/lit/ - Literature

>>7794065
could it, OP? could it?

>>>/mu/

>>7794066
+ GRRM, Rowling, Tolkien.

I don't understand why Vonnegut is considered a fedora author. The overwhelming majority of people I know that like him are more like bros. or I guess chads though I fucking hate that term.

I literally talked with someone who, physically - as in, out loud - said:

>Ah, such workings from Tom Holt, Terry Pratchett and Douglass Adams, such beauty. They are my heroes, heroes of literature

I had to leave the room desu, pretended I needed the toilet but I just sat on the seat and winced

>>7794081
he's reddit: the author

>>7794101
this desu

>>7794101
>>7794107
Not so long ago he was regarded as a great beginner/easy author around here. Assuming you're fresh off the boat from Reddit.

>>7794065

Scottish accent makes your post better

>>7794118

He's OK, and has been recognized as such. I don't think anybody on /lit/ has ever unironically called him 'great,' even in the context of being a 'great introductory author for those interested in literature' or what have you.

>>7794151
all i can say is that my experience has not been the same, of both /lit/ and Vonnegut himself.

>>7794156
I agree with this nigga because >>7794151 this nigga is a fuckin dumbass who's been here for about two weeks

>>7794151
i've been here since 2012 (tfw) and i don't think i recall anyone refer to him as great

>>7794088
Why not ask if he plans to read better books?

>>7794088
I mean, those authors are good for a quick laugh (except maybe Tom Holt, he's a bit shit in any case), it's just calling them "literary heroes" that's the problem. I doubt they even considered themselves that.

Vonnegut is entry level? I've devoured Vonnegut like crazy. I'm a college drop out so admittedly not in literary circles. But if he's an intro author, then who to read next? Someone who expands on his style? He has such poignant and clever ideas and always weaves in genuine human perspectives. that's what I like. Also enjoyed unbearable lightness of being.

Already read some kafka, was aight. Philip k dick has been recommended as well.

>>7794855
Probably just that his books are well written and easy to read and in some ways understand. That means the barrier of entry is lower even though his skill as a writer I think is higher. I'm not an expert though, if someone with a degree wants to correct me please go ahead.

>>7794855
Holy fuck this comment is the epitome of the reddit ethos. I hope warosu stays up because I'm linking this whenever someone on here claims 'reddit' is meaningless and just means 'something you don't like' or tries to act like Vonnegut is anything but reddit.

>>7795186
231 million unique monthly visits to reddit and he claims he's found the epitome of the reddit ethos. Maybe you should write a book about it for reddit to devour. Or you could just answer his fucking question you bloody hangnail. I'm interested to know too.

>>7794190
>>7794156
newfags detected, trying to pretend others are the newfag

vonnegut was liked when this board was first created, but when this board was first created the FP was filled with GRRM, kingkiller, 1984, and other essential redditcore stuff. if you actually think vonnegut is good you really should just go to r/books cause this is not the board for you.

>>7794855
vonnegut leans too heavily on his subject matter, his actual "poignant" and "clever" ideas are just that - ideas - vague, pseudo-philosophical tidbits thrown out to create a semblance of depth and insight. it's almost always devoid of any real content. his obsession with "lol so random ecks dee" humor really helped popularize him among the typical redditor-type, and his reputation for being an author for "intelligent social misfits" means pretentious entry-level pseuds will rush to proclaim him as great. his idea of genuine human perspectives is a very parochial view and does not have the same universal humanism that you get from real great literature.

unbearable lightness of being has merits but it's, overall, painfully middlebrow.

>>7794088
Sounds like you have autism

>>7794855
He's considered 'entry level' in the sense that his writing goes beyond being simply entertainment while still being easily understood and involving simple themes.
>He has such poignant and clever ideas and always weaves in genuine human perspectives.
Read more faggot.

“Trout sat back and thought about the conversation. He shaped it into a story, which he never got around to writing until he was an old, old man.
It was about a planet where the language kept turning into pure music, because the creatures there were so enchanted by sounds. Words became musical notes.
Sentences became melodies. They were useless as conveyors of information, because nobody knew or cares what the meanings of words were anymore.
So leaders in government and commerce, in order to function, had to invent new and much uglier vocabularies and sentence structures all the time, which would resist being transmuted to music.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Breakfast of Champions

I will always love his books, some people just have a way with words and sometimes that's enough.

>>7794855
>He has such poignant and clever ideas and always weaves in genuine human perspectives. that's what I like.
>Already read some kafka, was aight.
Please kill yourself

>>7795186
>>7795299
>>7795317
>>7795338
And not a single one of you pretentious fucks recommends even one author. How much have you honestly taken away from all the supposedly enlightening literature you read? That your time should be spent shitting on people with opinions and innocent questions? Didn't incite any sort of desire to help or teach others? Fascinating. Some people study lit and go on to be great teachers, and some go on the internet and arbitrarily decide who has read smarter books than who.

>>7795779
? i wasn't aware there was a call for recommendations. i'd be happy to recommend something if you give me some general guidelines of what you like/are interested in

but honestly the real answer boils down to just read the canon. its the canon for a reason.

>>7795779
also here's the issue with most fans of vonnegut (and many other "entry tier"/middlebrow authors) which you kindly demonstrated for us - the default response someone has when confronted with reasonable criticism of his favorites is to immediately label them as "pretentious." you presume that the other person was motivated by some desire to look smart on a papua new guinean trout fishing forum instead assuming/hoping you can glean something from what they've said. it's very obvious you haven't read a lot "serious" literature - and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that - but you shouldn't be so quick to assume you know better than people who might've

>>7795779
wow dude youve clearly been triggered

just about everything youve said and done implies youre a perfect fit for reddit, seriously you can be a pleb there all you want and no one will say naughty words to you

>>7795835
it's like the old joke about games - everyone better than me is a hacker and everyone worse than me is a noob

everyone who reads "difficult" literature is a pretentious pseud and everyone who reads "entry" lit is a pleb

>>7794855
Murakami, John Green, Palahniuk maybe? If you want something that's more "mature" you might like David Foster Wallace. Calvino and Borges might be your thing too but and I mean this in the least douchey way possible you might not be well-read enough to really appreciate/understand them.

>>7795779
1. this is 4chan
2. this is a bait thread
3. get it together
4. have a nice day

>>7795779
Phoebe

>>7795826

>But if he's an intro author, then who to read next? Someone who expands on his style? He has such poignant and clever ideas and always weaves in genuine human perspectives. that's what I like.

Yeah so I like to read Vonnegut when I want an easy, light, funny read that still has literary merit. Thinking he's an amazingly deep and complex author is retarded, but thinking he's devoid of talent and only for "pleb readers" is stupid.
I like elitism on lit. That's what has made it a good place, in my opinion. I don't want threads about genre fiction, Terry Pratchet, Dan Brown, Tom Clancy... the elitism makes it so those types of authors aren't talked about and, if they are, we are quick to say how shitty they are. But Vonnegut isn't that caliber. He's better than them. He's no Pynchon, no DeLillo, no Nabokov, no Proust, no Joyce. But does he have to be?

>>7794065

We missed it....

>>7795859
James Joyce.

>>7795852
Thanks. I've seen Murakami's name around and been curious. Borges was recommended as well by friends who got me into Kafka.

>>7795860
you can talk about vonnegut on r/books

you can't really talk about proust or joyce on reddit besides very surface discussion and a lot of "lol joyce was a hack"/"this is too hard i dropped it after 50 pages"/etc.

>>7795869
So what is your point? That because Vonnegut can be discussed on r/books he must only be discussed on r/books? That's fucking stupid.

>>7795875
elevating vonnegut above genre fiction is stupid you're a fucking pseud

he's a pleb author get over it. his insight and poignancy is on par with shit you'd find in orson scott card

>>7795875
do you ever talk about vonnegut on here?
i read vonnegut as you do, but there's nothing to talk about with vonnegut so i don't talk about him here or with anybody

>>7795867
Dont read John Green, he's YA. Murakami is okay but I find him pretty dry. Palahniuk I've never been a fan of. I'd recommend Bret Easton Ellis (Less Than Zero), Don DeLillo (White Noise great and pretty easy), and Calvino. Just don't read Invisible Cities or If on a winter's night a traveler first, read his folktales and short stories. I especially enjoy Under the Jaguar Sun and The Nonexistent Knight. Marcovaldo is splendid as well and very easy. Additionally you might want to read some Bolaño. Last Evenings on Earth is a collection of fantastic stories. Almost all of them are terrific.

>>7795884
Oh no, the kid on the internet called me a pseud! What will I do??
>>7795887
That's a good point. The only thing I can really talk about with him is his way of telling a story - I really like his voice and the relationship he has with the reader. But exploring the complexities of his work? Well, not so much.

>>7795835
>confronted with reasonable criticism

Oh, right, such as

>Please kill yourself
>Read more faggot.
>Holy fuck this comment is the epitome of the reddit ethos

cheers m8, troll harder

>>7795898
lol you're so incredibly salty right now

just fuck off back to r/books

vonnegut posters should all be gassed

>>7795900
all of those statements are correct. sorry this isn't your tumblr hugbox.

>>7795902
Oh yeah. I'm fuming, pal. Can hardly contain my rage.

>>7795910
w e w
e
w

l a d
a
d

the amount of /reddit/ here. wew.

>>7795911
just kill yourself my man

Vonnegut was a hack. He specifically tailored his writings and persona to appeal to the middle class sixties kids who were playing leftist intellectuals at the time. DAE war is bad?

>>7795916
>i'm not mad i swear
>just kill yourself

:^)

>>7795902
>>7795907
>>7795911

be calm my children. lay thine jimmies to rest, they have been through enough today

>>7795923
shhhh no more tears

>>7795890
Thank you. I'm flying overseas soon and needed some solid reads.

I see Vonnegut as a solid entry-level author. He was the gateway to reading more serious lit for me personally. To call him a hack is idiotic as is calling him great.

>>7795944
yes he'll lead you into other great authors like murakami

fucking kek

plebs gonna pleb

>>7795947
the trolling is strong with this one

>>7795954
2016 /lit/ everyone, where people unironically defend vonnegut and murakami as anything other than pleb trash

chink moot pls nuke this board it's fucking over. i'll even take christposting and stirnerfags over this shit.

>>7795957
are you angered, bro?

>>7794151
>I don't think anybody on /lit/ has ever unironically called him 'great,'

I wish

Memes aside I agree with >>7795944

Why do you pieces of shit come on /lit/? What can this board possibly give you that you don't get from /r9k/ or /tv/ or whatever shit boards you faggots like? None of you actually read legitimate literature anyway so you aren't gaining anything here.

>>7795957
You don't know what this board is about and think 4chan is just one giant board, you're one of the pathetic, annoying pieces of shit I'm talking about above.

>>7795900
"read more faggot" is very polite by 4chan standards

>>7795965
>None of you actually read legitimate literature anyway

t. vonnegut reader

>>7795965
>legitimate literature

SPOOKED

>>7795974
>>7795977
>being this desperate to fit in

Look we understand.

>oh but nobody likes me in real life!
>I don't have any friends!
>I don't fit in!
>And it's all because everyone's dumb and I'm super smart!

Ok that's fine, we've all been there before at some point or other I mean everyone here has been a teenager before, but just because you don't fit in anywhere doesn't mean you can just pick the easy route of trying to fit in here by copy-pasting other anons opinions.

It would be one thing if you guys had actually read Vonnegut before, but the fact is that you haven't actually read him and I know this for a fact. It is 100% true and there is nothing you can do to prove me wrong.

>inb4 le Vonnegut defender!

He's fine for what he is, it's autists like you that make him worse by pretending that he's trying to be the greatest novelist of all time. He writes a fun and more simplistic/accessible type of post-modernism literature that is good for getting people into modernism and such.

>>7795996
>simplistic/accessible type of post-modernism literature

literally an oxymoron

vonnegut is to classic literature what big mac is to culinary arts

>>7795996
>projecting this hard
>getting your jimmies so rustled

Kek

>>7796004
Are you implying that an actual characteristic of post-modernism is not being accessible? Do you know anything about literary genres, because I'll go ahead and tell you that "accessiblity" does not define any genres.

>>7796013
>oh no he posted on an anonymous image board!
I can say whatever I want on here faggot even if it's calling out stupid pieces of shit. Sure they might not listen, but whatever I can't force them to all I can do is talk shit and hit them where it hurts i.e. reminding them that they're pathetic social outcasts.

>>7796018
Ehehehehehehehe

>>7796018
I am implying that I'm counter-baiting you in hopes of receiving some entertainment to my evening but you're falling short, pls up your game senpai

>>7796025
>>7796028
>evening entertainment is watching strangers get tricked
>but I promise I hate reality tv it is such shit for the dumb masses!

>>7796040
>implying it's evening
>implying he's a stranger
>implying i hate reality tv

W E W
E
W

>>7796044

>>7796040
shitposting is an performance art, one that requires creativity, improvisation, loquaciousness, and a good eye for composition.

Reality-tv is passive consumption without any personal input, responsivity or human contact.

>>7796066
>shitposting on 4chan is human contact

yeah keep telling yourself that my friend

>>7796066
*note my advanced meta-metaposting ad absurdum technique[1]

[1].[2] which also references itself
[2]. the footnotes are a literary reference to entity known as "DFW"[3]
[3]. the purpose of these footnotes is to show the potential for creativity and references within the shitposting medium

>>7796078
O! But what is human contact? To exhange banalities, ready-made politenesses, the tacit contract to leave each's deep yearnings unaknowledged to avoid the discomfort inherent in real, genuine contact of souls? This is desireable in some way? Instead of indulging in the unbearable absurdity of life, conveniently and anonymously?

>>7796088
good shitposting

>>7796104
bad shitposting

learn the difference

>implying shitposting is objective

elitists pls go

>>7795869
>implying /lit/ ever discusses Proust or Joyce more than superficially

>>7796137
i want to refute you but you're right. well shit.

>>7796142
You could refute me whenever you wished to, but for that you'd have to be capable of discussing those authors more than superficially.

So, are you?

>>7796137

>>implying lit discusses any book more than superficially
>>implying lit has ever shown any actual passion for the patrician literature it professes to love
>>implying lit knows anything other than smug contempt

>>7795923

only dreams now. Anons need to obtain unrustlement.

>>7796162
yes but not on 4chan. i have a published paper on joyce fwiw.

>>7795954
this is what a redditor would say
this is literally a meme on reddit

>>7794065
The correct term is 'book nerd'.

>>7796165
We can rebuild it. We have the technology.

>>7796207
Have you ever tried?

>>7796527
yep got completely ignored in favor of memeing (which is what I expected)

more people on /lit/ have read IJ than ulysses. just think about that for a moment.

also there's more people than you'd think on /lit/ who have the /reddit/ attitude of "joyce is difficult and pretentious and everyone who enjoys him is lying to look smart"

>>7796545
I've had similar experiences. I think the only thing we can do is keep trying and not be bogged down by the miasma.

>there's more people than you'd think on /lit/ who have the /reddit/ attitude of "joyce is difficult and pretentious and everyone who enjoys him is lying to look smart"
That's not surprising, like how there really are people that think you need to be into STEM to understand Pynchon.

>post this thread and leave
>return a day later
>mfw

>>7796545
>who enjoys him is lying to look smart

these people actually exist and I've ran into them in real life so there's some validity to this. of course not nearly every joyce fan is like this

>>7795779
Herodotus, Sophecles, Pericles, Ovid, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, Bronte, goerthe, ford Maddox Ford, hardey, James, Eliot, j Joyce, Conrad, Woolf, Lawrence, Salinger, Nabokov, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, chekov, Pynchon, dfwallace.... there, are you happy, now fuck off with your genre fiction you philistine

>>7795281
>>>/reddit/

>>7796165
>>7796137
if you hate it so much, why don't you leave

>>7795186

>>7797970
Lel, you're a massive faggot. While Vonnegut is admittedly entry-level tier shit kids need to start somewhere. This isn't /b/ you autist, and not every thread on this board has to pertain to Pynchon, Wallace, or Joyce.

>>7798281
Pynchon, Wallace, and Joyce are where the entry level should be if we're to have any kind of quality discussion.

>>7794065
>Implying liking Pratchett is ever a bad thing.

>>7798659
pratchett is entry level vonnegut

>>7798289

you're being silly, some pynchon and joyce can be deemed entry-level imo, but others by them are not

e.g. dubliners is entry-level, finnegan's wake is not

>>7798659

pratchett is crap

>>7798688
>>7798699
What don't you like about his writing?

>>7798715

that he's not very good and the pleasure people seem to have is 'world-building' and the like, rather than anything about his use of language or insights into the mind or anything mildly interesting that truly great fiction can do

he's mediocre fantasy for young teenagers, it has its place, but it's below 'entry-level' in terms of great 'literature'

>>7795290
lol acting like /lit/ is prestigious or something. well meme'd faggot.

>>7795826
still no recommendation.

>>7797730
wallace? you bought into the meme.

>>7798722
At least read Monstrous regiment or Thud before criticizing his work. Vimes is a very well written character.

>>7798735

i have read going postal and thud

>>7794151
He's great

>>7794065
OK, so, here's my opinion: I don't know if Vonnegut's really good, I know he's entertaining and relatively simple. And mostly for these two reasons, I see him as the epitome of average postmodernism. See, pick any other postmodernist author and he'll likely have his very distinct style and inclinations. Auster is going to write detective fiction with a huge focus on American cultural references, language and authorship. DeLillo is going to dissect consumerism with a writing style that simulates the way one dumbs down Joyce's writing, but makes it strictly American (and global in that sense). Pynchon is above postmodernism, you can't understand postmodernism by reading Pynchon, it's even difficult to understand Pynchon while you already can relate to what "average postmodernism" is all about. DFW expands, inverts and quite honestly overdoses postmodernism. Philip K. Dick talks about technology, reality and the human condition in the postmodern time unlike any other author, but that's about it, you won't get anything else. Fowles, Borges, Nabakov, all the rest, use and build postmodernism in their own relatively individual manners and styles. Vonnegut, on the other hand, makes "being clear and direct" his style while maintaining some level of metaphorical functions through his books. This is the balance anyone should hope to achieve if they aim for both renownage and merit. Also, even in solely one of his books, say Breakfast of Champions, he can portray every single feature of postmodernism very limpidly and rapidly. Authorial authority? Checked. Insecurity towards science and danger of impending technological expansion? Fear of consumerism? Return of metaphysics with a criminal record from past ages? Intertextuality and the disappearance of boundaries between highbrow and lowbrow cultures? In his crossbred literary science fiction novel he weaves little sci-fi stories written by a lone author desolated by the overarching postmodern condition, published in pulp porn magazines. He works with language and self-referentiality through the symbol of "leaks" (mirrors). He excesively explicitly displays all of the woes that are left by the second world war, the cold war and high capitalism in the globalised culture through his poignant narration on little postmodern symbols popping up every now and then (like the car gallery, fairyland, the black guy with the surname of the rich white man, amusement park pollution). And he places the heart of postmodernism in almost all of his books -- that's why the two are so immaculately aligned. In this instance, in BoC, the abbreviation "Etc." is emphasized tirelessly, again and again. It is tied metaphorically to polimers of plastic, the very foundation of a postmodern society, and the idea that postmodernity is self-perpetuating thanks to the many measures taken by the global overlords, Illuminati or some other group. I think he's a great synthesizer of an author. He extracts the ostensible essence of

>>7798806
the postmodern condition so skillfully and so thoroughly that one feels insufficient to call him a hack of any kind. He's not DeLillo, no Pynchon definetely, but he's his own kind of an author, not a "vanguard of literature" but he's a social commentator and maybe that's undervalued here.

Of course, many of his visions have proved more or less wrong, but that doesn't mean he was unsuccessful in his work. Almost all ideas of classical antiquity proved wrong as well and nobody criticizes that era's important figures, and I think that should be the case.

>>7798806
>>7798810
(I am the same poster)
Now that I think about it, it might be his biggest misfortune that he was an almost perfect marginal minimalist as opposed to hardcore maximalists like Joyce, Pynchon, DFW, Bolano and many others. Well, it's difficult to call it a misfortune since he pretty much has acquired a paragon status among the non-academic audiences outside this board, but my meaning was that he'll never be able to get elite recognition as much as the aformentioned others mostly due to this nature of his writing. Maximalists get incredible amounts of (perhaps undeserved) credit for their ambition to fit as many magnificence in seperately sold and produced commodities (or arbitrarily consolidated immense heaps of literary art). Vonnegut has always been content with distributing his self and essence (which change with time obviously) to different, lesser books with common themes, all published in different times. I'm not claiming that he's better than Pynchon, I don't feel like that either. What I'm mainly asserting is that if Vonnegut had written four books instead of many, and at least one of them was an intricately tied up and merged version of a few of his shorter novels, he'd have a better reputation here and an even more prominent spot in the postmodern canon.

>>7798806
>>7798810


Again, the same anon. I just wanted to point out that this quote >>7795330 further reinforces my stance. You can clearly see that in such a short passage, Vonnegut had his way with semantics and post-structuralism in a relatively minimalistic (and still reeking of his melancholy prose) approach and probably got it over with, moving on to other brief but bright displays of the main pillars of postmodernism, rinsing and repeating but not skipping anything until the plot reaches its metafictional, humanitarian and sentimental conclusion.

>>7798806
>>7798810
>>7798997
>>7799390
This nigga hit the nail on the head! Very well said my man.

>>7798806
tldr

>>7794065
i read vonnegut a lot when i was in highschool. its entertaining, light, generally pretty quick reads, and he has some far out ideas. never thought of him as trying to be too deep. and thats what i like about it.
i guess that makes me a pleb. but im alright with that. i dont read books to show off. i read them for entertainment. and kurts novels are very entertaining.
its like how pop-scientists like neil degrasse tyson are to real scientists. hes obviously not trying to actually discover new things. hes just trying to make something that is interesting and appeals to a wide audience. people forget that vonnegut started out selling short stories to magazines. dude was just trying to make a buck.
all im trying to say is that if we dont judge him as a literary genius, can we atleast agree that he is a good novelist?

>>7794101
I hate that you use a site as an insult. It's so immature. What does it even mean? Isn't 4chan the fedora site, I mean, why is there a hierarchy of fedora now?

>>7800806
Reddit has the second most Gentlemen per square foot, behind the comments section on the Amazing Atheist's YouTube page.

>>7800821
okay. but disliking an author because he is revered by assholes isnt pretentious in its own right?

i have no love for reddit either, and all the immigrants from there have all but destroyed most of this sites boards. but to piss on something just because it is in some way connected to that site is as childish and arrogant as most redditors.

hop off your high horse and dont let the stupidity of the masses guide your opinions. think for yourself, or you are just as bad as them.

>>7800847
>i have no love for reddit either,
i doubt that

>to piss on something just because it is in some way connected to that site is as childish and arrogant as most redditors.
you seem to know a lot about reddit friendo

>>7795890
If on a winter's night a traveller is a pretty easy and compelling read desu, I'm not sure one needs training beforehand.

>>7800889
yeah no shit i know about redditors. ive had to deal with them for fucking years now. just saying that this is the attitude thats causing 4chan to collapse under itslef.

>>7800847
reddit spotted

>>7800916
I'm glad you get it. It isn't anything Reddit has actually done that's made 4chan so much worse in the last few years - it's the terror of being Reddit.

>>7800926
>>7800916
>it's the terror of being Reddit.
if you treat any sentiment on this website sincerely you're autistic.

this website is best enjoyed through a post post ironic lens

>>7800926
Maybe if you dumb fuckers don't want to turn into Reddit you should STOP GOING THERE.

I've been on 4chan since 2008. I get linked to Reddit every now and then but I never spend more than about five minutes there at any given time. I've never had an account there and I've never posted there.

Just say 'no,' you fuckers. Follow Nancy Reagan's advice and say no to Reddit.

>>7800847
You are right.

>>7800889
>>7800916
>>7800922
You are wrong.

And this is overall very stupid. You're discussing about how the Reddit mentality destroys everything good about the site, or the board. Then -- I know this has gotten cliché, but it's for a good reason -- stop referencing Reddit. Don't bring it up. Contribute in actual literary conversations. Let the "Reddit refugees" try to make themselves fit in, or leave if they can't. Stop fucking crying and make this place somewhere you want to actually be a regular of. But it seems to me that you all actually enjoy redditors flooding in, the quality dropping, memeposting rocketing and effort and depth and rigour declining. You thrive in this environemnt, because you're here for the memes anyway, memes of superiority, discrimination, simplification, decadence and resigment.

And don't perpetuate this arguement, prove me wrong by stopping this nonsense on your account.

>>7800965

>>7800972
Alright, I guess I'll take your side's advice: >>7800954

>>7800993
it will improve you browsing experience greatly.

>>7800903
It's more rewarding if you've read a decent amount of Calvino beforehand is all

>>7794855
>kafka, was aight

>>7798806
>>7798810
>>7798997

quality stuff, man. I don't have much to say other than that I appreciated your post.

>>7798806
>>7798810
>>7798997
>>7799390
oververbose mass-produced text that doesn't actually have much to say and could have been condensed to about 25% of its length, which currently lends it false gravitas that easily impresses the middlebrow

>>7802040
>doesn't actually have much to say
Where did you get that idea? Many people feel that Vonnegut had much more to say on the human condition than, for example, Joyce, since he's more focused on the presentation of his thoughts and ideas, rather than their number, merit, authenticity or disposition.

>>7802547

>>7802856

>>7802547
I was talking about the anon who wrote that short paragraphless essay

>Vonnegut had much more to say on the human condition than, for example, Joyce

Vonnegut was preachy rather often, Joyce was not, and Dubliners is filled with insights into the human condition anyway.

>>7802881

>>7802886
I'm that anon, sorry that I didn't make it clearer.

You're absolutely right in what you said, but that doesn't contradict with my point. Joyce's insights were less visible, due to his style. In Dubliners he's like a realist and then he develops his more modernist methods -- throughout obscure, whereas Vonnegut tries to be memorable, direct and sentimental. Also, Joyce had been an author of a different time, a world not yet drenched in late capitalism, so his explorations, whatever they may be, are less relevant to the contemporary reader. These make >Many people feel that Vonnegut had much more to say.

>>7802894

>>7802909

>>7802954

>>7802966

>>7802986
OK let's stop.

>>7802995
ok