/lit/ - Literature

Literally nothing good.

In Australia no one has time to write because of all the kangaroo invasions that the mainstream news don't report

>>8436793

>>8436777
>mfw eurocucks will never come close to the literary greatness of Moby Dick

>>8436777
mfw I live in Canada.

>>8436805
That's not even a good bait anon.

>>8436793
Are you allowed to shoot them?

>>8436811
Iktf

>>8436820
name a better book than moby dick that isn't american

>>8436777

>America's best novel

>one giant allusion to dicks written by in the closet gaiboi

Goddammit America is the death of the West.

>>8436825
In Search of Lost Time, Don Quixote, TBK, Divine Comedy, and the list goes on. Do you enjoy making me answer? They have Shakespeare but I don't know if you can count them as books, but I guess I can just say Paradise Lost.

>>8436857
>he lists /lit/ memes

>>8436822
No. We chuck boomarangs and hope the sharp end gets them

>>8436861

You know how I know that God isn't real? He wouldn't waste his time making something as pathetic as you.

>>8436861
Great books that were praised long before 4chan was created, and with good reason.
How's that a lit meme?

>>8436777

We're basing this off Goodreads reviews, right?

>>8436873
>>8436874
>they believe they're precious memes aren't memes

>>8436811
You probably have read very few Canadian books.

Lots of gems. It's just that Canadians ignore their own literary tradition. Not an accident either. Most older Canadian lit is written entirely by anglos

>>8436793
I liked Shantaram, which has Australian author

the best or not, I don't know, but its certainly one of my favorites

the posthumous memoirs of bras cubas - machado de assis

>>8436903
That's it, you can't even write properly. Kudos anyway, as I don't usually respond to these baits, but you've the skill to be as annoying and insufferable as possible.
Good job.

>>8436811
>Eric Walters

>>8436917
>Kudos anyway, as I don't usually respond to these baits

he says as he responds to most obvious bait in existence

>>8436917
He's right >>8436957, when someone baits that hard you are supposed to tell him to eat shit in a funny way and move on, how long have you been using 4chan anyway?

Probably this. I haven't read much else Scottish literature.

>>8436793
Patrick White won the Nobel Prize you dip...

>>8436903
>says this while posting the biggest meme authro

>>8436981
your g*d damn right

>>8436978
Oh yeah because the Nobel Prize is a great measure of quality that everyone should place great import in, like the Oscars or those golden gramophones

>>8436861
Set a thief to catch a thief.

>>8436777
>tfw german
You are asking an impossible task OP

>>8436961
>I haven't read much else Scottish literature.

read Ulysses. now,

>>8436992
rethink that one a bit buddy

>>8436992
That's Irish you dip.

>>8436995
>>8436997
joyce was born in scotland. ulysses is only written in irish

>>8436777
Does this count?

I think /pol/ would say it counts.

>>8436990
Faust: Zweiter Theil

>>8437001
Don't try and act stupid on purpose to make it look like you didn't think James Joyce was actually from Scotland

We all know you are retarded now

>>8437004
It wasn't written in one country though.

>>8437009
The Nation of Zion &c.

Eternal Jew brings his nation with him.

I'd have posted the Torah, but quite frankly it sucks.

>>8437011
Ignoring Iob and and the Apocalypse, the Torah contains the best parts of the bible

>>8437023
Its backwardness is not to my tastes, although I can see how it could be.

More to the point, it's much less influential, which is half of the dickswinging we do in these threads. Or should do, if we don't.

>>8437033
>More to the point, it's much less influential, which is half of the dickswinging we do in these threads. Or should do, if we don't.

>>8436908
I'm open honestly. Name some. Everything I've be recommended was not great.

>>8437183
I want this too

>>8436857
The only novels that are really in the same discussion as Moby Dick are Ulysses and Don Quixote.

assuming we don't include Kafka as an Austrian

>>8437283
This sure doesn't look like the Man Without Qualities

>>8437283

I like Bernhard, man. But no "The man Without Qualities?" You're just wrong...

>>8437283
Kafka was Czech you nerd.

But yeah, the weird thing about german lit is that a lot of great german lit is not from Germany. A lot is swiss, for example, like Max Frisch.

>>8437183
>>8437260
To start:


Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town

Autobiography of Red

Beautiful Losers

Fifth Business

This, Umbral or Altazor.

>>8436992
ya dingus

>>8436961
Check out Alasdair Gray if you get a chance. I enjoyed Lanark and Poor Things. I will eventually get to 1982, Janine but have a backlog and fund shortage at the moment.

Faust

>>8437487
Which one, anon? This is important.

>>8437497
I'm sure he's talking about Goethe's

>>8437507
Yes, and that is made out of two books that were finished almost half a century apart from each other.

>>8437325
Chilean or Spanish?

>>8437517
Well, I take them as a single work anon.

>>8437549
They are completely different in tone.

>>8437552
So if I chapter 1 of my book has a different tone from chapter 2 I have written two books?

>>8437558
Well, you could argue that the Illias and the Odyssee are the same book then. But no one seriously would, because are you really that silly?

>>8436857
Literally the only thing listed better than Moby-Dick is Paradise Lost.

>>8437570
It's a sign of a pseud if someone is trying to "rank" great works like that.

>>8436985
>g*d

>>8436992
>Scottish literature
>Ulysses

What are you even doing here? What a meme

>>8436992
A meme is born!

>>8437306
>>8437302
I'm a big fan of The Man Without Qualities, but I just think Extinction is more consistent. There are times when Musil is brilliant in TMWQ, but it also has low points. P;us I think Bernhard's writing in general is more indicative of the Austrian mind set.

I get the argument for TMQG though...

>>8437307
yeah but who considers him a czech writer

>>8436992

Why are Germans so shit at literature? Serious question.

>>8436992
I'm putting credit in this meme

>>8437622
There has more great German language literature than any other language. French is the only language that can compete.

>>8437629
Come on. The English language has the American, Canadian, English, and Irish literary traditions.

>>8437615
>>8437302
>>8437306
I'm using a copy of The Man Without Qualities to make one of my two computer screens a little higher by standing it on top of The Man Without Qualities

Should I read it?

I think "The Man Without Qualities" is a mediocre translation of the title

>>8437615
>yeah but who considers him a czech writer
I do, kinda.

Well, to some degree atleast. I think in his own mindset what he considered himself was in order:

1. jewish
2. german
3. Prague (so czech)
4. austrian maybe? I don't really know

But yeah, he was definately jewish if anything.

Like I mentioned above, the weird thing about "german" literature is that a lot of it is only german in language. So I have a hard time talking about "german literature", I just kinda lump together all of the literature that is written in the german language.

>>8437637
Not him, but quite frankly none of those have impressed me so far.

I would probably put Spanish above English too

>Canadian
oh wow buddy come on now

>>8436912
just finished dom casmurro so damm good starting bras cubas now.

>>8437649
>I would probably put Spanish above English too

>>8437649
>Shakespeare, Milton, Joyce, Faulkner, Nabokov, Woolf, Austen, Bronte, Melville, Bellow
No but seriously, come on.

>>8437645
If you sort literature by language you sort it by the language it was written in and not by where whoever wrote it resided.

Is Heart of Darkness Polish?

Is Portrait of the Artist Italian/ Swiss?

>>8437641
>I think "The Man Without Qualities" is a mediocre translation of the title

how else would you translate it?

You should definitely read it though. I've heard the original translation that is out of print is significantly better than the newer one published by Vintage. I read it in German though

This one maybe? idk

>>8437670
I have a German copy, that's why I think the translation is sort of mediocre

"Man Without Qualities" makes you assume he doesn't have any positive character traits if you use the common sense of the word quality and not the other one.

It's more "characteristics" I guess, the original title makes you assume he doesn't have any character traits whatsoever
That would make for a shit title but I still think "qualities" isn't very good because the word mainly has a positive ring to it, you can use it to just describe general traits but that wouldn't be what I think of first when I hear the word

The Man without Qualities is probably the best way to go over all but I'm not happy with it

>>8437661
Well, this thread asks for "nationality", so I was kinda forced into it. I find it silly, but that's the way it is now.

But to play devil's advocate, literary works are often very much influenced by its cultural surroundings. Kafka's works are very much jewish, even if they are not written in hebrew. But then again it will be difficult to group up any works like that because it will have to be different from one case to the next. But people just tend to do stuff like that. Like, how US-americans still look for the Great American Novel for some reason, or how Goethe intended his works to be the german national literature like Shakespeare was for England, etc.

ITT: transcended no even once

>>8436811
Canada has great books too. I just read Maria Chapdelaine last week and loved it.

>>8437552
Do you take Quixote part 1 and 2 as different works anon? I totally understand if you do. Same for Faust. I just don't think about them the same way you do.

>>8437746
I never read Quixote in depth, so I am not really sure I am in a position to make a judgement like that. On top of that I am not that familiar with the publishing history of Cervantes. He did publish the two parts seperately from each other, right? (Twenty years, I think.) I mean, as opposed to writing one and only publishing it when having the second part finished.

I mean, if the first way is the case I find it very weird that the book is today just published as one, while Faust is always explicitely published as Erster Theil and Zweyter Theil in two seperate books (unless you buy some anthology version or something).

>>8437766
>Erster Theil and Zweyter Theil

Is that how they spell it in the English editions?
Fucking what?

>>8437777
No, that is how Goethe spelled it and how it is spelled in all the versions I own.

>>8437766
Don Quixote part 1 dates 1605. Part 2 1615.
Concerning Faust, I read it in Spanish and all editions I know off have both parts together.

Probably.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alastalon_salissa

Hipster choice I know, but man I love Spenser.

>>8437641
The Man Without Qualities is fucking insanely good, desu. It's one of those unique works of world literature. In terms of pure brainpower (which to be clear isn't everything) the only writer of fiction I know who matches him is Dante.

>>8438144
>>8437302

Is musil supposed to be difficult in his concepts? Like rilke? A lot of them aren't physical ideas but metaphysical/spiritual/mystical whatever you want to call it.

I'm reading his 5 women before man without qualities and I feel stupid at times having my eyes glazed over when I read some of his ideas.

>>8437681
This desu. A Quality has intrensic value, an "Eigenschaft" doesn't. I'm not an Anglo, so i can't come up with a better word than a characteristic. I'm just gonna be glad Dutch has the same word in "Eigenschap".

The man without qualities seems to imply the man who's good at nothing, while Der Man ohne eigenschaften seems to imply the man about whom nothing is special, who is unremarkable.

So i guess my major irritation is the slight, perceived difference in tone because of the words qualities. And that's why i'm gonna read the Dutch translation called "De man zonder eigenschappen".

>>8437680
Is that a French edition of a Dutch book or a Dutch edition by a publisher with a French name?

>>8438121
>In one famous scene, a character's journey to the mantelpiece to fetch a pipe is told in over seventy pages.

Is this guy the Finnish Woolf? Those Finnish winters must be awfully long.

>>8436803
hhahahahah yes!

>>8436992

This or the red Room depending on who you ask

>>8437001
Wiki says Dublin, specifically Rathgar. Check mate.

>>8437183
The Wars - Timothy Findley
Half-Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan
Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood
A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali - Gil Coutermanche

>>8437681
>"Man Without Qualities" makes you assume he doesn't have any positive character traits if you use the common sense of the word quality and not the other one.
I disagree with this. When used in the plural form, it doesn't make one think of positive qualities in particular. No one says "without qualities" when trying to say that something is, simply, of low quality.
"Without quality" would be more like it.
You could say that someone has bad or good qualities, or that a chemical has these and those qualities, it is neutral.

>>8436777

Probably this, even though it's a solid heavy powerwank by the author over his own knowledge and ability to make vague connections from anything to anyone.

Hermans is the better writer, but he never went all out on a single tome.

>>8438121

Nice meme book, but nowhere close.

>>8436876
tu pues littéralement du chibre mon gars

>>8436777
Between this and Farabeuf by Salvador Elizondo.

>>8437656
>>8437660
>Spain: Calderón de la Barca, Cervantes, Góngora, Lupe de Vega Garcilaso de la Vega, García Lorca, Unamuno, Delibés.

>Hispano américa: Borges, Rulfo, Elizondo, Macedonio Fernandez, Alfonso Reyes, Cesar Vallejo, Gabriel García Marquez, Mutis, Azar, Altamirano, Arreola.

I don't demerit English speaking literature, I love it actually, but spanish speaking tradition stands on its own.

gg ez

>>8436777

>Netherlands
>Literature

I honestly don't know.

>>8439155
It's ok, you have some amazing painters to make up for it.

>>8436990
>>8437005
Der Zauberberg.

>>8439146
Are those the old editions?

>>8438460
I respectfully disagree with my fellow turkishfag. moreover Pamuk's best novel imo is his first and it is strangely not translated to english yet.

desu desu senpai.

If we're counting poetry than Leaves of Grass would trump poor Gass

Like the Bloommeister said, "Whitman is the only one in the Colosseum with Shakespeare"

>>8440001
forgot pic

>>8438458

>The Wars - Timothy Findley

I've only read Pilgrim by Findley and it was quite good.

>Half-Blood Blues - Esi Edugyan

I can't stand phonetic dialog and the prose wasn't even that good. I dropped this book early on.

>Oryx and Crake - Margaret Atwood

This was enjoyable, but Atwood is not quite a first rate author. Sort of like Canada's David Mitchell

>A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali - Gil Coutermanche

This was excellent. RIP.

>>8439973
>>8438460
>not "My Meme Hawk"

come on now

>>8436777

>>8436811
You've got Bear.

>>8438332
I am an anglo. "the man without qualities" doesnt suggest a man with nothing good. I always interpreted it as a man with neither good nor bad qualities

>>8436811
While not literature, I enjoy Jack Whyte's novels

i guess

>>8436992
why would you wan't to read a cuck bible, literally cuck moraled book, fucking sub-human entry level shit my hairs on my arms

>>8436992
Literally set in Dublin, Ireland you melt

>>8436825
Fucking "Bel-Ami"

No contest about it

>>8437540

Bolaño used to laugh at people who said he wasn't chilean for living abroad.

>>8436803
Holy shit thank you. The warts of the toad were bumpy, it was sick

>>8438332

I understood immediately while reading the book that Qualities meant characteristics not the value connotation. Methinks thou doth protest too much.

>>8437023
Job is the best book in the Torah tho

>>8441964
>romanticism
Nice meme

>>8436992
Jimmy Joyce was American you fucking retard.

Not the best, but the most influental through Tolkien.

>>8442972
what is the best

>>8436857
You think don quxiote is good except for its historical value?

>>8436992
Its australian, mate.

not just a meme

>>8442530
You could have also gone with pic related, but Witkacy is a damn good choice

>>8436793
I really enjoyed Fly Away Peter.

>>8443225
Of course I do, that's why I put it there. Read it three times already.

>>8443282
How is Brothers Karamazov, a meme?

>>8443593
4chan twisted the meaning of the word "meme" to mean "something that is popular".

>>8442357
I used to think so too when I was fifteen.

If I post Odyssey , will I get meme responses?

>>8443669
Well, maybe some tards would post that the Illias is better.

These tards, of course, would be right.

>>8436992
fucking retard

>giving personal info on 4chan
:|

>>8444535
There's literally boards with flags.

I think your country is just pleb.

>>8436777
Nice trips.

Chandler's grave is about 5 minutes from my house. He's probably the best writer that has ever lived in San Diego. My favorite writer Bukowski used to bet on horses down here but never lived in the county.

>>8444556
>my favorite writer Bukowski
I remember high school

>>8444556
>My favorite writer Bukowski

>>8444558
>>8444559
>All these butthurt pomo Gaddis-fags

>>8439146
mine dont have those covers, i'm digging them

James Joyce is Irish-- why is suddenly everyone claiming he's from Scotland? Did a bunch of Haggis suddenly try to claim him because their country produce sshit writers?

JOYCE IS IRISH, I HAVE A COPY OF ULYSSES WITH A 4 LEAF CLOVER ON IT.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Joyce
>James Augustine[1] Aloysius Joyce (2 February 1882 – 13 January 1941) was an Irish novelist and poet.
>James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was born on 2 February 1882 to John Stanislaus Joyce and Mary Jane "May" Murray, in the Dublin suburb of Rathgar. He was baptized according to the Rites of the Catholic Church in the nearby St Joseph's Church in Terenure on 5 February by Rev. John O'Mulloy.
Unbelievable. Probably the most read Irish writer since Jonathan Swift.

>All these fags got trolled about the greatest Scottish writer of all time

>>8438460
>>8439973
>>8440168
>not Tutunamayanlar
Holy fuck guys Pamuk is just discount Atay the dude even said as much

Get some taste

>>8437307
Dude, Swiss is German, separate countries yes but dude they're german

>>8436777
Russia is my motherland... it's hard to pick a best book

>>8444618
There's a French part of Switzerland, you dumb cunt.

>>8436978
Patrick White is a pom

Very famous here. A little unknown outside, though it´s probably the most known ecuadorian book, (most likely the best too).
I'd recommend it. It´s a reaññy good book. I you want a proletarian novel (with amerindians as the opressed class) with a good deal of criticism of the plantation model of many latin countries, that uses indigenous people as practically slaves, you wont be dissapointed

>>8444628
Forgot the pic
It´s Huasipungo by Jorge Icaza

>>8444588
Ian Rankin?

>>8444635
James Joyce

>>8444618
Yeah, but OP was asking about nations.

It is a pretty shitty OP, but we have to play by his rules in this shitty thread I guess.

>>8444594
I am the one who posted Tanpınar. I figured I should post a book translated to English. I agree with your Atay-Pamuk comparison. Pic is another great Turkish novel translated to English for the sake of all the people who can't read in Turkish.

>>8436793

Yeah, we also have problems with that massive Koala gang that keeps raiding rural areas, burning the fields, killing the men and raping all the little girls.

>>8441584
Gave that to a friend as a joke. She hated it.

>>8440564

Looking at pictures like this is what made me decide to be a writer.

>>8445352
Yeah
My Meme Hawk is good but damn these Americans need to read Atay

I'm working on a Tutunamayanlar translation atm, will share when I finish it

>>8436777
What's the best edition of Moby Dick?

>>8436793
I liked Luke davies