/lit/ - Literature

Bump for interest.

fuck joyce

>>3764358
lol is this real?

That's not a real quote from GRRM, is it? I haven't read any of his books.

>>3764363
yes it is. Last chapter of the latest book.

But...

What if I don't care for either of them?

>>3764367
I deleted my post when I realised it was a Quentin image, but then I googled it, and holy shit, it's actually real. What the fuck is wrong with the author?

>>3764392
>can't into tao-boy's dry post-postmodern irony
HE WRITES SO BAD TO BE IRONIC DUUUH
no he doesn't, he sucks arse. he might want to make you believe he's ironic, but he just can't write better.

>>3764413
I was talking about GRRM, not Tao Lin, but the excerpt in >>3764358 sucked as well, just in a different way.

>>3764415
ah i see. the deleted post caught me off-guard.

>>3764413
>arse
oi m8 it's 5 bong already toyme for some tea and telly god save the bloody queen blimey

I agree that Fitzgerald is better than GRRM but that whole picture reeks of someone who doesn't really understand good prose trying to look down on something their friends told them was shit.

Plenty of authors use expletives. Bataille wrote at length on why "cunt" was the perfect word for a vagina.

>>3764615
le

>Gatsby, who epresented everything
poop

>>3764629
Quentin is a troll. Search "Quentin!!p3mpBqBwoeY" on Google images.

>>3764615
>ass
>AD.MMXIII
>donkeys

>>3764629

Point is not in the expletives and obscenities, but in the fact that the GRRM's vocab is limited to those words, never using any other kind of expression instead, making his writing dull and uninteresting especially considering the length of his works.

Also note the fact that while Fitzgerald goes deeper in to the implication of things while describing Gatsby, while GRRM is just saying someone is taking a dump and not telling anything else. Whether this is an example of bad prose or Hemingway style iceberg I can not say as I haven't read GRRM. And some people are of the opinion that even Hemingway wasn't a good writer so who knows?

>>3764139
>compares Tao Lin and James Joyce

Who's the good one and the bad one? I only see the best writer of XX and the best writer of XXI.

>>3764725
Yeah because the entire ASOIAF series is about someone taking a dump. Also Dany taking a dump says a lot of stuff. It's a way to deface her and remind the reader of how fragile and petite the character is and how she's never going to do anything as she derps and herps around since she can't even control her own colon. Also, you missed an opportunity to say Hemmingway so your post is pretty much shit.

>>3764738

If you read my post
>Whether this is an example of bad prose or Hemingway style iceberg I can not say as I haven't read GRRM.

>>3764756
>Hemingway
you just don't get it, do you?

>>3764615
hehe, tricked you into reading the spoiler

>>3764738
>fragile and petite
Looololol ololo lolol lol

>>3764413
what tangible difference exists between writing badly ironically and writing badly (in and of themselves)

>>3764846
>>3764846
Self-awareness.

A lot of the time Tao Lin exposes deep and understated truths about himself that aren't often talked about through his straight-forward, almost child-like manner of writing. It can actually be very powerful.

Joyce on the other hand is inaccessible and often pretentious. The language used distorts the sentiment and often the storyline is more glib than anything in Tao Lin's repertoire.

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0rolqxwrcVD

>>3764892
What in the fuck was that?

>>3764897
It was my message. ;_;

This website is the story and the story is written in the "style" of Ernest Hemingway, the greatest American writer that ever lived according to at least a few.

It is written with gusto. It is written for laughs and the joy that comes from bad writing.
The writers of "A Bad Hemingway Story" struggle with the short sentences and the runon sentences and the pointless but rich descriptions for that is what writers of Bad Hemingway must do.

They write. They use email lists to write. They use the keyboard and the mouse. But most of all they write.

Join them, for if you have gotten this far, you are already on your way to being one of them. You long to run with the bulls and fight the mighty marlin and to make love to a woman with a mustache.

A parody of poor writing.

I would visit /lit/ so much more and find it infinitely more enjoyable if people actually talked what they find interesting in a text, what they find emotive in a text, or what they find original in a text as opposed to make pronouncements on what texts/writers they feel to be objectively shitty. Am I alone in this? Why are all comparisons in terms of better or worse? There are so many actually interesting things you could be talking about. I'm sorry if I seem conceited, but it really frustrates me.

>>3764898
ur a sillywilly

>>3764954
STOP MAKING FUN OF MY HERO!

>>3764951
/lit/ doesn't do that because /lit/ doesn't actually read books. They're just interested in elitism, looking like an intellectual and shitting on other people.

>>3764961

This.

>>3764961
do you mean to say nobody on here has read the stranger?
;_;

Hemingway killed himself, thus he was weak and doesn't deserve to be titled the greatest writer America has seen.

>>3764358
Err, but that's quite good?

>>3764881
Bullshit. Tao Lin apes Joyce's style, if anything.

>>3765001
loool

confirmed for having read neither

if i had to compare lin's prose to anyone's, it'd be bret easton ellis.

Ask and ye shall receive.

Okay guys, my mother tongue is not English and I consider this language to be inferior to many IE languages, but could you please take a look at this 'thing' I'm writing (I'm not calling it a novel because one, it's pretentious to do so and two, I'm not a novelist)?

Please it's only a few pages.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/57022032/Untitled%20Retro-Futristic%20Noire.docx

>>3764358
lol wtf did I just read holy shit

>>3765076
>Okay guys, my mother tongue is not English
... It certainly reads like it. I couldn't read further than the second paragraph, sorry.

I would suggest you consider writing in your native language.

>>3765072

What was the purpose of naming the characters Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning?

>>3765197
gimmicks

gotta have gimmicks if you want to sell stuff to kids

>>3765197
from an htmlgiant interview:

[Q] Why did you name the main characters Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning?

[A] I didn’t have concrete reasons when I first find-and-replace’d the names with Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning. It was sudden and intuitive; maybe 10-18 months into writing I said “I should name the characters Haley Joel Osment and Dakota Fanning” to someone in Gmail chat and they encouraged me.

Some times in the next 10-20 months I felt uncertain about it. I thought things like “I think it will be funny and desirable to me if people focus on the names of the characters, because I like when people aren’t focused, in interviews, on ‘themes’ or ‘literary’ things” and “It seems like I want to avoid, for autobiographical things, using names like Michelle or Dan or something, and I also want to avoid using my own name, because I’ve read books where both methods are used, and feel that I want to do it a different way; using celebrity names seems to avoid this.”

I also thought things like “It seems to ‘undermine’ the book as a ‘serious work of art’ in a manner that, to me, is more artistically satisfying than if I did not undermine it in this manner, in the same manner if there was peer pressure on me to not do a certain thing, in middle school, of which I had no concrete reason not to do it, I would want to do it,” all of which caused me to feel more confident in the choice and eventually “do it.”

ITT: newfags who can't into Tao Lin

>>3765362
g2bed, Tao

tao lin is really attractive and i would totally buy all of his books and download all of his ezines

>>3765388
i meant ebooks but whateverthefuck

>>3764994
Yes, that's the point.

>>3764413
>no he doesn't, he sucks arse. he might want to make you believe he's ironic, but he just can't write better.

Actually he can
http://www.bearparade.com/hikikomori/2007/04/50.html

>>3764951
That was a hipster .gif, with that hipster triangle and that hipster palette. I bet your a hipster too.

>hurr durr GRRM don't write in the language of the upper class he sucks
OPs picture is tasteless and worthless

GRRM is tasteless and worthless

>>3766384
Hell, FSG's prose wasn't particularly upper class compared to the stuff being put out by Henry James a decade earlier.

>>3765072

>mfw I understood and enjoyed the second one more. I had no idea what the heck wat the heck was going on after I read Joyce's last sentence

Is that actually in A Dance With Dragons?

>>3766409
Yeah, it's after Dany flies away on the Dragon's back and can't get back to her slave city.

>>3766398
Your mum is tasteless and worthless

Am I an idiot or is the second guy reusing the same words in order to make things feel more repetitious?

If whats happening to the character is the same thing over and over and over again in a cycle, wouldn't using the same word to describe that scenario put a greater emphasis on the fact that the same thing is happening over and over and over again?

>>3766358
How is this better?

>>3766646
I don't give a fuck about game of thrones but I googled "daeneris" and it's that hot girl with the white hair. That's weird. How are they going to put that in the show?
Then I thought about that girl doing scat porn and I remembered why I should put limits to myself sometimes.

>>3765388
go to bed, tao

>>3764951

here here!

>>3766924
Do away with the fantasy stuff and she goes full librarian goddess of the dream realm

>>3767289
It's 'hear hear', if you're going to fedora out at least do it right.

>>3766877
Hello, Uncle Ruckus.

I don't think that anyone ever dared to compare Martin to someone like Fitzgerald. It's clear that he's skilled writer with talent to evoke rich imagery and bring powerful feelings related to plot and characters to the surface, but Martin is sci-fi/fantasy author, no one claims he's best writer that ever existed, people read his books because it's interesting stuff to read even if it doesn't leave you enriched or amazed afterwards. Sometimes people need something to entertain them in a imaginative way. I've read tons of books like most people here I guess, but you can't spend your life in reading something just because critics rated 5/5. Fitzgerald is awesome, but Proust is disgusting for example, such waste of talent if you can't make up a good story. Why would I read it then? I don't sympathize with his disgusting characters and attitude towards everything, what an utterly horrible person and writer. I mean, fuck Proust, don't even dare to argue, no one can enjoy his work. People read it and it's boring, it's like reading Das Kapital three times in a row, even worse because it lacks anything of value for anyone normal and sane, anything to experience. I hate Proust so much. It's not everything about skills.

>>3767493
>reading for the story
>entertained by shit tier writing
Get a load of this pleb.

>>3767504
Well pardon some of us for not wanting to have our brain on ''philosophical/refined'' 24/7. Some of us like to relax from time to time.

>>3767504
You're pleb because you're not reading for the story. If it's not enjoyable, it's nothing. If it's enjoyable and well written it's 10/10, that's the whole point, to tell good story, to tell something worth reading. And Proust isn't saying much, he's just fooling around and making me nervous, not in a good way.

You people reading Ulysses and not enjoying it (not many people really love it that much (I do)) are wasting your time, only the fact that's well written won't make you any smarter or less plebeian. Lots of fake elitism is present on this board in general, really the fact that you prefer some famous 'masterpiece' of a skilled genius from 19th century that has actually BORING plot and characters and unrelateable to people of this age rather then reading averagely written modern fiction you could actually enjoy is nonsense.

People here are like 'oh I'm 16 and bored, I want to read something during summer, I've read Twilight and Hunger Games this month, should I now read War and Piece or 1984, I think it will make me smarter and literate person even though I'm shallow as fuck'

>after reading

'oh I enjoyed Process so much, even though it was my first decently written book ever and I totally got into that.' yeah, sure you are. 'recommend me now something even less interesting so I can just read it and be smarter and brag about it all around'

>>3767524
Also, if you want something "philosophical/refined" as person above said you really don't have to go for something well known and rated 10 during obsure periods in history. People opening threads like 'I need something that makes me think about life, should I read Socrates or is Descartes better?' Well, what the fuck. Choosing philosophist to read based on other people's opinions and ratings or that particular person who was thinking..back in time...that's missing the whole fucking point of you thinking about anything, let alone philosophy and meaning of life. Why don't you just stick around and be a slave, because that's what person who's been told what's good and what's bad without deciding for himself is. Do you think Plato asked Socrates 'oh master, tell me is Thales better than Anaximenes??'
'Well pal you're missing the point and the point is to fucking read it and make your opinion about it, what does it matter what I think, it's not my philosophy nor is it yours, you can't take someone's opinion on life and keep it as your own.' Critics suck dick and the fact that so many shit is rated 10 does not mean they're for everyone to read

>>3767533
Some books simply aren't worth reading, though.

>>3767519
>Well pardon some of us for not wanting to have our brain on ''philosophical/refined'' 24/7. Some of us like to relax from time to time.

The word for people like you is "pseudo-intellectual".

>>3767567
Funny how you described yourself instead, trash. Real intellectuals don't even bother putting fancy labels on themselves and if you ever studied some field of science or anything at all, which I doubt, you wouldn't held your head that high because you've read a few pseudo-intellectual books, which most stuff we're talking about here actually is. You're really amazing, I admit that, I'd love to spend some time arguing with you because I love destroying narrow minded people with actual knowledge.

>>3767582
>Real intellectuals don't even bother putting fancy labels on themselves
Why do you think academia consists of selfless sages? A lot of smart people are uppity fucks. That doesn't make them less intellectual.

>>3767582
>being this mad about being a pseudo-intellectual

Sorry, son, but if you "need a break from the classics" to roll around in some shit like GRRM, you are a psuedo-intellectual.

If you don't like it, have more self-discipline. Otherwise, accept your lot in life and shut up.

>>3767609
No, my son, that is not even close to being the definition of ''pseudo-intellectual''. A better label would be ''casual-intellectual''.

>>3767615
Thanks. But I don't even bother to consider myself intellecutal, I'm archaeologist and I don't really care much about being called intellectual or pseudo-intellectual based on stuff I read. (stuff outside my field) I've read a lot of classics and casual literature and I understand what's bad work and what's masterpiece, but holy fucking shit do I give a damn about reading something that's not neccessary masterpiece, no. GRRM is fine, it's not Socrates but I don't need Socrates to be intellectual, it won't make me super smart suddenly. It clearly didn't make this anon any more special, just more arrogant and he thinks he fits into society so much better than everyone else. Meh. What a narrow perspective, I don't even. Plus you're constanly calling me pseudo-intellectual but that's exactly what you are, can't you see? You're not intellectual based on stuff you're read especially because you're reading it based on how such work is accepted in society by critics, not by your own judgment. Slave mentality.

>>3767597
People like that can be succesful in repeating other people's work and doing something with it, they're rarely creative and bring something new.

>>3766847

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Give this man a prize. I'm the last guy to defend GRRM as a great writer but if you're going to select text to criticize, at least don't make an ass of yourself by failing to understand the intent of the passage.

>>3766358
What the fuck? A&P is a story written by Updike

http://www.tiger-town.com/whatnot/updike/

what the fuck are those gimpsters up to? "lel plaigiarism iornickly lel"

>>3769228
Damn. I didn't know that. Damn.

>>3767609
>Sorry, son
>>3767615
>No, my son

I wanna meet that dad.

>>3767524
>>3767533
>>3767563
lol why is it that the most interesting posts are ignored? this guy just called you out on your taste and you don't even know how to respond.

>>3767609
Reading GRRM instead of a classic?
>Pseudo-intellectual.
Reading a magazine on the bus instead of a classic?
>Pseudo-intellectual.
Arguing with people on an anonymous imageboard when you could be participating in an actual intellectual community?
>Pseudo-intellectual.

>>3764358
Masterwriter of our days.

How many posts in this thread are by Tao, do you reckon?

I know the answer
It's only one post. This one

>>3771096
gave me the creeps, I don't know why

>>3771096
Hey Tao, do you have any advice for an aspiring writer?

Tao Lin came to read at my school recently. It went to weird town pretty fast.

>>3768483

I have a large bone I'd like you to examine

>>3771157
What happened? Did he make his presentation on his drawings? I saw that presentation on you tube and he ended up talking about how he wasn't "against" Hitler, or that he didn't hate him. I don't remember well.

>>3771160
He talked about how him and his friends went to live tweet the new x-men movie on heroin and a part of his book is based on that experience. It was actually pretty funny, then he talked about how he threw out his desktop computer in a public trashcan because he was frustrated.

>>3771160
Would you happen to have a link to that youtube video?

>>3764139
Picking a part about shitting, so subtle.

Anyone have the file for Taipei? I get a lot of joy from pirating his collection.

>>3771198
sure

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0rb0qId-Go

>>3771166
sweet

>>3764139
GRRM's work is enjoyable, full of characterisation and world building. No point sharpening your pencil if you're never going to draw.

>>3768483
I think it's when you're dropping things like
>Socrates
>what's bad work and what's masterpiece
>Slave mentality.
when you clearly don't understand the concepts, and just admitted to not being interested in understanding them. You're not aware of your own ignorance, and because of it you're confident. You talk about real intellectuals when you've clearly no exposure to any, you're not even aware of the basic fallacy of saying that, 'real' intellectual.

Anyway
>>3767582
>>3767519
>>3767504
>>3767493
you guys aren't psuedo-intellectuals or poorly read-intellectuals, you're just tasteless. There's no one way you are /supposed/ to read, there's no deciding what one can and cannot enjoy, what constitutes enjoyment. You're only playing into misinterpreted interpretations of a romanticized academia because you don't realize the most respectable position in culture is a person with unsoiled eyes, disregarding social convention in their approach to artwork.

I like Tao Lin because he talks about things like this
>>3771166
I like how he reacts to things and what he finds funny. I never thought to compare his prose to the Great Gatsby, though I have humorously imagined Richard Yates or Tai Pei being taught in a highschool english classroom, a dilution of its themes being presented on a powerpoint to be copied down by AP students who are going to college. That makes me feel happy and I think Tao Lin's work is valuable. I find value in Joyce for entirely different reasons and I couldn't give a fuck how someone who has not read either, or has could not grasp (how else could you seriously compare their prose?), thinks their distorted preconceptions rank.

>>3769228
That's funny.
I don't know the context but I'm guessing he's making fun of updike and MFA programs. The halfassed plagiarism is a blunt disrespect for academic approach to writing classes, an emphasis formulaic, commercial numbing. I read that short story in a highschool creative writing class. I can't speak much for college level course but I'm going to assume there tend to be a taste towards the conservative, realist and sincere. I remember finding the story funny when I read it, and giving it to someone saying I wrote it, or pretending to submit it in a college application, sounds like something I would've done.

It's obviously not a genuine attempt at plagiarism, the short is well-known, I'd consider it a subversion of the idea of plagiarism and copyright being a serious issue, mocking Updike's close relationship to the commercial industry as an irrelevant "underground" writer, similar to Negativland's relationship with U2.

I don't think it's a very deep conceptual gesture, I think it's funny, it's a witty little joke coming from a deviant sense of humor coming from a certain viewpoint. It's vaguely political, vaguely commenting on the college writing classes, the culture industry and artistic ideas of copyright, but in a half-assed, impulsive way similar to him naming a character in his novel after a celebrity, which could easily be seen as triviliazing the idea of a celebrity as he has trivialized John Updike.

Also
That someone found that and linked it to prove Tao Lin can write well too is funny, too, imo. It shows you completely misunderstand both tao and updike, you've got them all distorted and mixed up in a very flailing way, revolving around a poor taste, a poor exposure to writing, an inability to recognize nuances in style or perspective, wrapped up in a naive confidence that you can see when he is "writing better", that you're an authority on prose or tao.

>>3771346
Actually, I'd say it's more disregard than disrespect.

I'm not American but I enjoy Tao Lin. What does that mean?

John Updike is a misogynist and narcissist.

>>3771373
So?

>>3771373
He's also a talented writer.

>>3771379
>>3771386
Updike kind of sounds like a dick up someones ass.

>>3768497
How would they take it anywhere without any creativity?

>>3771346
pls respond what do you think?

>>3771398
this is the best post in this thread

>>3764358
he tries too hard to be shitty

Sounds like a lot of bourgeois sycophancy.