/lit/ - Literature

>>6417328
I got Ulysses from the library earlier today. I hope it's an enjoyable read.

>>6417398
Ulysses transcends the enjoyable/unenjoyable dichotomy

i had 2 extra large dark double doubles

and a pita

what did this fucker ever do

>muh farts

>>6417328
>>6417504
>>6417510
>>6417538
>>6417398

GREAT posts, GREAT thread

>>6417510

canadian confirmed

>>6417328
Put an end to literature, put the start to fart porn

>>6417328
Now that I think about it you're not wrong.
It's gonna take a lot of creativity to get out of Joyce's shadow.

>an end to literature

Joyce made way for a new beginning in literature.

Joyce is the darksouls of Literature.

Ulysses was pretty much the final boss of literature, and Finnegans Wake was that ostentatious unbeatable bonus boss.

>>6418036
>>>/v/

>>6418005

How do you mean?

Joyce wrote as though literature were a competition, and because of that he wrote a book that is intellectually satisfying; but it can only be appreciated cerebrally, it doesn't speak to one's soul, and so it never reaches the heights of sublimity that Proust's novel does.

Joyce is shit, he wrote literary ciphers for school boys who went to world-class universities and read way too much Shakespeare and way too many Greek myths, the kind of shit uninteresting men like to write about in dusty studies

he isn't worth the time

>>6418107
see that's just not fucking true and that's precisely what silly people think about joyce.

and of course this charge could never be laid against dubliners or portrait

>>6418114
>and of course this charge could never be laid against dubliners or portrait

Yes, I was thinking of Ulysses specifically. As a work of art, The Dead is the best thing he ever wrote.

>>6418120
thinking ulysses doesn't speak to one's soul is just as stupid

By declaring Ulysses to be the greatest work of literature of the 20th century, academics attempted to guarantee their continuing employment. If you can't be an educated person without reading and pretending to understand, care about, and admire Ulysses, then you must obviously take college classes from English professors.

But the whole scheme has backfired, because when we finish learning how to read and understand Ulysses, most of us realize that it's twaddle. Whatever insights into the human condition James Joyce had to offer were trivial compared to the labor of receiving them.

I mean really -- do you take Stephen Dedalus or Leopold Bloom into your heart and life?

OK, maybe a few hundred academics do. But it's nothing like the way millions of people have embraced Harry Potter. Or, for that matter, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Pip, David Copperfield, Jo and Meg and Beth and Amy, Elizabeth and Jane Bennett and Darcy and Bingley, Scarlett and Rhett and Melanie and Ashley, Judah Ben-Hur, Frodo and Gollum and Sam, Paul Muad-dib, Hari Selden, Sherlock Holmes, Douglas Spaulding, Tarzan, Conan, Robinson Crusoe, Jon Snow and Tyrion Lannister, and animals named Buck and Flicka and Bambi and Lassie.

Maybe you didn't know some of these names, or the works they came from, but I'll bet you knew a lot of them, and not just those whose names are in the titles.

So while academics and critics -- people who live by impressing others with their erudition and elitism -- almost universally declare Ulysses to be the greatest work of the 20th century, volunteer readers -- people who love literature for the joy of it -- repeatedly declare that The Lord of the Rings is the greatest work.

>>6418127
Maybe. I haven't read it yet. That's just been my impression of Ulysses based on what I've heard and read about it. I have read In Search of Lost Time, though, and it certainly speaks to my soul.

>>6418131
FUCK OFF, CARD
NOBODY TAKES YOUR ENDER SHIT SERIOUSLY ANYMORE
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

>>6418131

>people who love literature for the joy of it -- repeatedly declare that The Lord of the Rings is the greatest work.

oh, you

>>6418131
Stephen is a moody failed poet turned teacher and leopold is literally a cuckold, why would I take either of them into my heart or life?

>>6418131
>I mean really -- do you take Stephen Dedalus or Leopold Bloom into your heart and life?
yes of course you do. leopold bloom is one of the most lovable characters in world literature.

>>6418136
then why the fuck are you talking you fucking idiot

im glad you saw fit to say "The Dead is the best thing he ever wrote" when you haven't read his most acclaimed novel. have you even read portrait? have you even read "the dead"?

>>6418131
The trick to discrediting anything Orson Scott Card ever says about serious subjects: remind yourself or the person you're talking to that he's a Mormon.

I don't want to hear about your logical fallacies. I can't take Mormons seriously.

>>6418131
those damn academics screw them for loving literature so much they dedicated their life to it!

>>6418162
I wouldn't call him loveable. He starts off looking like a great guy and really educated then turns into a pervy weirdo.

>>6417328
>anglocentrism

>>6418184
a lovable pervy weirdo tho

>>6418186
so you're saying he only btfo anglos?

>>6418180
Good point. What could the men and women whose lives revolve around literature possibly know about Ulysses?

>>6418184
>pervy weirdos
>not likable

>>6417328

Buck Mulligan is obviously the best character in Ulysses, prove me wrong

>>6418209
>only reading the first page

>>6418209
he's dope

>>6418215
I have read the book twice, Buck Mulligan is still my favorite character, Stephen is too moody and Leopold is pathetic

>>6418220
Leopold Bloom was only an old dude, to me, that first time through; charming, touching, good-hearted, but old: a failure, a fool, a cuckold, crapping in an outhouse, masturbating into his pants pocket. His uxoriousness was beyond my understanding, as was his apparent willingness to endure humiliation. His lingering sorrow over the death of his infant son meant, I am ashamed to admit, very little to me at all. When I read Ulysses again I was shocked to find that, first, I was now mysteriously a decade older than Leopold Bloom, and second, that the tale of his stings and losses, his regrets and imaginings, was as familiar to me as the sour morning taste of my own mouth. Where a bachelor had seen Bloom’s devotion to Molly as pathetic, a husband saw it as noble and, at the same time, as simply her due. In Bloom’s retention, into middle age, of his child-sharp powers of observation, his fresh eye (and ear, and nose) for nuance and telling detail; in his having managed to sustain his curiosity about the people and the world around him after thirty-eight years of familiarity and routine that ought to have dulled and dampened it; and above all in the abiding capacity for empathy, for moral imagination, that is the fruit of an observant curiosity like Bloom’s, I found, as if codified, a personal definition of heroism.

>>6418246
I'm 22 so that's why I can't relate I guess

>>6418246
10/10

>>6418136

wow just go read it you fuck

>>6418246
this is the thing about ulysses. i think ulysses is essentially a book for people over 30, but people under 30 are the kind of people who want to climb that mountain.

>>6418184

yes, but aren't we all pervy weirdos under the guise of "great guys"?

I enjoy Joyce every now and then, but I think Ulysses has too many flaws to be considered an end to literature.

In his search of depth, Joyce neglects several, what I consider (and I think many others, although they might not be conscious of this fact), core aspects of literature.

The first is the auditory pleasures of well knit prose. Although it might be more representative of the character's thoughts, or it might better convey the device he's employing for that particular segment, it's still nauseating to read choppy, untied sentence after sentence. Most great prose lulls the reader into a sort of meditative mood, a state that carries them forward regardless of what's being said; it's one of the things, beyond bepuzzlement, that really separate those books worth reading once from those worth multiple visitations. I know many people dismiss this lack in the book as a necessary trade-off, yet I think if you look past the literary devices Joyce employs, to their goal, to the emotional rewards they invoke in the reader, those rewards are not inherently antagonistic to poetic prose. Many of his contemporaries achieve both goals at the same time, albeit while working at a lesser scale.

The other thing I take issue with, even more than the first (choppy prose can be trudged through) is his intentional, and IMO, needless abstruseness. I don't think there's anything wrong in demanding the reader to search for meaning in a text, but I do think it's important that a book facilitate this process, and that the ability to craft a story that pulls this off well is a part of good writing. From what I've seen of Joyce's comments on his own work and from also reading it myself, he seems to have muddled up the purpose of writing, with the puzzle being the end goal. But, really, what's important to most readers is not the puzzle but the satisfaction that comes from solving that puzzle. And I think his ignoring of this drive, intentional or not, is why the book (and even more so it's successor, FW) was destined from the start to only ever be of a niche appeal. And, again, divorcing emotional rewards from Joyce's method of achieving these rewards, it don't seem inherently linked to me.

Overall I'm not saying the book is terrible (it's still probably the greatest feat of English prose (not to be confused with the greatest story or book)), but I do think there's A LOT of room for future writers to grow upon. Whether anyone will is another question.

>>6417328
>2015
>still not realizing that Book of the New Sun is the Ulysses of sci-fi

http://ultan.org.uk/review-botns/

>>6419090

cute blogpost you linked

why do you nerds have to shitpost outside of your containment threads?

>>6419090

>Accordingly, by destabilising the meaning of his signifiers, Wolfe ensures that his narrative can be perceived as a writerly text in the Barthesian sense of containing indeterminacy of meaning.

I cringed. this entire article is one of the most empty attempts at 'critique' I've ever seen

>>6419094
>2015
>not understanding that the Joyce-threads are THE containment threads
Oh, stick to your GraSS!

>>6417328

Great literature does not "end" anything.

Great literature opens up new possibilities for other writers.

Look at every single great work of literature and you will be able to trace its influence in other writers.

There is no such thing as the end of literature.

>>6419099
>implying that all Joyce critique isn't that
However, there's a lack of fart jokes in Shadow of the Torturer and in Claw of the Reconciliator (I've just finished the chapter with the green man).

>>6418209
I think everyone can agree on that after him making a Shakespeare Porno with a Chinaman Eg-Lin-Ton

>>6419094
P.S. http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/nov/23/the-book-of-the-new-sun-science-fiction-ulysses

Good enough for you, status fag?

>>6419138
>http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/nov/23/the-book-of-the-new-sun-science-fiction-ulysses
>booksblog

>>6419138

>googling an article from the guardian

you're not even trying

go read a big boy book

>>6419138
>A few of you (JamesWMoar, MaxCairnduff, RobKill, AddisonSteele) had warned me not to tackle Wolfe while I was still reeling from the intense Elizabethan-style English of The Worm Ouroboros (or his "linguistic porridge", as AddisonSteele put it – true, but I do like porridge)

lololol

>tfw reCAPTCHA shows me pictures of steaks and now I'm hungry

>>6419138
>other articles from this author
>'George RR Martin revolutionised how people think about fantasy' (a puff piece about grrm)
why should i care what she thinks

>>6418036

>>6417328
Why did Joyce hate the comma so much?

>tfw no bababadalgharaghtakamminarronnkonnbronntonnerronntuonnthunntrovarrhounawnskawntoohoohoordenenthurnuk

>>6419180
One clause at a time butterfly

>>6418131
fuck off you spastic cunt

>>6419175
He's very keen on that phonetic -OR sound, isn't he?

> War
> d'amores
> passencore
> Europe Minor
> etc etc

>>6419217

Irish are obsessed with the letter O

>>6419217
I heard if you read Finnegans Wake aloud then it sounds like a rhythm, but I've heard tonnes of shit about Finnegans Wake anyway so take it with a pinch of salt. I remember someone telling me that every 3rd or 13th word of the book, and every 3rd letter of that word ends up spelling out messages.

>>6418127
Can you define "speak to one's soul"?
I've never understood the term.

>>6419175
>>6419217
>>6419223
>>6419230
> "Re. your telegram: Yes, it's true – I've never quite managed to finish it. I know I probably should, being the writer and all, but Christ, it all just gets too much, doesn't it?" Joyce, whose writing earned him adulation, notoriety and extremely poor sales in about equal measure, confesses that the main problems with the book were "a lack of plot", "too much of that stream-of-consciousness crap" and "the way it all gets really confusing, and then even more confusing – my head hurts just thinking about it."

>>6419241
> "Nothing really happens, does it?" he continues, in a surprising mea culpa, "The guy falls off a ladder, loads of weird stuff goes down, and then it just sort of finishes. That's not going to make me want to keep turning the pages, and I wrote the damn thing. And all those portmanteau words and free-associating screeds and what-have-you … who needs that when you're trying to relax with a good book?"

Joyce confirms. Buy the book for your collection but don't read it.

>>6419241

the article this is from seems pretty fake

>>6419254
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2010/mar/09/finnegans-wake-nonsense

>>6419257

yep, that's the one I'm talking about

>>6419254
Agreed, it seemed like such bullshit. If such a letter was found, it'd set a fire ablaze in literature-based communities due to the prominence of Joyce's work. I'm not convinced myself, especially when there's no photograph for it.

>>6419268

precisely

>>6419155
Because you are a fag that have neither read Illuminatus! nor Schrödinger's Cat.

>>6418136
>I haven't read it yet.

>>6417510
Fuck off, Ron Joyce

>>6418136
>I haven't read it yet

you are the cancer killing /lit/

>>6417510
>double double

disgusting

0.5C 0.5S master race

>>6418036
>not nearly as hard as everyone says it is

>>6418036

>>6417328
> literature ends with a cuck
O rly? Not so fast.

So is there an annotated of Ulysses, Fins Wake and Dubliners?

I want to read Joyce but I really can't understand jack shit every time I return to his work.

>>6418209
Well, he's stately. I'll give you that!

>>6418199
>fucking super hot chicks
That is a strange way to spell "getting farted on by rank sluts".

>>6417328
I fucking hate this picture so much. Why does he look like fucking Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys with those coke bottle glasses? Why are they so askew, giving him that empty retard gaze? Why is his mustache diagonal? Why are his lips just nonexistent? Why is his coat so shaggy? What the fuck sort of effeminate 1970s corduroy conductor's hat is he wearing? How can one person look like such a goofy sap?

Joyce is the Battletoads of literature

>>6421555
i agree, pic related is much more hardcore

>>6421569

roflmao nice meme

back to /v/ or leddit, just don't stay here

>>6421599
Battletoads is one of the most highly respected and challenging video games of all time, retard.

Actually he's probably more like the Makaimura of literature tbh

>>6417328
Men of his generation won us a partial independence from the Greatest empire there ever was.

He wrote books.

>>6419100

>nazi shit
>nazi crap
>nazi bullshit

>>6421359
Plump too

>>6418107
Nothing like that, writing to him was the biggest pleasure he ever experienced, it replaced sex, his body, everything. He played like a kid on the page. He laugh and laugh while writing.

>>6421579
This is the best for me.

>>6421599
Not mixing registers like the same Joyce did. You get out.

>>6421344
FYI you don't need anything to read Dubliners. That is simply a beautiful work of literature.

>>6422832
it's useful to have annotations for dubliners though if you want to know about all the irish/dublin local knowledge he's talking about. but obviously you don't need the same massive critical apparatus you basically need for finnegans wake

>>6421579
thats when he started having regrets about Finnegans Wake

>>6417328
I actually just read Ulysses for the first time last month. It's sort of relaxing in a weird way.

>>6421579
this has to be staged

its too perfect