/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19424530]

Why has literature declined so much the past several decades? As an art form the novel is increasingly obsolete and ignored. Is it just because the decline of any society coincides with the decline of literature since literature represents the spirit of humanity? Or is there something else happening here?

It's 2021 and there is still isn't a defining novel of the century.

[Anonymous No.19424563]

>>19424530
A lot of artists went into film instead.

But check out authors like Denis Johnson, Lionel Shriver, George Saunders. They’re definitely not as talented as the masters of the 20th century, but they’re pretty good at knowing the current zeitgeist and exploring those implications

[Anonymous No.19424571]

>>19424530
too many distractions

[Anonymous No.19424584]

>>19424530
reading is just boring, stressful, and miserable. It's pretty simple really

[Anonymous No.19424594]

>>19424530
>It's 2021 and there is still isn't a defining novel of the century.

.

[Anonymous No.19424604]

>>19424594
this is not a novel and nothing that mark fisher said was new or profound

[Anonymous No.19424626]

>>19424604
>nothing that mark fisher said was new or profound
roflmao, normies still get butthurt when you tell them that culture is dead. both in real life, on twitter, on reddit, and even here, where you'd think that this outlook should be very prevalent because of the contrarian foundation of this website.

only since about ~2020 the "culture is dead" view gained some traction on boards like /mu/ and for a bit longer on /lit/, though its by no means a consensus and i'd argue it's still a minority view

but it's objectively true

[Anonymous No.19424647]

>>19424530
>Why has literature declined so much the past several decades?
It's because you're only several decades old yourself and are projecting your own mediocrity onto the world around you

[Anonymous No.19424652]

In short, proliferation of technology. In long...
It has so many dimensions that it would take a book in itself to describe well: its effects on attention spans, on education, on interpersonal relationships from the sexual to the platonic, and the resultant lack of normal, fully-present human interaction in the flesh, unmediated by tech; its disastrous effect on work (many if not most of us are now informally on-call, even though we shouldn't be), its Twitterization of discourse, and the walled-garden effects of algorithms on what we see, listen to, esteem, and value, making it difficult to be original, to find things no one reads anymore and contextualize them, because modern audiences and cultural edifices alike do not and cannot appreciate them; this walled-garden also politicizes things that are not intrinsically political, making any work of superlative quality divisive (have you noticed the similar phenomenon that there are no truly great films in the last decade that are also big commercial successes, or vice versa?) Further, there are the market incentives for both films and books that push strongly for known quantities, for low-risk investments, for tame bits of pandering to captive audiences that do not think, but feel. Finally, there is a crisis of genuineness: the market mentality has captured everyone, elevating self-promotion and a cult of celebrity above substance, and being on the efficient frontier of effort-return above doing long, thankless, difficult, nuanced work to the absolute best of your ability, because you want it to belong to the hallowed halls of All-Time.

>Go and play at rebellion; go plunder the gods’ treasure
>and give it to your creatures of a day.
>What portion of your pain can mortals spare you?
>The gods who named you Forethought were mistaken.
>You’ll need forethought beyond your reckoning
>to writhe your way out of this.
—Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19424673]

The arts are fine. They’ve been warning you all how you are not fine. You are in deep trouble.

[Anonymous No.19424679]

[Anonymous No.19424695]

>>19424530
Anyone with any real talent or vision is working in film, TV, video games, or even just making YouTube videos. Literature is not culturally relevant at all and is just something that you settle for once you've accepted that you'll never make it in a medium that people actually care about.

[Anonymous No.19424699]

>>19424652
Nice effortpost, anon.

[Anonymous No.19424711]

>>19424626
It’s certainly true I just don’t get why people use Mark Fisher as their basis for it. The idea that culture would stagnate and homogenize was already anticipated by people like Francis Fukuyama in 1991. Liberalism stifles creativity and technological developments have appreciated other forms of art that are more focused on repetition and commodification. Mark Fisher was right but he’s far from the only one to see the truth. The idea of history and culture “ending” is more accurate than people think

[Anonymous No.19424714]

>>19424673
Your attempts at profundity are always truly laughable. Back to whatever shithole you crawled out of

[Anonymous No.19424732]

>>19424530
Examine the most pervasive works of art of the past 100 years m8. Pedo books (lolita, death in venice) Delirious works based on pseudo stream of consciousness retardo man tings (Kerouac) Whatever the fuck clockwork orange is..... If you viddy modenrity throught the glazzies of a normal malchik it really isn't like.. horrowshow at all. Makes me want to snuff it

Post modern philosophy is even better!! literally schizophrenic in nature about deconstructing boundaries to transgress power dynamics (this is literally the thought process schizophrenics experience, their categorisation systems completely break down) but some tardi caca leftist individual would call them a schizo rhizomatic nomad :0 read madness and civilisation bro by pedo french man

I don't care i'm drunk and also incredibly depressed because i'm only 18 but i'm blackpilled so fucking hard on how absurd modernity is\Spengler was right about everything modernity is literally absurd and I want to kill myself every day when I remember i'm in 2021. Spenglers timeline for western originality concluded around the year 1900 and I think this is fairly obvious as most works of art haven't been celebrated for being genuinely beautiful, they've been celebrated for being edgy and bringing about decadence. Everythings literally been deracinated. Why the fuck is fucjing Schoenberg carefully composing literally the worst fucking song you've ever heard using 12 tone retard fag system celebrated as great art
If you want to examine the health of a culture, look to the art they produce m8

I want to kill myself all the time when I see the lurid colours of a facebook modern art advertisment with large equally big male and female minimalist cartoon characters and one of them is always gay with rainbow shoes

=it's all too much

[Anonymous No.19424740]

>>19424652
ur dumb as fuck thinking decadence has taken over humans is such a braindead thought. Modern audiences and cultural edifices have not changed. Stop being a retard and look people in the eyes when you talk to them.

[Anonymous No.19424754]

>>19424673
>>19424652
the difference between these 2 posts perfectly demonstrates why you are such a fucking parasite on this board holy shit fuck off already and just use twitter instead if you have nothing to contribute on an interesting discourse

[Anonymous No.19424772]

>>19424740
Decadence being the defining feature of our time is so obviously what’s happening that I’m baffled as to how you can argue otherwise. How the fuck has culture developed in new ways? Do you stare into people’s eyes when they do TikTok dances and regurgitate manufactured political propaganda and think they’re sincere?

[Anonymous No.19424779]

>>19424772
yeah i love tik tok

[Anonymous No.19424787]

>>19424740
A ten-year-old wrote this in 1777. Contrast it with what you've just written.
>DEAR SIR,–I love to receive letters very well; much better than I love to write them. I make but a poor figure at composition, my head is too fickle, my thoughts are running after birds eggs play and trifles, till I get vexed with myself. Mamma has a troublesome task to keep me steady, and I own I am ashamed of myself. I have but just entered the third volume of Smollett, tho’ I had designed to have got it half through by this time. I have determined this week to be more diligent, as Mr. Thaxter will be absent at Court, and I cannot pursue my other studies. I have Set myself a Stent and determine to read the 3rd volume Half out. If I can but keep my resolution, I will write again at the end of the week and give a better account of myself. I wish, Sir, you would give me some instructions, with regard to my time, and advise me how to proportion my Studies and my Play, in writing, and I will keep them by me, and endeavor to follow them. I am, dear Sir, with a present determination of growing better, yours.

[Anonymous No.19424798]

>>19424787
means nothing. A well-educated boarding school kid today could write the same thing. Again, stop being a loser. I don't know how many more times I can say it.

[Anonymous No.19424829]

Just look at the reading comprehension in this thread >>19418227
How could you ever write anything for adults who are dumber than fifth graders from the 60s?

[Anonymous No.19424897]

>>19424711
>The idea that culture would stagnate and homogenize was already anticipated by people like Francis Fukuyama in 1991.
I think I was the one who notified /lit/ of that actually. Also Tocqueville anticipated that. But ultimately these were just short theoretical outbursts, Fisher is afaik the first one who approaches the subject so upfront and quite in depth, and shuts normies up (esp. the oversocialized leftists who cherish modern culture so much because its so "woke" and respect Fisher because of Capitalist Realism, and so have to at least acknowledge this view because of that)

[Anonymous No.19424996]

>>19424530
There is just more literature. Plebs wouldn't read in the past and they won't read anymore in the near future. So expect the output quantity to go down again. What will remain is the better part of literature, and that will create the illusion of quality.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19425000]

>>19424714
It isn’t that profound but it is the truth.

>>19424754
Why are you so stupid that you can’t decipher brevity?
That anon you compared me with said it himself. It’s complicated. I could elaborate on my views, but honestly, you’d try to piss all over me anyway. You people are big bags of piss and never contribute anything around here. You deserve nothing.

[Anonymous No.19425001]

>>19424787
I prefer the 4chan users directness and lack of pretension. The ten year old is being beaten to prove a priest by 25—or given “court” worse: a lawyer.

[Anonymous No.19425014]

>>19424829
Dumber than boomers?

[Anonymous No.19425030]

>>19424787
You're confusing aesthetics/ethics of then w a content. The kid writes like a kid. He sounds maybe a bit younger than a 10 year old now even if he can write better letters.

[Anonymous No.19425034]

>>19424772
The modern bugman categorically denies the existence of such a thing as cultural and civilizational decadence.

[Anonymous No.19425041]

>>19425034
To be honest cultures never really are the variable, they're a consequence of the variable.

[Anonymous No.19425043]

I think that Video games are on their war to replace the novel. I am not saying that is good or bad but there is clearly some short of transition taking place that will make video games the pre-eminent art form of the 21st century.

This past decade has proven that you can have video games like "What remains of Edith Fynch", "Spec Ops: The Line" "Kentucky Route Zero", and "Disco Elysium", that not only have litterary and artistic allusions but also take the form of a novel as well.

[Anonymous No.19425049]

>>19425043
You can't meaningfully replace the novel w video games. It's a too-restricted medium. There would always necessitate a novel if we have video games.

[Anonymous No.19425051]

>>19425000
You’re literally a male trans who steals pictures to LARP as a “real human woman bean” on the fucking internet. You deserve a stay in Bellevue Mental Hospital, you fucking nut.

[Anonymous No.19425068]

>>19425049
Video games are generally comparable to sport and as such should be conducted by naked oiled men in the agora as a sacred act in praise of the gods, possibly with people being killed.

The remainder of computer games are somewhat like play or dice or games of war or mythopoesis. In this one ought to make ones immortal horse pope.

Novels cannot supply these feels.
These feels cannot generate the novel.

They are different arts entirely. Now please shut up while I masturbate to sacred scenes on negative effect (black background) clay pots.

/me unzips cock.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19425069]

>>19425051
You’re literally scared to engage in any honest discourse with me and continue to think of the ugly lies you construct around me.
Go read a book or something, you wad of phlegm

[Anonymous No.19425077]

>>19425069
The truth hurts, you lying piece of shit. You’re a weirdo, a scumbag, and a thief of some poor woman’s photos. Get thee to Bellevue, tranny.

[Anonymous No.19425083]

>>19425068
Go to sleep

[Anonymous No.19425098]

>>19424530
Love is dead in the West, hence the romance is caput as well. In fact, why would any intelligent man deign to love what is never truly his, but rather what can betray him at any time with the entire complicity of society? And as such the entirety of the field of art becomes falser than it has ever before in history.

[Anonymous No.19425115]

>>19425043
>This past decade has proven that you can have video games like "What remains of Edith Fynch", "Spec Ops: The Line" "Kentucky Route Zero", and "Disco Elysium",

Wow they're all shit. Put some fucking kojimbo in there too for meme value.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19425124]

>>19425077
>Bellevue
Oh. Hi Puget Man.
Are you still sore that I saved some of your pictures?

[Anonymous No.19425131]

>>19425124

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !!bGBGaUpA8kS No.19425174]

>>19425131
He’s a dude from a shelves thread.
I recognized the skyline and now he’s talking about a nearby city. He’s acting kinda schizo, not me.

[Anonymous No.19425178]

>>19424652
Based… and redpilled

[Anonymous No.19425191]

>back in my day we had steampunk and Limp Bizkit
>and now, all we have is garbage, the world is truly ending

[Anonymous No.19425201]

>>19425174
yeah i’m gonna file that under schizophrenic paranoia fren