/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.1187800]

I am the 2010 winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

[Anonymous No.1187803]

Mario Vargas Llosa was a 25/1 pick. Did anyone make any money off of him?

[Anonymous No.1187805]

A couple of links on Mario Vargas Llosa:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Vargas_Llosa
Recent political action:
http://www.livinginperu.com/news/13145

Can anyone here comment to his works and their worth? I'm curious what he did that was so awesome.

(And I don't meant that as doubting, just inquisitive and uninformed.)

[Anonymous No.1187806]

A couple of links on Mario Vargas Llosa:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Vargas_Llosa
Recent political action:
http://www.livinginperu.com/news/13145

Can anyone here comment to his works and their worth? I'm curious what he did that was so awesome.

(And I don't meant that as doubting, just inquisitive and uninformed.)

[Anonymous No.1187812]

Ex-commie author? Good job committee, good job.

[Anonymous No.1187816]

>>1187812
Like someone said in another thread, McCarthy, Pynchon, Murakami,... don't stand a chance, the committee is going to do what it does best, troll the world.

[Anonymous No.1187818]

>>1187812
>>1187816

Pick worthy winners, you mean.

Too much Americunt butthurt here.

You're like teenage kids insisting that they ARE old enough to go to the dance.

We just don't understand you, right?

GTFO.

And take youre shitty genre & fan-fictionesque novelists with you.

[Anonymous No.1187821]

>>1187806
La ciudad de los perros (The City of Dogs) was one of his earliest novels (his second, maybe?). It's about a bunch of boys in a military school in Peru and their lives as they grow up and become men.

Los cachorros (The Cubs or The Pups) - Much more symbolic and cryptic, with more beautiful prose than had been seen in his work before. Like La Ciudad de los Perros it deals with adolescence and friendship.

His style evolved a lot and was very experimental. He goes for intense imagery and powerful emotions with smooth, flowing, active prose. A lot of dialogs are introduced without quote marks. Every sentence can be action and narrative and direct quote and sound at the same time.

[Anonymous No.1187822]

>>1187812
Late yesterday they issued this comment:
>Peter Englund
>Permanent Member of the Swedish Academy
"I would say that the Academy in its work, is free of political bias, especially in the sense of you call it, a political agenda. I would say also that, that is not possible because you can find very different political views inside the Academy. It wouldn't be possible even to agree on a political agenda. If we did so it would probably crack at the seams."

[Anonymous No.1187825]

This is a damn handsome man. He's like someone from a James Bond movie.

[Anonymous No.1187827]

>>1187818
The guy who was ready to suck Fidel's cock, can be as much liberal as he wants now. He'll still be left-winged faggot, who was too stupid to see the right way from beginning.

[Anonymous No.1187828]

Wait what? I thought the big rumor this year was that a Poet was going to win it?

[Anonymous No.1187830]

>>1187818
No, but some of us actually have an actual taste in literature. So don't be mad bro :3

[Anonymous No.1187839]

>>1187828
I'd heard that too. Vargas Llosa is about as far from a poet as you can get, in the Spanish-speaking world. He's never published a poem in his life as far as I know.

[Anonymous No.1187843]

[Anonymous No.1187850]

>>1187821
>La ciudad de los perros
La ciudad y los perros. It was translated as The Time of the Hero in English. He based it on his experiences at a military college and it was meant to highlight the hypocrisy of the moral system instilled there.

Conversación en la catedral was another of his big books. It was a fictional examination of Peru's messed up, corrupt, seemingly irreparable political system.

[Anonymous No.1187855]

>>1187803
The sportsbook must have made a shitload of money. I doubt any of the /lit/erati did. Vargas Llosa hadn't been mentioned even once in any of the Nobel threads before the announcement.

Ko Un will now probably die before he gets his prize.

[Anonymous No.1187856]

>>1187855
>Ko Un will now probably die before he gets his prize.

No posthumous Nobel awards.

[Anonymous No.1187858]

>>1187855
Ko Un is old but still spry. He's got at least five or six more years.

[Anonymous No.1187860]

>>1187803
WTF why is babby dylan on this list?

[Anonymous No.1187861]

>>1187816
the committee is going to do what it does best, troll the world

U mad?

[Anonymous No.1187863]

>>1187816
Believe it or not, "Fun to read for teenagers" and "talked about way too often on /lit/" are not selection criteria of the Nobel Committee for Literature.

[Anonymous No.1187870]

He also wrote Feast of the Goat didn't he? I have that and The Green House on my wishlist by him, but I'll be adding the other things mentioned in the thread.

[Anonymous No.1187873]

>>1187863
Yep, level of pretentiousness is the only important thing for them.

[Anonymous No.1187876]

>>1187863

I know man. Quality authors who can sell their stuff on their own doesn't really need free marketing bump from some shitty committee.

[Anonymous No.1187879]

So I guess an American author won it after all.

[Anonymous No.1187881]

> Bob Dylan on a list of potential Nobel Laureates

All my rage, ALL MY FUCKING RAGE!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous No.1187885]

Oh shi-

This happened? Llosa is not a bad pick at all.

[Anonymous No.1188401]

>>1187876
Most authors aren't given the Nobel Prize until they are very, very old. Selling books really isn't their concern at that point.

[Anonymous No.1188420]

>>1187873
"more complicated than my teenage brain can handle" and "pretentious" are not the same thing

[Anonymous No.1188423]

>>1187818
José Saramago got a nobel prize in literature. The guy's greatest book had blind gangs shaking people down for jewelry in a quarantine. That makes no fucking sense. Also, BLIND RAPE ORGIES! What the fuck? Dumbest book I have ever read.

[Anonymous No.1188427]

>>1188423
0/10 this really is a case of 2deep4u

[Anonymous No.1188434]

>>1188427
Blind rape orgies... too deep..

[Anonymous No.1188436]

>>1188427
Nah dude, Blindness sucked.

[Anonymous No.1188439]

>>1188434
>>1188436
Blindness was a metaphor, but as I said, 2deep4u

[Anonymous No.1188442]

>>1188427
Don't use quotation marks, use long drawn out sentences... sure is Cormac McCarthy...

[Anonymous No.1188444]

>>1188442
>>1188436
>>1188434
Or you could just stop samefagging, because if you aren't the same person, /lit/'s condition is very sad.

[Anonymous No.1188448]

>>1188442
>he thinks Saramago is in any way like McCarthy

[Anonymous No.1188455]

>>1188439
No shit dumb ass. Who didn't know that? It was obviously a metaphor for social collapse and degeneracy. That doesn't excuse the author for writing stupid shit. IT HAD A MORAL, MUST BE EXCUSED OF EVERYTHING. How about using a moral and writing decent book at the same time? Many authors manage to do it.

[Anonymous No.1188456]

>>1187800
>Implying any serious person values the literary opinions of the Nobel Prize Committee.
/thread

[Anonymous No.1188459]

>>1188448
In those two ways dumb ass. HERP DERP. Of course he isn't McCarthy. McCarthy can actually write a decent book while using metaphors.

[Anonymous No.1188469]

>>1188456
Exactly.

[Anonymous No.1188476]

>>1188455
What is wrong with using blindness as a metaphor for it?
Please tell me. Blind raping etc.. what's wrong with it?

Please respond with well thought out arguments instead of just going "ah shit nigga, blind rape, for reals?" like the nigga you are. Because that really is a silly argument that can be applied to just about anything, withouth succes though.

>LOTR
magic? lololol
>animal farm
talking animals, wtf
>sci-fi
ftl travel? you just went full retard nigga

see?

[Anonymous No.1188480]

>>1188442
Not using quotation marks is par for the course for books published in Latin America or Spain. Long drawn out sentences have been around forever. How does any of this equate these two authors?

[Anonymous No.1188492]

>>1188476
>>1188476
It's called have a premise and building in it. In a science fiction novel you can defy physics and no one cares because of the established premise. Same with talking animals and fantasy. Blindness was fucking retarded, get over. It jumped the shark.

[Anonymous No.1188501]

>>1188480
>>1188480
>Not using quotation marks is par for the course for books published in Latin America or Spain.

No it isn't.

[Anonymous No.1188505]

>>1188492
>It's called have a premise and building in it
I don't see how the book violates this

also it's fiction, stop putting books in a few simple categories

" if it's fantasy or scifi it's ok to make things up"
fuck you

still no decent arguments

please try again or gtfo

[Poke !CYPkLy.IFw No.1188507]

I just cant believe you americans dont like Saramago. No wonder why you dont deserved the nobel.

[Anonymous No.1188514]

>>1188505
I already did, every writer knows about premises. It's why you can have aliens in science fiction and be okay, but not if they randomly showed up in The Plague and had an epic battle with the dying townsfolk. How can you no understand something so simple? And blind rape orgies are dumb anywhere.

[Anonymous No.1188515]

Saramago is pretty terrible. Yeah, the quality of the writing is good, but his books approach Randian levels of ultrathinly-veiled allegories and preaching.

[Anonymous No.1188516]

>>1188501
Uhhhh yeah it is. In most Spanish-language books you'll be lucky to get a "--" introducing dialog.

[Anonymous No.1188522]

>>1188507
>americans

Manchester is not part of America.

[Poke !CYPkLy.IFw No.1188531]

>>1188516
>>1188515

Because we like good, experimental, boundary pushing writing more than hollywood aimed best sellers.

You english speaking people used to have Conrad, Chejov, Hawthorne, Joyce, etc. Now you just have Dan Brawn and Meyer, thats why you're so full of shit.

[Anonymous No.1188543]

>>1187803
Cormac McCarthy at 3/1? Where did that come from. Anyway, bookmakers' odds are usually poor predictors of all Nobels, not just the literary ones.

[Anonymous No.1188552]

>>1188543
Instead of reporting on the Nobel prize contenders themselves, newspapers have been reporting on the betting going on around the prize. As soon as these articles started rolling out, Murakami and McCarthy shot to the top of the list - everyone who had heard of these authors poured their money in.

[Anonymous No.1188560]

>>1188531
>I am not aware of the literary scene

[Anonymous No.1188572]

>>1188531

>English-speaking
>Chejov

acabas de irse retrasado completo

[Anonymous No.1188574]

>>1188531
You are so fucking stupid.

[Poke !CYPkLy.IFw No.1188578]

>>1188560
I am. I liked Junot Díaz latest, most Palahniuk, mcarthy and this guy named bret easton ellis.

I'm just pointing out that what /lit/ wants is funny, interesting stories more than literary value, and thats what most english literature is nowadays.

Other lenguages' literature is more about the writing, the metaphor, and generally: the art.

[Anonymous No.1188580]

>>1188578
boop beep, movies are bad because transformers 2.

[Poke !CYPkLy.IFw No.1188581]

>>1188572
my bad, i meant chaucer.

[Poke !CYPkLy.IFw No.1188583]

>>1188580
Seriously, i'm not the one calling Saramago shit. Whats next? Call Borges or Garcia Márquez shit?

[Anonymous No.1188586]

>>1188583
I'm not even engaged in this argument (fwiw, although Pessoa is a better writer than Saramago, I think Saramago deserved his prize). I'm saying it's incredibly stupid to make the argument that there is no literary culture or no good books or no good authors in America, and to use as your evidence popular airport novel thrillers and romance novels. It's akin to saying that no-one makes good movies in America, on the grounds that Transformers 2 was a bad movie that made a lot of money. It's dumb. Of course your interlocutors here are also pretty dumb, sooo

[Anonymous No.1188587]

>>1188583

Saramago's entire oeuvre can be summarized in a single sentence: CAPITALISM BAD COMMUNISM GOOD. I guess he wrote fiction because (again, much like Rand) he couldn't support his religious-like convictions in a non-fictive, rigorous argument.

[Anonymous No.1188593]

>>1188587
While Saramago certainly had an obvious political agenda, comparing him to Rand is pretty misguided. Yes, both of them had political agendas, but Saramago was intelligent, artistic, and in general an excellent writer of prose, whereas Rand was not actually good at writing above the rough level of the thriller.

[Poke !CYPkLy.IFw No.1188595]

>>1188586
I'll give you that. There are some really great authors in america. I just don't get the simple minded persons who think like this: "I disagree, hence is bad; it isn't funny, then is bad; it doesn't have car accidents or explosions, it must be bad".

>>1188587
And did it godly, just like Vargas Llosa.

[Anonymous No.1188601]

>>1188587

Hahaha oh wow

No

[Anonymous No.1188602]

>>1188595
> just like Vargas Llosa.

Uh, no.

>>1188593

So the only thing that matters is the quality of the prose? That's ridiculous. While writing can certainly be appreciated as an end in itself, it's basically a mechanism of communication. Shit, Transformers had good CGI. Does that make it a good movie?

[Anonymous No.1188606]

>>1188601

Oh, I'm sorry. My position is clearly wrong. As demonstrated by your arguments and counter-examples. Thanks for correcting me, anon.

[Anonymous No.1188610]

>>1188606

It sure is bro, enjoy being wrong :3

[Anonymous No.1188613]

>>1188602
I think your point is pretty misguided!

>So the only thing that matters is the quality of the prose? That's ridiculous.

Obviously that's not the "only" thing that matters, but the Nobel Prize should be for the artistry of the novel - which goes beyond teh quality of prose into imagery, symbolism, the way in which your transmit the message (if you're even transmitting a message; I would say that one is telling a story which has meaning, which can be interpreted. I don't think didacticism is a virtue).

>While writing can certainly be appreciated as an end in itself, it's basically a mechanism of communication.

That's pretty much wrong. Where are you getting this from? What about, you know, artistry, beauty, aesthetics? What about a piece of work with multiple meanings?

>Shit, Transformers had good CGI. Does that make it a good movie?

Well, no! Because CGI isn't really all that artistic in terms of cinema. But Citizen Kane, for example, has brilliant cinematography and acting, which does make it a good movie, even if it isn't always an enjoyable one to watch.

[Poke !CYPkLy.IFw No.1188618]

>>1188602
I'm a literature student, they teach us really cool shit there. Most of my teachers are published (not famous yet) PhDs.
They teach to value prose as and all-mighty being, seriously, everything can be contained into prose, plot developments are just an extension of prose, as just in prose some elements like metaphoric vehicle, diegesis, etc, can take real form; characters need to be defined by the writing style in more ways than one can imagine at first.

[Poke !CYPkLy.IFw No.1188623]

>>1188613
>Obviously that's not the "only" thing that matters, but the Nobel Prize should be for the artistry of the novel - which goes beyond teh quality of prose into imagery, symbolism, the way in which your transmit the message (if you're even transmitting a message; I would say that one is telling a story which has meaning, which can be interpreted. I don't think didacticism is a virtue).

Thats what takes real authors and best-sellerists apart from each others, i think.

[Implying !!OwMMiDsuHLo No.1188629]

I don't know who this poke guy is, but he looks like a solid replacement for Stagolee.

[Poke !CYPkLy.IFw No.1188632]

>>1188629
I don't know who he is. I came from /mu/ anyways.

[Anonymous No.1188634]

>>1188613

You need to give a hard definition of "artistic" and "artistry" because to me it seems that you are using the term in contradictory fashions.

[Anonymous No.1188638]

>>1188629
What? Poke actually knows what he's talking about and contributes to shit, and is reasonable even when he's wrong. Stag (or at least Stag's persona) was a 15 year old.

[Anonymous No.1188639]

>>1188634
It's entirely possible! Art is tricky to define and I don't really have any good standard for the precise meaning of the terms. Can we assume that it was a mistake on my part to use those terms in the first place, and take my meaning from there? Do you need anything else clarified?

[Anonymous No.1188640]

>>1187812
Ex-commie, yes.
Currently a fanatic neoliberal right-wing asshole.

Also: I'm Peruvian and Vargas Llosa is my favorite author. I've been plugging him here for as long as the board has existed. He jumpstarted the Latinamerican boom in the 60s with La Ciudad y Los Perros (Time of the Hero) and his a master in terms of style. Every single one of you should read him.

And if you read him in spanish, kudos for you.

[Anonymous No.1188641]

>>1187800
looks like gregory peck

[Anonymous No.1188657]

Why are people complaining about him? Vargas Llosa has been a superstar since the 60s, he's been a serious contender for the award since at least the beginning of the last decade. It's not surprising. McCarthy is gonna get his due soon, but Vargas Llosa was a long time coming. Not to mention that he's a fucking genius. He's also pretty easy to read, why aren't you buying something from him?

[Poke !CYPkLy.IFw No.1188658]

>>1188639
The post-modern era human being defines art as shit with meaning. You have Duchamp and his fountain or Gabriel Orozco and the shoebox. If you have an argument on it, then its art.

In literature it works the same, it can be obvious if we are taking about an artistic prose if we have a little background on the author, his historical context and his contemporary counterparts and influences. If your prose is too damn experimental like Mario Bellatín, the you need a solid argument on it.

[Anonymous No.1188667]

>>1188657
McCarthy's never going to win (imo). Also Llargas was quite a good choice

>>1188658
It's more that I don't want to get embroiled in a discussion over Art when I don't think it's particularly germane to my point (fwiw, my suspicion or inclination would be to define art in a way broadly similar to the way you define it)

[Anonymous No.1188671]

We gotta get our shit together, US. Next year we will win.

[Anonymous No.1188673]

>>1188671
Yeah, and it will be awarded to Pynchon

[Anonymous No.1188682]

>>1187806
Peruvianfag here. Know his work.
Deals with portraying different aspects of our culture: miltarism, MACHISMO, racism, violence, politics, MACHISMO...all narrated through internal monologues of Joycean proportions.
Shit is SO CASH
Favourite book: La ciudad y los perros
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_ciudad_y_los_perros (not much there though)

[Anonymous No.1188686]

I like Vargas Llosa.

Latin-Americanfag here.

BUT MR.MURAKAMI SHOULD HAVE WON!

F U NOBEL COMMITTEE

I'M GOING TO CUT YOUR HEADS OFF AND MAKE A MAGIC FLUTE OUT OF YOUR SOULS!

[Anonymous No.1188691]

>>1188657
>McCarthy is gonna get his due soon
McCarthy fans really are delusional. Seriously, there is NO WAY he is going to win a Nobel Prize. Ever.

It might happen if he somehow manages to pump out four or five meaningful, interesting books, before he dies. They'd have to be better than Suttree or Blood Meridian. He just doesn't have it in him anymore.

[Anonymous No.1188693]

>>1188587
I wonder how much of "his entire ouvre" have you actually read...

[Anonymous No.1188701]

>>1188686
Murukami, if he ever gets the Prize, will probably have to wait 20 years. He's way too young.

[Anonymous No.1188706]

>>1188531
Nigga doesn't know about Franzen, DeLillo, Pynchon or Roth

[Anonymous No.1188714]

>>1188686
He's not good or politically aproppiate enough to get the prize.

[Anonymous No.1188715]

>>1188701
>Murukami, if he ever gets the Prize, will probably have to wait 20 years. He writes like shit.

Fix'd

[Anonymous No.1188717]

Bob Dylan is a better writer then anyone else on the list. Not looking for a arguement, because I think the work speaks for itself.

[Anonymous No.1188719]

Do they always make the anouncement in Swedish, English, and Spanish? Or did they just use Spanish because it's the language of the laureate?

[Anonymous No.1188766]

>>1188691
Dude, McCarthy is constantly regarded as the best American living writer. He's included in a lot of Western Canon lists. His importance is growing rapidly. Just because he got popular with The Road doesn't mean he's an easy, pulp fiction writer like some of the other guys mentioned here.

[Anonymous No.1188781]

If I were to pick an American for the Nobel, I'd say Philip Roth has the best chances. Even though they might be somewhat perturbed by Saul Bellow's prize.

[Anonymous No.1188785]

>>1188766
He may be a very popular, critically acclaimed American novelist but his influence ends at your borders.

Influence on other authors is on the factors looked at by the Nobel people, and McCarthy has essentially zero outside of the United States, and absolutely zero outside of the English-speaking world.

[Anonymous No.1188858]

>>1188785
>McCarthy has no influence outside the US
That's not really true, is it? Surely his books have been translated?

[Anonymous No.1188904]

USAfag here. I've read la ciudad y los perros and la tia julia y el escribidor in spanish. Wasn't particularly impressed. If you ask me, Echenique is the better writer from Peru.

That being said, I think mario vargas llosa is a total bro. He ran for president of Peru and said he was agnostic despite knowing everyone in peru is hyper-religious roman catholic. Too bad that fuck Fujimori won

[Anonymous No.1188923]

>>1188858

Mostly, McCarthy is read for those works of his that have been adapted into movies. The big novels are still for the minority who read literature, and outside America, the minority who read literature don't valorize the condition of being a hick. McCarthy may be read, but he isn't influential.

[Anonymous No.1188952]

>>1188671

Countries don't win it, writers do.

[Anonymous No.1188959]

I would have loved to see people's whingeing about Herta Mueller, had this board been around this time last year.

[Anonymous No.1188962]

>>1188952
BULLSHIT!

USA! USA! USA! USA!

[Anonymous No.1189011]

Does anyone know the story behind Llosa punching Gabriel Garcia Marquez in the face?

>100 Years of Solitude <3

[Courage Wolf !penisASZp2 No.1189021]

we should get /sp/ in on this.

[Anonymous No.1189023]

Son of a Peruvian here. Foolish nationalistic pride makes me happy, and I've never read any of his stuff. Guess I might now...

Also, he's into incest I here.

Also, PERU PERU PERU.

[Anonymous No.1189065]

>>1189011
Vargas Llosa cheated on his wife, who also happens to be his first cousin. The distressed wife went to Garcia Marquez, then Vargas Llosa's best mate. Apparently he advised her to divorce him, and then "consoled" her, the details of the consolation process being contentious. Subsequently, Vargas Llosa returned to his wife, who agreed to take him back, and she told him what happened. Vargas Llosa was none too pleased and then punched Garcia Marquez the next time they met. Those South Americans.

[Anonymous No.1189075]

>>1189065
>How real men deal with black eyes

[Anonymous No.1189523]

bump

[Anonymous No.1189536]

>>1189075
O rly?

[Anonymous No.1190095]

I am appaled that nobody on /lit/ mentions "The war of the end of the world"

is his one and only masterpiece http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_of_the_End_of_the_World