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/lit/ - Literature

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2816719 No.2816719[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

>You will never be part of an elite clique of suave, twentysomething intellectuals with dark secrets who study obscure ancient knowledge

>> No.2816736

I tried reading this book but every character acted unrealistically gay. It was like the author was trying to write her own bullshit personal fantasies of dudes getting it on instead of write something realistic. Not to mention every single male character talked like a fucking girl. why can't women write realistic male characters? Fucking seriously. If I wanted this shit I would be reading yaoi mangas.

>> No.2816740

Elite cliques are despicable. Modest yet brilliant cliques are better.

>> No.2816746

please don't share your erotic fantasies on this board

>> No.2816758

Well, that's very odd, I ordinarily stick to classics (so many to read, got to get through them) but recently picked this up from Blackwell's on a whim.

>> No.2816764

>>2816758

It's a book about hanging out with effete, pseudo-intellectual snobs and experimenting with gayness.

>> No.2816774

I had to read this for a special topics seminar on class relations in the United States. It's fucking awful, unless you're a girl I guess. No self respecting male should read this trash.

>> No.2816778

>>2816774

>implying all females enjoy reading trash

>>>/r9k/

>> No.2816792

50 shades of grey for hipsters

>> No.2816803

>>2816792

How is this book anything like 50 Shades of Grey?

>> No.2816806

I went to college hoping it would be like Secret History.

It wasn't.

>> No.2816807
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2816807

But I already have all those OP except the companions

Vir prudens non contra ventum mingit.

>> No.2816811

>>2816803
i dont know anything about either book

>> No.2816817
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2816817

>You will never be part of an elite clique of suave, twentysomething intellectuals with dark secrets who are at the forefront of modern literature

>> No.2816828

>>2816806

Yep, same here.

>> No.2816834

i was part of a suave 20 something clique of intellectuals who had obscure marxist knowledge, it was pretty fun, then i turned 30 and got real

>> No.2816844

>>2816834

What do you do now? I read 'The Beautiful & The Damned' recently, I'm interested in people making the transition and 'growing up'.

>> No.2816851

>>2816844

The Beautiful and the Damned? Isn't that an academic article about class divisions in 20th century California?

>> No.2816868

>>2816851

Ha! Fitzgerald. Really, though, what do you do now?

>> No.2816878

>>2816868
that wasn't me but basically i just sit around reading books and acting like art is more important than class struggle, not sure if i believe it or not but thats my story if anybody asks

>> No.2817136

I wish I had friends like the people in this book.

>> No.2817147
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2817147

>>2816719
I'm reminded of that every day, OP.

>> No.2817229
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2817229

This book has been getting a lot of attention this summer.
>imokaywiththis.jpg

As has been stated, I think Richard's voice is ludicrously female, but then this is a female writing male dialogue.

>>2816806
I hoped college would be like The Rules of Attraction.

It sort of is, if you're rich.

>> No.2817242

I have yet to read it, but I hear The Little Friend is better.

>> No.2817248

>>2816851
>California
Nigga gotta be trippin'.

>> No.2817255

i just wanna have a girlfriend

thats all really

>> No.2817265

I don't think it's very good. As I said in the other thread I started (odd coincidence that there's another thread on it, which I hadn't seen) there are moments when the narration is really, really bad. Like, Dean Koontz bad.

>> No.2817271

I think I'm going to give this a try at some point. Might not like but it's worth trying I think.

Once I've dug through my current backlog, I guess.

>> No.2817923

>>2817248

There actually is a journal article called California: The Beautiful and the Damned. It's in a book called The Cultural Geography Reader.

>> No.2817929

wait i thought that's what /lit/ was

well guys it's been nice knowing you

>> No.2817932 [DELETED] 
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2817932

>>2816807
You're not as obscure as you think.

>> No.2817945

I like how so far in this thread, people have claimed that the entire book is some personal fantasy by Tartt of perfect, intellectual, suave snobs, and is therefore hipster shit.
It's like you haven't even read past the first hundred pages, or realized that the book was narrated by a character who at the very start of the novel is said to be infatuated by style, as well as being a compulsive liar.
The whole second part of the book shows how fragile the whole facade of the little clique was. Bunny wasn't some smooth talking rogue with a heart of gold - he was a manipulative drunk with a nasty streak of evil. The twins were not ethereal creatures of beauty - they were emotionally unstable and reckless individuals. Henry was a cold, Machiavellian bastard who murdered his friend and was quite willing for Richard to take the fall. Francis was gay.
Even the Plato like character of Julian is nothing but a fraud.
How anyone can arrive at the conclusion that this book was a happy little affair portraying perfect individuals is beyond me.

>> No.2817954

>>2817945
Also, this isn't even touching on how Tartt shows how childish and downright nasty the lot of them are when it comes to any social situation outside of their clique. They either despise poor people or patronize them, they take no responsibility for the murder of the farmer, lounge around a country house, are spoiled by wealth, and even make jokes about Bunny's family at his funeral.
By the end of the book we're supposed to really hate all of them, and like Richard, we jsut want to get away from them.

>> No.2817968

>>2817945

>Francis was gay

Wait, how is this a character flaw?

>> No.2817970

>>2817945

Bunny is the sunny, asshole comic relief who dies, darkening the second half of the book by his absence. He's unlikable as a person but lovable as a character.

He could have been played by a younger Neil Patrick Harris.

>> No.2817991

>>2817970
>Bunny is the sunny, asshole comic relief who dies, darkening the second half of the book by his absence.

I'd say the point where things become dark is when Bunny starts blackmailing the rest of the group over the Bacchanal. It is Bunny who causes the tension. True, Richard does look back at point in the second part to when Bunny was with the group - but everytime he remembers Bunny's qualities, we invariably get a passage about how much of an asshole he was. Again, it's all perspective. We like Bunny at the start, but we like Richard's Bunny, not the true Bunny. Richard as said is obsessed with style and grace, and is quite willing to ignore Bunny's faults, until he matures and realizes how wrong he was.

>>2817968
Was supposed to be a joke. Admittedly a poor one. I guess Francis is probably the one character who doesn't get the same deconstruction treatment as the others do. My own opinion on why this is, and your're free to call bullshit on it, is that Francis is a stand in for Ellis, who is Tartt's friend and literary mentor. She wouldn't be quite as harsh on Francis if this is the case. He's still an arrogant character though, and can be very chilly at times.

>> No.2818006

cmon guys this is kind of lame. step your posting game up.

>> No.2818009

Whenever I hear somebody in their early twenties demand that Milton be considered over and above Shakespeare I always wonder if they think that because of this book.

>> No.2818013

So just from skimming this thread, it seems like this book is Brideshead Revisited, except American instead of British, concerned with academia instead of the nobility, and probably not as good.

c/d?

>> No.2818014

>>2817991

did BEE and Donna Tartt ever have sex

She seems kind of obsessed with him

>> No.2818016

>>2818013

The American Brideshead Revisited is F Scott's first novel 'This Side of Paradise'.

>> No.2818017

>>2818013

Depends. What is Brideshead Revisited about?

>> No.2818020

>>2818013

More or less, but its similarity with Brideshead is only part of a larger trend in all fiction of the 'Romantic' description to manifest the desire for an elusive 'elysium'. Or, to borrow from Waugh, the 'Et in Arcadia ego' fixation. You'll find it in Fowles's 'The Magus', La Fournier's 'Grand Meaulnes' and pretty much all of the British Romantic second wave - esp. the 'Satanic School' of Byron, Shelley, Keats, Clare.

>> No.2818025

>>2818016
no, i don't think so, although certainly the surface similarities are far more present. but i think it's merely that, a matter of the surface similarities.

>>2818017
it's the story of an upper-middle-class guy who goes to oxford and there becomes entangled with the Flytes, a family of old-money aristocrats, and their various affairs. i note the similarity of the obsession with fashion and style, the characterization, the fatal flaws of the stylish people, the obsession (as see below) with elysium, the way it all falls apart. particularly, a number of the descriptions of characters could be applied, mutatis mutandis, to brideshead revisited and its characters.

>>2818020
perhaps. just seemed interesting.

>> No.2818506

This book sounds interesting. I might have to take a look.

>> No.2818517

>>2816764
It's a fascinating examination of pretty much that.