/lit/ - Literature

Is it worth the read? I'm debating whether or not I should read it.

>>3845347
Why dont you stop being a pansy and make a decision on your own.

>>3845347
Yes. Just prepare that it might take a while to get through it.

>>3845347
Read it first then decide, it's the only way you can make an informed decision

shitty contributing

>>3845401
oh now you got me all excited

I loved The Corrections.

>>3845347
No. Harold Bloom called it "just awful" and "written with no discernible talent"

>>3845622
EXPLAIN!!

>>3845622
Hahaha so true. It seemed like it was just a loosely tied-together montage of sex and literal shit at times

>>3845109
OP is actually very true.

>>3845632
It envolves germans. And rockets. And penises. And shit. And "bombshell twelve-year-olds."

Doesn't envolve rainbows or the color orange or shanty towns or blue lettering as the cover would have you believe

>>3845640
>"bombshell twelve-year-olds."
The narrator is a pedo?

>>3845640
I see...

Picked up.

yup.

>>3845641
No, Pynchon is. Free love, man.

>>3845467
Second reference I've seen to On Marble Cliffs on /lit/, days apart. Weird.

>>3845944
This

it was absolutely fantastic.

>>3845931
you mean as part of these expectation/reality threads? havent seen it.

but many c/lit/s read jünger

>>3845729
this. no one told me what to expect. just that it was about the bombing of dresden.

jesus.

>>3845944
>>3845957
although this is accurate, i fucking hated this book

>>3846051
You got gay skinheads instead?

>>3846051

I suspect you didn't read what you claimed to have read.

Still recomend it

>>3846083
The climax of the book was indisputably the scene where they dropped acid and then Ballard screwed Deckhard in the ass.

>>3845439
Not >>3845401
I loved The Corrections also but I found Freedom to be a bit of a let down

>>3846125

I was kind of confused for the entire book.

whoa

>>3846446
does anyone have the one for Naked Lunch?
that one was funny.

>>3846051
That's not nearly repetitive enough.

>>3846453
I hope so. I just finished reading that and it is so shit. It was below my expectations in a way that no book, film or anything else ever has been before.

>>3846470
really? it's one of my favorite books.

what didn't you like about it?

>>3846470
Really? I struggled with it at first, taking a few weeks to get through the first 50 or so pages - and then it just clicked. Suddenly I 'got' it and I read the rest in like a day.
What put me off is that no one had told me that it is not a novel. The blurb even tried to pretend like it was, but it's just not.

>>3846489
what would you describe it as?

>>3846492
Honestly I don't know.

>>3846476
I thought that it was needlessly vulgar, putrid, etc etc - and I don't mind that level of vulgarity if it's justified. I love American Psycho, for example. i just thought that it was intended purely to shock in such a way that it just became repetitive, mindless and boring. There are only so many pages of relentlessly crude you can take before it just gets stupid and pointless.

Also, a lot of the book was indecipherable. I understand that Burrough's intention to an extent was to make the novel disorienting etc, but in some sections I really had no idea what was being said. Like, I just didn't know what was going on, regardless of how many times I tried to read and re-read it.

It was just juvenile and silly, IMO. I thought it read like a naughty schoolboy who was trying to shock and confuse his teachers with 200 pages of relentlessly crass babble. Add that to the fact that Burrough's has admitted he can barely remember writing it (because he did so whilst on heroin), and my analogy isn't far from the truth really.

What did you like about it?

>>3846063
why?

>>3846504
I get what you mean, but I never felt that. I was never really 'shocked' by it, but I never felt like it was just trying to shock either. It's crude, yes, but there's a very human beauty in the crudity that's rarely explored in fiction. The imagery is fantastic, the characters hilarious and sad, the writing full of mad life even when you couldn't understand it... I dunno, I really loved it.

>>3846504
i enjoyed the babbling.
i enjoyed how jumbled and random it was.
i enjoyed the druggy-ness of it.

it was just a weird book.

it reminded me of a really long stream of consciousness poem done on a shitload of drugs.
and i liked that.
i probably read it back to back three times when i got it and still had no idea what was going on.

i can understand what you mean by the crude-ness of it, and i agree, he could have toned down the language, but that's just him as a writer.

>>3846518
Oh, don't get me wrong - I wasn't shocked either. I don't really find anything shocking, but I'd like to think that I can tell when something is TRYING to shock, which I thought it was. What did you think was human or beautiful in the crudity? It seemed to me that it was just a bunch of thoughtlessly thrown-together images which came off the top of Burrough's head without any attempt at metaphor or abstraction. I honestly don't mind crudeness at all - not one bit. But it just came across as immature.

I will give you the mad life part - the book definitely has a rhythm all of its own. And there were occasional lines which I felt pretty touched by. I actually think that if it was less impenetrable in parts, some of the book could have been really moving. But even the more 'humane' parts were marred for me by the erratic and confusing style.

nobody cares about the naked lunch just post more of this hilarious images

>2013
>naked lunch
>not dfw
please

>>3846525
Ah, well then I guess you just loved what I hated. Agree to disagree then, I suppose! Although I think I might have misrepresented myself before - I wasn't offended, affronted or bothered by the crudeness; I just thought it was stupid. It read like a child trying to shock.

>>3846535
>>3846504
>like a naughty schoolboy who was trying to shock and confuse his teachers
>Burrough's has admitted he can barely remember writing it
>a bunch of thoughtlessly thrown-together images which came off the top of Burrough's hea

Hi, try to remember Burroughs was a very educated, intelligent man despite his choice of subject, probably a lot smarter than you. It seems like you're largely unfamiliar with his artistic philosophy and background, I'd suggest reading/watching some interviews with him throughout his life or memoirs involving him, or taking the time to read some critical analysis of his work. Ted Morgan's biography on Burroughs is also very comprehensive and entertaining, I'd recommend it to build a good context and history to better understand the author, if you're interested. What I mean is, I get the feeling you're not seeing the whole picture, too quickly judging it, but if you don't think he's worth digging in further, there's nothing wrong with that, there are a lot of valuable authors to read and time is short.

>>3846559
that's what I personally don't like about Borroughs. He acted like an aristocratic fedorafag showing off his amazing education but when it comes to writing he is just an edgy tryhard
i mean, i prefer reading bukowski, at least the man was honest

>>3846588
Have you read any of Burroughs' other work? Queer is pretty good. Really interesting (autobiographical-ish) protagonist and a strong emotional core to it.

I think it's quite closed-minded to dismiss him as an 'edgy tryhard' when you've really not read much of his work - Naked Lunch is edgy, sure, but Queer and Junkie aren't. While they were edgy at the time, from a modern perspective they just seem honest.

>>3845109
>Not one sailor hat in OP's "What I got".
Dammit, OP, you almost got it!

>>3845347
Changed my life. Doesn't start making sense until page 200. Make sure you read ALL the endnotes.

>>3845944
I'm laughing pretty hard right now, fucking Underground Man.

>>3846658
I didn't expect it to be so damn funny
(and yet so sad)

>>3846395
Fucking this, man. My dad gave it to me "for some light reading", and man was I wrong when I assumed it'd be a "this is a book my dad would read" book.

>>3845444
Fucking fuck Harold Bloom. Harold Bloom doesn't fucking know what the fuck he's talking about.

>>3846388
something about the pawn stars picture made me laugh

>>3846651
>>3846651
The fucking end notes man.
I loved them but hated them at the same time. Especially that one about the Quebec wheelchair assassination squad that goes on for about thirty pages with more end notes attached to that end note. It's burned in my mind forever.

>>3845944

>>3846668
..but...your Dad did read it..right?

>>3845944
I don't get the what I got. Can someone explain? Yes, I read the book.

>>3845944

Currently reading this, and yeah, it's a pretty accurate description.

>>3847179
Ever been to /r9k/? The underground man's monologues are what 90% of the posts on that board are like. Incessant narcissistic whining and socially awkward interactions are what they talk about over there.

>>3845944
so accurate

>>3846685
>pleb

I did read all of the context which was in my version of Naked Lunch, all of which I enjoyed a lot more then the novel. Burrough's letters to various people, writings on various drugs and bits of autobiography were really interesting. So after reading them, I tried to go back and read passages of Naked Lunch given that I had some context on his life and the drug users' mind. But it didn't help me. I can completely understand his reasons for wanting to write Naked Lunch with the style and content that it had, but I just didn't like it. Just because I understand the reasoning doesn't mean I agree with it or even respect it really. But the novel (together with the contextual notes) did just enough to keep me interested in Burroughs as an artist - I almost picked up 'Junkie' at my library the other day but then didn't bother. Would you recommend it given how much I hated Naked Lunch? Just for the record though, I do think he came across as quite a tryhard in Naked Lunch.

>>3847526
Ah, man. This was meant to be addressed to>>3846559. And I'm >>3846535, not >>3846588, just so you know.

>>3846648
please. it's a yachting cap.

>>3846685
>90% of Ancient Mythology

>>3847228
Actually, no. I've never been there. Thanks for the clarification!

>>3848797

I like this one.

I've only ever read the preface to Swann's Way, though, before getting bored and giving up. That's about 80 pages in.

Did you read all of it?

>>3846395
Scholarly historian
>What is the history of America?
Howard Zinn
>How can I interpret every event in American history to fit my Marxist gay atheist feminist world view?

>>3847506
Are you trying to say that The Iliad isn't full of lists of names, family disputes and the result of someone crying to their mommy?

>>3848859
>Marxist gay atheist feminist

See, if you'd just accused him of Marxist bias, I'd say you were being reasonable, though I'd disagree with you. But that other stuff was just overkill, /pol/. All you missed as a reference to the J-word.

>>3848856
I'm halfway through vol 3 and started a month and a half ago, taking large breaks to read other things.

I'm forcing myself through it, though, and made that pretty much to spite it. At times it's brilliant but no where near as coherently brilliant as I thought it would be.

>>3845109

I don't get the mario playing tennis thing. Then again I haven't read the book but can you explain the fun for me so I can laugh?
thx in advance

I laughed even though I didn't get it but it didn't feel good after a while so pls reply

>>3848893
Mario is the name of Hal's physically and mentally below average brother.

The book is about tennis.

>>3848780
Don't really see what's so pedo about it,
Unless you take 'boys' as meaning kids, but in gayland you're called a boy until you're like 25 if you're skinny enough.

>>3848957
>The book was banned in Boston in 1962 due to obscenity (notably child murder and acts of pedophilia), but that decision was reversed in 1966 by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court.[13]

With Philip K Dick, you never fucking know.

>>3849034
Sauce on autism the musical? I could really use this on /mu/.

>>3849048
Is your google broken?

>>3849052
Fair enough. I've just made a habit of not going to google for chan images, I usually have to sort through Sturgeon's Law.

some oc here

>>3848845
I read it after I'd read a lot of Le Guin books that I enjoyed a lot more, and basically this. It's still my least favorite anything from her.

>>3846969
honestly,
as someone who's read it three times:
I read it the first two times in paperback, and the last time on my nook color. The ebook was way easier, not only because it was my third go around, but because the endnotes were hyperlinked in the text-- I could tap the endnote, jump right to it, and then hit the back arrow to go right back to main text where i was. It was super convenient, and the first time that I really preferred reading something as an ebook. Still read most fiction/personal stuff in real book format, but for textbooks and academic stuff, I almost exclusively do ebooks for this feature, and because its easier to carry.

I feel like a traitor for this, but its so convenient, and my eyes are so abused from years of using my computer that reading on a backlit screen doesnt bother me in the slightest

>>3845703
That's Hemingway for ya. Guy says exactly what he means.

>>3846942
Jealous that you can't read 400 pages an hours and remember it all, like based Bloom?