/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.2927772]

100 years from now, are people like Stephen King, Stephanie Myer, J.K. Rowling, Danielle Steele, and that guy who writes all those army books that turn into video games going to be regarded as the Mark Twain, Emile Zola, Jane Austen, and Hemingway of this time period?


Will things like Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey be on the 11th grade English curriculum? Will they be regarded as books like The Catcher in the Rye, Of Mice and Men, and so on?

[Anonymous No.2927774]

Read up on the term "penny dreadful".

[Anonymous No.2927799]

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacqueline_Susann
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Corelli

There are many more without Wikipedia articles written for them. If Stephen King is remembered, it will be for the films made from his novels - and I expect that in most they'll remove his name from the credits soon after his death.

[Anonymous No.2927814]

> 100 years from now, are people like Stephen King, Stephanie Myer, J.K. Rowling, Danielle Steele, and that guy who writes all those army books that turn into video games going to be regarded as the Mark Twain, Emile Zola, Jane Austen, and Hemingway of this time period?


No. I remember reading up on Goethe's contemporaries like Christian Fürchtegott Gellert or Johann Gottlieb Fichte, other German authors who've made much, much more money than him and were more famous than him in the time, and all of these guys are forgotten now.

The same thing will happen to Myer, Rowling and the like in the long run.

[Anonymous No.2927825]

Those people are to literature as Thomas Kinkade was to fine art.

[Anonymous No.2927876]

>>2927825

Or Damien Hirst will be.

Does anyone here like Damien Hirst? I very much want to know why some do.

[Anonymous No.2927878]

No but Stephen King will be as highly regarded as Poe and Lovecraft, probably moreso.

[Anonymous No.2927882]

King? Probably. Rowling? Maybe. The rest, no.

[Anonymous No.2927884]

>>2927878

Ha.
Hahaha.
Ahahahaha.

[Anonymous No.2927885]

>>2927876
I do. But only because so many people hate his work.

[Anonymous No.2927887]

>>2927878
>Implying he isn't already.

[Anonymous No.2927888]

>>2927884

Do you think he won't? What a fucking retarded, worthless post.

[Anonymous No.2927897]

>>2927888

I'll follow your guidance on posts from now on. After all, you say some unique, thought-provoking and interesting things. Not to mention the evidence you back up your statements with.

[Anonymous No.2927906]

>>2927876

I personally don't like Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, or Tracy Emin.


I love the dada movement but the ideology of 'anything is art and we're going to use this as a tool to show the art world how ridiculous they are' has been warped so now we have these pretentious New York based artists who are more so salesmen than they are artists.


I think in all likelihood they will die then be forgotten because despite them being 'avant garde' they are just 21st century academicians. They are all about the image and the sale of the art than the end product.

With this in mind, I believe painters like Lucian Freud and Odd Nerdrum as well as some of the contemporary realist painters will go on in some form of art history.

I think it is very unlikely that Hirst will be ranked with the greats such as Picasso or Degas.


On a final note, I think it is sad that when you google a contemporary conceptual artist, you get more pictures of them than you do of their art.

[Anonymous No.2927938]

>>2927772
King will be remembered, but I don't think he'd be considered in the same like as Hemingway etc.
JK as well, or at least Harry Potter (It will be similar to LOTR in that sense, not high lit, but forever read)

The rest no.


We have many contemporary writers who will be remembered, but most people don't look at those writers, but instead complain writing is dead and point to the writers you mentioned.

[Anonymous No.2927949]

>>2927938
How is LOTR not 'high lit'?

It fits into British literary tradition like a glove. (It shits all over modernism, yes -- but defying academic fashion doesn't make something not art, quite the contrary.)

Plus, plebs hate LOTR because it's "long, dry and boring" and because "I only watched the movie cause it's better", which will help cement LOTR's 'classic' status.

But I agree with King and Harry Potter, of course.

[Anonymous No.2927950]

>>2927814
>Johann Fichte
>forgotten now
>comparable to Stephanie Meyer
Has /lit/ come to this?

[Anonymous No.2927960]

They'll be regarded as something more like Agatha Christie, except probably not as good or novel. The more usual "classic" author that gets a comparison in terms of comparing popular authors is Dickens, but none of them share this social project thing he had running throughout his work.

In fact, I think JK Rowling will be a special case, and will eventually become something like the Famous 5, kiddy pulp, or maybe something shy of Roald Dahl. When Rowling finally releases a post HP novel, I think we'll see the transformation begin proper.

[Anonymous No.2927964]

>>2927949
>How is LOTR not 'high lit'?
Because it isn't, it's a light hearted fantasy romp. It was pushed by some academics at the time as something more than that, but that faded away fairly quickly. Conversely, CS Lewis' Narnia novels have been given vigor in academic circles as they have aged, go figure.

[Anonymous No.2927965]

So who will be canonised from the past 40 years or so?

[Anonymous No.2927968]

>>2927965
Terry Pratchett

[Anonymous No.2927974]

>>2927965
Tao Lin

[Anonymous No.2927983]

>>2927965

Pynchon
McCarthy
Delillo
Roth

[Anonymous No.2927988]

>>2927983


It was Don Delillo, whiskey, me, and a blinking midnight clock. Speakers on a TV stand, just a turn table to watch.


I have to read some of his work.

[Anonymous No.2927990]

>>2927965
George R R Martin

You watch. /lit/'s tears will power the planet, and it will be glorious.

[Anonymous No.2928035]

>>2927983
>Pynchon

Nobody outside of the six lit fanboys knows who he is.

[Anonymous No.2928046]

>>2928035

Are you kidding?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cuccco2umo

0:46 to 1:01

[Anonymous No.2928050]

>>2928035
This is the most try hard attempt at a troll ever.

>tfw you will never be on the simpsons. :(

[Anonymous No.2928060]

JK Rowling will for Harry Potter but that's it really.

>implying they'll be humans in 100 years time to remember this

[Anonymous No.2928070]

>Pick up my brothers girlfriend at the library she works at
>Get there too early, wander through the shelves
>One book by Pynchon, Inherent Vice
>No books by a half dozen other authors I think of off the top of my head.
>One Million of each book by Sue Graphton and James Patterson

[IDFPropagandaJournalist !UB/IHJXk6A No.2928082]

Yes, in 100 years Twilight will be taught in highschools. There is no good literature today, and never in history bad books have been published.

[Anonymous No.2928095]

>>2928070
She clearly wants the dick.

[Anonymous No.2928108]

No and it's ridiculous that you would think that.

[Anonymous No.2928174]

>>2927772
OP i am so sexually repressed at the moment that i would ravage her in that pic i bet she likes it up the ass too

[Anonymous No.2928329]

>>2928174
You say that.
She's a WHALE

[Anonymous No.2928332]

>>2928174

[Anonymous No.2928358]

>>2928332

I bet she has big pepperoni nips

[Anonymous No.2928363]

Stephen King, Stephenie Meyer, J K Rowling, and Tom Clancy don't write books about racial oppression, so no, those will not be taught in 11th grade English classes.

[Anonymous No.2928364]

Stephen King will definitely go down in history as a great writer and will be regarded as such because of his quality and criticisms.

The others, I really don't think so in 100 years. Mostly because a lot of those are more catering to the pop-culture nowadays of the dark, creatures-of-the-night esque popularity. If anything, this decade may be referred to as some sort of really short, silly movement where these works may be referenced.

But, how many bad children's books do we have that we still talk about today that we read? I can see some Stephen King short stories making it into textbooks, but no more than that.

[Anonymous No.2928365]

>>2928332
[Insert 'juicing room' joke]

[Anonymous No.2928368]

>>2928332
At least she is loosing weight on one of her legs.

[Anonymous No.2928371]

Stephen King's cool OP, stop being a fag

[Anonymous No.2928395]

OP have a look at this

>When asked to predict which authors would be read 100 years into the future, the 1929 readers of the Manchester Guardian chose the (now obscure) dramatist John Galsworthy.


http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/05/why-is-literary-fame-so-unpredictable.html

[Anonymous No.2928466]

/lit/ will cry bitch tears when all these people get called classics in the near future, that's for sure.

[Anonymous No.2928725]

Stephen King is the Lovecraft of our day, more or less. Wouldn't be surprised if he's still somewhat popular 50-100 yrs from now, but I doubt he'll last much longer. No one will care about those other people, though

[Anonymous No.2928744]

>>2927950
taking things out of context are we?

[Anonymous No.2928745]

Stephen King writes so babyboomer, he'll get read as long as they're still around.
After that, his novels will age, Already getting dated.
His best books will be considered his list of works, and the rest will be forgotten. Until he becomes a famous author name, with the occasional reader.
Simple name, his niche is easy to describe and remember, so I see his name going on long after he's read widely.

[Anonymous No.2928749]

>are people like Stephen King, Stephanie Myer, J.K. Rowling, Danielle Steele, and that guy who writes all those army books that turn into video games going to be regarded as the Mark Twain, Emile Zola, Jane Austen, and Hemingway of this time period?

no. because their products are more a brand name than anything else. people are conditioned to always want the "new" and the backlash is that it spills over into businesses. they will be as remembered animorphs. people will say how they get nostalgic and loved as a kid but it won't have the kind of literary merit to make it appreciated over time because....they don't contribute to the actual craft by redefining what it is or pushing boundaries in any way. they're formulaic. and if they have fun writing it, great. if people have fun reading it, great. but the names on those books are fads and they will fade.

[Anonymous No.2928754]

>>2928745
god, you write so horribly.

[Anonymous No.2928759]

i think the education institutions have a big hand in determining the survival of authors and their works. If they can generate any discussion worth having on them that is...

Meyer's & E. L. Jame's books will prolly be used in psychology/ sociology to study womenfolk in today's culture but as cultures change, so will the readings on them...

[Anonymous No.2928764]

>>2928744
Fichte isn't forgotten. He's not as famous as Hegel, but he isn't even close to being forgotten. There are probably much better examples that could've been used

[Anonymous No.2928768]

>>2928749
I would say Stephen King has a kind of broad appeal that could last a while. He's probably the best writer of those popular authors listed, which isn't saying much, to be fair.

[Anonymous No.2928799]

if you think any of those have something on the genius of real classics you have to l2 literature. You only named people who make much money, not good writers, please remove yourself from the literature genepool

[Anonymous No.2928812]

>>2928768
a few of my friends swear up and down how great some of king's books are. maybe i'll give him a shot someday. but these books are generally written kind of the same way. all action and plot driven while keeping things feeling close to present-tense even if it's past-tense. to stay on this course helps with readability i think and is easier to write suspenseful shit. like even if you're filming different perspectives it's all done with the same camera.

literary fiction is character-driven. usually thought-provoking about what it means to be a human or how that gets redefined in duh modern timez blah blah blah. you can read more elsewhere.

anyhow, someone else will think of the new harry potter or hunger games for the next season of readers and the old shoes will be thrown out. we have a few famous low brow writers of old but there aren't many. maybe king's name will be around.

[Anonymous No.2928820]

What does everyone have against Stephen King?

[Anonymous No.2928825]

>>2928820
he's a mediocre writer.

[Anonymous No.2928826]

>>2928820
>>2927772
Because he's a shit tier writer

[Anonymous No.2928827]

>>2928820
not literary fiction. /lit/ doesn't want suspensful stories. we want all the drama that happens when dealing with one's own mind.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_fiction

[Anonymous No.2928830]

>>2928812
Dude, read some King so you don't put your foot in your mouth.

King is a pretty generic and boring writer, but he is _definitely_ not action-driven. He can't write 'action' and 'suspense' for shit, but he is good at writing believable characters with real psychology.

If you want popular character-driven fiction, you can't go wrong with King.

(Not much thought-provoking in his writing, though -- his characters are mostly white suburban american types, so don't expect insights or deep thoughts here.)

[Anonymous No.2928854]

>>2928830
i actually read "it" years ago. but two friends who have opinions i respect keeping naming some series by him. i can't remember the name. i'll find out and try it next time i'm looking to mixup my to-read list. sometimes i like to read something i wasn't planning on reading in the middle of others i've been thinking about for a while.

what would you recommend by king?

[Anonymous No.2928870]

King is actually a very good writer, except he can't write endings for shit. All his books end with a deus ex machina (The Stand), a disappointing anticlimax (The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon), or just incoherent unsatisfying supernatural shit (Insomnia, IT, Needful Things ... and a lot of others.)

And then of course there's The Dark Tower.

For all that, though, the first 2/3rds of his books tends to be fantastic, and he has a better grasp on how real people talk and act than a lot of more critically acclaimed writers. Ditto for JK Rowling, though of course she has her own serious flaws.

They'll be remembered for a couple generations, at least. Not revered. But read.

[Anonymous No.2928875]

>>2928854

Misery, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, The Stand, Gerald's Game, Dolores Claiborn. Not perfect, but with those books I'm confident the good outweighs the bad.

Also well-liked: Cujo, The Dead Zone, Pet Sematary. I actually found those books kinda boring but they are well-constructed.

Misery is my favorite.

[Anonymous No.2928878]

Stephen King is terrible, you guys. He can't write characters at all. Stop recommending books by him

[Anonymous No.2928882]

>>2928754
Yah man, it be a gift, I write well horrible.

[Anonymous No.2928883]

>>2928878
Most people who read King can't tell the difference.

[Anonymous No.2928885]

>>2928878

Bullshit! Any chance I can drag an actual discussion out of you, or are you the snide-potshot-and-leave type?

[Anonymous No.2928887]

>>2928875
thanks for responding. i'll read about those titles and see if anything has my interest. :)

[Anonymous No.2928908]

i'm confident that stephen king and j.k. rowling will be remembered for a while, but not as "the hemingways of their time" but just solid, entertaining genre writers. nothing wrong with that at all. the hunger games woman seems more faddish and will probably also be forgotten sooner. meyer, steele, e.l. james, etc. will be supplanted by new writers using the same formulas.

[Anonymous No.2929042]

>>2928332
>>2928329
.... in OP's pic she looks ok that pic there you can see she is a whale.. notice my phrase of words "i would ravage her in that pic"

[Anonymous No.2929301]

all of you in this thread seem to forget that often the only people interested in non-contemporary literature are the very same who so earnestly keep to concepts like originality and a canon. it's not likely these writers will be well-regarded in the future because the only readers likely to care won't be reading these writer's works in place of pap contemporaneous to them. but they might certainly be of interest to future hacks as fonts of ideas and devices to pilfer from.

[Anonymous No.2930943]

>>2928870

I just finished IT about 2 days ago.

While I enjoyed the overall story I was extremely disappointed in the ending. What in the fuck.

Pregnant alien space light spider? Throwing humans to the edge of the universe with a turtle.

[Anonymous No.2930951]

Chuck Palahniuk will be taught in schools.

[Anonymous No.2930966]

Criticism of King is so retarded and tiresome. He writes books to be read, not studied. He's a fucking pop horror author. I'm pretty sure it's coming from the same kind of idiots who make pictures on 9g@g with a quote from Shakespeare and then a quote from Twilight and say something like "What happened?". The kind of people who are so far up their own ass with pretension and phony intellectualism they can't take a break from their Pynchon to realize that not everything has to be an obscure, massive literary endeavor.

[Anonymous No.2931261]

>>2927906
I hate Emin mainly because she always has a gigantic stick up her ass about her work.

I think what made Dada work was its connections to the perceived insanity and chaos of WWI. Then Duchamp had to cock it up with his anything-is-art-because-I-say-so spiel which opened the floodgates for anybody to shit on a canvas and declare themselves great.

[Anonymous No.2931266]

My god, it's like none of you know anything at all about worthwhile contemporary literature.

Oh wait, this is /lit/.

[Anonymous No.2931267]

>>2928082
What frightens me more is that we somehow blow ourselves up back to another Dark Ages and 1000 years later our future generations will be sufficiently sophisticated again to uncover archaeological evidence of today and hypothesize that stuff like that was mankind's most celebrated literature

[Anonymous No.2931275]

>>2928363
>having to read shit like The Color Purple and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as summer homework in high school

FUCK YOU IT'S SUMMER I WANT TO JUST SHUT MY BRAIN OFF AND READ SOMETHING FUN FOR A CHANGE

[Anonymous No.2931314]

>Stephen King is the Lovecraft of our day

You're forgetting a couple of things.

*People actually LIKE Stephen King. No one liked Lovecraft.
*Stephen King lives today, a different era.

King and Rowling have made GIGANTIC footprints in history. Meyer too, possibly: but since she is loathed by srs folks it is unlikely that people will keep her books alive in the public consciousness.

It was very hard to be as famous as they are before now.

I can't imagine them being taught and raised higher than they are, though. If Lovecraft gets taught, for instance, it is under special circumstances.

[Anonymous No.2931404]

>>2931314
What you said about HPL is true, I was going to say that.

But no-one sees King and Rowling as being literary material. They're pop, and no-one thinks otherwise. They're both very derivative, and unlikely to stand the real test of time*. Authors like Rushdie or whatever may not be thrillionaires from their writing, but they have our quiet respect. That, I think, will last.


*Presuming culture continues as it has been doing and we don't have some sort of technological paradigm shift.

[Anonymous No.2931432]

>>2931404

>mfw gayness like The Outsiders is already in the curriculum

[Anonymous No.2931447]

>>2931432
That's okay though, it's not going to stay there. Things like that and Twilight and Harry Potter will get into the curriculum for a little while, because they need something "modern" to compare the real stuff to. It doesn't last, it's just a temporary thing and it'll be replaced by something newer and equally shit. The incumbents will generally remain.

[Anonymous No.2931478]

>>2931275
>I WANT TO JUST SHUT MY BRAIN OFF

You know, that's not good for you.

[Anonymous No.2931489]

I'm sure King will be remembered, if not for his novels, his stories and the films adapted from them. The Shining, The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption, I doubt anyone will soon forget any of these. And the man is certainly no Lovecraft, but I can at least respect him for bringing a twisted sort of horror sensibility to the otherwise dull, insipid mainstream pop culture of the time, even if he was just an average writer.

[Anonymous No.2931494]

>>2931489
One of those movies will be remembered, along with Carrie.

[Anonymous No.2931496]

Rowling definitely will just like C.S. Lewis or Lewis Carrol. She inspired a generation to pick up a book instead of playing video games or watching television. She made reading fun and opened the door for so many.

She will definitely be remembered.

[Anonymous No.2931513]

Stephen King will be remembered as a master of the American short story and goddammit he was.

Rowling will be remembered in the same vein as C.S. Lewis or Lewis Carrol.

For the rest of these, it's ridiculous. Twain, Zola, Austen, and Hemingway are remembered because they are critically impressive, not because they were demographically popular.

Popular admiration =/= canonization

[Anonymous No.2931518]

>>2931513
>>2931496
>Rowling will be remembered in the same vein as C.S. Lewis or Lewis Carrol.
My sides

[Anonymous No.2931523]

>>2931496
Yup. Severus Snape is probably one of the best characters I've read, period.

[Anonymous No.2931526]

>>2931518

Stellar rebuttal, old chap. Truly marvelous the way you deftly countered my argument with a lucid, cogent argument of your own.

[Anonymous No.2931529]

>>2931518
I doubt she'll be remembered as fondly as Carroll, who was genuinely brilliant. However, I see no reason why she wouldn't be on the same level as Lewis, at least when it comes to children's literature. I mean, it's not like the Narnia books are actually any good.

[Anonymous No.2931531]

>>2931518
MyValve.mp3

[Anonymous No.2931532]

>>2931526
An unfounded opinion deserves an equally unfounded opinion.

[Anonymous No.2931536]

>>2931267
Actually, even in the classical world, in ancient Rome for instance, the most popular literature was about magic centaurs and pirates and shit. Pulp fiction has been a thing forever, its just that when it came to preserving some of this stuff, the books chosen (primarily by monks) where the classics. Same as today, in time capsules.

[Anonymous No.2931541]

Why don't kids read LOTR in middle school? It's because it's on par (even better) than the shit today. I think people might consider JK Rowling part of the western canon in the future, or at least see her worthy of mention because of how rich she became solely from writing.

[Anonymous No.2931565]

>>2931541
Agatha Christie is still not exactly part of the canon though.

[Anonymous No.2931576]

>>2931314

>King and Rowling have made GIGANTIC footprints in history.

So did Sir Walter Scott, but who has read anything except Ivanhoe these days?

[Anonymous No.2931613]

God I fucking hope not. Although Kingcan be really good. The Stand is a masterpiece. I've often wondered what modern authors will be remembered. My personal choices are Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and honestly I can't really think of many others. Maybe Phillip Roth? It's a great conversation starter though.

[Anonymous No.2931624]

>>2930951
This had better be a tucking joke. Don't get me wrong I do enjoy him from time to time even though some of his books are complete shit like Tell All, Snuff, and Damned. I have no doubt in my mind he will be forgotten. I love Fight Club but it didn't really bring anything new to the table.

[Anonymous No.2931626]

>>2931624
Godammit fucking.

[Anonymous No.2931666]

>>2927887
Pretty much. My poe, lovecraft, and howard books all have big quotes of praise from king on them to convince plebs to buy them.

[Anonymous No.2931696]

Stephen King will be remembered as a classic with enourmous hatred outclassed by even more enourmous praise.

Harry Potter might be remembered as the Narnia of the generation. I'm not fucking joking.

The others, it might be wishful thinking, but I don't see them becoming that huge of a thing. They are more "flavor of the month"-like.

[Anonymous No.2931697]

A lot of writers are remembered not for the quality of the text they write but because what they write represent some kind of status quo or mindset of a certain time, or just because they are popular and simple fun, which not always means they are THAT good ( Lord of the Rings would be an example of that)

The really good writers are lauded because what they write stands the test of time.

If those you mentioned are remembered, it will be for the first reason I mentioned and not the second, imo.

Don't sweat it bro, those fuckers will be forgotten. I dig Anne Rice for example, but her stuff will never be considered "genius". But she will be remembered. Rowling will probably be remembered, twilight will probably be a literary joke in some years. That's what I think.

And yeah, let Stephen King be. He's nothing absurd but he's fun, and books like his and Rowling's help people get over the arrogant literate prejudice and start reading more complex stuff. It's a decent starting point for kids and teenagers.

[Anonymous No.2931698]

>>2930966
I have never heard a better description of the average /lit/ poster.

[Anonymous No.2931701]

>>2931697

I meant, if they are remembered it will be for the first two reasons I mentioned, not for the third one (standing the test of time and being really good)

captcha: mean trystero

[Anonymous No.2931739]

>>2929042
>rationalising

[Anonymous No.2932391]

Twilight already is :I

[Anonymous No.2932405]

>>2928395
Wells, Kipling, and Barrie are certainly remembered and still read.

[Anonymous No.2932406]

>>2928725
This is the stupidest comparison I've ever heard. Lovecraft was an obscure hack who ended up having his work read after his death due to his huge network of correspondence. King is incredibly well known.

[Anonymous No.2932409]

>>2931697


I suppose I agree with Stephen King. What turns me off is that he writes the same story over and over and then lets them get turned into b films. Some of his stuff is cool. Miser is a great concept because it explores the human psyche and obsession with idols.

[Anonymous No.2932416]

look at well selling popular authors from the 50s-70s
you cant, they're mostly unknown today

and anyway King and Rowling aren't bad

[Anonymous No.2932417]

>>2932406

>hack vs. popularity

While I don't think Lovecraft's formula was 100% worth perpetuating over the course of a career-- there's only so many shambling half-seen horrors I can tolerate, and his overweening gynophobia & racism shit the tone up, in re: my contemporary bleeding heart sensibilities --BUT there's a great deal to be said for the way the man could build tension and then blow the story the fuck out of the water in unforeseen ways.

His shorter works, esp. sciffier tales (Colour Out of Space / Shadow Out of Time) are magnificent, horrific speculations on extraterrestial life which wholly sidestep the anthropic bias that's made SF a staid, stinking cesspit for the last forty-odd years. There's little hackish there, as they were so far outwith the mainstream of style & popular thought that we had to wait for /writers popularized by industry/ (King, namely) to push them on the rest of us plebes.

TL;DR - for such a snob you're sure wanking a watery load up your own nose. What a weird & disgusting way to waste time, proving absolutely nothing aside from your own lack of discretion in shitposting. Die.

[Anonymous No.2932418]

>>2927876
Hirst doesn't even make the stuff
he has a factory with dozens of other people doing it on an assembly line

[Anonymous No.2932420]

>>2927938
>>2927949
LotR is bad and badly written
http://www.revolutionsf.com/article.php?id=953

[Anonymous No.2932430]

>>2931697
> Lord of the Rings would be an example of that

LOTR is _not_ 'popular and simple fun'. LOTR is a dense book that is as inaccessible to the general pleb populace as 'Ulysses'.

LOTR is a massive literary undertaking and a hugely complex book.

However, you need to realize why it was written: LOTR is a massive and deliberate "fuck you" to the modernist movement and to academia that enshrined modernism.

Tolkien was a professor of English and Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, so he knew exactly what he was doing when he wrote LOTR.

LOTR is hugely popular among the pleb populace, but only because the plebs think anti-modernism == anti-intellectualism, and the plebs love anti-intellectualism.

The plebs are wrong. Tolkien was a lifetime professor at Oxford who read ancient documents in the original dead languages thought that 'Beowulf' was the last good work of poetry written in England. He was one of the most intellectual writers of the 20th century. (BTW, Tolkien hated his popularity precisely for this reason.)

Don't fall into that trap. Modernism is just a small movement within literature, not its pinnacle.

[Mish No.2932432]

Will Clive Cussler go down as the Herman Melville of our times?

[Anonymous No.2932434]

>>2932430
tolkien was just some dumb bro. lotr is complex in the sense that there's a lot to keep track of, but it's far from a textually rich book, which is the sort of complexity thinking people prefer.

[Anonymous No.2932435]

>>2932432
will clive cussler go down on the herman melville of our times is i think the more pertinent question.

having given it some thought, it seems really unlikely i guess, but far from impossible.

[Mish No.2932439]

>>2932435
If he would just write a book about that I'd read it

[Anonymous No.2932440]

>>2932420
> LotR is bad and badly written

It is not badly written. It shits all over modernist canon and modernist sensibilities and prejudices, but does so deliberately.

Tolkien was a guy who thought quality literature ended at 'Beowulf'. (But unlike modern neckbeards he actually knew ancient dead languages and read these things in the original.)

[Anonymous No.2932441]

Nah it will be all the people on this board becoming published but under-recognised authors who will be remembered as the literary greats of the early 21st century.

[Anonymous No.2932445]

>>2932440
keep repeating yourself, bro. the evidence is right there in them books -- tolkien was a shitty writer.

[Anonymous No.2932448]

>>2932445
> keep repeating yourself, bro. the evidence is right there in them books -- tolkien was a shitty writer.

He wasn't. He just ignored modernist sensibilities.

For example, you don't see the theological themes in LOTR because they're not packaged a way a modernist writer could digest them, but they're there, and they are powerfully handled.

Many people converted to Catholicism after reading LOTR. It's a powerful book.

[Anonymous No.2932449]

>>2932434
> tolkien was just some dumb bro.

Tolkien was a professor of English at Oxford. Calling him 'a dumb bro' just makes you look stupid, bro.

[Anonymous No.2932460]

>>2932448
>continues to repeat himself
>thinks that tolkien's ideological stance against modernism completely justifies limp prose and that i don't understand his argument
>thinks that the religious allegory in lotr is not totally heavy-handed and obvious but actually evidence of complexity

[Anonymous No.2932478]

King will

Though /lit/ hates him he has written some classic. Rowling and Myer only wrote one story

[Anonymous No.2932486]

>>2932449
Coincidentally, my great grandfather was a fellow at Pembroke when Tolkien was there. My relative was deeply weird and eccentric in the same way that many Brits of his class were at the time, and he was losing it a bit when I heard the story, but it's about Tolkien being a dumb bro so I may as well trot it out with this disclaimer.

Several among the fellows were very enthusiastic about wine. My impression is that to socialize with the fellows always meant getting politely soused, and so these wine loving fellows were able to convince the powers-that-be to purchase a rather large and very exquisite cellar's worth of wine from some titled Frenchman who'd squandered the family money.

[Anonymous No.2932487]

>>2932486

When the wine arrived, of course the fellows threw a party at which many more than the usual number of bottles were emptied. An Englishman of good breeding with a healthy drinking habit studiously maintains composure even when stinking drunk, and so the fellows got politely and quietly stinking drunk on some fine mid-19th century French bottles that would cost well upward of ten thousand pounds today.

Well, everyone was being quiet and polite, until Tolkien, who was digging through the crates for a new bottle, comes back into the room, opens the bottle, and just start chugging it. What a ridiculous scene it must have been -- all of these wonderful old dons in the impeccable atmosphere at Pembroke, and Tolkien is just spilling wine all over his clothes and the floor. Everyone was disgusted and the party ended abruptly.

Tolkien was inspired to his drinking "feat" by the discovery of a late 18th century bottle of Chateau Lafite. It turned out to have been the only bottle of its vintage in the collection, and it became a long running joke among the fellows that if the wine were to come out, Tolkien would be given his own bottle of some cheap swill while the other fellows plundered the French collection.

[Anonymous No.2932488]

>>2932460
>thinks that tolkien's ideological stance against modernism completely justifies limp prose and that i don't understand his argument

You somehow conflate in your mind 'virile prose' with 'modernist prose'. Read some mythological, medieval or even romanticist prose. Tolkien's prose is not remarkable or amazing, but very well done nontheless. (And anyways, the idea that the ultimate measure of a literary work is the quality of its 'prose' is a purely modernist idea.)

>thinks that the religious allegory in lotr is not totally heavy-handed and obvious but actually evidence of complexity

It's not obvious. The proof is that 99% of those who read LOTR think that it is an epic story about clear-cut 'good' and 'evil', when in fact the religious message in the novel is exactly the opposite.

[Anonymous No.2932507]

>>2932488

Where the hell is the Peake love, I want to know?

Man wrote his balls off, managed to be humorous and horrifying and strange all at once, and did it all without droning on for four fucking book w/ staid, prosaic dualisms of good & evil... unlike certain writers whose work has been enshrined because it's simpleminded & shiny enough to adapt to screen as a cartoon and/or CG shitfest.

I'm not Moorcock's biggest admirer, but I think he had it right when he compared Tolkein to fucking Winnie the Pooh. There's no complxity or literary value there, just a tea party that goes on too damned long.

[Anonymous No.2932510]

>>2932486
>>2932487
great story. i hope it's true and am surprised it hasn't aroused more comment.

[Anonymous No.2932512]

>>2932507
> w/ staid, prosaic dualisms of good & evil

There are no dualisms of good & evil in LOTR. LOTR is a complex work that you can only fully understand if you have a grasp of orthodox Christian theology.

It only seems like LOTR is 'prosaic', but only because you're trapped in modernist ideals. Modernism claims that 'good' and 'evil' are simply different points of view, and when Tolkien shows that evil is an objective fact of life your modernism-addled brain gets stuck in an infinite loop.

In reality LOTR has lots to say on the subjects of theodicy and free will, but none of it is 'prosaic' or 'dualistic'.

[Anonymous No.2932541]

>>2932512
you're being banal. quit it. there are lots of reasons that people can dislike tolkien that don't have to do with being "modernism-addled." it's utter bad faith argumentation to suppose that your interlocutor is merely too uninformed to understand the book.

plus you have totally ignored the hilarious story of tolkien actually being a dumb bro.

[Anonymous No.2932543]

>>2932541
> you're being banal. quit it. there are lots of reasons that people can dislike tolkien that don't have to do with being "modernism-addled." it's utter bad faith argumentation to suppose that your interlocutor is merely too uninformed to understand the book.

It is not bad faith. You used to word 'dualistic', which means that you understand absolutely nothing about Tolkien and the cultural context of LOTR, and that you don't have the modicum of intellectual background to say anything intelligent in this discussion.

> plus you have totally ignored the hilarious story of tolkien actually being a dumb bro.

What does this story have to do with LOTR and the quality of Tolkien's writing?

Especially when the alternative are the absolutely ridiculous clowns like Joyce and Faulkner. (As people, not as writers.)

[Anonymous No.2932545]

>>2932512

Fine, you want to play? /Murder/ is an objective act of evil. /Motivation/ is a separate thing, and absolutely must be considered if one is to properly punish the perpetrator of a crime. To punish a murderer without regard to the murderer's state of mind and/or possible justifications is /equally/ evil, because to act without compassion or justification for one's actions is the basis of evil. An eye for an eye is evil. I am saying that effect can never be separated from cause. One cannot adjudge an act without contemplating its motivation. Evil may be a thing, but it is not a thing by itself.

I am not muddying my waters with modernism. I am being rational.

You, on the other hand, are being a narrow-minded prick because you believe in supernatural whatsits being evil for the sake of evil, which is childish, primitive, superstitious, Manichean bollocks better suited to a Stephen King novel than an epistle on the evils of warfare, as LOTR is frequently purported to be. Am I to believe Gollum, Bilbo and Frodo were all tempted by "absolute power corrupting absolutely", or that they were warped by the ostensibly wicked spirit of the One Ring? I believe neither, because evil qua evil minus some sort of rationale is balls best suited to a comic book or video nasty like Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

[Anonymous No.2932556]

>2012
>Still caring about authors rather than the novels themselves and the ideas they represent.
You guys are too stupid to be reading. Sheeps.

[Anonymous No.2932558]

Why the fucking hell do you people care about who wrote the books? It's irrelevant.

[Anonymous No.2932566]

>>2932545
> To punish a murderer without regard to the murderer's state of mind and/or possible justifications is /equally/ evil, because to act without compassion or justification for one's actions is the basis of evil.

An absolutely knee-jerk statement that 100% grows out of modernist prejudices, not rationality.

> supernatural whatsits being evil for the sake of evil

If you had actually read LOTR you'd understand that it says nothing of the sort. In fact, the 'evil' characters in the novel are actually the noble, beautiful and rational characters. (Unlike the 'good' characters, which are actually all herp-derps.)

[Anonymous No.2932576]

>>2927772
>>2927772
Anyone have some feet pics of her?

[Anonymous No.2932580]

>>2932566
>
If you had actually read LOTR you'd understand that it says nothing of the sort. In fact, the 'evil' characters in the novel are actually the noble, beautiful and rational characters. (Unlike the 'good' characters, which are actually all herp-derps.)

You serious? You barely see anything from the evil people's side. Just some stuff at the start and when Gandalf talks to Saruman. Otherwise it is just the good guys and their boring flat characters.

[Anonymous No.2932582]

>>2932556
SHEEPS. SHEEPS. SHEEPS. SHEEPS. SHEEPS.
SHEEPS. SHEEPS. SHEEPS. SHEEPS. SHEEPS.
SHEEPS. SHEEPS. SHEEPS. SHEEPS. SHEEPS.
SHEEPS. SHEEPS. SHEEPS. SHEEPS. SHEEPS.

[Anonymous No.2932611]

If it's any consolation, the solar system will most likely be engulfed our own sun while transitioning to a supernova and wipe off any memory our culture had before we ever master a way to send our civilization to space.

[Anonymous No.2932613]

>>2932580
> You serious? You barely see anything from the evil people's side. Just some stuff at the start and when Gandalf talks to Saruman. Otherwise it is just the good guys and their boring flat characters.

Read the book, please. You sound like you just watched the abridged movie version.

[Anonymous No.2932618]

>>2927983
Hey there, Harold!

[Anonymous No.2932621]

I have never read the lotr

I started reading it as a kid but I got too bored at fourth chapter about hobbits walking through a forest

[Anonymous No.2932622]

>>2932621
good choice. it's pretty much the most boring book i've ever read.

[Anonymous No.2932626]

>>2932487
>>2932486
This story needs to be preserved in some manner if it hasn't been already.

[Anonymous No.2932648]

>>2932621
> I started reading it as a kid but I got too bored at fourth chapter about hobbits walking through a forest

Yeah, because it's a complex book and not for kids.

[Anonymous No.2932658]

Stephen King has really matured in his style, and I really did enjoy the Dark Tower for all its weirdness and issues.

Rowling's Potter books are fantastically fun and I figure they will age well.

Meyer not so much. Nor Suzanne Collins. They are dreadful at their art.

And at least E L James isn't the worst romance writer I've read.

I would figure King and Rowling will, in some form survive. Maybe not be remembered as all time greats, but at least receive some recognition. No worse remembered than Piers Anthony, is my guess.

[Anonymous No.2932660]

>>2932648
I think he's saying the narrative is boring (which I disagree), not complex.
lern2reed

[Anonymous No.2933043]

>>2932486
>>2932487
Shit, dudes. A passably written second hand account of Tolkien getting repulsively drunk and spilling wine all over himself at an Oxford party and nobody even cares. Isn't this what we're all here for?

[Anonymous No.2933053]

>>2933043
> Shit, dudes. A passably written second hand account of Tolkien getting repulsively drunk and spilling wine all over himself at an Oxford party and nobody even cares. Isn't this what we're all here for?

No. It's a boring story.

[Anonymous No.2933061]

>>2933053
i like the fact that it's impossible to relate to.

[Anonymous No.2933075]

>>2932566

Nigga, you trollin' hard. 'Knee-jerk' is to define evil as a pat thing from your golden throne, not to try & understand what induces it, which is my entire point. One must have the compassion to comprehend others in order to master one's own will, otherwise you won't have a measure by which to make righteous moral decisions. I'm saying evil has to be understood in order to be defined. You're just saying Evil Qua Evil, LA LA LA LA with your fingers in your ears.

What -precisely- was that avatar of malevolence, Sauron, trying to accomplish with his wiggy ring scheme? Aside from the typically two-dimensional supervillainy of establish totalitarian Total Control & Abolish Good? What -exactly- motivated Sméagol to kill Déagol? Because I don't buy the ring as an all-corrupting force, any more than I buy Sauron essentially being a fallen angel / demiurge figure. (He doesn't rate as Satan. I'll get to that in a minute.)

[ CAPTCHA: lingsdat Mehitabel ]

[Anonymous No.2933080]

>>2932566

How is Sauron's position as a subordinate swayed by the wickedness of Melkor in any way coherent? By making Melkor the ultimate source of *ahem* evil, all Tolkein really accomplished was to transform Sauron into a banal toady gone megalomaniacal, establishing a pass-the-buck pattern of "I may be evil, but so-and-so was Evil first..." Weak sauce. By positing Sauron as an analogue to Belial, or any of the other 'fallen angels' who followed Lucifer's hubris down, down, down, /Sauron's moral evil is diminished./ By the time of LOTR (in which we're getting this info-dumped on us wayyy after the fact, w/ little if any proof as to the truth of the tale outside the capital-E evil of the rings; christ, you have to read the Simarillion to try & puzzle it out) Sauron seems less a coherent antagonist than a petulant, vindictive force of nature. So he hated wasteful friction, so what? So he was second fiddle to the devil, so what? Am I to believe his intentions were genuine and he just... went bad, perverted by his own frustrated pride & lust for order? All the savagery he unleashed on Middle-Earth amounted to the exact confusion he abhorred. It. Makes. No. Sense.

[Anonymous No.2933083]

>>2932566


TLOR /completely/ hinges on passing the buck (which is a worse sin than moral relativism, in my view, and relativism is what you're alleging with your blind disdain for "modernism") and, yes, DUALITY, despite your protests of complexity. Just because the author says it's so, having constructed an elaborate mythos to bolster it, doesn't make his argument any less dualistic & simple-minded.

If anything, you seem to be suggesting modernism = moral decay, which is not only a backward attitude, it's the polar opposite of your blind faith approach in which good = everything the author / church (because Tolkein's cosmology = orthadox Catholicism, in your view) gave us from on high.

"It's evil because I said it is" is knee-jerk. You, sir, are a medieval-minded prig.

[Anonymous No.2933119]

>Catcher in the Rye
>Of Mice and Men
>Good
Nope. The books they make us read in high school are trash. They disregard anything good in an effort to make students enjoy reading. To Kill a Mockingbird, more like To Kill a Student's education.

[Anonymous No.2933127]

>>2933119

Christ, Catcher in the Rye is just AWFUL.

But y'know what's worse? Ethan Frome.

[Anonymous No.2933206]

>>2933119

[Anonymous No.2933221]

>>2933119
Samuel Beckett loved The Catcher in the Rye.

He thought it was a masterpiece.

Check mate.

[Anonymous No.2933306]

>>2932566

In case I've taken you to where the waters are too deep, let's retrench to the question of Gollum. Did he kill his cousin Déagol because he was merely greedy? Jealous? Covetous? Not according to Tolkein, no: Smé he killed Dé because he was /warped by the ring./ It was an Evil Curse that caused him to commit a criminal act, not his own desires & willful abandonment of them. And he didn't even know the ring would grant him special abilities with which to indulge in avarice, he just straight up strangled a member of his own family because the ring sensed Smé was the weaker, more malleable host.

Let me underline it: We're given more insight into the /motivations of an object/ than we are into the dude doing the killing. That is some medieval shit right there. That is tantamount to saying Smé was possessed by devils.

Now I don't know about you, but I define evil as the deliberate commission of a harmful act with knowledge of the consequences. Murder = wrongful death. What Tolkein constructed instead was murder compelled by a malevolent bauble. Did Sméagol have free will? Same as Bilbo, Frodo & the rest, the reader is given to suppose, but we're denied the same degree of insight into Sméagol as the others because he's already been distorted by the shiny magic of evil. It happened in seconds, in contrast to Bilbo & Frodo, who are somehow more good & righteous than weak li'l old Gollum.

Y'see where I'm going with this? I'm asking why you're enshrining /Tolkein's retroactive justifications for bad writing/ as being superior to "modern" curiosity re: the complexities of human nature.

[Anonymous No.2933312]

>>2933306

Gah, typos! The heat of argument poor sentence structure make.

[Anonymous No.2933319]

>>2933221

And I loved Watt. And William S. Burroughs loved The Godfather. Everyone is capable of bad taste.

[Anonymous No.2933535]

enid blighton and agatha christie are comparable I guess

shits readable in every direction and pleasant enough but not really nuanced enough (not that it was trying to be) to end up as a studied classic

stuff that marks a cultural/literary pinnacle/turning point will stick around

perhaps coupland or gibson

[Anonymous No.2933584]

>>2927938

honestly, now, have you actually read LOTR? that's going to endure as something more than a predecessor to children's books like Potter.

[Anonymous No.2933613]

>>2933535
mysterious affair at styles, the murder of roger ackroyd, and the murder on the orient express have a certain deserved canonicity, but i really hope that as interest in mystery studies expands we end up reading somebody who ever had a human feeling. christie's novels are what people imagine the genteel british mystery is: bizarre and intricate puzzle plots that bustle along inexorably in a haughty milieu, with every character including the detective all but wearing a suit with the words "i am merely a plot device" stamped on it. god i hate agatha christie.

[Anonymous No.2933634]

>>2927772
No, because the books you're talking about are junk books, "Roman de gare". Today, we've got great author like Regis Jauffret, Marc Dugain, ecaetera... They will be the Zola, Balzac... ecaetera.

[Anonymous No.2933639]

>>2933613
How do you feel about Ten Little Niggers? It's a lot less genteel than her serial novels and the characters are more complex, Vera in particular.

[Anonymous No.2933656]

>>2933639
that one probably belongs in that short list of christie stories that i will begrudgingly accept have any merit whatsoever but i think you are being too generous to suggest that the characters have any depth.

the most interesting thing about christie is her anomalous disinterest in human emotion. the least interesting thing about christie is poirot.

[Anonymous No.2933659]

>>2933656
oh, by the way, guys, the narrator is the murderer in roger ackroyd and everybody on the train takes part in the murder on the orient express.

[Anonymous No.2933727]

>>2933656
>i think you are being too generous to suggest that the characters have any depth.
On further consideration, I think you are right. Let's say that what she does with them is more interesting than her usual work. They act pretty much as any of her characters, which is kind of horrifying since they're all people who got away with murder and "should" be tormented by guilt. Instead they seemed to be living fairly decent lives until they decided to go on a vacation to an island with a rather questionable name.

Thus we have a cast without a single likable person, though we try to like Vera, since she's the POV character and seems to be a nice young woman. Instead, we discover she really did manipulate a young child into drowning himself. Even the avenger is difficult to read as heroic, since his plot was so sadistic. This is all pretty nihilistic for 1930's pop literature.

[Anonymous No.2933766]

>>2933727
it is an extreme situation, but the social world of christie's novels is absolutely filled with such bloodless nihilism. the abc murders is another one that sticks out in my mind as bizarrely macabre. goddamnit, you're almost making me think she has interesting qualities. perhaps one should match up ten little niggers with the gutting of couffignal.

[Anonymous No.2933781]

>>2928332
do you must to be fat to write this kind of shits?

[Anonymous No.2933785]

well austen and dickens were regarded suspiciously by critics because they were bestsellers. who knows what people will think 100 years from now.

[Anonymous No.2933797]

>>2933766
>the social world of christie's novels is absolutely filled with such bloodless nihilism
True, but the novels are usually about fixing such a situation. The archetypical Christie novel has the detective-hero making the world right again by arresting the sociopathic murderer, saving the innocent from being framed and uniting two young people as a couple. In TLN, she took out everything but the awful people and filled the entire cast with them*. Sure, they're all dead by the end, but we end up with the impression that there's plenty more of them outside the island.

*Actually, there are also the stock stupid policemen at the end who would have never been able to solve the crime if they hadn't found the killer's confession. The forces of good don't even get the satisfaction of figuring everything out for themselves.

[Anonymous No.2933999]

>>2933797
ah yes, the famous "restoration of threatened order" reading of the classic british mystery. while there's undeniably plenty of truth to it, i do feel that it underplays how fundamental disorder is to the mystery. it is portrayed as endemic to society, erupting everywhere. it is barely hindered by the heroic detectives who inevitably arrive too late and who, despite locking up or killing countless evildoers, have countless more evildoers to dispatch.

[Anonymous No.2934016]

>>2933781
No it's just that the fatties get more attention for writing shit. Small people who write shit are simply shit writers; fat people who write shit are called out for being both fat and shit writers.

[Anonymous No.2934033]

Writers may be classified as meteors, planets, and fixed stars. A meteor makes a striking effect for a moment. You look up and cry “There!” and it is gone forever. Planets and wandering stars last a much longer time. They often outshine the fixed stars and are confounded by them by the inexperienced; but this only because they are near. It is not long before they must yield their place; nay, the light they give is reflected only, and the sphere of their influence is confined to their orbit — their contemporaries. Their path is one of change and movement, and with the circuit of a few years their tale is told. Fixed stars are the only ones that are constant; their position in the firmament is secure; they shine with a light of their own; their effect today is the same as it was yesterday, because, having no parallax, their appearance does not alter with a difference in our standpoint. They belong not to one system, one nation only, but to the universe. And just because they are so very far away, it is usually many years before their light is visible to the inhabitants of this earth.

[Anonymous No.2934035]

>>2933999
>"restoration of threatened order"
Maybe it would be more accurate to think of lost rather than threatened order. The world has already fallen and the state's attempts to heal it via its organized police force are in vain, but the heroic individual can still make it better one mystery at a time.

[Anonymous No.2934043]

After reading Orwell's Bookshop Memories, when he worked in a book shop back in the 20's, he lists of all the popular authors that everybody was reading of the day... guess what? I've never heard of ANY OF THEM.

>Ethel M. Dell, Warwick Deeping , Jeffrey Farnol

Who the fuck are these faggots? Nobody could tell you nowadays, fame and fortunate are immediate, genius is eternal.

[Anonymous No.2934052]

>>2934033
The vast majority of stuff you see in the sky are fixed stars. Meteors are rare and the naked eye can only see five planets (not counting earth). They also always return to their prominent places after disappearing for a while. That's not a very good metaphor, Arthur.