[ 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: 153 KB, 1000x1250, 1325935544243.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2934955 No.2934955 [Reply] [Original]

>> No.2934957

Does anyone else think that GRRM might be a pedo?

>> No.2934961

>>2934957
If he's a pedo why did he make Arya so ugly?

>> No.2934963

But that Gatsby passage isn't particularly evocative, nor is it attempting to be.

>> No.2934993

is that a real passage from that book? christ man. that's gonna be strange when the show catches up.

>> No.2934996

>>2934955
10/10, a sly and very cunning troll.

(P.S. The Gatsby passage is actually atrocious writing. Martin's shlock, in contrast, is actually very well done technically even though he has nothing of substance to say.)

>> No.2934997

The quality is better, but it doesn't appeal to the masses as much. Most readers would have a hard time keeping up with the Great Gatsby because it flutters around the point a lot; however that is the charm in most classic novels. Martin's stuff is a bit basic but fun to read nonetheless, I don't think every book needs to ring out an important message for us take on. It's sort of like TV programs, sometimes I just want to watch Man vs Wild.

I enjoyed both books

>> No.2934999

>>2934996
>(P.S. The Gatsby passage is actually atrocious writing. Martin's shlock, in contrast, is actually very well done technically even though he has nothing of substance to say.)
7/10 made me pretty mad.

>> No.2935030

im gonna have to say that's a pretty fair description of diarrhea

GRRM can easily double as a medical writer

>> No.2935037

>>2934999
"Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to my book, was exempt from my reaction" -- this is very bad prose. Seriously, it is amateurish and very clumsy. It sounds like someone tried to emulate a florid 19th-century style but failed.

Martin uses alliteration correctly, has short and informative sentences that convey provocative imagery. A pretty decent mastery of his craft, inasmuch as he shows that he is a professional writer.

>> No.2935039

>>2934955
In regards to the final point about Martin, does anybody actually think that the type of characters Martin is writing about would actually say 'penis' or 'vagina'? That's got to be the most idiotic complaint about him that I've heard.

>> No.2935047

>>2934997
I don't understand what's fun about reading thousands of pages of sub-standard prose about rape and shitting.

>> No.2935055

That image is the definition of a tryhard making tryhard arguments in a tryhard attempt to try hard.

And now, I am leaving this thread, because it is not worth any more words.

>> No.2935060
File: 207 KB, 680x473, 1299493659604[1].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2935060

>>2935047
I know man, literally ever sentence is about rape or shitting. Sometimes both.

>> No.2935063

>>2935047
You've not even read it. Don't judge a book by it's cover, especially on /lit/.

>> No.2935084

>>2935047
> I don't understand what's fun about reading thousands of pages of sub-standard prose about rape and shitting.

It's a 10000-page soap opera. Plebs luuurve them some soap opera.

>> No.2935106

If that is an actual excerpt from Gatsby I'm never reading that crap.

>> No.2935130

>the fun argument

if it's so fun, why don't you just look at some picture books instead and save yourself some time? they both offer the same amount of intellectual discourse.

>> No.2935143

>>2935106
Then don't. No big deal.

>> No.2935294

I never understood people describing A Song of Ice and Fire as just 'fun'. I expect nearly all books are fun. Martin's series is a pretty remarkable achievement that unfortunately is often used as the butt of jokes here on this board by people who regard prose as the most important gauge of a book's quality. Martin's writing style is simple and achieves its purpose. Asoiaf isn't the story to use literary allusions and references and flowery prose; the books strengths would never be realized. I think it takes Martin's descriptive writing style to bring to life his characters and the world they live in. If he wrote the way half of /lit/ wants authors to write, his series would have been a giant clusterfuck.

>> No.2935324

not every author can be a poet, I mean, a song of ice and fire sells very well, so people like to read it.

That doesn´t make him the new pushkin (or whoever else lit likes) but well, people like him so he write well

also, have you never noticed that people like to read about and watch TV rape and shitting?

>> No.2935330

>>2935130
For many people, reading dense, complicated literature is "fun". The reason why the fun argument fails is not because "fun is bad." It's because not everyone shares the same notion of fun.

For many people, solving problems and thinking about the meaning of verse is as fun as an amusement park. For some people, an amusement park is the most boring place in the world.

And there it is.

>> No.2935347

>>2935037
That's perfectly acceptable prose you retard, what do they teach you in America? That commas are the devil?

>> No.2935353

>>2935037
I don't see what's wrong with that sentence at all.

Although I completely agree with your second line. Martin's style is very good at doing what it's intended to do.

>> No.2935364

>>2935294
Thank you.

>> No.2935488

>>2935347
> That's perfectly acceptable prose you retard, what do they teach you in America? That commas are the devil?

I never said it was unacceptable, merely that it is clumsy and unprofessional.

(Of course, it needs to be said that 'unprofessional' prose doesn't make a novel bad. In fact, it's easier for a professional writer to slather inane crap all over a 1000-page novel without ever saying anything of substance or making the reader bored, which is a very bad thing thing for literature.)

>> No.2935506

>responding to an ancient troll image

sage for extreme newfaggotry

>> No.2935522

If martin was trying to be humorous, he certainly succeeded.

>> No.2935569

That sounds like saying that The Naked Lunch sucks because they talk about sex and shit. That's like saying Ginsberg's Howl sucks, because he dreamt of "Cock and Endless Balls"...

There's no problem with calling things by their name

>> No.2935605

>>2934955
But who cares?

>> No.2935606

>>2935506

how is this a troll if everyone agrees?

>> No.2935611

>>2935294
>I expect nearly all books are fun.

Are they? I can think of plenty of books I was forced to read in school that I'd rather shoot myself in the face than read again.

>> No.2935614

>>2935606
because Quentin

>> No.2935632

I'd wager Martin can still out-write 99% of the wannabe writers on /lit/.

Deal with it.

>> No.2935633

>>2935632
Not if we had a submission deadline.

>> No.2935648
File: 66 KB, 637x478, calle.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2935648

LOOK AT OP AND HIS MOM

LOOK

>> No.2935654

>>2935648
>tfw you miss quients so bad it hurts sometimes, and you cry a little when reference to him is made, and negative comments make you want to burn the whole world down just to get at the people who made it. I miss quints, I loved you man, I LOVED YOU!

>> No.2935774

>>2935648
He's hot. I would definitely suck his cock.

>> No.2935797

>>2935488
Elaborate. Why is it unprofessional?

>> No.2935802

>>2935084
>book has compelling characters
>it must be soap opera

>> No.2935811

>>2935648

>you will never have a threesome with Quentin and his milf mom

>> No.2935855

>true observation follows a debatable statement
>guaranteed replies

>> No.2935859

If you want an example of eloquent use of the english language then read hard times by dickens.

>> No.2935983

>>2935797
> Elaborate. Why is it unprofessional?

Because using more words to say the same thing is a 100% obvious mark of an unprofessional writer.

The writer's job is to get rid of unnecessary words, not to pile on unneeded embellishing ones.

>> No.2935987

>>2935802
'A Shitstorm of Ice and Fire' is a soap opera with compelling characters. Yes, it's still a soap opera even if you like it. Learn to deal with it, there's no shame in liking soaps.

>> No.2935992

So it has nothing to do with fantasy vs. "literary fiction" and you acknowledge that science fiction and fantasy can be literary masterpieces?

>> No.2935997

>>2935983
The writer's job is to entertain, illustrate their ideas, and to manipulate the reader's emotions using text. If the mark of a good writer was succinctness and clarity, then much of the poetry we revere today would be "bad".

>> No.2935998

>>2935294
Imagine that ASOIAF was written in Salinger's style.
Heh, heh.
Heh.

>> No.2936000

>>2935983
Tell that to Faulkner, Chandler, Ellison, Poe, Whitman, Shakespeare, Pynchon, etc.

No. The writer's job is to create an experience worthy of the reader's time. That's all. Eliminating "unnecessary" words is just something some of them believe in.

Minimalism isn't the only valid kind of writing. I know that all the writing books preach it -- but that's because the purpose of writing books is to teach your average dummy how to craft something publishable. They have nothing to do with art, or with writers who actually have something to say.

>> No.2936015

>>2936000

Why is Shakespeare in there?

Sounds like you're just reading off books you read in school. Cool.

>> No.2936019

>>2936015
>not to pile on unneeded embellishing ones.
That was Shakespeare's bread and butter

>> No.2936024

>>2936019
And?
He's a playwright.

>> No.2936031

>>2936024
Yes. He was a writer.
He was also English and male.

>> No.2936040

>>2936019
here we go, someone else that perpetuates the fallacious "shakespeare was a dumbdumb head lel" stance.
just because he wasn't upper class doesn't mean he wasn't a genius.

>> No.2936055

ITT: People trying too hard

>> No.2936087

I just want writing that's comfortable to read and gets the message across. I'm fine with fancy writing as long as the author uses it right... In this case GRRMs writing is better than Scot Fitzgeralds.

>> No.2936092

>>2934996

i like you.

>> No.2936107

>>2936040
I never even once implied that. The point was to demonstrate how ridiculous the notion of minimalist prose being somehow being the best actually is.

>> No.2936112

>>2936040

Just because he wasn't nobility doesn't mean he wasn't upper class. He was proto-bourgeois. He owned a stake in the Babbage theatre.

>> No.2936478

It's a description of someone doing diarrhoea. Did people seriously expect such a passage to be written any other way? I dread the idea of an author using all the literary devices he/she could to describe diarrhoea.

I know op is trolling with that pic, but it and the 'Martin writes soap opera' card that everyone uses when attacking Asoiaf are just juvenile.

>> No.2936553

>>2936087
No, it isn't. I am a GRRM fan, but they aren't remotely comparable.

>> No.2936573

>>2936553
See
>>2934996

He is correct.

>> No.2936611

>>2934955
Actually, it's the shortness and repetitiveness of Martin's sentences which made me hate his books (but not the plot).

>> No.2937422

>>2936107
woops, linked to the wrong person, meant to link to the idiot you were talking to.

>> No.2937428
File: 38 KB, 450x307, DNA.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2937428

i ain't find nothin' funny bout hemmingway, he a fuckin' queer
and ya'll know my slogan -

GET'M THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!

NO! GET THAT GEAR THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!
GET THEM SNEERS THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!
GET THAT COFFEE SHOP MUG AND YA PEERS THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!
GET YA PEN THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!
GET YA BENZ THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!
GET THAT COCKY LITTLE SHITHEAD WITH MEDS THE FUCK OUTTA HERE!

I'MMA KILL THIS NIGGA!!!!!!

>> No.2937438

>>2937428
uh, savages.

>> No.2937442
File: 314 KB, 500x290, T WITTA CAPITOL.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
2937442

>>2937438

negged- fuck i'm not on that site anymore

>> No.2937457

>>2935983
You sound like you've taken too many creative writing classes in college. Working on an MFA?

Anyone who can't see what makes Fitzgerald better, just in the single quoted sentence alone, shouldn't open their mouth about 'quality'. Talk about what you like all day long, but do keep the intelligent discussions to the adults.

>> No.2937479

It's ironic.

>> No.2937501

>>2937457
> Anyone who can't see what makes Fitzgerald better, just in the single quoted sentence alone, shouldn't open their mouth about 'quality'. Talk about what you like all day long, but do keep the intelligent discussions to the adults.

Define 'quality', nitwit. Like I said -- the quotes demonstrate that Martin is a professional writer while Fitzgerald isn't.

Whether that makes Martin more 'quality' is up to you to decide. (In fact, the vast majority of the world's great literature wasn't written by professional writers. Some of it was even written by illiterates, i.e. people who couldn't even read or write.)

>> No.2937582

One is reminded that the primary meaning of amateur is lover, versus profess and profession, which in English referred originally to the vow made by one entering a religious order (in Latin, profession is a public declaration). Thus, from the beginning, professionalism stood for contraction, deprivation, ascetic refusal of the manifold life.

All the great writers were amateurs.

>> No.2938406

>>2937501
You haven't demonstrated anything and I find it quite amusing that you actually think you have. Phrases like 'professional writer' are ludicrously vague and yet you use them as if they explain everything.

Quality, you say? Fine, let's talk quality. Qualitatively we could begin with things like syntax, diction, or melody; any of these places work and all of them show the truth, but let's go with simple analysis that anyone can understand, and let's start at the beginning.

"I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever." We'll start easily enough, what is he saying? He is saying he wants the world to make sense; that's really quite obvious. How, though, is he saying it? By turning the world into a soldier, by placing it in uniform (a double meaning, that) and telling it to stand at attention. This not only gets his point across, that Nick wanted order, but gives us a comparison by which to draw measures thereof. Our mind can associate the order Nick speaks of to the order of military, and a simple concept now has new associations being made.

I could go on about that sentence, but I don't feel the need. The point is, Fitzgerald's mastery of writing is so complete that he can take the simplest statement of 'Nick wanted a world that made sense' and turn it into something more, and he can do it easily. He can do it for nearly every line of every paragraph on every page. He can make every line interesting and into something more than a simple declarative 'Nick wanted order'.

THAT is mastery of a language. THAT is quality.

>> No.2938410

>>2938406
(Cont)
The passage of Martin isn't particularly offensive to me, and I don't think it is particularly damning. Someone chose it because it talks about shit, but that isn't what makes it less than Fitzegerald. Martin writes in simple, single-meaning language that doesn't paint a picture. I imagine most of us, writers or not, when tasked with describing shit, are going to say something about it smelling and the color and maybe the sound. A good writer does more and says more and does it in a way that not everyone can do.

The only line of Martin's that gives a modicum of superior writing is the first. "Sunset found..." is actually fairly clever. Martin does something unexpected and different than what the average person would do (the mark of a writer) by making the sun the subject of the sentence. Our brain processes information differently depending on it's ordering and wording -- this is the same reason people incorrectly think they should say 'That music sounds awful to Mark and I". I is used incorrectly there, but it sounds better because it isn't common. The same could be said for the sun sentence. Switch subjects, change perspective, and you have something unique.

Now, I already said if you LIKE Martin that is fine, and I'm not going to give two-shits or give YOU two shits for doing so, but there is a world of difference between these two writers, and if you want to say QUALITATIVELY that Martin is better then you don't have a leg to stand on.

You may say that he has better appeal to a larger audience, and in that, I will probably agree. You may say he uses less words and he gets the point across quicker and more easily and to that, as well, I would agree. However, mass appeal and ease of access don't mark quality. That's why a pretty whore with her legs spread open isn't marked as the perfect woman.

>> No.2938454

>>2938406
>>2938410
Thank you for explaining this argument without being an asshole.

>> No.2938499

>>2938406
> "I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever." We'll start easily enough, what is he saying? He is saying he wants the world to make sense; that's really quite obvious. How, though, is he saying it? By turning the world into a soldier, by placing it in uniform (a double meaning, that) and telling it to stand at attention. This not only gets his point across, that Nick wanted order, but gives us a comparison by which to draw measures thereof. Our mind can associate the order Nick speaks of to the order of military, and a simple concept now has new associations being made.

Sorry, but that's a shit sentence.

Why? Because 'sort of' is redundant here (and makes the author sound like he's doubting his own style, which is always a faux pas), and because 'moral attention' is two words in English which don't combine to form a meaningful phrase.

Also, 'I wanted' implies first-person speech, but the rest of the phrase ('in uniform and at moral attention') is spoken English speech. Nobody ever talked like that.

I might let that phrase slide if it was meant to be from a letter written by an unreliable narrator, but, frankly, I don't think Fitzgerald can pull off something difficult like that.

I'll concede one thing, though: Fitzgerald has a unique voice, Martin sounds exactly like any generic for-profit middlebrow writer pandering to an HBO audience.

>> No.2939065

>>2938410
>>2938406
But Martin clearly isn't about mastery of language. The voice that he uses to tell his story is sufficient for what he intends to achieve. His writing style obviously isn't meant to be an accomplishment by itself. It's rather meant to act as a support to his real strengths. Things like his characters and the nature of his invented society. This is what Martin is about. Simple language that succeeds in description, plot advancement and dialogue is what is needed. His characters are just as complete and realized and fascinating and shocking as almost any authors' I've encountered. The difference being that the authors /lit/ generally regards as 'great' tend to 'tell' the reader about their characters through great prose. We witness their thoughts and emotions brought to life with fantastic language. It's right there in our faces, in the very words we're reading.

Martin leaves his characters to be properly discerned and understood through their actions, decisions and places within the world. He doesn't analyse them with his prose. He leaves that for the reader to do by considering the individual journeys and stories of the characters. This is how we come to learn of his characters' turmoils and drives, as well of the 'character' of the world he has built. This is Martin's style, and it's necessary to understand in order to appreciate his books.

I feel it's pretty unfair to dismiss an author who doesn't abide to a certain way of telling a story.

>> No.2939189

>>2938499
>Also, 'I wanted' implies first-person speech, but the rest of the phrase ('in uniform and at moral attention') is spoken English speech. Nobody ever talked like that.
Que? How are 'first-person speech' and 'spoken English speech' mutually exclusive? How do you conclude that these words on a page are 'spoken' as opposed to 'written'?

>> No.2939204

>>2938499
>because 'moral attention' is two words in English which don't combine to form a meaningful phrase
So you have no idea what it means, then? 'Sort of' helps out here, I think, by drawing attention to the fact that it's not a conventional use of words. With that clue that he's figuratively describing his thoughts, I don't think many readers are going to find those two words meaningless.

>> No.2939236

>purple prose
>mastery of language

Holy shit.

>> No.2939270

>>2939236

/lit/ has no idea what purple prose means. Fuck off.