/lit/ - Literature

RIP in peace Quentin

>>5020029
>reading
top kek

And how do you know if a book is good before you read it?

>>5020053
If it has at least 4 stars on Amazon it can't be bad. Objectively speaking.

Why do I always see The Inferno alone? Are Purgatory and Paradise not worth reading?

>>5020064
>le twilight and 50 shades of gray face

>>5020092

Like In Search of Lost Time, most people seem to only get through the first one.

>>5020130
I'm in the midst of it now and that seems akin to only reading the first LotR, Dante hasn't even finished his journey at the end of Inferno, all he's done is prepared himself for the hardest part.

>>5020029
martin has achieved a multi-million copy selling book series with it's own mythology and rich history and a list of characters a mile long. It is also impeccably researched for a book set in a world based upon Medieval Europe. He has also avoided stagnation of plot throughout all books of the song of ice and fire series. The series isn't meant to be read as high art to be analysed; it is genre fiction and it's fun to read, grabbing your attention from chapter one and holding it right until the end.

I'm so sick of him getting hate on /lit/ because of some of the Martinisms, it's not a bad book series. It's better than Tolkein or Jordan I can tell you that for free.

tl;dr: he's achieved more than any of us will likely achieve in our lifetime in 17 years

>>5020174

>tl;dr: he's achieved more than any of us will likely achieve in our lifetime in 17 years

I don't disagree with any of your other points, I've never read the books. But this specific reasoning is just stupid, the same could be said for Nickelback, appealing to a wide audience does not equal good.

>>5020092
Purgatory and Paradise aren't edgy enough to hold most people's attention

>>5020130
Some people don't know that the others exist. My cousins did a project on the Divine Comedy when they were in high school and the teacher had never heard of Purgatorio and Paradiso.

>>5020195
I concede to that logic, what do you think about post-modernism

>>5020213

Not entirely sure what that is, I'm new to /lit/.

>>5020219
Neither does anybody else; my point is that just because something is meant to be analysed doesn't mean it's enjoyable. (flame-shield engaged)
>see Beowolf, Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey

>>5020236

I agree. I don't think it conflicts with my point, however.

>>5020029
>Every one of these texts are masterpieces
this guy can't even into grammar, yet he's shitting on plebs.
>inb4 it was merely an act

>>5020236
None of those are supposed to be analysed

>>5020311
I know that, but the professors don't

>>5020174
I don't give a fuck what you read, the point is that if you read GRRM then you are a plebe

>>5020318
Who gives a shit about your taste though you egocentric fuck

Is there anything Schopenhauer was wrong about?

>>5020322
I'm not telling you to give a fuck about my tastes, I'm telling you that if your goal is to be well-read, then reading GRRM distracts from that goal. If all you want to do is read shitty medieval rape and violence fantasy for repressed white losers, then go ahead, but you should be aware that there are other books which have far more literary significance

>>5020029
Haha wow, OP, you're so cool

>>5020327
No, besides the pointlessness of it all

>>5020327
See OP's pic.

What makes a book good or bad?

>>5020337
>being buttmad because you can't articulate a coherent defense of your time wasting

Just admit that you suck balls as a human being and live an inconsequential life of no importance. I'm not judging you: I'm helping you find the truth

>>5020341
>reading Schopenhauer
>finding "truth"

>>5020340
It's relative, but there are few variables to which you could derive the function of reading GRRM and produce a result that isn't inferior to some person's own id. Most people who read him also believe they are avid readers; and yet, the reality of being an avid or a truly academic reader, or, the goal the id aspires to, isn't fun, and they deal with the dissonance by letting their ego deny what they already know: that GRRM is pornographic escapism. That's all it is, but no one who reads GRRM will allow their ego to accept the reality and still enjoy it, because the fantasy must be maintained

>>5020330
you make to many assumptions; as aforementioned by
>>5020174 people read Martin for enjoyment; not caring whether someone calls them a pleb... ergo, just because somebody enjoys ASOIAF doesn't mean that they don't enjoy Kafka, Dostoevsky or any other 'high' literature authors like Dante. In other words: get your head out of your ass you elitist fuck

>>5020347
>applying epistemological philosophy to a personal criticism
Look, I know you're dumb, but at least try to not be

This picture is quite ironic because Schopenhauer's own books square belong to the "into le trash it goes" category.

>>5020352
At least try to conceal your idiocy.

>>5020353
*squarely

>>5020351
have you read the series?

>>5020350
There are over 36 million books in the library of congress. For most of us, we will never read more than 100 books per year. This gives us about 7000 books in our lifetimes to read, and that is incredibly generous. That gives us... The ability to read 0.000194% of the books in the library of congress. Tell me again: what good reason should I read GRRM?

Look, I know you're insulted, but this is the way it is. You are a pleb. Just accept that you aren't and will never be an intellectual, accept the OP is right, and move on.

>>5020358
No, because doing so would be a waste of time. You can infer plainly from the reviews and it's readerbase what the book is about

>>5020359
there is no good reason you should read Martin,
tell me a good reason why I should suffer through Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake or Infinite Jest or Gravity's Rainbow - redpill me, there's obviously something I'm missing...
Why should I seek the approval of the literary society or anons, tell me why I need to justify myself.

>>5020372
>why should i read something good instead of shit

geez man i dunno

>>5020363
tell me who the underlying political forces are by the start of Winds of Winter and what they did in prior books to secure that power then mr. smarty pants

>>5020372
You don't have to justify anything. The OP is reminding you, if you think it's telling you to be some way, that is just your superego overwhelming your ego with defensive thinking. Read GRRM, I don't care, but wasting your time on such books is a worthless goal, it's part of what makes you mediocre.

>>5020382
define shit and define good

>>5020391
>le smug post-modern face

>>5020395
>I'm going to avoid criticism by pretending to be 2deep and rejecting the idea of good and bad altogether

But, idiot, you posted in this thread because you wanted to defend GRRM as being "not bad", you can't be a good/nihilist!

>>5020402
>a good/nihilist

>>5020388
>>5020352
Fuck off with your completely unfalsifiable Freudian Psychoanalysis, this isn't psychology and you aren't counselling people
>btw you must make a lot of friends by psychoanalyzing people irl you psuedo-science sheep

>>5020395
You have no answer
>you

>>5020406
>Freudian Psychoanalysis

>>5020408
>implying being an asian spiritual hobo isn't better than being a pleb

>>5020406
How about you fuck off with your petty ego defenses? To the point: you're still a plebe

>>5020411
as opposed to Jungian
>you just proved you know nothing about basic psychology
>get fucked pseudo-scientist

>>5020415
mah Freud

>>5020418

>quoting Popper
>2017

do children still do this these days?

top kek

>>5020432
holy shit you're autistic

>>5020418
>Freud
>as opposed to Jungian

I'd just like to point out that all the Schopenhauer quotes and GoT bashing aside we are still sitting around and calling each other autistic on an anonymous imageboard. That's pretty much the definition of wasting time.

>>5020029
>beowulf
u srs nigga
also, it takes much less time to get through a page of cheap fiction, as compared to a page of verse
I can read one of those books in a day, but the odyssey took a few weeks because I had to keep putting it down

>>5020330
>medieval rape and violence fantasy for repressed white losers
>>>/tumblr/

>>5020236
None of those works were written to be analysed

>not enjoyijg the Odyssey for enjoyments sake

>>5020029
Brah, GRRM is degenerate culmination of the once mighty culture that began with the Epic of Gilgamesh and the rest of pic related. if you are spurning one for the other you are depriving yourself of the full narrative of Western Civilization from it's beginnings through it's cycles of decadence unto it's final demise. If you pick one you are living a lie.
To counter Schopes I would say that the mind that has not been destroyed or poisoned has no place in this Gehenna of moral wreckage, you will never be able to understand western culture as an outsider, and you are an outsider unless you have felt it's blight.
GRRM hate is like hating nature itself. It has been shown to be the lawful conclusion of everything you cherish.

>>5020330
>rape and violence
>repressed

>>5020526
Did you even read the quote in the OP?

>>5020651
What? I mean repressed in the physical, you feel you want to hit someone but you don't, and then that emotion is brought back later when you read about the gratuitous violence in GoT. It's about getting off on the actions you don't perform in the real world

>examples of the highest art in literature

what is the best translation of dantes comedy

i read the oxford world classics one, and looking back i dont know how i finished that load of tripe.

For the love of fuck, no one cares about the books have you ever heard someone talk about the fucking Game of Thrones books instead of the TV show? I doubt most people even know they used to be books
Stop shitposting about George R.R. Martin

>>5020487
This is the correct response.

Also, I liked that other infograpg from Deep and Edge when he made the comparison between subkective and objective taste, comparing recommendations from doctors and carpenters to those of literature professors. Does anyone have that?

To each his own. If you don't like GRRM, why would you want others to read something you deem high art?

>inb4 labelling yourself an intellectual

>>5020721

>>5020689
Yup.

>>5020029

>shitting makes you thirsty

Yep, that's what I got from watching the first 3 episodes. Never again.

Why is this shit popular? Are people so fucking retarded?

>>5020691
>A harmless outlet for violence and unacceptable sexual desires which also fosters discussion of hitherto taboo subject which on account of their secrecy were made even more poisonous.
>somehow a bad thing.

>>5020759
There it is! Yeah I like that one, but I honestly think the dietist is a better anology than the carpenter.

There's nothing to gain from having a table that doesn't work, but there's definitely pleasure to be had in unhealthy food. If I really, really wanted to eat healthy for optimum health's sake, I woulc and I could, but enjoying an unhealthy treat like ASOIAF is fine if that's what you want to do.

The Schopenhaur quote should refer to these books as high in cholesterol instead of poisonous.

>>5020815
>not expressing it directly

Angry manchild lel

>>5020847
>this much edgy
...and I'm the manchild.