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/lit/ - Literature

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14403789 No.14403789 [Reply] [Original]

How did this not make the /lit/ top 100? It is sublime, EVEN IN TRANSLATION! This is the perfect novel. Forget Stoner. This is leagues above Stoner. Sebald's stream of consciousness prose is engrossing. He makes everything he talks about interesting, and the themes of death and decay throughout come out in heartbreaking anecdotes and tangents. Read this. Read this. And read it again. This is my second time reading it after over a year and I'm in love.

>> No.14403814

/lit/ does not read books, only memes

>> No.14403856

>>14403814
We can change this if a small minority of us make an effort to not shitpost, participate in shitposts, and to actively discuss and engender discussion on what we are reading. Making genuine recommendations will also clean up /lit/.

>> No.14403858

Just popping in to say I second OP, Sebald is a wonderful writer and Rings of Saturn can be read start-to-finish in like three hours.

>> No.14404292

thank you for the suggestion, anon <3

>> No.14404300

I’ll read it, please don’t be a let-down like Stoner

>> No.14404396

It's first rate. I think that's also the /lit/ consensus on book. That /lit/ top 100 chart doesn't mean much.

I'm desperate for more works like it. The only other Sebald I read is Austerlitz and it just wasn't as good. I'm about to start Magris' Danube which seems Sebald-like, but so far I haven't found anything on the level of the Rings of Saturn

>> No.14404416
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14404416

>>14403789
Nice one

>> No.14404417

>>14404396
Part of me would feel insulted if I were to find something on par or above The Rings of Saturn. But I really need to read the rest of Sebald.

>> No.14404430

>>14404416
Is Cloud Atlas good? The movie makes me think it will be a meme, and I know nothing about David Mitchell except he might be vaguely related to Wallace through New Sincerity.

>> No.14404439

>>14404430
I enjoyed it quite a lot. Very imaginative piece.

>> No.14404447

>>14403789
I've been trying to shill this book for months. Easily the best book I've read all year.

>> No.14404450

>>14403789
It's great, anon, I loved it too and reccomend it to everyone I can. It's still not better than Stoner in my eyes.

>> No.14404456

>>14404450
In my eyes, Stoner and The Rings of Saturn are so different it is difficult to compare them.

But clearly Rings of Saturn is better.

>> No.14404499

The Emigrants and Vertigo are equally brilliant works by Sebald. Very comfy reads

>> No.14404514

>>14404450
Will I like this if I thought Stoner was just alright?

>> No.14404522

>>14404396
The 100 chart is just whatever got the most votes as users' personal top 5s. It's entirely possible that a book is well liked and wont end up charting because it was everyone's no.6 or smth.

>> No.14404529

>>14404456
Sebald is definitely more technically skilled, and definitely took on a more complex burden. However, Williams' ability to convey such an intensely directed (and personally affecting) empathy in so reserved a style still leaves me unable to choose between the two. They both touched me, but Stoner got closer. Simple as that

>> No.14404542

>>14404514
You'll probably love it all the more. Two wildly, wildly different books.

>> No.14404550

>>14404522
Also, more people are going to have read Stoner on here because, for whatever reason, it became a massive and unavoidable meme

>> No.14404566

>>14404416
Honestly The Pale King should be up there instead of Oblivion. It achieves way, way more despite being unfinished

>> No.14404649

Is The Emigrants a good starting point for Sebald?

>> No.14404703

>>14404499
The Emigrants is pretty comfy until it’s fucking not, but at least it’ll leave you pacing up and down your room in contemplation after each part.

The second one about the Jew who joined the Wehrmacht in WWII purely out of spite was exceptionally kino for lack of a better term

>> No.14404709

>>14403789
I'm reading this now and I'm very impressed by the prose. I'm noticing reoccurring themes in the chapters, but it's a bit difficult to identify Sebald's intentions with the book. Ive heard him describe German guilt for the holocaust as being a big influence for his work. Is this really the main thing the book aims to convey? Nonetheless, if I were to write a novel, it would definitely be in the same style as the Rings of Saturn

>> No.14404712

>>14404514
they are completely different in all aspects apart from both being completely miserable books

Rings of Saturn is top tier

>> No.14404714

>>14404649
All of Sebald’s novels are different yet the same in the mood and idea conveyed, so it’s a fine place

>> No.14404722

>>14404709
Keep reading and I am sure you will come to understand his intentions.

>> No.14404742

>>14403789
thanks anon, just bought the book

>> No.14404877

>>14403789
I found everything after Conrad pretty dull

>> No.14404884

Just spam it like a retard and it will become a meme in no time here

>> No.14405097
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14405097

It’s the best. Vertigo, Emigrants, and Austerlitz are very, very good but Rings of Saturn is unmatched.

The fragment published in Campo Santo might be the most similar in theme to Rings.

>> No.14405108

>>14404416
is this dudebrolit?

>> No.14405126

>>14404566
>implying there should be any Pynchon or DFW on there
That list is shit desu. Highschooler-tier.

>> No.14405142

>>14405097
Is that image from Rings of Saturn?

>> No.14405246

>>14403789
The Emigrants is even better

>> No.14405259

Because of the whitehead faggots who ruined the list by voting dozens of times

>> No.14405263

>>14404884
Unironically this.

>> No.14405317

>>14405142
Yes.

>> No.14405331

>>14403789
The top 100 is dogshit, only a few redditor autists participate at all - stop making that rubbish

>> No.14405652

>>14405108
?

>> No.14406001

>>14404416
i really recommend my struggle. i read it this year and was my favorite book ive read this year
keep in mind this is Book 2, you dont need to have read book 1 but it does give a lot of context. wasnt enjoying book 3 as much and dropped it around pg 100, might pick it up later or skim around the rest of them

>> No.14406032

>>14404714
Sounds like Bernhard

>> No.14406419

>>14404877
Agree with this. Some chapters like the Conrad one, silkworms and the opening chapter on Browne were incredible but a lot of the book wasn't that interesting.

>> No.14406548

>>14406032
Now that I think about it that analogy is almost too apt. Another case of German language writers being based I guess

>> No.14406689

>>14403789

Sebald isn't memey enough to be popular on /lit/. No radical politics, no sense of humor, his personality wasn't abrasive or eccentric, and his books aren't several hundred pages long. What's there to discuss if you can't meme him?

>> No.14407443

>>14403789
>Read this. Read this. And read it again.
Aye aye, anon. Fine, I guess.

>> No.14408252

>>14406032
>>14406548
He described himself as a follower of Bernhard. Their humour is definitely similar.

>> No.14408283
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14408283

>>14403789
Indeed. Especially in the colonism context.

>> No.14408365

>>14406689
All those things are true for Stoner too though, aren’t they?

>> No.14408434

>>14406689
he definitely had a very dry sense of humor

go re-read the part where he tries to eat a breaded piece of fish at the motel

>> No.14408441

>>14405097
Is the whole book as bleak as those two pages?

>> No.14408477
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14408477

>>14403789
it actually made the top100 list ... the real list

>> No.14408833
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14408833

>>14408441
It is quite bleak. Although I, and I imagine lots of readers, find a strange sort of companionship in it. Definitely a comfy melancholy.

>> No.14409034

>>14403789
>Sebald's stream of consciousness prose
Aaaaaannndddd into the trash it goes

>> No.14409056

>>14409034
His was a poor choice of phrase and Sebald has very little in common with typical stream-of-consciousness lit.

>> No.14409072
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14409072

Fuck, thanks for reminding me OP, I bought this book a year ago and as I kept buying books over the course of the year it fell farther and farther down the stack as far as too reads go. I think in the coming year where I've set myself the task of reading more and buying less this will find its way back to the top of the stack.

>> No.14409085

>>14403789
a lot of book got in with just 5 or 6 votes (including the Qu'ran). If it's so book, why wouldn't 5 or 6 people vote for it?

>> No.14409182

>>14409085
it's very book

>> No.14409185

>>14409034
it's not really stream of consciousness, it's more that some sentences are very long.

>> No.14409222

>>14403789
will do anon.
thanks for the rec

>> No.14409252

>>14408477
can you post every top 100 anon;
especially 2015.
I'm collecting charts

>> No.14409598
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14409598

>> No.14409731

>>14408477
> top 100 books
> all fiction

lmao i knew you litbros were nothing more than fairies...inb4 some queer calls me a philistine for reading to learn instead of reading to dream all day

>> No.14410320

>>14409731
>Top100 literature list
>Only literature
Rly makes ye think

>> No.14411193

bump

>> No.14411467

>>14408477
>In Search of Lost Time
>49
You fucking niggers, that masterpiece should be in the top ten every year

>> No.14411516

>>14404430
I liked it when I read it in high school. Haven’t looked at it since.

>> No.14411548

>>14409598
this is satire in british magazine private eye, just in case anyone (even the poster potentially) isn't aware...written by craig brown.

>> No.14411625

>>14411548
Thanks, wasn’t aware it was from Private Eye. Had hoped anyone with the faculties to read Sebald couldn’t take seriously such brilliance as:
>It was a dark, overcast day when I arrived on the beach, or it would have been if the sun had not been blazing down on me