/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12618476]

Decide to re-read Anna Karenina and take notes - in a separate notebook - of every single detail that Tolstoy writes. The aim is to learn how to give scenes, thoughs, dialogue and inner monologues a sense of reality. Start reading and underlining the micro-details and quickly realize that Tolstoy uses swarms of microscopic particularities to paint every single bit of his works: from the locks of hair of Anna to the wide hips of a Tartar waiter to the sounds and smells inside a train to the fact that Vrónski went out of the train in a station to drink a glass of soda to the way that such character walks and that character moves his lips and etc and etc.

Realize that I am underlining and dog-earing practically every single page. Realize that in the same way that Shakespeare piles up one beautiful and extremely original metaphor upon other, without time for the mind to breath, Tolstoy constantly presents, one incessantly, one after another, thousands of small details, most of them true to life and based on careful observation.

Those details even bring small character to life. In one part of Anna Karenina Tolstoy describes how the porter of a big house from one of the rich ladies of Petersburg sits in his security cabin, in front of a glass that is in front of the street, and how he reads the newspapers every day, in front of the passerby’s, thinking that with this example he is helping them in their personal edification.

It’s a small detail about a character that is not going to appear again, yet now he is a human being, not simply "the porter", as most novels would describe him. To really pay attention to such small perceptions, and to remember them when you sit down to write, and to know what detail to use here and what to use there… That’s extremely difficult.

Is far more easier to write a Pynchon like "poetic prose" than to come up with this forest of little touches, and the same can be said of Shakespeare: it’s obscenely difficult to invent one beautiful and original metaphor after another, constantly, making language a great web of micro-histories (for every metaphor is a small capsule of a history).

(cont)

[Anonymous No.12618486]

>>12618476

No other writer ever saw as many things and in such detail as him (only Shakespeare, who is no wonder that he hated, an egocentric like he was noticing that there he had one of his few rivals). He was capable of perceiving every little expression on the face, every thought; he captured every gesture and action of other living things and stored in his brain for when the time to write would come.

Furthermore, the work of many realistic writers look like blurry mirrors compared to the creations of Tolstoy. He seems to be the most sensitive, perceptive and true of all realistic writers. He seemed to be perpetually devoid of skin, always in raw-flesh (at least his mind was like that: both his five senses as his conscience – his brain was as sensible as the tender eyes and soft antennae of the snail) so that even a breath, a look, a frown, an intonation of speech, a facial wrinkle and so many other little things reach him with a disproportionately strong force.

He submerge himself in human life: in the cities and the country, the offices and the fields, the war-zone and the mossy woods with scent of rotten leaves; he visited the slums of the poor and the rich resorts of high-society, and all the time his unparalleled sensibility was capturing every small movement that happened around him.

Every molecule of existence was absorbed by the palate of his conscience. Seriously, this guy is on a league of his own as a novelist. To come up with even half the details he presents in a single work would be extremely hard; to do the same thing is simply beyond the capacity of most writers.

[Anonymous No.12618571]

Let me ask you something OP, when reading Tolstoy, how many pages do you go through per sitting?

[Anonymous No.12618576]

I’ve read this post before, you are a thief.

[Anonymous No.12618585]

Would you look at that I was right.

[Anonymous No.12618593]

>>12618576
>>12618585

OP BTFO

[Anonymous No.12618597]

>>12618576
>>12618585
>copy pasta is stealing
Is this your first time browsing?

[Anonymous No.12618608]

Honestly though, no one cares what colour the fucking curtains are. I'm all for attention to detail, but you have to draw the line somewhere. Long expositions and descriptions of a character's clothing are boring, who would want to sit down and read that for over 5 pages?

[Anonymous No.12618609]

>>12618585
Why is she so S?

[Anonymous No.12618622]

one thing that stood out for me when reading anna was how tolstoy describes the character's physical posture ("her back straight as an arrow", "a bit hump" etc) and how that reflected their figurative posture towards the events in the story. Its obvious now but really subtle in the writing.

>>12618608
is your attention spam really that short?

[Anonymous No.12618629]

What kind of person goes on 4chan to repost someone else's self-reflection? What would you get out of it? Are you making money? Are you making friends? Maybe you feel alone, but it doesn't seem like the responses to this thread would make many people feel much less alone.

[Anonymous No.12618636]

>>12618597
Watch out, a guy from the navy seals with over 300 confirmed kills posts on 4chan. He has a penchant for fucking with people who anger him

[Anonymous No.12618637]

>>12618622
If it doesn't add anything to the story, it's just the author masturbating. I don't have the patience for that.

[Anonymous No.12618642]

>>12618629
On traditional forums you post something once, then every subsequent poster gets told to fuck off and search the forum before the thread gets locked/deleted. Because imageboards have continually recycled and newly generated content the same effect is achieved by copy-pasta, redistributing particularly funny or informative posts, either for purpose of discussion or in-jokes and banter. My guess would be at getting a thread going.

[Anonymous No.12618644]

>>12618637
>>12618608
It's not necessarily that it adds to the story (though it frequently does), but more that it adds to the characterization. "The curtains are fucking blue" meme is only true of the lowest rate authors. Rust Cohle doesn't live in a mansion, he lives in an austere, undecorated apartment - that's a reflection of how he thinks. It's enriching the experience.

[Anonymous No.12618653]

Anglos always gotta drag fucking Shakespeare into everything... Anyway: Tolstois books never really grip or surprise me and much of the prose is simply tiresome accounting of details. This however is not his fault but there is reason why literature has moved on.

[Anonymous No.12618669]

>>12618644
Why are you bringing TV shows into the discussion? It's a different medium.

[Anonymous No.12618677]

>>12618669
An example from literature would be Buddenbrocks where Mann takes great care to tell you what each character is wearing, and how they furnish their homes so you know who is old school and who is nouveau riche

[Anonymous No.12618690]

>>12618637
i just said in the same post how the description of postures adds a layer to the characters and your answer is " it's just the author masturbating".
if you don't have the brain power to understand when something is adding to the story, characterization or worldbuilding, it doesn't mean the author is just "masturbating". go read more.

[Anonymous No.12618705]

>>12618609
tiddies

[Anonymous No.12618726]

>>12618476
>>12618486
You figured out the easiest part of Tolstoy, what his writing is. The hard part is find out HOW?

A lot of writers, and I mean a lot, has the same elements to their writing as your described. Yet, in most of the cases, this results in a feeling of drag, a feeling of 'unnecessary detailing', or a feeling of 'get to the point already'.
But Tolstoy's writing, possessing the same elements, do not feel this way even once. This is the greater mystery to be figured out in my opinion.

[Anonymous No.12618727]

I like this

[Anonymous No.12618732]

>>12618705
Please don't objectify women

[Anonymous No.12618952]

>>12618653
Moved on to where?

[Anonymous No.12619154]

Someone tell me why Denisov has a speech impediment

[Anonymous No.12619519]

>>12619154
no

[Anonymous No.12619896]

Totally agree, but there are others. I would say many of the golden age Russian authors have similar attention to such obscenely subtle nuances that elevate the fiction to real life. Additionally, and in all seriousness, I think a couple of the often Japanese authors do this as well like Yukio Mishima, Osama Dazai etc

[Anonymous No.12620518]

You seem to treat these details like static, single purpose pieces of information, while authors like them to waltz. The dress from second chapter may beautifully come to mind in chapter six — if you remember it.

Another pop culture example: why the hell that song is about the flower instead of important things she mentions?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Edr8wnMqvU
https://juntogawaforever.tumblr.com/remembertheya

[Anonymous No.12621632]

>>12619154
No

[Anonymous No.12621965]

>>12618952
To Franzen, Marlon James, Zadie Smith, etc.

[Anonymous No.12622663]

>>12618476
Tolstoy didn't like Shakespeare and therefore is a big dumb retard

[Anonymous No.12622980]

>>12618608
go back to /v/