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/lit/ - Literature

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3712205 No.3712205 [Reply] [Original]

What is, in your opinion, the greatest piece of fiction ever written?

To be clear, not "What is your favourite book/film", but rather what is
"The objectively best written piece of fiction ever".

>> No.3712210

Don Quixote or The Odyssey.

Any other answer is wrong.

>> No.3712213

>>3712210
>not War and Peace

>> No.3712221

>>3712213

Heh.

No.

>> No.3712225
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3712225

>in your opinion
>objectively

wut?

>> No.3712227

>>3712210
>not 50 shades of grey.

>> No.3712229

>>3712221
Gargantua>Don Quixote

The Iliad>The Odyssey

Fucking pleb you disgust me

get it together.

>> No.3712238

>>3712225
Well, it is impossible to claim true objectivity, so it's more about, asking people without including their knowing/consensual bias.
but yeah, I should have worded that differently.

>> No.3712260
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3712260

>>3712229

>Gargantua>Don Quixote

I bet you're the kind of faggot who always needs to cite something slightly less known.

It's a great book, but If you think Gargantua is more timeless and universal than Don Quixote you're a fool.

>> No.3712278

That's a stupid question. The closest /lit/ will get to answering it will be giving some crotchety old literary scholar's opinion on the matter. No one on /lit/ has read enough to have an accurate opinion on this matter. I doubt anyone has, frankly.

>> No.3712279

War and Peace.

>> No.3712288

The Iliad.

>> No.3712293

>>3712260
You wot m8

Gargantua is pretty well known and is used a as pretty common adjective.

The literary merit of Gargantua is far superior. Of course Don Quixote's humor is easier to understand without context and makes children laugh, but the social critic of Gargantua is way more interesting and clever.

>> No.3712295

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy...?

>> No.3712300
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3712300

>inb4 people that havent read it tell me im wrong

>> No.3712302

Epic of Gilgamesh. All other answers are jokes.

>> No.3712306

>>3712260
I bet you're the kind of faggot who shouts edgy at everyone because he's too insecure about his approval-chasing approach to literature and overcompensates by exalting the 'classics'

>> No.3712310

>>3712238
>impossible to claim true objectivity

I claim that this is objectively false.

>> No.3712311

>>3712302
It's a pretty good read, but it's FAR from the height of imaginative literature.

>> No.3712313

>>3712311
lol

suck it nig

>> No.3712316

>>3712295
best, anon

he said best

>> No.3712320

Ulysses

>> No.3712323

>>3712210
>Don Quixote
>ficcion

>> No.3712322

>>3712302
You've got to be kidding. You have to know almost nothing about the Epic to say that. It's composed of fragments, at best.

A few that haven't been mentioned:
Grimm's Fairy Tales
Njals Saga
Mahabharata
Divine Comedy
The Sound and the Fury
Faust

>> No.3712326

>>3712313
>muh girugameshu

>> No.3712327

>>3712322
>any of the stuff you listed
>relevant

pick none, hang yourself.

>> No.3712334

Yo yo yo shout out to my Indian niggas. Throwin' the Vedas out there.

>> No.3712335

I'm going to go out on a very long limb here and say Ficciones.

>> No.3712337

The right answer is, of course, Hamlet.

>inb4 no plays allowed

>> No.3712342

>>3712337
King Lear is better

>> No.3712347

>>3712337
Plays welcome.
Along with cinema and TV/radio shows.

>> No.3712348

>>3712306

Speaking of insecure I like how you take shots at popular classics because you think it gives you an air of erudition byproxy.

You desperate hipster faggot.

>> No.3712358

People will laugh at me but why not Diaboliad by Boulgakov. If we're taking sheer imaginative strenght and not literary quality as a whole (because this thread is quickly devolving into yet another "best literarure of all times"). And also because I have read it, so I can compare it with other things I have read. I would have said the Comedy but it was already taken.
If you want a big world with plenty of characters, try Shakespeare's plays as a whole, Balzac's Human Comedy, Zola's works n the Rougon-Macquart (a set of twenty volumes about a family that spans the whole Second Empire French society). Lautréamont deserves a shot at most daring envisioner, and Tolstoy and Hugo deserve one (each) at most encompassing writers.

>> No.3712364

>>3712334

Also I can't believe nobody here gives a shit about the Qur'an. That must be some good shit if the entirety of Islam is based around the text itself. So shout out to all them Muslin niggas out here, I'm givin' you dat Qu'ran.
The four Chinese classics should also be up there, along with Kant's Groundwork or Critique of Pure Reason, Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Metaphysics, something by Aquinas, and maybe Wittgenstein's Investigations. And Bible, obviously.

>> No.3712365

>>3712335
Ah ! Nice one. Then I'd like something by Cortazar but maybe not Hopscotch or however it is written. Unfortunetaly I can't remember the names.

>> No.3712390

The Great Gatsby

>> No.3712392

>>3712390
yeah this.

>> No.3712395

Notes From the Underground.

>> No.3712397

Moby Dick if we're counting points for content

shit covers everything from whale tits, to progressive social values, to international politics, to 18th century science and mathematics, all in the context of hunting the world's largest predator

>> No.3712409

Moby-Dick

>> No.3712472
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3712472

>>3712337
Doc Faust for play/drama if it was its own category.

I'm not going to pretend like I have an answer for any others.

>> No.3712484

Midnight's Children

>> No.3712492

>>3712229
>>3712288

The Iliad. It isn't even a question. All work by the Latin patristics was based on Greek literature. All Greek literature was based on the Homeric poems.

>> No.3712505

Illiad and Odessy.
It cannot be beaten in terms of influence, universal appeal, and shear fucking staying power. Christ. The Greeks loved it, the Romans loved it, the Renaissance loved it, the Enlightenment loved it, the Romantics loved it, and so on and so forth.

>> No.3712519
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3712519

King Lear
or The Divine Comedy

>> No.3712540

Starship Troopers

>> No.3712551

Don Quixote

>> No.3712559

Book of the New Sun

>> No.3712568

>>3712205

Sam and the Firefly. Anything else is psuedo-fagtellectual.

>> No.3712570

>>3712505
This.

>> No.3712571

The Iliad.

>> No.3712574

For what it's worth coming from a Classics PhD student, I wouldn't put the Iliad on top. I love it, know it backwards and forwards - though maybe studying so much has dried out some of its magic as pure literature -, and will probably write my dissertation on it but I wouldn't have the slightest hesitation to pick Proust.

>> No.3712577

>>3712505

what's so great about the odessey

>> No.3712584

>>3712364
OP asked for fiction. all your answers are philosophy/metaphysics
well, yeah the religious ones are fiction, but you know what I mean

>> No.3712586

>>3712574
is it worth reading Proust in english?

>> No.3712587

>>3712347
what about operas or concept albums?

>> No.3712590

>>3712577
>no faggot emo Achilles shitting the book up
>Odysseus is GOAT
>dat loyal swineherd ;_;
>dat executing all the suitors ans slut-maids

>> No.3712610

>>3712586

sure. but French or English, he'll still kick your cock around the block if you cant into dense old-school prosiness

>And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the piece of madeleine soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening onto the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And as the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on color and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea.

>> No.3712612

>>3712586
Certainly. The modern library revisions of the original moncrieff are deservedly legendary for quality of English translation. There's also a new set out from Penguin that I've heard good things about but haven't seen personally. They supposedly make a more concerted effort to capture his humor - Proust is subtly funny almost everywhere but it takes a while to catch the flow of it - and the unique verbal tics he gives various secondary characters but they used a different translators for each volume so I'm suspicious about how well the whole thing can cohere.

>> No.3712614

>>3712574

I'd disqualify the Iliad on grounds that it's not exactly fiction. Epic poetry doesn't count, or the Epic of Gilgamesh - fragmentary though it be - would walk away with the prize.

>> No.3712631

>>3712610

this is from Kilmartin's revision of Moncrieff, by the way. I like it best, although there's another revision after that. Some people feel strongly about Lydia Davis' translation of Swann's Way (from the Penguin version mentioned in >>3712612), but since she doesn't do the other volumes as well I can't say I see the point.

>> No.3712632

>>3712614
Isn't it obvious this thread is about Western civ?

>> No.3712633

>>3712632

It seemed to me that it was about fiction.

>> No.3712641

>>3712574
I fear for the future of our classics.

However, since you are posting on 4chan, I doubt you will come up with anything innovative or influential

>> No.3712645

>>3712632

in what sense are the mesopotamians not the ground floor of western civilization though?

>> No.3712653

>>3712645
Influence. Who did the Epic of Gilgamesh influence? Who did Homer influence? Honestly answer those two questions honestly and you have your answer

>> No.3712656

>>3712653

>Who did the Epic of Gilgamesh influence?

Uh...Homer, actually. read The East Face of Helicon.

>> No.3712673

>>3712641
You're probably right but I'm content with scholarly mediocrity since it gives me time to explore other subjects and become a better teacher. To your other point - or what I gather is its implication - I'd still take Greek lit, art, and philosophy as a whole over that of any other culture. I don't see any inconsistency in not maintaining that because I believe the aggregate is greatest I must also believe the individual is greatest.

>>3712656
This is a quality recommendation. But keep in mind that West (the author) is better at drawing attention to apparent points of similarity than actually pursuing their implications. He does the same in a later book about Indo-European poetics.

>> No.3714753

>>3712587
Why the fuck not?

>> No.3714765

Hamlet.

>> No.3714774

If on a winter's night a traveller

>> No.3714783

The very hungry caterpillar.

>> No.3714824

>>3712397
And sweet sweet interracial man man bed sharing.

>> No.3715175

How do you quantify greatness?

If you mean by influence of that on other works prospective--I'd argue Hamlet, The Odyssey, Ulysses, Faust, as well as others. As far as personal opinion if instead you mean by artistic merit, I would say Ulysses.

>> No.3715216

Nigga, do you even Beowulf?

>> No.3715292

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Fucking literary masterpiece.
Hands down the greatest fictional piece of all time.

>> No.3715376

>>3712337
Proper answer is the first folio.
You get the Shakespeare Multi-Pack.

>> No.3715383

>>3712574

If we're going on pure textual merit and not influence this guy has the right call imo. That or Ulysses.

>> No.3715702

Lolita was arguably the most well written.

>> No.3715733

>>3715702

lol. big fat lol.

>> No.3715738

I'd agree with Iliad, Proust and Joyce.
Anti-pick: anything Dostoevsky.

>> No.3715741

>>3715733
She was Lol, big fat lol in the morning...

>> No.3715751
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3715751

this movie

>> No.3715753
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3715753

this movie

>> No.3715773
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3715773

>>3715292
Brown bear, brown bear, what do you see?
I see best fiction looking at me

>> No.3715780
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3715780

>>3715753
>>3715751