Mediocre people writing great literature

[Anonymous No.18600212]

Have there ever been writers who were uneducated, untalented, and overall mediocre, yet wrote one of the greatest books in history? I need some motivation.

[Anonymous No.18600225]

>>18600212
Overall mediocre? Kafka, but he wasn't untalented, for obvious reasons. Idk about his education.

[Anonymous No.18600249]

>>18600225
Why would you say he was mediocre if he was not untalented?

[Anonymous No.18600272]

>>18600212
everyone is mediocore, genius is a myth for and by cowards, if you want to create something special you have to pay a price
use your blood as ink like nietzsche and go where others do not dare to tread like poe

[Anonymous No.18600281]

A lot of "academics" think Shakespeare didn't write his plays because he didn't go to Oxford or wherever else.
They must be ignoring all the talentless nobodies who did go to Oxford.

[Anonymous No.18600297]

>>18600225
This week's winner of the most retarded post competition.

[Anonymous No.18600316]

>>18600249
He worked a boring white collar job (I checked, he studied as a lawyer), and died young without forming a family. Not exactly an outstanding life. Hemingway travelled a lot (random example), the farthest Kafka went seems to be "Graal-Müritz on the Baltic Sea", in Germany. Considering he was from Austria-Hungary (Czechia was part of it) that's not exactly a completely alien world.

>"His father often referred to his son's job as an insurance officer as a Brotberuf, literally "bread job", a job done only to pay the bills; Kafka often claimed to despise it"

>his duties included processing and investigating compensation claims, writing reports, and handling appeals from businessmen who thought their firms had been placed in too high a risk category, which cost them more in insurance premiums.[47] He would compile and compose the annual report on the insurance institute for the several years he worked there

>papers papers papers
This is what most would call a wagie, NPC life.

Italo Svevo had a somewhat similar life, but he married and lived longer. He also worked a boring white collar job. Now I don't recall exactly all the passages, but basically he tried to publish two or three novel up until the age of fucking 65 and NONE was considered remarkable by critics. Imagine this dude wanting so bad to be a writer, and arriving at 65 being a literal who. Then this happened

>The work might have disappeared altogether if it were not for the efforts of James Joyce. Joyce had met Svevo in 1907, when Joyce tutored him in English while working for Berlitz in Trieste.[2] Joyce read Svevo's earlier novels Una vita and Senilità.[2]

>Joyce championed Zeno's Conscience, helping to have it translated into French and then published in Paris, where critics praised it extravagantly.[2] That led Italian critics, including Eugenio Montale, to discover it.

According to wiki fr, Zeno conscience was published in French in 1927

Italo Svevo died in 1928

[Anonymous No.18600321]

>>18600297
Care to elaborate?

[Anonymous No.18600329]

>>18600316
I heard a story that Kafka actually submitted his insurance report(s) to publishers to show his writing talents. I hope that's true.

[Anonymous No.18600355]

>>18600316
If boring jobs are what we're after, Cavafy was a petty bureaucrat.

[Anonymous No.18600413]

>>18600316

I've read that Kafka actually enjoyed his job at the insurance company and was held in very high esteem by his employers as a model worker.

[Anonymous No.18600422]

>>18600413
Why did his father hate him, then?

[Anonymous No.18600427]

>>18600316
Working a soulless job doesnt stop a brilliant mind from wondering where kingQaxps cannot...

[Anonymous No.18600449]

>>18600212
if you need motivation and it's "become a one of the greats" then you were never going to become a great writer. Also how can there be an untalented writer that writes one of the greatest books ever made?

[Anonymous No.18600860]

This guy. He was even called mediocre when he was alive. It was only after his death that his book was acknowledged as one of the greats.

[Anonymous No.18600864]

>>18600413
>was held in very high esteem by his employers as a model worker.
That's perfectly possible
>I've read that Kafka actually enjoyed his job at the insurance company
Idk man, you don't really get the inspiration to write a piece on how your job and existence turns you into a bug if you love your job. Also, with the depth of the psychological and existential insights Franz had, I cannot help but think that his job overall seemed meaningless to him. Those cold papers could not express the reality of the lives of the people they were referring too. Of course, this doesn't mean that he didn't have the strongest work ethic and was committed to perform his duties as best as he could.

>>18600427
>kingQaxps
I have no idea what this is supposed to mean

[Anonymous No.18600903]

>>18600212
Untalented, no. Everything else, yes. And see the thing about talent is that you don’t really know you had it until it’s all said and done.

[Anonymous No.18600912]

>>18600413
I don’t know how anyone could read The Metamorphosis and think that he actually liked his job.

[Anonymous No.18600920]

Proust was a serial masturbator who couldn't hold down a job stacking shelves at a local library once a week, and he wrote the greatest book of the French language.

[Anonymous No.18600937]

>>18600920
>who couldn't hold down a job stacking shelves at a local library once a week
what did he mess up?

[Anonymous No.18600950]

>>18600937
He was too busy lying around in bed and jerking off to show up to work.
Not just a couple of times either, but he'd miss work for months at a time. His mother was an important person in Parisian society and he basically got the job through nepotism, but he was such a lazy rich poofter he couldn't even be assed to put in that basic level of work to show up for a couple hours a week at the library.
He's now a celebrated hero and national figure of France. So go figure.

[Anonymous No.18600988]

>>18600950
Also the letter he sent to his grandad...

[Anonymous No.18601008]

>>18600988
I don't know about this one. Storytime?

[Anonymous No.18601010]

>>18600281
sorry I don't believe in conspiracies like "an illiterate grain merchant who could barely write his own name penned hamlet"

[Anonymous No.18601022]

>While walking through a graveyard, they discussed Thomas Gray's Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. Aldington writes: "I was surprised to find that Eliot admired something so popular, and then went on to say that if a contemporary poet, conscious of his limitations as Gray evidently was, would concentrate all his gifts on one such poem he might achieve a similar success."

[Anonymous No.18601052]

Some high-quality hopium ITT, so far. But also some copium. Cut that out, please. Not OP, btw.

[Anonymous No.18601060]

>>18600316
>his duties included processing and investigating compensation claims, writing reports, and handling appeals from businessmen who thought their firms had been placed in too high a risk category
This explains so much

[Anonymous No.18601202]

>>18600212
Hart Crane was an absolute fuck-up. He dropped out pf high school and spent most of his life moving from doomed gay love affair to doomed gay love affair. Life finally caught up with him when he was on a cruise in the Gulf of Mexico, and, after one last hookup and several nights of drinking, he shouted, "Goodbye, everybody!" before diving into the sea. His remains have never been found.
“Crane’s mind was no bigger than a pin, but it didn’t matter, he was a born poet.” - E.E. Cummings
Crane was good for literally one thing and it redeemed him; he's an inspiration to anons everywhere.

[Anonymous No.18601224]

>>18601202
>he shouted, "Goodbye, everybody!" before diving into the sea.
Not to condone faggotry but damn, what a Chad way to go.

[Anonymous No.18601257]

>>18601202
>one last hookup and several nights of drinking, he shouted, "Goodbye, everybody!"

[Anonymous No.18601276]

>>18600912
My thoughts exactly. Wasn't it literally spelled out how he hated his job?

[Anonymous No.18601280]

>>18600272
Obviously false
Reality bares it out right before your eyes some people do great things and some don't
This is why Op's question simply makes no sense
If you write one of the greatest books in history you are not mediocre the details of your life don't make any difference

[Anonymous No.18601330]

I haven't read any Bukowski but have listened to some of his readings. He seems to be a better poet than most of the fags in the past 50 years. Bukowski was a basement dweller for ages and worked nights for the postal service. He made it at the age of 49. As a 23 year old who is still in college and feels like a NEET, Bukowski gives me great hope for myself.

I saw a cool documentary on his life. Here it is:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8Z1_pw0HeY

[Anonymous No.18601346]

>>18601330

[Anonymous No.18601350]

>>18600212
Kerouac

[Anonymous No.18601761]

>>18600212
this board is so obsessive about "greatness", only reading the best "classics", being obsessive about prose, fantasizing about becoming some type of literature superman. I got into books because I read "Birds of Prey" by Wilbur Smith. A swashbuckling adventure. You don't need to be a genius to create a great adventure.

I still read Wilbur Smith, Lodlum. Fucking relax bro. Pressuring yourself to instantly be some type of fantasy doesn't work- especially, when it comes to creative endeavors.

Focus on progress and action. Action alone breeds success-even for halfwits.

[Anonymous No.18601774]

>>18601330
>Bukowski

someone told me women by Bukowski was the best book they ever read. It was the biggest piece of shit I never finished. It's for edgelord faggot hipsters.

[Anonymous No.18601781]

>>18600272
no no no
if you have generalized problem solving then you are turned into a genius
the genius is just a kind of dunce hat for being too smart

[Anonymous No.18601811]

>>18600212
stephen king literally does not understand what people are (just like George Lucas) but he's a very successful and well-known horror writer and has come up with some clever stuff

[Anonymous No.18603547]

>>18601761
Shhh, stop being resonable. The Pseuds will get mad.

[Anonymous No.18603595]

>>18600212
"Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them."
- Flannery O'Connor

[Anonymous No.18603630]

>>18601761
We need less whiners, more doers.

[Anonymous No.18603815]

>>18601811
But many actual readers and writers consider him to be pseud.

[Anonymous No.18603846]

>>18600212
I'm

[Anonymous No.18603863]

>>18601008
>Storytime?
r eddit

[Anonymous No.18604193]

>>18603863
you've never seen the word "storytime" used on 4chan before?

[Anonymous No.18604258]

>>18601774
Barfly is a kino though. But Bukowski generates zero interest in me as an artist.

[Anonymous No.18604546]

>>18600316
>He worked a boring white collar job (I checked, he studied as a lawyer), and died young without forming a family.
How does that make one a mediocre writer?? What kind of logic is that? Since one is forced to work to eat and dies young because of an illness, then he's a mediocre writer?
I'm not a huge Kafka fan, but this makes zero sense.

Also, he had the balls to drop that job and get an easier one in order to pursue his writing.

As for Svevo, that speaks of contemporaries' inability to recognize talent, not of Svevo's mediocrity.

[Anonymous No.18604554]

>>18600864
>with the depth of the psychological and existential insights Franz had, I cannot help but think that his job overall seemed meaningless to him.
Am genius with unparalleled existential depth and can confirm, jobs feel 100x more boring.

[Anonymous No.18604626]

>>18604554
Where's the proof of your genius, you pretender!

[Anonymous No.18604643]

>>18600212
Daniel Defoe
Christopher Marlowe

[Anonymous No.18604673]

>>18601761
I think most of the trash dammned poets beat writers were "mediocre" idk whats means mediocrity to you, it can be money, women, power
and so on.
i would like to ask about non academic authors, just people who sit down one day and writed a remembered book

[Anonymous No.18605960]

>>18604673
>just people who sit down one day and writed a remembered book

bro, that's a ton of fucking people. I don't think most authors sat around studying to one day write a book.

[Anonymous No.18605964]

>>18601761
>",
opinion discarded

[Anonymous No.18605969]

>>18604643
>Christopher Marlowe
Having a Master's from Cambridge is uneducated?