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/lit/ - Literature

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11518856 No.11518856 [Reply] [Original]

I just started reading pic related. The prose is fucking atrocious. He completely violates "show don't tell" and the style is very juvenile. The characters so far are not believable at all, very strange behaviour.

Did I get a bad translation, or is this just a very overrated book?

>> No.11518906

>>11518856
Adverbs with every piece of dialogue. Seemingly meaningless interactions that don't add anything to the plot.

Here is a sample from a few pages in:
>I felt capable of a greater effort and, being in the mood to surmount difficulties, decided upon a three-part monograph about philosophical cognition. Needless to say, I would have an opportunity to deal a deathblow to Kant's sophisms

>monograph about philosophical cognition
>deal a deathblow to Kant's sophisms
>Needless to say
Fucking cringe.

>being in the mood to surmount difficulties
What this fuck is this fanfic tier writing doing in "Nobel prize winning literature"?

>> No.11518939

>>11518856
>"A piece of cheese and a white loaf!" I said, smacking my half krone down on the
counter.
>"Cheese and bread for all of it?" the woman asked ironically, without looking at me.
>"For all of fifty ore, yes" I replied, unruffled.

How can this be so bad?

>> No.11518967

You won't catch me with that bait

>> No.11518973

>>11518939

yeah ill grant you this does seem pretty bad...

Usually a bad German translation has that PLONK! PLONK! PLONK! style with no rest in between. is it like that? tell me i'd like to avoid it in the future.

>> No.11518984

>>11518906
>the plot
you’ll never make it

>> No.11519142

Based Hamsun kicks another philosofag out

>> No.11519151

>>11518973
Sorry, I don't really understand the question

>> No.11519419

>>11518856
OP delete this thread

>> No.11519424

>>11518973
It's written in Norwegian

>> No.11519497

>reading for prose

>> No.11519780

>>11518856
Have not read it in English and liked it a lot. Since I can not help you with your problem, I will give you the obligatory
>reading translations

This was indeed his first novel though and although I liked it a lot, I enjoyed Pan and Growth of the Soil even more.

>> No.11519800

>>11519497
>reading for plot

>> No.11519885

>>11518856
>show don't tell
not today, CIA

>> No.11519923

lol

u might not be as good a reader as u think u are

>> No.11519934

Translation is butchery anon don't let anyone tell you otherwise

>> No.11520343

>>11519497
>>11519800
Why the fuck am I supposed to read fiction then?

>> No.11520355

>>11518856
>>11518906
>The characters so far are not believable at all
>meaningless interactions that don't add anything to the plot
Tell me, did you find the main character unlikeable as well?

>> No.11520383

>>11518856
this book is fucking hilarious

>> No.11520653

>>11519934
Agreed

>> No.11521132

>>11520383
This. Even if you're a pleb who needs to be entertained while you read, Hunger is gut-bustingly funny.

Including the sentence here:
>>11518906

>He completely violates "show don't tell"
>Adverbs
>don't add anything to the plot

This sounds like bait, but these aren't real things. They're just urban legends, and no good writer pays them the slightest attention

>> No.11521150

>>11520343
>reading

>> No.11521164

>>11520343
Ideas, as always. You wouldn’t wanna read two books with identical plots and identical prose, because reading is the seeking of the new. Both plot and prose can contribute to understanding, but since the plot is relatively simple and can be summarized with a few sentences, the prose contains more ideas, and is therefore more valuable. If we did not “read for plot” then we would expect to see many more books with no plot at all, since that’s what some people apparently want. In other words, you’ve been memed.

>> No.11521197

>>11521132
So you don't think the samples I posted are bad writing?

>> No.11521203

>>11521197
What do you think is bad about them?

>> No.11521211

>>11521203
Everything. What are you, a brainlet?

>> No.11521215

>>11521211
Well you seem to think "don't use adverbs" is a real thing, so I'm not going to pay attention to your opinions until you say something worthwhile

>> No.11521228

>>11521203
"It reads like a teenage fanfic" he said smirking ironically, looking disgusted.

"This will be a walk in the park, figuratively speaking, as a matter of fact, I'm in the mood for tackling difficult challenges and very large obstacles, I'll have no problem exposing the sophistry on /lit/!" he said sarcastically, quite nauseated, confused and exhausted.

>> No.11521243

>>11518856
"Show don't tell" is YA level meme garbage.

>> No.11521247

>>11521243
Well that's perfect advice then, considering the author writes at YA level.

>> No.11521249

>>11521228
Hunger doesn't read like that

>>I felt capable of a greater effort and, being in the mood to surmount difficulties, decided upon a three-part monograph about philosophical cognition. Needless to say, I would have an opportunity to deal a deathblow to Kant's sophisms

This is a portrait of a man having a manic episode, with delusions about his own worth as a writer. "Being in the mood to surmount difficulties" is ironic, because his real difficulties are that he has no food and it's affecting his mental state. Deciding to write a treatise about Kant on the fly in that situation is farcical, and his overblown language reflects the absurdity of his situation.

I'm sorry that this has to be explained to you.

>> No.11521259

>>11521249
>the writing is shit because the character is a shit writer
good meme

>> No.11521277

Funniest part of the book?

>> No.11521336

>>11521277
He tries to seduce a girl and she goes cold on him because patches of his hair start falling out due to his malnutrition.

>> No.11521359

>>11518906
>Adverbs with every piece of dialogue. Seemingly meaningless interactions that don't add anything to the plot.
Thats the point boofhead, hes a retard on the loose

>> No.11521372

>>11521336
Wait what, when the fuck was that?

>> No.11521392
File: 117 KB, 680x788, 1505046969537.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
11521392

>>11521259
The characters in my novel are illiterate, which is why it isn't finished yet.

>> No.11521406

>>11521372
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Hunger_(Hamsun)/Part_3

>She winds her arms about my neck, quite slowly, tenderly, the breath of her pink quivering nostrils fans me right in the face; with one hand she begins herself to undo the buttons one by one. She laughs embarrassedly, laughs shortly, and looks up at me several times, to see if I notice that she is afraid. She loosens strings, unclasps her stays, is fascinated and frightened—and I finger with my clumsy hands at these buttons and strings. . . .

>To divert my attention from what she is doing, she strokes down my shoulders with her left hand, and says, "What a lot of loose hair there is."

>"Yes," I reply, and I try to penetrate into her breast with my mouth. She is lying at this moment with completely loosened clothes. Suddenly, as if she changes her mind, as if she thinks she has gone too far, she covers herself again and rises up a little, and, to hide her confusion at the state of her clothes, she begins to remark anew on the mass of loose hair that covers my shoulders.

>"What can be the reason that your hair falls out so?"

>"Don't know."

>"Ah, of course, because you drink too much, and perhaps . . . fie, I won't say it. You ought to be ashamed. No, I wouldn't have believed that of you! To think that you, who are so young, already should lose your hair! Now, do please just tell me what sort of way you really spend you life—I am certain it is dreadful! But only the truth, do you hear; no evasions. Anyway, I shall see by you if you hide anything—there, tell now!"

>> No.11521425

>>11518856

>The prose is fucking atrocious.

Could be a bad translation, I only read it in Norwegian. Hamsun's prose in its original is some of the best Scandinavia has to offer. And this really is not an opportunity to take a lame and predictable cheap shot at the quality of Scandinavian prose. It is divine in its original.

>He completely violates "show don't tell"

You're severely misguided. One, don't elevate a high school/MFA tier rule of thumb to any piece of literature as if it is some sort of sanctified aesthetic criterion, two, maybe stop to consider that telling and showing aren't so easily distinguished in one of the first and premier psychological novels, a novel about a man whose insanity expresses itself, among other things, through a dissolution of the boundary between self and other.

>the style is very juvenile

I don't think so, not in Hunger. Other early Hamsun is marked by a certain naivete, but it is the naivete of man in the throes of child-like rapture, not juvenile naivete. Anyway, try reading on. You will see that the prose reflects the stages of insanity. What you're reading as juvenile (based on your particular quote, could just as well be characterized as arrogant, superior, haughty - in general what you'd construe as a fedoralord, being born in the internet-age) is just one stage.

>The characters so far are not believable at all very strange behaviour.

Believable characters? Christ. You're not serious, about the second part, are you? It's about a man going insane. Strange behaviour, no shit Sherlock.

>is this just a very overrated book?

Hamsun was lauded by Hemingway, Miller, Gorky, Hesse, Mann, Zweig, Wells, Gide, Kafka and Brecht. Many of these considered Hunger among his finest work. You're a random dude on the internet who doesn't like it after a few pages. I don't think it's overrated.

>> No.11521437
File: 83 KB, 900x900, 1523267861479.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
11521437

>>11518856

>violates "show don't tell"
>it's made of words

>> No.11521438

>>11521247
meet me at st olavs plass and i will end you, boy

>> No.11521445

>>11521425
I'm happy to chalk this up to a bad translation. Maybe Norwegian lit is hard to translate well into English. So far it reads like a YA novel.

>Hamsun was lauded by Hemingway, Miller, Gorky, Hesse, Mann, Zweig, Wells, Gide, Kafka and Brecht. Many of these considered Hunger among his finest work.
I mean, so what? And Hemingway is severely overrated.

>> No.11521450

>>11521445
>So far it reads like a YA novel.

I would sincerely like to know what YA novels you've been reading.

>> No.11521454

>>11521425
>you're a random dude on the internet
>can't possibly be right because look at [appeal to authority] list of authors who disagree with you
Way to make a literal non-argument.

>> No.11521463

>>11521450
None recently because I stopped reading "literature" of this calibre about 20 years ago.

>> No.11521487

>>11521445

>I mean, so what? And Hemingway is severely overrated.

I mean maybe lay off the arrogance and give some thought to the fact that if his contemporaries considered him the greatest, you should maybe read more than a couple of pages before passing a sweeping judgment based on, and I mean no offense, facile criteria such as "show don't tell", "juvenile style", "unbelievable characters" and "meaningless interactions that don't add anything to the plot".
.
>>11521454

Read the above. Further, I did engage his points on my own. Further, appeal to authority isn't a fallacy in this context, as I am not making a deductive argument. Further, the outright distrust of authority is one of the lamest heritages from Cartesianism and enlightenment thinking - blind distrust of authority (which is what is revealed when one considers any appeal to authority a fallacy) is just a dumb as blind trust in authorities.

>> No.11521516

>>11518856
OP have you read any modernist works before? Because statements such as
>Seemingly meaningless interactions that don't add anything to the plot.
>The characters so far are not believable
Tell me you have no clue of how to approach this kind of novel

>> No.11521520

>>11521406
Nay. The funniest scene is when he returns to demand cakes for his foolish charity.

>> No.11521637

>>11521516
I looked at a list of who qualifies as "modernist" and I've read books from over a dozen or so of these authors.

>> No.11521861

Does Hamsun have any good English translations? He seems like a really interesting author but when I read Growth of the Soil there were so many abberations and awkwardly written moments. I saw the translation described somewhere as 'bruised prose' and i dont speak norwegian so idk if it's accurate but are older translations of his work any easier to read?

>> No.11522041
File: 59 KB, 645x729, 1529675765427.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
11522041

>>11518856
>He completely violates "show don't tell"

>> No.11522047

>>11521425
based norwegian anon laying the smackdown

>> No.11522077

>>11518856
>"Stephen King would never approve! Hamsun violates every platitude that has dribbled down to my community college creative writing class!"
That's why it's good, retard

>> No.11522084

>>11521861
Did you read the Sverre Lyngstad translation of Growth of the Soil?

>> No.11522165

>>11522084
>Sverre Lyngstad
Yeah i did, the penguin classics one with the nice cover

>> No.11522860

>>11518939
Can you try to explain what you think is so bad about this?
I read it the book in danish a few weeks ago, and this is not for from what I read if I remember correctly..

>> No.11522872

/pol/ recomended me to read "bread" from this guy.

>> No.11522899

>>11518856
Hamsun is Godlike you pseud anglo faggot

>> No.11524070

>>11521164
no
prose > ideas> plot