/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20129553]

Was he schizo?

[Anonymous No.20129565]

>>20129553
No

[Anonymous No.20129596]

No. He was quite literally a genius - these freaks of nature are very far and few between. The amount of detail he put into Finnegans Wake will forever blow my mind.

[Anonymous No.20129648]

>>20129553
he was a fecalpheliac

[Anonymous No.20129670]

The two writers you can be sure about were him and Pessoa. Of course he was.

[Anonymous No.20129672]

>>20129596
manic genius, i call it, pynchon falls into that category too.

[Anonymous No.20129678]

>>20129672
midwit

[Anonymous No.20129688]

>>20129672
Funny, because I think Pynchon sucks in comparison.

[Anonymous No.20129700]

>>20129688
what's wrong with pynchon?

[Anonymous No.20129722]

considering schizophrenia is genetic and his daughter had it 100%, and from Finnegans Wake and aspects of Joyces first two noves its fair to say he had some schizo tendencies, but it seems unlikely he was a ful schizophrenic, considering he mantained friendships and a normal personality while writing FW. Its possible he was able to "tap" into a schizo mindset made up of interconnecting symbols, while still able to realize that its not real.

the sort of coldness joyce has in portraying events in his first two novels gives a little credence to this

[Anonymous No.20129733]

>>20129700
he sucks. whats good about him?
he just cant write a novel

[Anonymous No.20129744]

>>20129733
He's no Joyce but Mason & Dixon was pretty gud.

[Anonymous No.20129755]

>>20129733
well there's clearly something there, i don't mean to appeal to authority but there's a reason he's revered in the literary world.

[Anonymous No.20129787]

>>20129744
>>20129755
ive read 100 pages of mason and dixon and by the standards of older literature its basically worthless ( im aware it gets so epik at page 400 or whatever the fuck) even just comparing the opening chapters.

Pynchon is revered for a good reason, I agree, but by the reason is that everything around him is unredable dreck and not very literary, and people dont have discerning enough taste to realize not every edy prosaic writer is good.
Pynchon is one of the few modern writers writing in a literary style, but theres absolutely nothing remarkable or worthwhile about him otherwise. Joyce or kafka wouldnt get 5 pages into pynchon without being immeasurably bored, even with the culture shock

[Anonymous No.20129796]

>>20129670
>>20129722
These

[Anonymous No.20129871]

>>20129553
Wagner, whom Joyce regarded as an antecedent to his own artist life, was also a schizo.

>I was prepared to give up Art and everything if I could once more become a child of Nature. But, my good friend, I was obliged to laugh at my own naivete when I found myself almost going mad. None of us will reach the promised land-we shall all die in the wilderness. Intellect is, as someone has said, a sort of disease; it is incurable. In the present conditions of life, Nature only admits of abnormities. At the best we can only hope to be martyrs; to refuse this vocation is to put oneself in opposition to the· possibilities of life. For myself, I can no longer exist except as an artist; since I cannot com• pass love and life, all else repels me or only interests me in so far as it has a bearing on Art. The result is a life of torment, but it is the only possible life. Moreover, some strange experiences have come to me through my works. When I think of the pain and discomfort which are now my chronic condition, I cannot but feel that my nerves are completely shattered: but marvellous to relate, on occasion, and under a happy stimulus, these nerves do wonders for me; a clearness of insight comes to me, and I experience a receptive and creative activity such as I have never known before. After this, can I say that my nerves are shattered? Certainly not. But I must admit that the normal condition of my temperament-as it has been developed through circumstances-is. a state of exaltation, whereas calm and repose is· its abnormal condition. The fact is, it is only when I am "beside myself" that I become my real self, and feel well and happy. If Goethe felt otherwise, I do not envy him on that account; as indeed I would not change places with any one,-not even with Humboldt, whom you look on as a genius, an opinion I cannot share. No doubt you feel just as I do, and are not prepared to change with any one; wherein you do wisely.

[Anonymous No.20129879]

>>20129871
>Wagner met them (Villiers and Catulle Mendès) on the railway platform, wearing a large straw hat, which made him look like Wotan. Gautier remembered being fixed for a full, silent minute by the soul-scoping intensity of his gaze. In letters home, Villiers described the “fabulous being” in terms suitable for the cruel angels and crazed scientists of his stories: “Something like immortality made visible, the other world rendered transparent, creative power pushed to a fantastic point, and, with that, the sweat and the shining of genius, the impression of the infinite around his head and in the naïve profundity of his eyes. He is terrifying.” He is “the very man of whom we have dreamed; he is a genius such as appears upon the earth once every thousand years.”

>Cosmic ramifications notwithstanding, Wagner acted much of the time like a hyperactive child. Mendès has him throwing his hat in the air, dancing about, gesturing with nervous excitement, and talking without pause. One day, he made a catlike jump from an upper story of the house into the garden. When Villiers was later asked whether the composer was a pleasant conversationalist, he replied, “Do you imagine, sir, that the conversation of Mount Etna is pleasant?” Like Nietzsche and Baudelaire, Villiers experienced Wagner as a human volcano.

[Anonymous No.20129897]

>>20129871
>>20129879
Judging from his forceful larger than life character and strong convictions I think he was more on the paranoiac spectrum

[Anonymous No.20129901]

>>20129787
>even just comparing the opening chapters.
what's wrong with the opening chapter?

[Anonymous No.20129924]

>>20129871
this image does actually look alot like joyce lol, the eyes. Very based look, sign of good art

[Anonymous No.20129930]

>>20129901
its boring man. the wit is limp, the prose is pretty cringeworthy, no interesting drama or situations or anything developed like there would be within the first page of a good novel

[Anonymous No.20129985]

>>20129733
>he just cant write a novel
This is a problem when you're a novelist

[Anonymous No.20129997]

No, but I think he had syphilis which was the main cause of his numerous health problems