/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.18260381]

Recommend me some good critics. Literature, art, cinema, it doesn't matter. I'm not being too specific about style either, I don't care how theoretical or academic or aligned with 'proper taste' he is as long as he's good at finding interesting ways to frame what he sees and at voicing sentiments you wish you could have voiced yourself.

[Anonymous No.18260453]

The king of critics, the master librarian, btfoer of trannies and femoids, Mr. Harold Bloom

[Anonymous No.18260606]

[Anonymous No.18260615]

Nabokov, regarding literature at the very least. Prove me wrong.

[Anonymous No.18260630]

>>18260615
Nabakov is an absolutely awful critic, but a fun read regarding literature. A good critic should be able to elucidate why a text works or does not work. Nabakov could not, and simply had no interest in doing so. He just paraded out his tastes and opinions, which are funny and acerbic, but did no real criticism.

The best critics are:
-Sontag
-Adorno
-Auerbach
-Blanchot
-Hazlitt
-Epson

[Anonymous No.18260650]

i'd love to find 1960s issues of les cahiers du cinéma but i haven't found anything online.

[Anonymous No.18260734]

>>18260630
I know what you insinuate about him, and I agree with your list there regarding wonderful critics, but have you not seen his writings on Proust and Austen and others? I think it's pretty insightful and not at all insubstantial criticism. I have a recent publication which is a collection of lectures on literature he did. I think you can find that volume on Amazon.

Nabokov Lectures on Literature or something.

[Anonymous No.18260750]

>>18260734
I'm sure his lectures on Don Quixote and other works are phenomenal. I thought you were refering to "Strong Opinions" and his interviews where he says things like "Proust and Mann are fags, lmfao, but Joyce is good. T.S. Elliot is an anagram of toilet."

[Anonymous No.18260757]

>>18260606
/thread

[Anonymous No.18260789]

>>18260750
Proust is Nabokov's top 5 just fyi

[Anonymous No.18260803]

>>18260789
He still called him a "fairy"

[Anonymous No.18260827]

>>18260750
Oh I see haha. But yes, "Strong Opinions" gives quite the wrong impression of him as a literary critic I think. He is of much greater intellectual depth, contrary to what it may seem, and I am sure one will find that if one looks a little deeper, like I did.

I was of the impression that he was a great novelist but a terrible critic, just like you, but man, that "Lectures on Literature" is really worth a read. Gave me an entirely new perspective on the man, and I really think his opinion is worth reading.

[Anonymous No.18260849]

>>18260827
I understand why people think he is a great stylist (he clearly cares for every sentence, the sound it makes, the image it will produce) but it never did anything for me, Nabakov the novelist is uninteresting to me really.

[Anonymous No.18260850]

>>18260630
>The best critics are:
>Retard leftist
>Retard leftist
>Neurotic Jew

[Anonymous No.18260870]

>>18260381
This guy almost always has some great takes

[Anonymous No.18260873]

>>18260850
Yes, conservatives don't know how to read and Jewish cultural life is based on textual exegisis. Make an argument here

[Anonymous No.18260921]

>>18260849
Very interesting. I think I sort of understand what you mean, but sort of not. Could you perhaps elaborate? Is the qualities of him that you describe not exactly what makes him such an amazing novelist?

How is it uninteresting? His plots or his style of writing itself? Genuinely curious, because most I've seen who disliked Nabokov, was never for his writing, and more because they couldn't separate the man from the writing, and they tended to then make non-points of criticism that just couldn't be considered valid by any serious reader of him. But I am curious about your opinion, you seem well-read and well informed.

[Anonymous No.18260948]

>>18260630
Susan Sontags essay, ‘The Pornographic Imagination,’ at the end of Bataille’s ‘The Story of the Eye’ was brilliant.

[Anonymous No.18260949]

>>18260921
What's uninteresting to me is that it is so self-contained. Each sentence is a world that refers to nothing else. Each Novel too. There are no ideas I find myself thinking about. The ostentation is, I think, the means of self-containment. Of course I need to read more of him (only read pale fire and Lolita).

[Anonymous No.18260994]

>>18260949
Right, I see. I understand exactly what you mean. I guess it may just be more difficult for some people to adjust to his style. This is especially true for Lolita. But I totally get it what you mean, fair points all in all. Not all of him is like that though it seems to me, Ada or Ardor comes to mind. I really liked that one, much easier read.