/lit/ - Literature

anything by pynchon

herzog

Not bad, just completely uninteresting.

>>6717476
>reading for plot

>>6717493
well memed

>>6717512

Just stop with this le memed bullshit

>>6717476
Oh how I despise this book. I have a friend who knew Yates and thinks he was a Great American Writer, so I mostly keep my mouth shut, but I was assigned this novel in college (UMass/Boston) and wrote a paper basically saying what OP said. I ended up getting an F on the paper and pretty much walking away from college because of it. At some point in life you have to insist on standards.

>>6717521

I was also assigned the novel my first year in college (feminist English professor). She basically made this a political class and I just talked about about April was oppressed by Frank (le patriarchy) and I got a B+ in the class.


But my issue isn't with the feminist issues. It's just that it is a legitimately shitty, terrible, appalling novel. The ending where April dies from blood loss because of the self induced abortion, I mean COME THE FUCK ON. You have 2 kids and you're really going to just abandon them? And Frank is just the most boring guy ever.

Ever seen office space? Frank is like a 1950's version of pic related.

>>6717521

Don't walk away from college because of one shitty English class. Seriously fuck English class major in STEM or some other art/social science/humanities

>>6717476
>>6717521
>>6717543

Please be trolling. You're like those people who hate The Catcher in the Rye because Holden Caulfield is insufferable.

The entire point of this book is to show you how pathetic the characters are.

Take the title for example. The couple are attracted to the name of the road because they see themselves as young radicals, but instead of being intellectual revolutionaries they end up being mediocre suburbanites and that kills them.

Did I take the bait?

>>6717476
>reading for plot and fucking relatable characters

don't you have some YA to get yourself into?

>>6717582

Uh we're not trolling. The whole point of the book is to demonstrate how difficult life for a woman was back in the 1950's. April is pressured to be a stay at home mom, she was pressured into have a second child, and then again is pressured by Frank into having a third but then she rebels against him and induces an abortion which results in blood loss and her death. Throughout the book there is a massive power struggle between Frank and April.

April wants to move to Paris. She tells Frank that she will be a secretary at some government job while he can "find himself" and whatever. But Frank is afraid of the gender role reversal. He's insecure as fuck and it shows throughout the novel. He's very superficial as well, and he talks about women very shallowly (for instance when he is describing his coworker, the one he had an affair with, or her roommate).

The entire book is just shit.


And for your information I enjoyed The Catcher in the Rye and read it in one sitting.

>>6717588

Is this a new meme?

>>6717589
She could have left, and didn't. Turned into a watered down media. I agree with>>6717582

>>6717599

She didn't leave because of how single mothers with the exception of maybe widows were treated badly by society at the time. Divorcees especially were ostracized by society and women had little rights back then.

>>6717603
And it wasn't like that in ancient greece?

>>6717604

Whoa whoa whoa where the fuck is Ancient greece coming from? Are you trying to turn this into a Greeks thread faggot?

>>6717607
No, it is just your statement about how single women were treated badly 'back then' whe it was > 100 years ago. I have numerous family examples of my great grandparents getting dovprced, and the mother doing better than the dad. April was just a weak bitch. A unique idiot, not a universal law.

>>6717615

Try telling that to my feminist literature professor. You'd fail the class in a heartbeat, kek.

Not a book, but decided to read the Macbeth play for whatever reason. Act 4 is pretty shitty.

>>6717570
Too late. I actually did. But then, I was an English major and I was not prepared to take that shit from an actual PROFESSOR. Life was more important than college.

>>6717625

Protip: Pick a better major.

>>6717625

Ah, that's too bad. Well, it's never too late to go back man. If you don't mind me asking what do you do for a living now that you're not in school?

>>6717617
That's why you don't pay for arts majors just make friends with some students and sneak into their tutorials and lectures.

>>6717589
>>6717599

THAT'S all you got from the book? That it's feminist? You let your professor frame your reading.

Didn't you notice how all of the male characters were destroyed by women being selfish, insufferable bitches?

Frank (the main character) had a nervous breakdown at the end because his wife was too much of a pretentious cunt to play house and selfishly committed suicide. The mathematician and his father got nattered to insanity and deafness respectively by the realtor wife. The neighbor who was born rich but slummed and married an empty-headed ugly woman hated his wife and coveted Frank's wife as a status symbol, but then she literally fucked him in the process of destroying his best friend.

Your professor only saw what she wanted to see. It isn't a feminist book.

What the book IS about is class and unfulfilled dreams. You can't dismiss it because you don't like the characters or because you looked at it with modern eyes and read feminism into it.

>>6717653

Don't quote me on this but I am fairly certain that the author has said he wrote the book to show the problems that women in that era faced.

Don't turn this into a men rights book. I disagree that the book is largely about unfulfilled dreams. I mean, maybe to a degree but that isn't the main theme at all.

>>6717653

You're basically playing tug of war now.

"It's a women's fault! They made the men do those things."

>>6717660
>I disagree that the book is largely about unfulfilled dreams. I mean, maybe to a degree but that isn't the main theme at all.

It's literally the title.

>>6717660
>>6717665
>Don't turn this into a men rights book.
>It's a women's fault!

Wow...could it maybe be...even-handed?

>>6717675

I'm talking about Aprils failed career as an actress. I still feel strongly that the main theme of the novel muh oppression.

>>6717681
And the men's failed dreams?

>>6717685

Irrelevant because men need to suck it up and stop having dreams. Women are more important.

Wow, I didn't even know it was possible to dislike Richard Yates. I agree he's not among the best American authors, but he's just under that level.

>>6717476
>Every single character but especially Frank and April, are the epitome of insufferable.

You read literature for the wrong reasons. Hint: Revolutionary Road is a retelling of Madame Bovary.

>>6717589
>But Frank is afraid of the gender role reversal.

Uh, you mean he's afraid they'll move over there only to find out he actually has no potential. This is the problem with 'framed' readings.

>>6717660
>Don't quote me on this but I am fairly certain that the author has said he wrote the book to show the problems that women in that era faced.

Link? Yates has pretty much said the novel is three things: an expression of his own marriage/insecurities, a modern Madame Bovary, and a recurring series of abortions.

Also the only criticisms are about how awful the characters are? Completely misses the point of literature. What about how they interact? The scene of Frank looking at Shep's (the obedient dog of a man) bookshelf? Frank telling himself he's going to man-up and stop apologizing for things only to crumble before his mistress ("sorry!"), losing faith in his ability to overcome himself? The entire play!? How beautiful all of it is! And don't even get me started Yates' style and structure.

Jesus you guys suck.

>>6717696
Give me a break. The book shows how people damage each other and themselves realistically. Women are not presented as innocent victims and men are not presented as heartless monsters. The characters, both male and female, are shown as tragic all around. Revolutionary Road isn't feminist propaganda, and to dismiss it as such ignores the complexities in the text. The oppressive force in the book isn't the patriarchy, it's the reality of middle age.

Do you mind if I ask how old you are? I'm not trying to insult you. I just think if you read this book in your early 20s you won't get much out of it, especially with some moron feminist professor cramming that view down your throat, but read it in your late 20s or 30s and you'll maybe sympathize with the characters a bit more and get more what the author is getting at.

I'm having problems with recaptcha taking forever to load so sorry if I can't continue the discussion.

>>6717744

>My opinion is fact

Richard Yates isn't a good author and his novels are boring IN MY OPINION.

>>6717745

I think that it is "patriarchy" in the book. April can't even legally get an abortion and wants to induce one herself but Frank is pressuring her not to. Patriarchy is the driving force in the novel and its really just feminist propaganda.

And no I don't mind. I'm a clueless college kid in his early 20's who enjoys George Orwell books too much.

>>6717753
I have no problems with people disliking Yates per se, I've gotten over my obsession with his work years ago.

My issue is with people who moralize literary characters and use such judgments to criticize the work. That kind of garbage is reserved for soap operas and pulp. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of what literature is about.

>>6717759

You couldn't be more pretentious, even if you ran a New York food critic blog.

>>6717765
Forgive me for actually enjoying literature.

>>6717521
You deserved the F. English essays are not supposed to be about whether you think the book is good or bad.

>>6717797

yates is probably my favourite author and there is some 10/10 trolling going down right here

Some times it bothers me /lit/ doesn't really discuss books much

Then I read shit like "waaah its too feminist" and "but I don't like the main characters though" or "I can't personally relate so I don't like it". Fucking juvenile cunts why do you even read?

>>6717841
It's identity politics. /pol/'s scapegoating tendencies and creeping authoritarianism have been poisoning many of the chans for years now.

>>6717476
>insufferable
>stupid bitch
>boring loser
That was the point, friend.

>>6718079
Identity politics was started by writers on the Daily Beast or Salon bitching how Sansa's not brave and independent enough, or how Peggy Olson's decision on Mad Men to start dating was a betrayal to all working women everywhere.

Not some people on an obscure website whose creator has now distanced himself from.

>>6718143
It's become the inverse to the Tumblr fenminists, and offers nothing more than that milieu does.

>>6717487
its a quick read though.

Naked Lunch was garbage. Was expecting a really surreal, yet throught-provoking modern classic but just got pages of boys cumming on centipedes or whatever the fuck. -10/10

>>6717476
Make sure you try another Yates book before dismissing him completely. I like Yates' other novels and his short stories, but I agree on the dislike of Revolutionary Road. He did similar themes much better in Cold Spring Harbor and Young Hearts Crying. A Good School and Disturbing the Peace are also excellent, and The Easter Parade is his real masterpiece,

It's Revolutionary Road that gets all the attention, though. How many people might be put off him because of it?

>>6717806
>FUCKING THIS