/lit/ - Literature

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1635604]

>finish evening workout and decide to go for a drink
>heed /lit/'s advice and avoid jazz bars, instead i go to a bar which is a converted studio flat above a retro clothes shop
>order a whisky and sit at a table reading naked lunch
>girl comes over not 5 minutes after i begin reading and taps my hand
>what?
>you looked lonely, need some company?
>no
>she doesn't take the hint and keeps tapping me on the hand etc
>i can't concentrate and realise this was a bad idea
>make my excuses but hear her say she hates naked lunch
>my ears prick up and my pupils dilate
>ask her to explain
>says she thinks it's objectively bad and although it had redeeming qualities in certain parts it has things that are just bad and impossible to ignore
>begin to hum loudly
>she doesn't notice and continues spouting idiotic things
>begin to hum louder and i feel vomit begin to rise in my throat
>excuse myself
>she's still talking, not about 1984 being objectively bad
>i go to the bathroom, a seedy cubicle and try and steady myself
>eventually vomit into the toilet and return
>say i need to go
>she snaps her head up and says she was away with the faries
>tries to give me her number and invites me round to her house tommorrow night to 'watch a dvd maybe?'
>say no i'd rather read...alone
>throw her number away when outside
>go home and contemplate shooting heroin
>have a nap and dream i'm a mugwump
>decide against heroin abuse.

so what do you all think about 2 things:
1. Naked Lunch
2. Objectivity and Subjectivity in literature?

Naked lunch general i guess!
pic related it's a cover art for naked lunch i like

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1635611]

pic related it's what she looked like, only she was prettier and less slutty

[Anonymous No.1635610]

inb4 shitstorm

[Anonymous No.1635626]

1984 begins by describing the weather.
describing the weather is a terrible way to start a book.
1984 is terrible.
objectively.

[Anonymous No.1635624]

Pic related.

[Anonymous No.1635629]

Why do you need to post a dumb fake story? Why not just post a thread about your opinions on naked lunch and what you liked/didn't like? I would love to have a thread like that since Burroughs is actually my favorite author. I just finished reading The Yage Letters and It is basically a continuation of the events in Queer(which I loved)

WHY CAN'T YOU JUST POST A THREAD ABOUT THE DAMN BOOKS SO WE CAN TALK ABOUT THEM! I HIJACK THIS THREAD FOR AN ACTUAL CONVERSATION ABOUT BURROUGHS INSTEAD OF A CONVERSATION ABOUT HOW EVERYONE HATES BROWNBEAR WHICH IT WILL INEVITABLY TURN INTO!! FUCK you piss me off.

[Anonymous No.1635634]

Brownbear, you once gifted me infinite jest which was probably the best book I've read in the past 6 months. I like these short stories you have, and if you serialized these into a picture book (the images of the sluttier girls are a necessity) I will purchase a copy and mail it to you for an autograph.

I haven't read naked lunch, but I will next time I see it at a used bookstore.

[Anonymous No.1635636]

Brownbear... why do you keep trying to read in public, its obvious that women aren't going to leave you alone.

Just stay home.

[Anonymous No.1635638]

>>1635629
How do you know they're fake?

[Anonymous No.1635640]

>>1635636
>saging
>thinking it has an effect on a bb thread.

[Anonymous No.1635643]

Brownbear, maybe you could start the thread by actually posting your opinions on the book you want to talk about? Maybe just MAYBE you could start a discussion that way?

[Anonymous No.1635644]

"whenever they's a girl who needs condescendin' to, i'll be there. whenever they's a toilet to be vomited in, i'll be there. i'll be in the way guys call attention to themselves in bars an' the way assholes awkwardly hit on each other. an' when the front page of /lit/ isn't full enough of bullshit, i'll be there." - brownbare, 2011

[Anonymous No.1635654]

>>1635638

A different girl bugs brownbear every week yet they always mention the same books? lol

[Anonymous No.1635657]

>>1635640
I always fucking sage, I never claimed to think it had any real effect.

But yeah, on /lit/ I am permasage.

[Anonymous No.1635661]

>>1635654
>pointing out the same books
>doesn't point out the repeated vomiting.

[Anonymous No.1635660]

>>1635654
More like every day.

[Fabulous !!GXZe+d0RTva No.1635667]

are you dumb pieces of shit actually debating whether or not the stories are legitimate?

[Anonymous No.1635671]

>>1635643

Hey does anyone happen to have any of burroughs hard to find stuff like Blade Runner? I've been looking all over for a bunch of his shit and I can't seem to find it anywhere.

[Anonymous No.1635678]

>>1635667
Not much of a debate, really.

[Anonymous No.1635683]

>>1635671

I do, I had an idea recently, we should start a thread where we all get all the rare novellas we have and scan the pages for each other. It would be so much win.

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1635691]

naked lunch is one of my favourite books and i really liked the conjointed style. my favourite section is the one with the sailor where the mugwump's are first described if anyone remembers that part. I like the small chapters less as the book goes on and prefer the ones near to the front, however when it gets back to some form of real structured narrative again (the orgies are where it does this i think) it pcks back up

i was surprised i liked it so much as this isn't usually the style of writing i go for. however i was pelasantly surprised on first read (maybe 15/16?) and now re-visiting it i'm enjoying it even more still.

haven't read anything else by Burroughs but going to pick up some other stuff, and by pick up i mean illegally download onto my kindle.

these are my thoughts, let's see where the thread goes from here.

>>1635654
>>1635654
i think they discuss these books because i am reading them in public.
it'd be silly to start a conversation on, for example, Poetics by Aristotle when i am reading Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry


>>1635634
>>1635634
wow i'm glad i finally got to speak to you again!
i remember gifting that and i do have a copy of all these saved with the images attached, not the replies however. i will be distributing it soon!

naked lunch is...weird, i'd suggest downloading an e-book and reading a bit before deciding, unless you can get it for super cheap at a used bookstore however

>>1635629
>>1635629
>fake story
stopped reading there bro

[DoomBear !YECnz2AuxY No.1635698]

Naked Lunch is awesome.

Objectivity and Subjectivity are both important. For example, twilight is objectively bad, but Naked Lunch just isn't for everyone.

A lot of people are turned off by Naked Lunch, because of its disjointed style and its apparent perversion, but anybody who takes the time to read it can find that Burroughs really has a lot to say.

Personally, I find his idiosyncrasies to be very entertaining, but its obviously not something everybody can stomach.

On the other hand, if you're going to go so far as to say that something is objectively bad, you'd better be ready to back it up.

[Anonymous No.1635702]

BB, do you have an afro by chance?

[Anonymous No.1635706]

>>1635691

Thank you for attempting to make this a nice thread.

If you are interested in Naked lunch type books I would suggest reading The train ticket that exploded, I'd suggest maybe skipping over soft machine, soft machine is basically when he first starts totally going batshit with the cutting up, imagine naked lunch only cutting all the chapters up and randomly throwing sentences from all the chapters into each chapter. It comes out being more like Finnegans wake than Naked Lunch, Then after burroughs realized the book was shit he started going more easy on the crazy cutups and make The train ticket that exploded, which is in the same style as naked lunch only crazier. I would recommend it.

[Anonymous No.1635708]

WOOOOWWWW STOP POSING YOUR SHIT BBBBB ITS FUCKING NAOYOING.
FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUCCKING HIPPPPPPPPPIE

[DoomBear !YECnz2AuxY No.1635716]

>>1635708
I think somebody is having an epileptic seizure.

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1635721]

>>1635706
>>1635706
thank you i have put it on my to-read list on my goodreads account

>>1635698
>>1635698
>twilight is objectively bad
i don't think you fully grasp subjectivity in literature

>>1635702
>>1635702
that is neither here nor there

[Anonymous No.1635718]

Also, I know everyone that likes burroughs is all into naked lunch and stuff but I would recommend for people that hated naked lunch/loved it. To look into reading Junky and Queer. They are not all crazy and cutup and hard to read, and they are actually quite riveting narratives that really take you on a journey into his mind and his way of thinking. He has a neat little style in his pre-naked lunch stuff.

[Anonymous No.1635723]

These threads aren't even rage-inducing anymore, they're just sad.

You really need a life.

[Anonymous No.1635724]

>>1635723
>You really need a life.
>">finish evening workout and decide to go for a drink"

wat.

[Anonymous No.1635725]

brownbare is it crucial to your ego or weltanschauung or w/e that all girls be dumber than you or are you just really really bad at meeting smart ones

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1635728]

i like op cock

[DoomBear !YECnz2AuxY No.1635729]

>>1635721
Ok, thats fine, but unless you tell me precisely why I'm wrong it means very little.

I mean, the popular criticisms of twilight (its shallow, poorly written, mary sue, teenage fantasy) all seem to ring true for me. I suppose that you can say its very successful, and popular amongst the demographic it was written for, but all of that seems to indicate that its literature as a commodity as opposed to literature as art.

So tell me, what is it exactly that I don't understand?

[Anonymous No.1635741]

>>1635729

He's saying that nothing in art is objective moron it's completely subjective. Just like your ideas that the book isn't well written are subjective. Who cares about twilight anyway. Why can't we just discuss burroughs and ignore all other discussion topics?

My favorite burroughs sequences are the ones that involve Dr.Benway.

[Anonymous No.1635748]

>>1635724
Look, I know you're just the OP tripfag posting without his tripcode, but seriously. These stories are all fake and everybody knows it.

[DoomBear !YECnz2AuxY No.1635750]

>>1635741
... and I'm saying that both objectivity and subjectivity are at play. If you happen to disagree, thats fine, calling me a moron doesn't do anything to advance your point.

Also, I'd like to hear it from him, thank you.

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1635754]

>>1635729
>>1635729
literature comes under the class of total subjectivity. you say twilight is objectively bad but what is 'bad' for you is not the same as what is 'bad' for me.

i know a girl who says 1984 is objectively bad. is she incorrect?
is it objectively bad?
if the answer is no (that is the answer) then why can't this subjectivity to 1984 be extended to Twilight?

some art pieces are sold for millions of pounds, this does not lessen their stature as art.
>>1635725
>>1635725
i don't fully understand?

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1635764]

>>1635741
>>1635741
yeah the DR Benway ones were good, i prefer the second set where it is revealed he is the sadist he is more than the first

[DoomBear !YECnz2AuxY No.1635766]

>>1635754
I remember one of your greentext threads from a while back, some girl was talking about... The Great Gatsby, i think it was. To which you responded, "I don't read babby books".

Now, If you're going to back up and say that the Great Gatsby isn't bad, that it has merit... wouldn't that put you on dangerous ground?

Perhaps I'm mistaken, it might not have been Gatsby, the same rings true (by your logic) for any book.

Or am I just reading too much into what is obviously a facade?

[Anonymous No.1635775]

>>1635766

I think you are missreading his context. His reply to her sounds like he meant that the great gatsby is a book that is normally read in middle/highschool and isn't something that serious people read beyond that. Kind of like lord of the flies or a seperate piece, or other shit they made you read in highschool in the US.

[DoomBear !YECnz2AuxY No.1635783]

Oh, my favorite bit from Naked Lunch is a bit just at the end of The Man Who Taught His Asshole To Talk, where he insists that democracy is cancerous and that bureaucracy is its cancer.

I wouldnt be able to put is as elegantly as burroughs, and I've transcribed it for this board before, if I can find it real quick I might post it again.

[Anonymous No.1635789]

>>1635754
>literature comes under the class of total subjectivity.
Lit crit has objective elements.

[Anonymous No.1635792]

>>1635783

Is that the part where he goes to the county courthouse for some summons or something? And they are intentionally losing all of the files? or is that a different part I am thinking of?

[DoomBear !YECnz2AuxY No.1635795]

>>1635775
maybe so.

I suppose its really a question of philosophy, total objectivity vs total subjectivity... I don't think that you could really argue for either extreme. For example, if total subjectivity is the lens through which we choose to view literature in general, than by that rational a random string of numbers and letters has its own merit as literature. Naturally, one could say that it does... if it can sell, but for me to reduce literature itself into a simple matter where how much something sells is the final determination of its merit seems hopelessly depressing.

Truthfully, i think there is a middle ground between the two, objectivity and subjectivity. One thats prone to change, one which is difficult to define and we may disagree on where the line is precisely drawn. None the less, I believe its there.

[DoomBear !YECnz2AuxY No.1635801]

>>1635792

no, its not the County Clerk... although that bit is great.

I'll try to find it, its only two paragraphs or so, but its worth me posting.

[Anonymous No.1635805]

>>1635795

I'd perfer it if the thread was just about burroughs and not about objectivity bullshit but brownbear had to add that in for some dumb reason, because we can't have nice things. Burroughs doesn't get discussed here nearly as much as he should I suppose most people are to busy reading fantasy bullshit here.

[DoomBear !YECnz2AuxY No.1635840]

"The end result of complete cellular representation is cancer. Democracy is cancerous, and bureaus are its cancer. A bureau takes root anywhere in the state, turns malignant like the Narcotic Bureau, and it grows and grows, always reproducing more of its own kind, until it chokes the host if not controlled or excised. Bureaus cannot live without a host, being true parasitic organisms. (A cooperative on the other hand can live without the state. That is the road to follow. The building up of independent units to meet the needs of the people who participate in the functioning of the unit. A bureau operates on opposite principle of inventing needs to justify its existence.) Bureaucracy is wrong as a cancer, a turning away from the human evolutionary direction of infinite potentials and differentiation and independent spontaneous action, to the complete parasitism of a virus.

>(cont)

[DoomBear !YECnz2AuxY No.1635852]

>>1635840
"(It is thought that the virus is a degeneration from a more complex life form. It may at one time have been capable of independent life. Now it has fallen to the borderline between living and dead matter. It can exhibit living qualities only in a host, by using the life of another - the renunciation of life itself, a falling towards inorganic, inflexible machine, towards dead matter.)

"Bureaus die when the structure of the state collapses. They are as helpless and unfit for independent existences as a displaced tapeworm, or a virus that his killed the host."

[Anonymous No.1635853]

>mfw after i read naked lunch

[­ No.1635882]

BB is the cancer that is killing /lit/

We get it, dude, you thought up a formula for threads. But can you please stop? Your colossal igrorance is showing.

[Anonymous No.1635886]

>>1635853
We can't stop here, this is gay junkie country!

[DoomBear !YECnz2AuxY No.1635905]

hmm, seems to have died down. I'll be back later to see if BB has a rebuttal for me.

[Anonymous No.1635910]

>>1635905
>rebuttal
>butt
teehee.

captcha: ass ons

[Anonymous No.1635929]

I hate how naked lunch, junky and burroughs' later works get tarred, and thus discredited, by the 'beatnik' label.

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1636007]

>>1635766
>>1635766
that was a reference to the fact many /lit/ users class it as a high school reading list book, though i didn't know this because it's not a book we read in highschool here in England

but you're pretty much just reading too much into a facade.

>>1635805
>>1635805
next one will be just Burroughs i promise

>>1635882
>>1635882
that's just not very kind is it?
pic related


>>1635795
>>1635795
i don't believe in total subjectivity to art and literature but that doesn't mean i can place more artistic merit on certain books.

e.g i don't think Twlight isn't literature, but i think Naked Lunch has more merit.

Some would think this basically raises Naked Lunch above Twilight and in a way it does, and although i may disagree with someone who thinks Twilight has more merit than Naked Lunch i know there is not valid or objective way to measure it.

Orwell's essay - Lear Tolstoy and the Fool basically has my view point.
tl;dr there is no good or bad literature, only literature that endures the test of time.

come back in 200 years and we'll see which book got forgotten about first.

[Anonymous No.1636009]

Another Hilarious Brownbear Thread (Like All The Others)

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1636011]

also, going to bed now
read this thread again in the morning probs
in 7 or 8 hours

[Anonymous No.1636064]

I like the Naked Lunch, and it just so happens I was reading it yesterday. The only problem is, I've never finished it. There are like these great little parts I enjoy (Brady the Buyer is fucking awesome, or Dr. Benway's explanations of his facility), but other parts really drag on. This time I'm going to finish it though.

One thing that I keep wondering about is the connection of drug use to the third world(Pardon the expression, I know its failures, I simply mean "Not America and Western Europe).. Obviously, lots of drugs come from the third world, but I think the connection runs a little deeper in the Naked Lunch. Maybe some kind of connection between the otherness of foriegners and the otherness of drug addicts? It seems the resentment of authority leads to a resentment of citizenship, a no longer identifying oneself as a Westerner, but instead a Alien (both literaly in terms of the monsters in the book, but also in terms of being foriegn and different).

[Anonymous No.1636119]

>>1636011
>>1635611
>>1635721
>>etc. etc.
Nice dubs and posts all ending in 1's or 4's.

[Anonymous No.1636124]

Is that a face or a cup

[Anonymous No.1636211]

Finished NL last week, and I loved it. There were a small handful spots (specifically a few of the really graphic sexual descriptions) where I wanted to stop reading, but after getting past those parts I was eager for more once I finished it.

[Anonymous No.1636231]

That NL cover is way cooler than the cover of mine.

[Anonymous No.1636323]

Read HOWL a lot and listened to it many times, looked into other City Lights publications and loved most.
Especially the Lunch Poems.

Had read Junky before and had always been interested in Naked Lunch since I heard that the band Steely Dan got their name from the book.

Am currently halfway in and I say that it is easy and "Fun" to read... that is, I see the beauty where beauty is at first glance hidden.

phrasings like "i waited a cigarette for...."
were found on every other page and I love it

it is also fun to kind of wonder hmm where did they split this part or I wonder where THIS paragraph originally was...

but having read some city/homosexual/open drug use/ 40,50,60's lit helped a lot.

AKA put it into context! Don't go from Dickens to Burroughs ( or should you just for the change)

I dunno, but A professor that I respect as highly as possible says that he cannot finish the book, is put off by the style, content....

[Anonymous No.1636472]

>>1636007
Talking about test of time and crap, I was wondering if there are any authors that used to sell tons of copies back 100 years ago while the author was still alive, but once the author died no one cared for the books because they weren't objectively good?

I'm curious because I want to write for money while I'm alive, screw being famous after I'm dead.

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1636868]

>>1636231
>>1636231
i prefer my cover that the ones that have been posted so far

see pic

>>1636323
>>1636323
yeah i notice a lot of recurring sentanves and phrases which i think is pretty interesting
i know the style definately isn't for some but i#m enjoying it

>>1636472
>>1636472
i wouldn't know but i'm going to assume so.
We're still reading shakespeare hundreds of years later, same with Dickens. I don't think Meyers will be joining that list but i can't really say.
I bet it's the same for other writers too

[DoomBear !YECnz2AuxY No.1637273]

>>1636868

I think that I agree with you on the topic of subjectivity. My entire argument was essentially playing devils advocate against total subjectivity, which I disagree with, but I do believe that its mostly subjective.

When you boil it down, in my mind, the final judge of any form of art is personal to the perceiver. I decide for myself what is good, and what is not, those conclusions are my own, and are strictly for me. What other people say, and what other people think, that might influence me... or give me new insight, but in the end I can only speak for myself.

For someone to actually take the stance of the objective, to say X is objectively bad, X is objectively good. That takes some balls, and I like balls, but too often we see a surplus of balls with too little brains.

[Anonymous No.1637296]

>>1635604
>Brownbear's girls

[Captain Beefheart !uhOiZbQAWE!!O5azeYuazS9 No.1637317]

Teehee

[Anonymous No.1637353]

Until Finnegan's Wake you could have objectively bad literature, but now you don't even need to use proper spelling, grammar, or real words.

[Anonymous No.1637358]

>>1635604
brownbear, you are the greatest troll on the internet.

11/10 would again

[Anonymous No.1637364]

>>1637353
Finnegan's Wake is objectively good if you are able to comprehend it. 2deep4u?

[Anonymous No.1637365]

op, delete the tripcode. you don't have a sense of style and the greentext is obnoxious.

[Anonymous No.1637377]

>>1637364
riverrun, it's all opinion. I just pointed out that one potential objective measure was destroyed (braggabraggabraggabraggakrssssssssshhhhrrrrrrrzzzzzzzzzzzztlckckckckckckckckckckckcshffffftwhooomph
) by it. There are now effectively no objective measures of whether a text, Joycean or otherwise, is good or bad as much as there is no objective measure of whether it's good or bad to let a

[Anonymous No.1637385]

>>1637353
Not true. Even Shakespeare used made up words, and no one considers him objectively bad.

[Anonymous No.1637522]

>>1635882
>We get it, dude, you thought up a formula for threads. But can you please stop? Your colossal igrorance is showing.
no, please go on, op. you are posting here hence you received your dosis of butthurt. people like you make his threads popular and through them you will eventually learn that your presence here will only multiply your butthurt and like a pavlovian dog you will learn to pest some other forum with your insurmountable amounts of free time.
then we actually will get a board where we could discuss both gombrowicz and burroughs without the presence of horny and degenerate nerds that fall for every attention whores.

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1637828]

>>1637365
>>1637365
so how long have you been browsing /lit/ for?
one day?
two?

>>1637522
>>1637522
i still didn't get to discuss Ferdydurke...everyone just called it entry level because Polish teens read it in high school. I asked /int/ and it turns out Polish people also read Crime and Punishment and Heart of Darkness in High School.

i had a better discussion with them about literature than i did on here.
was actually a little bit sad...

>>1637296
>>1637296

ooh baby i wish

>>1637358
>>1637358
i never troll

[Anonymous No.1637861]

>>1637828
In my country Heart of Darkness is considered HS material sometimes.
Other times they make you read Agatha Cristie and you hate your life.

[Anonymous No.1637868]

>I asked /int/ and it turns out Polish people also read Crime and Punishment and Heart of Darkness in High School.

You don't get to read this in high school elsewhere?

[Anonymous No.1637886]

Pic related it's what brownbear looks like only he's more black and less skilled at piloting helicopters.

[Anonymous No.1637906]

>>1637886
>and less skilled at piloting helicopters.
For some reasson that made me lol.

[Anonymous No.1637983]

>>1637886
for some reason I imagined his face like this too, like some kind of ewok

[Anonymous No.1638062]

'

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1639693]

>>1637868
>>1637868
not in England you don't read this in High School

[Brownbear !Wfn4kkpLag!!fEGZw8wphGR No.1639695]

>>1637886
>>1637886
my skin is lighter than that, also

[Anonymous No.1640563]

>>1635671

Dude, you didn't look very hard:

http://www.amazon.com/Blade-Runner-William-S-Burroughs/dp/0912652462

[Anonymous No.1640568]

>>1635706

The TRAIN TIcket that Exploded?

WTF are you smoking, homeo?

[Anonymous No.1640592]

I have a confession to make,

OH THE SHAME

At first I hated BB threads, hated them with a passion, but then on day, and for some inexplicable reason I began to look forward to them, and now... Now I find myself enjoying them and living vicariously through them. Oh, how I wish i had half the good looks and charm of BB where my everyday could be devoted to reading in public and shooting down all the attractive girls that flock towards me.

[Anonymous No.1640594]

>>1639693

Actually, I read Heart of Darkness for my GCSE. And I nlcked my copy of NakedLunch from the English cupboard, so my school certainly taught it at some time in the past.

[Anonymous No.1640607]

>>1640568

I don't know how to respond to "WTF MAN?" sorry.

[Anonymous No.1640625]

>>1640607

Nobody said

>"WTF MAN?"

And there's no book called "The Train TIcket that Exploded". You're an idiot, idiot.

[Anonymous No.1642114]

>>1635718

They're shit, and you're a cunt. The best Burroughs is the Red Night Trilogy. Anyone who says otherwise is just a lying motherfucker, and can be disregarded.

[Anonymous No.1642143]

>>1635604
Lol, you know everybody assumes these are made up? ... Why not start a discussion like a normal person?