/lit/ - Literature

>>6153037
Books doesn't mean "fiction."

Monographs will always be the best way to learn about specialized topics.

All I see are assumptions and assertions

Read more, dipshit

>>6153037
Are we getting raided or something? What's this sudden influx in stupid troll threads in the past hour?

>mfw op thinks he has some sort of smart-ness

Talentless and illiterate hacks thread general?

without looking it up. do you know what pretentious means?

>>6153071

>>6153062
This /lit/izen is on the right track.

Even memes and greentexting have more relevancy and importance in our society than dusty old books.

Kill yourself OP

If you want to live in ignorance, whatever, but don't thrust your idiocy onto others.

Did you honestly think your juvenile attempt to thrust some mediocre artists stupid uneducated ramblings onto us would do anything?

I seriously hope there's no one on /lit/ that thinks there are better critiques of nuclear war than the game mechanics of missile command.

>>6153037
I actually hate this attitude and I hate that folks like West think they aren't demanding people's time with their art.

There are plenty of short story writer who are awesome and easy to read and understand (Barry Hannah, George Saunders, Ernest Hemingway, Lydia Davis, Borges, etc.) and most novels under 500 pages aren't exactly monsters. There's something to be said about the "baggy monsters" that drone on and on, but you don't have to like them.

I'm ok with certain things be limited in scope. Hell, Kanye's production (pre-Yeezus) is something that could only be understood in context if you've heard a lot of rap music before him and after him. How's that for pretentious for Ya?

>>6153037
>taking seriously a cotton picker

>Kanye West
>Disparaging other people for being self-absorbed
>In a quote that ends in an entirely self-absorbed comment

>>6153037
But the gross majority of recent Western Canon is extremely non-elitist, if not outright populist. Sure, a lot of it will fly over your head if you don't have a good, and sometimes a near academic, grasp of literature, but this is true of all mediums. Pynchon and DFW, which this board loves to present as some sort of "patrician" writers, are both pretty accessible as long as you have a dictionary and a legitimate interest in the work.

>>6153143
>Pynchon
>Accessible

looks like somebody only read Inherent Vice...

there are parts of Gravity's Rainbow that you just cannot know what he is talking about unless you either using a reader guide or are reading it for a second time, neither of those being things people have to do with "accessible" texts

>>6153087
Agreed.

This is basically what Pynchon and DFW rely on. A lot of their references are in subjects literature critics don't understand like math and science, and they bank on that. Professionals in those fields have noted how badly they misinterpret them.

Just goes to show how bereft those who study the humanities are of a balanced education.

>>6153037
It is like Kanye can't stand other egos beyond his own. Whatever openess people may present to him will be neglected and even hated because the only identity that matters for him is his own, the other ones are just potential rivals.

>>6153037
>instead of distributing their ideas on better formats like social media and video games.

maximum b8

>>6153037
>Anyone
>one

>are

Kanye is the quintessential Modern, and I mean 'modern' in the sense of the revolution in perspective and thought that took place from the Renaissance onward.

Modernity is fixated on the Self: self-perception, self-awareness, self-help, self-absorption. What is there to Kanye but the Self? Kanye is the only person in his world. Everyone else in existence is only real insofar as Kanye perceives them.

Kanye is the perfect expression of Modernity, and consequently, is an excellent demonstration of how diseased and abnormal Modern thinking is.

Why do you guys bump blatant troll threads?

>>6153195
You could say that about pretty much any celebrity or public figure. Even most public intellectuals.

>>6153214
>troll thread

some people actually believe this smh

>>6153229
for something to do, fag

>>6153216
Admittedly so, but none of them really drive it home like Kanye. He's Modern Thinking par excellence.

>>6153195

>and consequently, is an excellent demonstration of how diseased and abnormal Modern thinking is.

I don't see how this follows from the rest
You had me until the last line

>>6153214

>he discriminates his dialectics of negation

the authenticity of the poster is irrelevant. hostility and responsiveness is crucial in a battlefield of speech acts

>>6153249
>a battlefield of speech acts

mine sides

>>6153152
Not the person you're replying to but Against the Day, V, Mason and Dixon, Crying, almost all of GR, Inherent Vice, Vineland, and Bleeding Edge are pretty easily understood if you do as that poster has said. Sure, there happen to be some details in GR that aren't apparently grasped the first time through. That doesn't make the whole thing inaccessible. It might not all slot into place perfects but it's not exactly Finnegan's Wake.

>>6153162
Almost all the Pyncon scholars have noted that the science he references is rarely the point.

>>6153251

>isn't fully engaged in the ideological loom of discourse on 4chan's literature board

lurk more fgt. get rekt nerd

>>6153162
Except not only was Pynchon surrounded by calculus equations inherent in rocket engineering, but some of his metaphors and symbolism rely on a correct interpretation of such.

>>6153086
epic

>>6153162
Shut the fuck up

>>6153328
there was also just obscure shit most people are just not going to know, for example the fertility ritual with the african woman buried in the dirt or whatever, yeah, it's probably a reference to the same ritual that was the inspiration for the cover of that funkadelic album, but when you're reading GR you're more likely going to be like "what the fuck?" or how about the seance shit? sorry, but no one is familiar enough in the 20th century with 18th century seances to fully dig that whole shit, not to mention how many people know that Phoebus Cartel from the Byron the Bulb was a real thing? Maybe some WW2 buffs and Germans know the history of IG Farben or whatever, but your average indie dood reading GR on a Brooklyn bound train doesn't...and does anyone know what the hell that part about the pinball machine warehouse references? I mean I guess you can read it without knowing the references but it's mostly going to be "lol i donno" page after page

>>6153162
DFW was a poser, his "math" shit is like Calculus 101 that any college who isn't a liberal arts major would have done...if you think that little F(x) function in IJ was mystifying then you're probably a chick. On the other hand the double integrals in GR are a bit more hairy...

>>6153351
I don't think knowing whether any of that was actually real impacts your reading experience.

I could have lived my life happily without knowing that Byron the bulb is a real thing. Just thinking of Byron being used as a butt plug makes me quiver.

>>6153365
Literally no one cares m8, the books are about art, not the rote memorization we're forced through to obtain shekels.

>>6153402
>not the rote memorization we're forced through to obtain shekels.

not everyone is a greedy asian, a lot of white people study engineering because it's fun to them

>>6153412
>because they are autistic fedora tippers

>>6153152
depth and accessibility have different meanings retard

>>6153243
More intuition than anything, but really: if you agree with me that Kanye is the apogee of Modern thinking, does Modern thinking really seem to be all that desirable?

>>6153486
no shit, which is why i mention nothing about depth, fag, there are just some passages were he starts talking about some photographhe saw in a copy of Time Magazine from 1957 that no one is gonna know wtf he's on about without some reader's guide, has nothing to do with depth or not

>>6153412
>tfw started out doing engineering
>tfw realize engineering is boring as fuck and I should of done physics
now i'm econ so I can be a jew

>>6153402
>Rote memorisation
>Learning math
pick one faggot

>>6153500
>apogee

pssssh... kids... stop... readin

The pinnacle of literature is in poetry.