sir, are a pleb.

If you haven't completed GR, you aren't in a position to comment on the seeming lack of an editor.

In other words, shut the fuck up.

>>3334995

100 pages more and your mind would've been changed again in a major way.

>>3335004

Oh, I see what you did there.

>>3335008

I'm not sure that you did.

>>3335001
I've encountered more useful namedropping on /lit/ than I ever did in University.

>>3335028

I pity you in a major way.

>>3335001
I don't give my advices because /lit/ doesn't seem to give a shit about authors that doesn't fit their narrative.

>>3335039

That's a part of what I'm trying to say.

>>3335035
Don't. In formal education you usually get presented with the more commonsensical options, none of which I wasn't familiar with before. On /lit/ you at least have an element of randomness that sometimes makes something interesting pop out.

That said, the internet at large has by far been the most useful source in discovering new authors.

>>3335050

>the internet at large

You're posting in the greatest spot on the internet, everything I've said notwithstanding

>>3335064
I think I agree. Still, following link trails across Wikipedia has let me to some great stuff as well.

>>3335068

References don't count.

>>3335073
B-but they work.

>>3332989
It's not a book for everyone but don't pretend you have some kind of objective rubric. Cite some specific passages of the book you dislike and explain in detail why it succeeds/fails.

You know what, you people really do hate literature don't you? The last thing any of you would want is to actually have to substantiate your broad assertions and lame posturing.

>>3335050
It is.

I gotta say, the implicit appeal to intellectual authority in these threads is hilarious. People who pursue literature as a hobby are under no obligation to accept arguments from authority anymore than academics. This horse shit the easiest way to telegraph that you have no fucking clue what you're talking about (and if you're "qualified" to, I pity whoever is in your program with you), any desire for a good-faith discussion of literature or any respect for the field at all.

>>3335126
*and that you lack any desire

I can tell you that I have been trolled into reading The Awakening

>>3335126

>baww they said I was a pleb for reading asoiaf

>>3335003
>If you haven't completed GR, you aren't in a position to comment on the seeming lack of an editor.

Um, reality check: actually, lack of editing is something that is _immediately_ obvious, even after reading an excerpt. (Unlike the other aspects of writing.)

That said, 'M&D' seems infinitely better written, at least on a cursory skimming. The long break Pynchon took after 'GR' seemed to have served him well.

Also, you're a fucking immature idiot. Have you failed sophomore year yet?

>>3335240
>M&D
>a cursory skimming

So far, Stoner only.
It's pretty good though.

And I'm really tempted to read some Tao Lin, because I don't even know if all of the shitposting is ironic or not.

>>3335267
A cursory skimming to check out the editing quality only, obviously.

You know what, fucktard, it suspiciously looks like you have no idea what 'editing' is or what an editor's job entails.

Let's finish up this discussion until you grow up a bit and can contribute something worthwhile.

>>3335303
Editors ruin books. It's their job. That's why GR is so fucking good.

>>3335309
Somewhat agreed. Mostly, the editor's job is to add just enough High Fructose Corn Syrup to a text to make retards like this guy >>3335303 fall into a diabetic coma of pure bliss.

>>3335309
>Editors ruin books. It's their job.
I disagree. Editors are awesome. (Some authors can self-edit, but that's a very rare quality.)

>>3335318
>Mostly, the editor's job is to add just enough High Fructose Corn Syrup to a text
Untrue. Editors mostly remove stuff, they don't add.

>>3335326
Show me more than a handful of books which were improved by an editor.

If your editor does anything but spellcheck your shit you have a bad one.

>>3335326
Removing things is a way of sweetening the text, Anon.

Use that big, beautiful brain sometimes.

>>3335329
>Show me more than a handful of books which were improved by an editor.
Yeah -- Joyce's 'Ulysses', for example.

>If your editor does anything but spellcheck your shit you have a bad one.
That's not how the publishing industry works. If you want unedited fiction, then fanfiction.net is your last resort.

>>3335345
One book is not even a handful.

You must now concede that you were wrong.

Thank you for this argument, it felt very good to win it!

>>3335117

Don't think he claimed to have an objective rubric. This thread is about books people have read because they are commonly discussed on /lit/ and found disappointing. It's not the forum for an in-depth discussion about a particular book mentioned here. If you want something like that, start a new thread where you ask about people's opinions on a particular book and request textual support. Also, try not responding to a post with indignation fourteen hours later.

>>3335364
he responded with indignation two hours later

>>3332995
>Books should be more like the films of my idol, Michael Bay

>>3335352
>One book is not even a handful.
>You must now concede that you were wrong.
>Thank you for this argument, it felt very good to win it!
You don't know how the publishing industry works. Practically every great big canonical classic novel was heavily edited.
('GR', too, I'd bet; it was a shit editing job nonetheless.)

>>3335367

2 hours is probably too long, even if the board is slow. 14 hours is sort of absurd.

>>3332953
But, but I like Ignatius...

Perdido Street Station
Fuck you guys

>>3335427
What is wrong with it?? It is on my reading list.

>>3335434
Mieville gets a very marmite reception on lit, I take it that anon went into the hate camp

>>3335440
>marmite
Is this commonly used as a stand-in for love-it-or-hate-it? I've never heard the expression before.

Most people like The City and The City, but Perdido gets substantially more mixed reviews.

>>3335452
It's used in England.

>>3335452
>Is this commonly used as a stand-in for love-it-or-hate-it? I've never heard the expression before.
It's probably just an English thing, I'm not even sure if you can get marmite in America

Genuinly a piece of shit.

>>3335434
Most people would complain about how China is a commie and yatta yatta yatta, but the reason i disliked it was mostly because of the ending.
Not only do we get no conclusion for some of the side stories, the ending for the main one felt like, well, an asspull.
Not only do we have Deus ex machinas, but it feels like China suddenly remembered he HAD to have a bad ending, after he wrote the ending

What is the better running /lit/ joke: Finnegans Wake or Infinite Jest?

Honorable mention: Great Gatsby

>>3335558
Borges

>>3335577
You think this is a motherfucking game?

>>3335452
Yes, Marmite is synonymous with a love hate dichotomy, and it a common expression in the UK. I guess Americans probably have a similar food counter part with twinkies or whatever you guys eat.

>>3335587
The American equivalent of Marmite is democracy

>>3335558
>"I'm a plebbity pleb pleb. hurrrr durrrrr it's just some rich faggot who throws parties. hurrrr durrrrrr it's just some boring book by a faggot walrus who wore a bandana. hurrrrr durrrrr I can't read it so it must be bad"

>>3332945
I read that. Now I don't know what to read. Any suggestions /lit/?

>>3335558

I don't think Gatsby and Jest are jokes, many people on /lit/ enjoy those books. Not many people on this board have actually read more than a few pages of the Wake.

>>3335595
The Name of the ROse

>>3335592
aaaah, American democracy. The one party system under the guise of two.

>>3335587
Marshmellite and Jelly subs

>>3335487
Good to know, I am halfway through and have some big dislikes already but was wondering if it would end well. I got trolled by /li/ on this one, I put down City and City because I don't give a fuck for police procedurals.

>>3335598
Thanks. Didn't want to go back to reading warhammer 40k books

>>3335593
What do they call it when you defend a bad purchase you made to justify wasting the money

>>3335608
You're becoming a man, dog. Good on you.

>>3335613
>implying I didn't download them for free
>implying Great Gatsby could EVER be perceived as a "troll
book" by even a halfway intelligent reader

>>3335613
fantasy fandom?

>>3335632
it's an okay book

the troll is /lit/ deifying it and brainwashing you into defending it rabidly like you are right now

you poor pleb

>>3335647
>/lit/ deifying it
It's widely regarded (meaning outside of /lit/) as one of the greatest novels of all time.

If you don't like it, that's fine. But stop acting like /lit/ is unique in liking the Great Gatsby, because it's not true.

>>3335660
It's widely regarded as such because pleb undergrads like you devote their lives to regurgitating their literature professors' dogma. It's a mediocre book and less than a footnote in the literary canon.

Paused the Second Apocalypse for this shit, whatever, at least now I know what popcorn fiction is.

>>3335666
>Implying I ever said I liked it

>>3335667
Christ alive, who in their right mind recommended you that?

>>3335666
>pleb
Hi /mu/, learn to actually articulate an opinion about a text without just criticising the opposing view please

>>3335674
Browsing those "good fantasy" threads. Never again. I kinda chuckle when people say he's better than GRRM, JA's characters are solid in that they have a presence, but everything else is pure tripe.

>>3332945

>>3335677
>he goes to /mu/ enough to observe their speech patterns

nice

>>3332997

Seconding this, well Eeeee Ee Eee.
i went into it expecting some kinda warped world view of a social outcast autist filled with unconventional anecdotes and style.
what i got was boring prose about being bored.

atleast it only took less than half a day to read.

>>3335667
Wait, you think Abercrombie is shit, yet you think R. Scott Baker is actually good?
You're so funny.

>>3335682
>implying you need to visit /mu/ more than once to figure it out

>>3335587
>americans
no being a fatass doesn't make you stupid

Not even joking.

>>3335678

This

someone once recommended me the Codex Alera series by Jim Butcher, lauding it as 'better than Lord of The Rings'

I was 5 books in before I realized It was an ingenious ruse

>>3335700
Atlas Shrugged was the first "infinte jest" of /lit/

>>3335700
I was laughing up to this point
Poor guy

>>3335700
Fuck same here

>>3335700
Seriously? Isn't it considered like... a legit book? I'm not even a /lit/ general and I've been hearing nothing but praise for it.

Also, Bert Cooper suggested it to Don Draper. You know that shit is legit... isn't it? Just kidding.

What makes it so bad though? I was honestly going to read it at some point.

>>3335916
/lit/ regular* my bad

>>3335700

>>3332969
>Implying Vonnegut isn't amazing

I'm gonna go with Gravity's Rainbow. That book was extremely hard, and even the parts I understood were kinda boring. Plus it was written all in present tense.

Only good part was Byron the Immoral Lightbulb.

>>3335916
Bert Cooper is a rich selfish businessman. Ayn Rand wrote books about how being a rich selfish businessman is the best thing there is and how rich selfish businessmen should rule the world. That's why he liked it.

That's why /lit/ likes Tao Lin. Everyone loves authors that celebrate their way of life.

>>3335666

I don't think you understand how canons work. Like the book or not, the fact that lit profs adore it so much makes it a lot more relevant than just a footnote.

>>3335924
What do you mean by being a "rish, selfish businessman"? Man, I would realy love to just read the book and forge my own opinion but the 1000 pages terrify me. If this book is what you say it is, what are those 1000 pages filled with?

>>3335200
HA!
But seriously, how bad is it? I remember reading a short story by that bitch in high school and thinking that it was a pile of shit.

>Reading XX and XXI centurie's literature
>2013

>>3335923
Can you list more books you dislike so I can make sure I read them?
>>3335943
>centurie's

>>3335945

Sorry.

Centuries'

>>3335924
Basically, Ayn Rand was this poor immigrant woman with no real talent. She realised you could make a lot of money by writing a philosophy book that appealed to the wealthy, selfish and corrupt, and it worked.

Beyond that though, it is a shitty book, with a shitty philosophy, shitty prose and an awful story.

>>3335937
She fetishized radical capitalism. In radical capitalism, the rich are the most powerful. Obviously the rich like this idea. If I were to write a book that the big dicked should be at the top of society, the big dicked would approve. If you say the Germanic peoples are the rightful heirs to this planet because they are inherently superior, they will like this. Everyone likes to have his ego stroked. Rand did this for financially successful entrepreneurs.

>>3335972
Okay, I see.

But opinions aside, what is the book actually /about/? What are those 1000 pages filled with?

I'm surprised/glad no one's said House of Leaves yet.

>>3335993
Words.

>>3335997
Nobody'd get tricked into reading that garbage.

>>3336000
I found it on my dad's bookshelf when I was home for Christmas. I knew it was going to be some edgy nonsense but nothing prepared me for how pointless it really was.

>>3336008
>implying pointlessness is inherently negative

>>3335997
If I wanted to read something by John Barth I would choose something actually written by him.

>>3335993
>opinions
Those aren't opinions, that is actually what the book is about.

>>3335997

Read before I came to /lit/ and even then I knew what a pointless exercise in aping Borges it was.

>>3335282
Just read it. Lin's language is really simple in Richard Yates so it can be read within two hours.

Tao Lin, god fucking damn it, Tao Lin.
>/lit/ always going on about how much they hate it
>something that gets this much hate must be unique in some way, right?
>It's not, it's just vague post-ironic bullshit with tedious prose and an awful story

>>3336048
Does everyone on /lit/ look at the surface level like you?

>>3335993
You would actually have people type out the story while you can just run a search?

>>3336071
No, not me. But then again, I appreciate Tao Lin.

Uh i read some of House of leaves because of /lit/ ;( me a dum dum.

>>3335933
> the fact that lit profs adore it so much makes it a lot more relevant

>>3336091
>>3336071
Go to bed Tao.

>>3336146

Compelling argument.
Again, you don't understand how canons function if you don't realise how important the academia is to them.

>>3336240
>your face when posterity has borne out a wealth of literature for centuries and millennia and the only thing backing your precious James Joyce's magna merda Finnegans Wake is the opinion of the incestuous and culturally irrelevant New Scholastic Movement

Oh man I can't wait to see what people 250 years of now think of Harold Bloom's opinion of David Foster Wallace

HAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHA

AHHHHHHHHHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH

>>3336279
>>3336279

So many straw men I don't even know where to start.

Anyway, people 250 years from now will only read 20th century literature that is championed by academics because they are the ones keeping those books from being lost in time. Deal with it.

>>3336350
You know nothing of how the study or preservation of literature evolved in the West. Learn some history, faget.

>>3336354

You haven't shown a single substantial argument so far, thinking you can win an argument through ad hominem and 'witty' images. Go back to /b/.

>>3336240
>thinks canonization as perpetuated by academia is a good thing

>>3336377

Where in my post did I show a positive or negative attitude towards this phenomenon, I just stated that it is.

>>3335213
That you feel obligated to comprehend (and even) a work of literature is pathetic.

>>3336439
*and even enjoy

I've read and enjoyed 4 Pynchon books and I'm currently enjoying Against the Day, but what is the main attraction of Gravity's Rainbow?

Yes, I'm a pleb, but I don't read for plot. Even still, why should I give a shit about the stuff Pynchon's saying in GR.

>"Maybe when we die our souls all go here...*10 page sentence describing random places our souls could go and what they'd do*"

Why should anyone care about shit like that?

>>3336373
Ah yes, 'witty' images, the fool's gambit, to be sure. To be sure, my chum! Ah, nice to know there are still gentlemen of true refinement on this, our dear /lit/. Ah, ah yes, mm.

>>3333005
Band wagon pleb.

>>3336373

>>3336350
>Anyway, people 250 years from now will only read 20th century literature that is championed by academics because they are the ones keeping those books from being lost in time. Deal with it.
No, untrue.

In 250 the only books that will be preserved will be the ones that have highly seeded torrentz today.

Basically, a whole lot of neckbeard fantasy and sci-fi, some highschool required reading and a few crossover works like Pynchon.

(Where is your god now, lol)