[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 59 KB, 862x1112, t13_751.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2439877 No.2439877 [Reply] [Original]

>ITT: Opinions that will get you bitched out by /lit/.

I'll start. I hate Shakespeare. I absolutely cannon stand him. I'm bored to tears reading his works. I've even tried reading them after I'd matured hoping I'd "get it finally," but nope.

>> No.2439880

>>2439877
>*cannot

>> No.2439883

Well, it's not your fault, I suppose, OP. Nothing you could do about it. Some people are just born degenerate slobs with deadened senses and no appreciation for beauty, or majesty, or vital energy, coarse barbarians with no capacity for enlightenment.

>> No.2439886

I purposely seek out obscure works of literature and read those instead of the established canon discussed here everyday.

That seems to make a lot of /lit/ pissy.

>> No.2439891

people who read for plot should be denied access to the internet.

inb4 an angry horde of genrefag neckbears flood the thread

also, fuck you op, this thread is shit

>> No.2439892

>>2439891
i mean, as long as you're capable of reading for not-plot i don't think it's a problem

everyone likes a cheeseburger every so often

>> No.2439894

>>2439886
It's because you're being a hipster. Reading outside the canon just to read outside the canon is still letting the canon rule what you read and then parading around the fact that you're outside it like it means anything.

>> No.2439903

>>2439886
I'd prefer you made more recommendations, then. I keep trying to find stuff that's a little bit off the beaten path and usually what I see is people from some Eastern European hellhole mentioning authors from an Eastern European hellhole whose books bitch about living in an Eastern European hellhole.

>> No.2439907

>>2439903
Oh, Behemoth. You're so naive.

Authors from an Eastern European hellhole whose books bitch about living in an Eastern European hellhole is exactly what he was referring to.

That's always what people mean when they say they like obscure literature. Occasionally Japanese instead.

>> No.2439908

>>2439886
But all /lit/ discusses are obscure works.

Or do you actually think Tao Lin is a popular author?

>> No.2439915

>after i'd matured
but you're still seventeen, op. anyway, Shakespeare was not concerned so much with being brilliant as he was with getting paid and in the end he was brilliant anyway.

>> No.2439917

Also, to be on topic, I could not stomach War and Peace and I got about 600 pages in and closed the book. It was a meandering, boring story interspersed with thinly-veiled theological moral essays. My favorite part was when the one Prince comes back from the war and passionately defends his complete indifference to the rest of the world. I closed the book when his friend he was talking to tried to argue with him and the friend's response was another essay.

>> No.2439923

>>2439903
I always make sure to make recommendations. I'm sorry you seem hate Eastern European lit so much though, because >>2439907 is right in that's what I gravitate towards.

>>2439894
I only ever mention it in these kinds of silly threads. I wouldn't call that parading.

>> No.2439924

>>2439923
seriously, why is it that "obscure" is basically a codeword for "Eastern European?" someone explain this

>> No.2439932

>>2439924
Because no one cares enough about Eastern Europe to actually look into its literary output (with a few exceptions)

>> No.2439938

>>2439923
so you admit you've posted about this more than once

>> No.2439940

>>2439932
But there's plenty of places that are equally obscure, so why is it that people who say that or have that attitude almost always are interested in Eastern European lit

why not, like, Iranian, or Nigerian, or something

why specifically Eastern Europe

>> No.2439945

>>2439940
because it's the 'neighbors next doors', talking in a broad Western civilization way.

african or south asian just aren't exotic enough like japanese or chinese so no one gives a fuck

>> No.2439951

>>2439945
so it's because they're white, and japanese / chinese because they're "exotic"

makes sense. kind of disappointing tho

>> No.2439949

>>2439915
>Shakespeare was not concerned so much with being brilliant as he was with getting paid and in the end he was brilliant anyway.

How can you even say that when we don't even know who Shakespeare was?

>> No.2439954

Romeo and Juliet is my favorite Shakespeare play

>> No.2439956

>>2439949
Shakespeare was just another poet who, after being dead for 250 years, had his genitals jumped by a bunch of British dandies called the Romantics, who proceeded to put his dick on a pedestal as he was "LOL THA GREETEST WRITERER EVUR!!1!11!" Sadly, despite being a horribly outdated author, he is still revered around the world. I will admit he has had a massive influence on the English language, but his texts are too archaic and blase' for most people.

>> No.2439957

>>2439956
wrong, wrong, wrong

the man was a genius

that's why people still like him: because he was really good at writing a literature

>> No.2439958

>>2439938
This was the second time, but last time was an overexaggeration to see how many people would get angry about it (something about not reading anything with more than 20 Amazon reviews).

>>2439940
I'm actually planning to read more Middle Eastern and South Asian literature soon. And the overlooked areas in Western Europe, like Catalan literature. Just haven't made it that far yet. I personally tend to stick with a certain area's literature obsessively for a while, then do the same with somewhere else.

>> No.2439959
File: 368 KB, 240x320, 1330179594411.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2439959

"The Soft Machine" is a really good scifi book, 5 gay sex scenes per chapter notwithstanding. Burroughs could've been one of the best scifi writers ever if he stuck with the genre.

>> No.2439960
File: 7 KB, 225x225, gaymenlaughing.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2439960

>>2439949
>takes the Shakespeare "mystery" seriously and doesn't know it was a bullshit controversy revived purely for the sake of controversy and dissertations

>> No.2439963

>>2439956
Shakespeare was actually considered one of the best poets in England in his own time

>> No.2439964

To denounce Shakespeare because he's "boring" is to admit intellectual inferiority.

There's really no debate about it. If you are smart, you will realize why Shakespeare is revered. End of story. You could provide some claims about not liking certain things thematic/moralwise (even though I sorta dgaf that shit) like Tolstoy, but for the most part that's reserved for nitpickers.

>> No.2439965

>>2439940
Persian literature isn't exactly obscure..

>> No.2439978

>>2439877

I agree full-heartedly, Shakespeare is certainly an exceptional writer but his alleged contribution to the craft is WAY overblown. Hell even Don Quixote was written in Shakespeare's time. But I don't even think anyone should be forced to read Shakespeare, far greater things have been achieved in literature since his time and kids really ought to be reading Pynchon in high school.

>> No.2439981

>>2439978
>this is what pynchon fans actually believe

>> No.2439987
File: 14 KB, 225x300, 82639965(2).jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2439987

Hemingway is a bad writer and his Iceberg Theory is a joke.

>> No.2440006

>>2439978
I like Pynchon and all, but I'd hardly call him in any meaningful way a better writer than Shakespeare. His work is a lot more complex than you might think.

Also I'm not sure some of the subject matter in Pynchon would be considered appropriate for high school students. Maybe seniors

>> No.2440010

Townes was great.

>> No.2440039

>>2439987
what's wrong with the iceberg theory?

>> No.2440056

read King Lear if you have not

>> No.2440058

>>2440039

pppffff, please, more like the iceTURD theory, am I right? Somebody back me up here.

>> No.2440066

>>2440058
>Somebody form an argument for my retard ideas, as I am unable to do much more than parroting the opinions of others.

>> No.2440068

>>2440058
>ITT: Opinions that will get you bitched out by /lit/.

>Somebody back me up here.

I don't think many people would back you up here. Hemingway and his style are both pretty well-regarded around these parts.
I think the Iceberg theory is just the journalistic style used by earlier Modernists carried out to a sparse conclusion, but eh, I'd say it has its merits for being that. I don't really enjoy Hemingway, a bit too much machismo, but I agree his style is more complex than it seems at first appraisal.

>> No.2440076
File: 295 KB, 550x550, 1321104989080.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2440076

>>2440039

Don't get me wrong. I appreciate that Hemingway came up with an alternative to the blustery descriptive style of some of his predecessors, but I think it comes off as too sparse at times. Take for instance Hills Like White Elephants. We don't get any information about the American or the girl other than what we can infer from their cryptic (though pretty realistic) conversation. We don't have any reason to care for either character nor do we get any real resolution at the end.

>> No.2440081

I think Stephen King is a writer of modern classics and in a hundred years time will be regarded with the same reverence we give to Poe and Lovecraft.

>> No.2440085

>>2440068

you thought I was serious?

>> No.2440091

>>2439877
Is this Leo Tolsoy?

>> No.2440092

>>2440085
I thought you were the same anon as: >>2439987 If you are, it sure didn't look like kidding to me, and the iceTURD thing I figured was just a lame joke to be a dick.

>> No.2440102

>>2440092

here's the thing anon, I am. I was just trolling. Also the thread said "opinions that will get you bitched out by /lit/" so I went after the writer whose ass everyone on /lit/ rims the most. I don't think Hemingway is a bad writer really, but overrated, sure.

>> No.2440125

>>2439987

I wrote the initial response about Hemingway >>2440076 and the follow up >>2439987

The ice turd guy was some other anon.

>> No.2440137

I hate Shakespeare, and I can literally quote half of Hamlet off the top of my head. I've studied him for so many years in an accademic setting, I've read nearly all of his plays, half his poems, and have come to the conclusion he's massively over-rated, mostly for political reasons, by the anglo-saxon world.

>> No.2440138

>>2440102
>>2440125

wtf is with people pretending to be me in this thread, I wrote >>2440076 and >>2439987 but I didn't write >>2440125, nor did I write >>2440102. Seriously WTAF!!!!!!!

>> No.2440146

>>2440081
MAYBE Lovecraft, but even that's a huge maybe

>> No.2440148

>>2440102
Lol you just called a tripfag anon, I do that too sometimes

>> No.2440151

>>2440137
I'm sorry you couldn't appreciate him. I, along with most of the English-speaking literary world, still think he's wonderful.

>> No.2440162

>>2439877

this! so, so many well respected literary theorists loathe shakespeare and yet the retards here think you have to like his work to havr any value.

you're all philistines and morons. die in fire

>> No.2440164

>>2440162
You can hate and still have some kind of value. For example, you could be Tolstoy.

>> No.2440168

Black people aren't subhuman mongrels.
Women deserve equal treatment.
Feminism is a worthwhile movement.
The Jews don't control all the media.

Sure is nice to post in /stormfront/.

>> No.2440175

>>2440164

Having an opinion doesn't instantly make you wrong. The sooner the idiots on here, who all think they're super intelligent because they work at Denny's Diner but read 'The Divine Comedy' once and understood at least half the words, realise that, the better.

You're all posting on the fucking internet. Get the fuck over yourselves. Why can't this be a place to celebrate literature instead of being a bunch of cunts about it.

>> No.2440177

>>2440168
With you until the "Feminism is a worth-while movement" bit

>> No.2440180

>>2440177
You're either with us or against us in the upcoming revolution.

>> No.2440183

>>2440168

Those are all arguments I'd expect /b/ to hate more than /lit/

>> No.2440189

Questions from a dummy:

What is the end goal of Feminism? Equality?
If so, why call yourselves feminists?
Aren't the rights of all of man ,as a species, more important?

>> No.2440196

retards

>> No.2440200

>>2440183
it's just one guy making lots of racist and sexist shitposts

>> No.2440203

>>2440183

Make a thread where you insinuate that race is largely a social construct.

Watch as the stormfront rats crawl out of the woodwork.

>> No.2440204

>>2440196
don't sign ur post

>> No.2440205

>>2439883
I must be a deadened piece of shit as well, fag, because I hate Shakespeare. It's not just my fault; it's my fucking teachers. Most shit I was introduced to in high school I ended up hating. Shakespeare, to me, is vilely overrated

>> No.2440212

>>2439987
Wrong.
Go back and read The Old Man and The Sea and actually think about it. Is /lit/ incapable of understanding themes if the author doesn't throw the themes in your fucking face?

>> No.2440218

The only objective way to judge the quality of a novel (and a writer) is by how many copies it (he) has sold.

Ergo, Harry Potter is a better book than Ulysses.
Ergo, The Little Prince is the greatest book ever written.
Ergo, James Patterson is a better writer than Vladimir Nabokov.
Ergo, Agatha Christie is the greatest writer of all time.

>> No.2440219

I like cyberpunk.

>> No.2440221

>>2440212
>>ITT: Opinions that will get you bitched out by /lit/.

>> No.2440224

>>2440218
Do people even say this?

>> No.2440231

Catch 22 is repetitious drivel.

Infinite Jest is self-indulgent claptrap.

>> No.2440235
File: 29 KB, 305x400, Russian_Cheerleaders_04.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2440235

Saying anything someone disagrees with
Saying anything

Seriously, I wonder how a lot of you even live day to day, it must be so disappointing when you're surprised.

>> No.2440237

>>2440224

I misread OP's post; I thought this was a thread for voicing unpopular opinions.

>> No.2440238

>>2440224
Retards say it. Judging a book by sales is meaningless. It just shows how popular it is, not if it's a worthwhile read.

>> No.2440239
File: 17 KB, 306x400, 174876.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2440239

>Saying anything someone disagrees with
>Saying anything

Seriously, I wonder how a lot of you even live day to day, it must be so disappointing when you're surprised.

>> No.2440243

>>2440151
>I, along with most of the English-speaking literary world
Are you serious? Do you know how arrogant you sound? I don't if you just worded wrong or you're this much of an ass, but I, along with most people in this world, think you should fix that

>> No.2440262
File: 41 KB, 500x350, Rob-Lowe-restaurant.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2440262

>>2440212

I've read it. I get it. A man can't be defeated, only killed. It's a metaphor for his life, writing career, yadda yadda yadda. I'm not saying you can't have a theme when using the iceberg theory, just that having only subtle references to a character's past gives you very little reason to care about them or their plight. Why should I give a shit about the old man? What about Jake in The Sun Also Rises? I get it, he's in love with Brett and his dick doesn't work. Why should I give a shit? The best part of that book was when they weren't shitting all over Robert Cohn for being a jew.

>> No.2440270

>>2440262

Whoops, I meant when they were shitting on him for being a Jew.

>> No.2440282

Off the top of my head:

Like Drive
Dislike Dickens
Love McCarthy
Read a fair bit of contemporary literature
Quite enjoyed House of Leaves
Like Radioheads music, but the lyrics read like pseudo-deep wangst and the vocals are ear rapingly horrendous. If I could have the instrumentals it'd be great.
Liked Infinite Jest
Write in my books and read them in the bath and treat them however my mood takes me
Use a typewriter
Think Murakami is a cool guy and an average writer
Enjoy Vonnegut
Think Deadwood is the best show ever made
Think MASH is up there
Think Dr Strangelove is the best movie ever made
Am influenced more by non-fiction and journalism, and admit to being deeply confused when people think that literature should be the only inspiration for writers
Am mostly liberal, but fucking love guns
Think that there are as many bad pre-1950 novels as there have been since 1950, but there is no reason to remember the bad ones from back then so there is this illusion of the old timey days being far better
Think that comparing literature to video games or movies or comics is deadshit retarded and for lesser minds, as video games only came into their own in the 90s and comics ostensibly in the 20s and 30s and are only fledgling artforms
Think politics is utterly meaningless and does not affect me in the slightest
Am in a relationship, and cherish being single now more than I ever did
Think that debating the ins and outs of postmodernism is largely silly because it isn't over yet, and you can't really understand a movement or age without reflection and therefore definitions and restrictions- they didn't know what Dada was until well afterwards, and that was tiny compared to pomo
NaNoWriMo is probably a good idea
Society is not becoming stupider, I do not fear that less people are reading books or anything like that

>> No.2440307
File: 7 KB, 194x259, images.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2440307

>>2440238

>implying a book doesn't become popular because it's worth reading

>> No.2440309

I like short books so that I can just get it over with.

>> No.2440310

>>2440307
>implying Mac Donalds is succesful because their food is worth eating

>> No.2440322

>>2440310

Define "success"
Define "worth"
Don't worry, I'll do it for you.

MacDonalds is successful (profitable) because its food is worthy (people are willing to pay for it).

Higher selling books are more "worthwhile reads" (to use your language) because more people want them. Consumer demand and raw purchases is the only objective way to determine the value of a book. As soon as we begin judging works by their "quality", we've entered the realm of subjectivity, and consequently meaningless.

If this post is printed in book form and sells more copies than any other book - then it is the greatest piece of writing in human history.

>> No.2440325
File: 242 KB, 600x796, coolfoodbro.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2440325

>>2440310
>implying it isn't

>> No.2440327

>>2440322
What about people with a subjective opinion making the decision of which books get printed. And even forcing other people to buy it, or else. The Bible, the Qur’an, Mein Kampf, all of them where forceful to own at some time, schools mandatory reads were chosen by a handful of people.

>> No.2440356
File: 14 KB, 320x240, 1328465214825.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2440356

>mfw shakespeare-hating plebs have gotten into /lit/

there really should be an admissions essay for this place. i'm at least hoping that the people who somehow can't appreciate something like fucking shakespeare are still teenagers.

>> No.2440747

>>2440205
This. The only author we read in high school who I can tolerate is Steinbeck, and that's just cause I was stuck on a boat for two weeks with nothing to read but a copy of Cannery Row.

>> No.2440754

>>2440322

According to this logic, the Communist Manifesto is the greatest book of all time.

>> No.2440773

>>2440076
>came up with an alternative to the blustery descriptive style
But Twain had already done that nearly a century before.

>> No.2440780

>>2440212
He was bitching about his critics, and blabbering on about God. Because that totally hasn't been done before. Old Man is the most overrated book since the Bible.

>> No.2440787

Shakespeare is shit.

>> No.2440801

>>2440356
>Liking Shakespeare

Get over yourself you elitist manchild, the bastard's overrated. Fuck, most of his stuff is just ribald garbage pooped out for the middle-brow masses anyway.

>> No.2440809

this thread is worse than reading youtube comments

>> No.2441096

>>2440801
Of course, you, being above those masses, know better.
You should really get off that high horse. Or barring that grow up a bit.

>> No.2441410

>>2440801

>implying Shakespeare didn't invent half of the plots recycled by every other story involving a cast
>implying his work doesn't contain amazing dialogue and rhetoric.

Some stories, I understand, are pretty bland. I didn't like Julius Caesar that much along with others. But shit nigga, that man covered a whole lot of bases in that time period.

>> No.2441439

Not liking fiction.

Liking things like intelligence research, evolutionary biology, evolutionary psychology.

Liking analytic philosophy more than continental 'philosophy', and this includes the modern French pseudo-intellectual stuff.

Being a proponent of language reform, including a spelling reform of English.

>> No.2441442

>>2441410

Bitch, he just copied everything from other people. Do some research. The guy was basically just rewriting other peoples' stories, only making them self indulgent, boring shit. Can't deny his influence but nigga was boing as hell.

Where's the love for Geoffrey Chaucer, that's what I want to know. And Christopher Marlowe, much more interesting English Lit. / playwrights

>> No.2441450

WTF are you guys talking about "Shakespeare" his name was Shakesbeard and he was a pirate.

>> No.2441451

>>2439956
>>outdated
Leftist detected. I could troll you a little, but indignant butthurt is your natural state, so there's no need.

>> No.2441457

"The Classics" are taught in gradeschool courses because they establish a basic foundation for the understanding of more advanced literature.

"The Classics" are outdated and elementary.

Adults who regularly read "The Classics" have an underdeveloped understanding of literature.

>> No.2441459

I thought Shakespeare was Bacon

>> No.2441469

>>2439877
You're a teenager and you get distressed when people behave unusually, whether intentionally or whether they seem to due to the changing of customs. So when Shakespeare speaks like an normal educated Elizabethan, plus a few innovations we moderns take for granted, your eyes roll back in your head, you cringe, you twitch a little, your cheeks go red and you resolve into a huff, having determined that he was pretentious and prolly wore a top hat and smirked all the time, guh, what a cunt. Those pretentious teachers just keep testing students on him because they know him and the students don't, it's all a pretentious conspiracy.

That said, he could drag things out a little too much when he was obliged by the theatre to make a long multi-part play. Like Gaunt's long speech about how ironic it is that he is now gaunt with sickness. Or those interminable "I am a member of the royal family and I am outraged in a thoroughly noble fashion" speeches in Richard III.

>> No.2441481

>>2441457

Read Hamlet, queerwipe.

>> No.2441484

>>2441457
To develop their understanding, they need to subscribe to Irving Isaac Israel Goldstein's politically neutral Communist Review and read the latest batch of free verse poetry submitted by members of the Black Panthers' youth brigade.

>> No.2441501

>>2440322
>>2440754

>implying the Bible isn't the most widely sold and read book.

>> No.2441508

>>2441481
I have.

In highschool.

As an adolescent

>> No.2441511

>>2441484
yes basically

>> No.2441683

>>2441450
and the only thing he wrote was his signature on checks that he stole from the fat cat bureaucrats