/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11390642]

this is fucking horrible

[Anonymous No.11390643]

Why?

[Anonymous No.11390656]

>>11390643
it's a dystopia novel with jk rowling-tier prose

[Anonymous No.11390661]

>>11390642
any form of entertainment, so movies, tv shows and books are for women

[Anonymous No.11390664]

>>11390661
what about philosophy

[Anonymous No.11390670]

>My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. That sounds long enough, I know, but actually they want me to go on for another eight months, until the end of this year. That’ll make it almost exactly twelve years. Now I know my being a carer so long isn’t necessarily because they think I’m fantastic at what I do. There are some really good carers who’ve been told to stop after just two or three years. And I can think of one carer at least who went on for all of fourteen years despite being a complete waste of space. So I’m not trying to boast. But then I do know for a fact they’ve been pleased with my work, and by and large, I have too. My donors have always tended to do much better than expected. Their recovery times have been impressive, and hardly any of them have been classified as “agitated,” even before fourth donation. Okay, maybe I am boasting now. But it means a lot to me, being able to do my work well, especially that bit about my donors staying “calm.” I’ve developed a kind of instinct around donors. I know when to hang around and comfort them, when to leave
them to themselves; when to listen to everything they have to say, and when just to shrug and tell them to snap out of it.

>Anyway, I’m not making any big claims for myself. I know carers, working now, who are just as good and don’t get half the credit. If you’re one of them, I can understand how you might get resentful—about my bedsit, my car, above all, the way I get to pick and choose who I look after. And I’m a Hailsham student—which is enough by itself sometimes to get people’s backs up. Kathy H., they say, she gets to pick and choose, and she always chooses her own kind: people from Hailsham, or one of the other privileged estates. No wonder she has a great record. I’ve heard it said enough, so I’m sure you’ve heard it plenty more, and maybe there’s something in it. But I’m not the first to be allowed to pick and choose, and I doubt if I’ll be the last. And anyway, I’ve done my share of looking after donors brought up in every kind of place. By the time I finish, remember, I’ll have done twelve years of this, and it’s only for
the last six they’ve let me choose. And why shouldn’t they? Carers aren’t machines. You try and do your best for every donor, but in the end, it wears you down. You don’t have unlimited patience and energy. So when you get a chance to choose, of course, you choose your own kind. That’s natural. There’s no way I could have gone on for as long as I have if I’d stopped feeling for my donors every step of the way. And anyway, if I’d never started choosing, how would I ever have got close again to Ruth and Tommy after all those years?

this won a nobel prize

[Anonymous No.11390675]

>>11390642
>My name is Kathy H. I’m thirty-one years old, and I’ve been a carer now for over eleven years. That sounds long enough, I know, but actually they want me to go on for another eight months, until the end of this year. That’ll make it almost exactly twelve years. Now I know my being a carer so long isn’t necessarily because they think I’m fantastic at what I do. There are some really good carers who’ve been told to stop after just two or three years. And I can think of one carer at least who went on for all of fourteen years despite being a complete waste of space. So I’m not trying to boast. But then I do know for a fact they’ve been pleased with my work, and by and large, I have too. My donors have always tended to do much better than expected. Their recovery times have been impressive, and hardly any of them have been classified as “agitated,” even before fourth donation. Okay, maybe I am boasting now. But it means a lot to me, being able to do my work well, especially that bit about my donors staying “calm.” I’ve developed a kind of instinct around donors. I know when to hang around and comfort them, when to leave them to themselves; when to listen to everything they have to say, and when just to shrug and tell them to snap out of it.

>Anyway, I’m not making any big claims for myself. I know carers, working now, who are just as good and don’t get half the credit. If you’re one of them, I can understand how you might get resentful—about my bedsit, my car, above all, the way I get to pick and choose who I look after. And I’m a Hailsham student—which is enough by itself sometimes to get people’s backs up. Kathy H., they say, she gets to pick and choose, and she always chooses her own kind: people from Hailsham, or one of the other privileged estates. No wonder she has a great record. I’ve heard it said enough, so I’m sure you’ve heard it plenty more, and maybe there’s something in it. But I’m not the first to be allowed to pick and choose, and I doubt if I’ll be the last. And anyway, I’ve done my share of looking after donors brought up in every kind of place. By the time I finish, remember, I’ll have done twelve years of this, and it’s only for the last six they’ve let me choose. And why shouldn’t they? Carers aren’t machines. You try and do your best for every donor, but in the end, it wears you down. You don’t have unlimited patience and energy. So when you get a chance to choose, of course, you choose your own kind. That’s natural. There’s no way I could have gone on for as long as I have if I’d stopped feeling for my donors every step of the way. And anyway, if I’d never started choosing, how would I ever have got close again to Ruth and Tommy after all those years?

this won a nobel prize

[Anonymous No.11390677]

>>11390670
Congratulations, you picked one of Ishiguro's lesser works in an attempt to dismiss his entire oeuvre. Come back after you've read The Unconsoled and Remains of the Day and Artist of the Floating World.

[Anonymous No.11390680]

>>11390677
post a passage you believe is well written from one of those novels

[Anonymous No.11390683]

>>11390675
that's how british people talk, you spastic. did you expect it to be full of american idioms?

[Anonymous No.11390687]

>>11390683
it's a pathetic attempt to start the novel with a 'hook'

[Anonymous No.11390697]

>>11390642
Yeah, I’ve read hundreds of novels and this is in the bottom five I’ve ever read.

[Anonymous No.11390699]

its so bad

[Anonymous No.11390704]

>>11390675
yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyikes

[Anonymous No.11390706]

>>11390675
Still more plastic character than any of Dellilo's.

[Anonymous No.11390710]

The book is okay. This thread is horrible.

[Anonymous No.11390727]

>>11390710
t. discord fag

[Anonymous No.11390729]

>>11390727
you mean discord tranny

[Anonymous No.11390733]

>>11390727

I always forget how you guys can only talk in memes.

[Anonymous No.11390734]

>>11390675
to be fair it's not his native language

[Anonymous No.11390738]

>Westaboos

[Anonymous No.11390750]

I didn't enjoy it either. Seemed very forced at times and drags on too much.

Are his other books any better?

[Anonymous No.11390769]

>>11390750
im skeptical someone could write something like that and write something else that's worthwhile, particularly since this is his most read/acclaimed novel

[Anonymous No.11390782]

>>11390642
>>11390675
I've been considering writing something like this. A really typical, mainstream kind of contemporary 'adult' novel that would get published and have a chance at selling fairly well, unlike the type of novel that I would actually want to write.

[Anonymous No.11390793]

The avoidance and normalisation of what is effectively an atrocity is interesting and worthy of debate.

This book managed to drop the ball at every chance. Terrible.

Read Beckett 'Endgame' to witness a genius take on these topics with true grace.

[Anonymous No.11390794]

>>11390782
youd need an excellent marketing plan/publicity stunt

[Anonymous No.11390797]

>>11390794
Maybe I would include a slightly controversial sexual aspect to the novel. That might raise some small interest.

[Anonymous No.11390867]

>>11390797
like what

[Anonymous No.11390884]

>>11390867
Maybe pussyfucking.

[Anonymous No.11390905]

>>11390884
Boring. Try cucking.

[Anonymous No.11390964]

>>11390884
>>11390905
interracial cucking

[Anonymous No.11391019]

I was literally just about to read this book. glad I saw this thread.

[Anonymous No.11391310]

>>11390664
Women don't read philosophy

[Anonymous No.11391325]

>>11391019
Don’t listen those prosefags anon, read it for yourself.

Ishiguro is a master of voice. The book is entirely in first person, and he doesn’t try to pretty up the way a 20 year old British woman would actually speak. He almost entirely avoids flashy prose stylization, which makes the occasional insight the characters achieve all the more striking.

[Anonymous No.11391342]

>>11390734
He can hardly speak a word of Japanese

[Anonymous No.11391665]

>>11390642
>not recognizing that the entire novel is an allegory for the hopelessness of the human condition in the face of an uncaring god, and the learned helplessness and apathy that results from the seemingly absurd nature of life and death
ishygddt

[Anonymous No.11391705]

>>11390675
>character is not an english schollar

What do you expect? do you think every character should have internal monologue in the style of high complex prose?

[Anonymous No.11391794]

>>11391705
did you read the excerpt? it's horrible

[Anonymous No.11392513]

>>11391665
>ishygddt
>ishygddo
>ishygdro
>ishyguro
>ishiguro

He's been here all along, anons.

[Anonymous No.11392664]

Thank you for proving Never Let Me Go is patrician.

[Anonymous No.11392799]

>>11392664

[Anonymous No.11392825]

>>11390661
why are you here? are you a woman?

[Anonymous No.11392874]

>>11392664

[Anonymous No.11393114]

>>11390642
You're a retard and it was too smart for you.

[Anonymous No.11394102]

>>11393114
t. pleb

[Anonymous No.11394136]

>>11391705
Do you even have to ask? Have you ever seen the attempts at a character's voice in critique threads?

[Anonymous No.11394338]

The reality is that Ishiguro won the Nobel, and all of his books have a similar feel. If anything, the prose in Remains of the Day is even more stilted than that in Never Let Me Go.

[Anonymous No.11394406]

>>11394338
why was he given the award then?

[Anonymous No.11394415]

>>11392825
Probably thinks his cheap-entertainment-for-long-dead-aristocrats is art/literature rather than mere entertainment.

[Anonymous No.11394425]

people read this book knowing the twist as a ya novel and go 'oh it's so shit' and somehow completely miss the gentle subtle nuanced way it depicts the way we remember our lives and create romantic narratives for them that are at odds with the cynical reality, and how masterfully ishiguro tells both stories through his vaguely regretful but proud narrator who tells the somewhat cliched ya story in such a way that you realise how pathetic and deluded they are

[Anonymous No.11394453]

>>11390675
lol who translated this shit?

[Anonymous No.11394483]

>>11394425
yeah, wow i totally missed that. i take back everything. that horrible prose really is justified by his use of profound themes

>>11394453
its not translated

[Anonymous No.11394487]

>>11394483
it's not horrible prose, you just didn't understand it

[Anonymous No.11394506]

>>11394487
thats not how that works

[Anonymous No.11394512]

>>11391019
Can you not think for yourself, and form your own opinions?

[Anonymous No.11394513]

>>11394506
ok champ nevermind, you completely got it, it was a surface level ya book about horny teen tragedy, how the fuck did this guy win a nobel
i for one am outraged also i never read anything else he read why would i

[Anonymous No.11394518]

>>11394453
>>11394453
ishiguro is an englishmen uncultured weeb

[Anonymous No.11394522]

>>11390656
>>11390642
>it's another "anon measures a work only by its prose style, and he sees the Nobel prize sticker and expects it to be the most profound account in literary fiction since Don Quixote decked with epic and decadent Shakespearean cadence, fails to understand the work because he simply overthinks it, feels ultimately cheated by the book's popularity and that sweet Nobel promise, and posts on a board full of vapid would-be classicists for validation" episode!

[Anonymous No.11394546]

>>11394513
mostly correct

[Anonymous No.11394566]

>>11390687
>>11391794
It's not even bad. You guys have either no frame of reference or need to enroll in a writing class. You're too obsessed with bombast, it's kind of embarrassing. I don't understand where you learned what makes prose "bad." On the other hand, no, it isn't great, but you have to consider a few thing, like the fact it's a first person narrator. In any case, calling it "horrible" is an extreme overstatement. >>11390656 regarding things in tiers is about as simple and retarded as left- and right-wing politics, and besides, it's not even close to getting as bad as J.K. Rowling; Rowling simply doesn't know how to write.

Read more. Simple voices can make a work sail, and sometimes it works to story/novel's benefit. Read Raymond Carver, at least.

>>11391705
>>11390683
These guys get it.

[Anonymous No.11395527]

>>11394546
>>11394506
>>11394483
>>11394338
Ah yes, the prose. The prooooooose. the PROOOOOOOSE. There's a reason why the pseuds on this website are always so willing to talk about "the prose" of a book when discussing its merits or flaws. Why attempt to analyze the merits and effects of the literary devices used to add to the development of characters, why attempt to understand the interplay of the perspectives of different characters and the emphasis this places on different themes, the spectrum of ironies used throughout the novel, the historical significance of the novel and the influence it has spawned in literary tradition or the influences seen throughout the work, the specific structure and literary underpinnings of the novel and the way it influences the tone, the author's relationship to the characters and the theme, the presentation of the novel itself to the audience and thus the relationship between reader and text --- why do any of this, when you could talk about "the prose?" You know that you have such a deep understanding of the book, don't you, when you talk about "the prose," the "musicality of it," the "sparseness." What a great artistic touch you have, don't you! Such a highly refined poetic sense! And you feel like such a true reader of literature when you are able to compare these styles: "I am partial to the lyricism of Joyce's prose, as well as the clean and scientific prose of Borges," you might say. What a deep understanding you show! Because the "prose" of a work is such an accessible topic, something that is felt immediately in the body and senses, a nice little sensation and flutter of the heart. Art obviously has nothing else to it, nothing other than the little sensations that I experience, because why should i attempt to understand it on a deeper level than this, when I have such a "refined" sense of the "prose?" Why even attempt to analyze the prose and the poetic and rhythmical underpinnings of it, when I could use a pretty little metaphor for it? It matters little that virtually every reader of literature has access to the music of the words and so my understanding is not quite so advanced as I would think, that form is something that goes hand in hand with theme, that I missed all the deep relationships between characters and between text and reader that existed in the work and that comprise a large part of the literary merit of the text, for my understanding of "the prose" shows such a mastery of language, a fine-tuned sense of the magical flow of the words! Having understood this work, I may as well move onto the next, the next bundle of pretty sensations to experience, the next bagful of fun linguistic treats!

[Anonymous No.11395539]

>>11390706
cringe

[Anonymous No.11395541]

>>11390782
lmfao if you think aping normie-core is all it takes to make it. connections > everything else

[Anonymous No.11396053]

>>11390642
I have An Artist of the Floating World and When We Were Orphans, any of em worth it?

[Anonymous No.11396127]

>>11390680
Not that anon, but I like Ishiguro's use of circumlocution in The Remains of The Day to explore denial.
This part of the book is a conversation between Mr. Stevens, the head butler of Darlington hall, and Miss Kenton, the Darlington hall's head housekeeper.
Miss Kenton is trying to bring Stevens's attention to a few misplaced chinamen figurines, however Stevens refuses to look at them.
His resistance to look at them comes from the knowledge that his father, who now works for Stevens as one of the house's under butlers, is responsible for the misplacement. For Stevens acknowledging the error is to face the fact that his father is becoming senile.
Not only does Stevens refuse to go look at the misplaced figures, as he also avoids the figures as he narrates to the reader. Although Stevens tells the reader that he's "resolved not to waste further time on account of this childish affair," he does so in a long, meandering paragraph filled with meaningless filler phrases and useless information. With this kind of language, Ishiguro takes us into the mind of a man crippled by denial, as he can't even bring himself to think about issues that are (literally in this case) standing right outside his door.

[Anonymous No.11396131]

>>11396053
Artist is great. Orphans is not.

[Anonymous No.11396134]

>>11395527
*SNAP*

[Anonymous No.11396162]

>>11395527
I just wanted to say that I love this kind of seething, elaborate sperg-outs. What books about literary criticism would you recommend for someone who wants to get deeper than clichés about muh prose?

[Anonymous No.11397390]

>>11394522
That sounds suspiciously specific, anon.

[Anonymous No.11397399]

>>11394522
because its the right thing to do

[Anonymous No.11397676]

>>11397390
If anything, it applies to most Nobel winners in the last 15 years or so. The opposite of specific.

[Anonymous No.11397689]

>dude like we shouldn't only be seen as a societ
>dude they can't clone our emotions lol
>dude love lol
>dude in this world every little victory is Pyrrhic
>dude THE OTHER

[Anonymous No.11397694]

>>11395527
You sound like a roastie. *snap*

[Anonymous No.11397708]

>>11395527
the examples of high-level analysis this guy provides has me thoroughly convinced he doesn't have anything interesting to say about literature

"the presentation of the novel itself to the audience" is the stupidest thing I've ever seen and the rest of it is just finding new ways to say "what other books does this reference/reference this?"

[Anonymous No.11397814]

>>11395527
based and redpilled

[Anonymous No.11397843]

>>11395527
Someone finally fucking called out the prose-pseuds on /lit/.

[Anonymous No.11397860]

>>11397843

[Anonymous No.11397943]

>>11395527
It's been so long since I last saw this pasta. Good work, anon.

[Anonymous No.11397997]

>>11397708
The examples are horrible, but it's mostly right in regards to /lit/. You niggers jap about stylistics and diction as if it's the only facet of formalist criticism.