/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.13606800]

>Faulkner, probably the most celebrated Southern writer, is more difficult to read by comparison, his prose often peppered with devices of deliberate ambiguity, leaving the reader to ponder over the proper reference for that wandering pronoun without clear antecedent, or over the confusion in space, time, or information, or over long, sometimes ponderous sentence in recondite vocabulary, on emotionally charged, often Gothic, themes.

Is Faulkner the Dark Souls of literature?

[Anonymous No.13606809]

i like faulkner and i like dark souls, so yes, checks out

[Anonymous No.13606810]

Probably. He's hard, but the popular kind of hard, not the impossible kind of hard. He's good.

[Anonymous No.13606814]

Faulkner is fucking abominable. American literature in general is a joke.

[Anonymous No.13606816]

>>13606800
The Book of the New Sun, the Worm Ouroboros and the Aeneid are the Dark Souls of literature.

[Anonymous No.13606832]

>>13606816
>Aeneid
>Hard
It's harder to read Juvenal or Aeschylus' tragedies. Virgil's latin is clean and clear, that's why he's so good.

[Anonymous No.13606834]

>>13606816

I'll allow it.

[Anonymous No.13606848]

>>13606816
>>13606832
Virgil is doodoo. The 'Aeneid' is Roman fanfiction. Any intertextual studies involved with 'getting' the references in his work aren't really worth it, similar to 'Dante's Inferno'.

[Anonymous No.13606850]

>>13606832
Not hard, but similar to Dark Souls.

[Anonymous No.13606856]

>>13606848
>Believing the Aeneid is good for its references and not because of his spectacular use of classic latin
Fuck you. I agree that Aeneas is a little bitch and that Virgil was Augustus' cocksucker, but fuck you.

[Anonymous No.13606858]

>>13606834
is the pic supposed to be related to something?

[Anonymous No.13606866]

>>13606848
>calling the Commedia by one of its parts

[Anonymous No.13606869]

>>13606858

It's from the Aeneid, and it's beautiful.

[Anonymous No.13606893]

>>13606866
How dare I refer to a specific text in a group of texts?

>>13606856
I didn't say the prose was bad, if that's what you mean. My qualms may have been due to the reading order in which I went after the works. Compared to the Iliad and Odyssey, the Aeneid was interesting, but I felt Joyce did a better job working the 'classical western lit' lexicon into something comparatively new (in form of text and function) without feeling like fanfiction.

[Anonymous No.13606895]

>>13606893
Agreed.

[Anonymous No.13606917]

>>13606893
What do you mean that it "feels like fanfiction"? I don't think the term is very applicable to an age without copyright laws or fandoms, when writers were retelling the same archetypal stories constantly

[Anonymous No.13606934]

>>13606810
I've never read Faulkner. Could you post a paragraph or something that showcases his style and his "difficulty" in regards to being read?

[Anonymous No.13606960]

>>13606934
>In a strange room you must empty yourself for sleep. And before you are emptied for sleep, what are you. And when you are emptied for sleep, you are not. And when you are filled with sleep, you never were. I don't know what I am. I don't know if I am or not. Jewel knows he is, because he does not know that he does not know whether he is or not. He cannot empty himself for sleep because he is not what he is and he is what he is not. Beyond the unlamped wall I can hear the rain shaping the wagon that is ours, the load that is no longer theirs that felled and sawed it nor yet theirs that bought it and which is not ours either, lie on our wagon though it does, since only the wind and the rain shape it only to Jewel and me, that are not asleep. And since sleep is is-not and rain and wind arewas, it is not. Yet the wagonis, because when the wagon iswas, Addie Bundren will not be. And Jewelis, so Addie Bundren must be. And then I must be, or I could not empty myself for sleep in a strange room. And so if I am not emptied yet, I amis

[Anonymous No.13606964]

>>13606893
the odyssey is fanfiction too

[Anonymous No.13606974]

>>13606917
It isn't on much of an individual or media-related level. I moreso meant that, compared to my reading Homer beforehand, that it especially felt like an unsubtle co-opting of Greek lore to elevate Rome.
I get that that's the point, and good artistry can shine through regardless of this intention.
It's not as though I dislike Roman lit entirely though (at least the little I have read). Ovid was delightful.
It was moreso a joke.

[Anonymous No.13606982]

>>13606800
He is the father of pseudery in American literature, in short, the father of American literature.

[Anonymous No.13606985]

>>13606982
this post is the peak of psuedery

[Anonymous No.13606991]

>>13606964
I know. I read it when I was young and I really like the actual concepts it works with. Nostalgia goggles, I suppose.
I also love that Athena basically babysat everyone.

[Anonymous No.13607000]

>>13606960
goddamn whenever i read an extract of faulkner i get an erection what the fuck

[Anonymous No.13607004]

>>13607000
I missed a couple of spaces, sorry!!

[Anonymous No.13607017]

>>13606893
>prose
>Aeneid
pseud

[Anonymous No.13607043]

>>13606832
In what world is aeschylus hard?

[Anonymous No.13607064]

>>13606974
>it especially felt like an unsubtle co-opting of Greek lore to elevate Rome
This was exactly the point. You sound like a wikipedia skimmer

[Anonymous No.13607078]

>>13607043
In the Greek world. His constructions with double accusative and the different uses of datives are a pain in the ass to read. Also, his lexicon is harder than Euripides' or Sophocles'. The only difficulty with Euripides is his use of lydian declensions + some of his moral lexicon (σωφρoσυνη and such). Sophocles is hard, but not as much as Aeschylus in my experience.

[Anonymous No.13607377]

>>13606800
>his prose often peppered with devices of deliberate ambiguity, leaving the reader to ponder over the proper reference for that wandering pronoun without clear antecedent, or over the confusion in space, time, or information, or over long, sometimes ponderous sentence in recondite vocabulary
Sounds like Henry James desu

[Anonymous No.13607604]

>>13607017
yawn.
>>13607064
"I get that that's the point"
You can't even skim 4chan posts.

[Anonymous No.13607609]

>>13606800
>Dark Souls

[Anonymous No.13607611]

>>13607017
My mistake.

[Anonymous No.13608395]

>>13606800
>Dark Souls of literature
Clearly you forgot
you know who

[Anonymous No.13608573]

>>13607043
>in what world is the famously hardest Greek poet hard to read
el oh el
>all these people hating on the Aeneid
stulti qui ne legere quidem latinam possunt, sed docti esse simulant! velut cinaedi, isti nobis pedicandi sunt

[Anonymous No.13608640]

>>13608395
None of the three qualify

[Anonymous No.13608749]

>>13606960
bro this reads like a schizo posted it in /x/

[Anonymous No.13608800]

>>13608749
Well Darl ends up going crazyby the end of the book.

[Anonymous No.13608804]

>>13606814
Why do you think that? I’m interested

[Anonymous No.13609139]

i only trust classics posters
latinam discete, plebi!

[Anonymous No.13609205]

>>13606960
this is a bit cringy but soc is. i like it but still thats my reaction.

[Anonymous No.13609219]

>>13608800
>tfw I identified with Darl for most of the book
w-what's gonna happen to me?

[Anonymous No.13609232]

>>13609205
Yeah, I agree. But Faulkner explored some techniques that inspired some of my favorite authors, so I'm thankful that he wrote all his stuff, even the parts I don't like so much.

[Anonymous No.13609245]

>>13608804
American "literature" is mostly social commentary.

[Anonymous No.13609261]

>>13609219
>tfw I identified most with the pharmacist
Oh, I know exactly what's gonna happen to me.

[Anonymous No.13609266]

>>13606814
No, he isn't.

[Anonymous No.13609279]

>>13606816
>Book of the New Sun is hard
This meme needs to die. It's not that hard to follow. Am I missing something or is the average /lit/ user sub-80 iq

[Anonymous No.13609336]

>>13609279
It's bizarre. The book's challenging compared to the Halo novels, but even I, a mongoloid, got it.

[Anonymous No.13609363]

>>13609279
It's hard for people whose heads are stuffed with cheap, rotten pulp, i.e. the average SFF fan.

[Anonymous No.13609374]

>>13606800
You mean a game which is somewhat challenging but fair once you understand the mechanics? Yeah, sure.

[Anonymous No.13609403]

>>13609363
based

[Anonymous No.13609413]

>>13606934
His greatest book, imo, is The Sound and the Fury, and that book's opening hundred or so pages is written fromt the point of view of a fucking retard. A fucking RETARD, anon. It starts to make you wonder if Faulkner is retarded. Then you get to the second PoV and you realize Faulkner was joshing around, he was only pretending to be retarded.

[Anonymous No.13609416]

>>13609205
>>13609232
It's always important to recognize when an author is the "proto" of something. When they were among the first doing a thing, and those who came after refined upon their example. Faulkner is one such writer.

[Anonymous No.13609422]

>>13609413
>is written fromt the point of view of a fucking retard. A fucking RETARD
Are you telling me... that The Sound and the Fury.......... is a tale told by an idiot???

[Anonymous No.13609433]

>>13609422
lmao dab on em

[Anonymous No.13609440]

>>13609374
it's challenging if you engage in each "fight" but the optimal strat is to just combat roll / skim past everything and cheese out the gist of the thing

[Anonymous No.13609443]

>>13609422
>Faulkner goes to work
>doesn't do shit all day or help clients
>hides in the broom closet, reading Shakespeare
>reads the line about the tale being by told by an idiot
>takes it literally and writes some retarded shit
>realizes after a 100 pages that he's written complete gabblegook
>suddenly switches PoV to make it less retarded
>rest of book is pretty good
>praised as a genius
>leaves in the retard parts for a laugh

Faulkner, what a lad.

[Anonymous No.13609457]

>>13609443
Wasn't a good chunk of his writing done on the underside of a wheelbarrow or something?

[Anonymous No.13609489]

>>13609245
I think you may be artificially confining it to social commentary...

[Anonymous No.13609523]

>>13606960
Thanks
Won't ever be reading faulkner, it's a bit too postmodern for me :)

[Anonymous No.13609959]

>>13609279
It is not hard, but it is similar to Dark Souls.

[Anonymous No.13610419]

>>13607000
that you, Tyrone?