/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.3713943]

Post the worst book you've ever had the displeasure of reading.

This was just awful.

[Anonymous No.3713974]

Bad books that try to be art are far worse than honest pleb-tier fiction. It's like how The Mars Volta is way worse than Nickelback because at least Nickelback isn't pretentious.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was my second choice.

[Anonymous No.3713977]

>>3713974

I pretty much agree with you, but the Mars Volta is at least incidentally interesting.

[Anonymous No.3713992]

'The Mysteries of Udolpho', by Ann Radcliffe. So bad, it's exhausting.

[Anonymous No.3713996]

>>3713974
>The Mars Volta is way worse than Nickelback

Saying this is not funny. There are many people who actually believe it, and it is quite sad.

[Anonymous No.3713999]

I want to say mcteague but I feel like it was much better than I thought, but that I only gathered the story at face value. maybe I'm just a fucking pleb. so second choice would have to be dan browns deception point. I don't even know what compelled me to pick it up

[Anonymous No.3714003]

I have a pretty bad memory, so I can forget bad books usually. Worst thing I read in recent memory was probably Solstice, and even that wasn't all that bad, to be honest, just the author was incredibly clumsy with just about everything.

[Anonymous No.3714005]

[Anonymous No.3714038]

>>3713974
I hope you're trolling. when I listen to the mars volta its very indulgent and has absurdist intellectual leanings to the hilt. that's the entire point though, its a purely personal project where they explore whatever they want to. I don't know any musical group in the spotlight that's half as punk and fearless as they are. its not the criticism of their music that gets to me its when people don't particularly enjoy their music they offhandedly dismiss it as pretentious. it boggles my mind

[Anonymous No.3714044]

>>3713974

>The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was my second choice.

just recently gave up on it, halfway through.

[Anonymous No.3714046]

>>3714038

Their music is enjoyable but they're hardly 'punk' or 'fearless'. Stop, please.

>absurdist intellectual leanings

dear god...

[Anonymous No.3714048]

'Peig', by Peig Sayers

It's not that it's badly written, exactly. At least not in Irish, I guess in English it probably sounds sort of clunky. Judge for yourself.
>I am an old woman now, with one foot in the grave and the other on its edge. I have experienced much ease and much hardship from the day I was born until this very day. Had I known in advance half, or even one-third, of what the future had in store for me, my heart wouldn't have been as happy or as courageous it was in the beginning of my days.

But everything about it is just so dreary. We get it, your family's dead. Stop putting on the poor mouth.

[Sunhawk !!lBw8MvFP7V7 No.3714049]

>>3714044
>>3713974

Plebs.

[Anonymous No.3714057]

>>3713996

It's true. You can use experimentalism as a means to an end, and it's great. Using it as the end goal of what you're doing makes for bad art. Current 93, Donald Barthelme, Damien Hirst--when you're doing new things just to be doing them the aesthetic goal of art becomes secondary and you end up with Bad Art that people call good because of the Emperor's New Clothes effect.

Nobody actually likes these things. They might be interesting, and people like to think they're cultured enough to like them, but they boil down to sophistry.

[Anonymous No.3714062]

>>3714046
you are completely right, with that smug response you have proven my entire argument incorrect.
how is the music not punk? do you even music history bro? punk became an idea of how music should be made long after the genre was established in the 70's.

[Anonymous No.3714063]

>>3714057

>the aesthetic goal of art

Is no longer monolithic.

You're a class-a moron.

>bad art

Read more.

[Anonymous No.3714065]

>>3714049
>Sunhawk calling anyone a pleb

my lels are in orbit

[Anonymous No.3714066]

>>3714062

Please elaborate for the class on The Mars Volta as punk.

I'll be here.

[Anonymous No.3714068]

>>3714057
nobody actually likes these things.

except when they do, or until you try to come up with an argument that says they don't really

[Anonymous No.3714069]

>>3714065

>pleb can't recognize a fauxhawk when he sees one

shocking.

[Anonymous No.3714075]

>>3714063

If aesthetic appeal isn't a primary goal, then how is it art? Why even put it in the same category?

>Read more.

Substantive refutation, comrade. Are you intending to imply that there is no such thing as Bad Art?

[Anonymous No.3714076]

>>3714069
Please, Sunhawk has long ceased to be any individual, but has instead become a way of life, a title, indicating certain views and tastes and idiosyncrasies, almost a clique, or a cult, a modern day order of the templars, people bound together by beliefs.

When I refer to sunhawk i refer not to the person once known as sunhawk, but to the entity now referred to as such.

[Anonymous No.3714078]

>>3714075

>If aesthetic appeal isn't a primary goal, then how is it art?

It is art because it is seen as such.

>there is no such thing as Bad Art?

Only that which you define as said, using whatever referents you choose.

[Anonymous No.3714080]

>>3714076

This is untrue, though. The author may be dead but he's still living.

[Anonymous No.3714086]

>>3714075
Duchamp's Fountain

the basic elementary argument. its art because you see it as art. the perception gives way to reality.

>implying quality of art isn't indefinitely based on the individual.

[Anonymous No.3714091]

>>3714068

My argument is that there's not much there to like, aesthetically I mean. So what you're "liking" isn't the work itself, but rather its reputation or formal features that aren't actually authentic. You might like it, but you can't like it as art because artistically it's vapid.

[Anonymous No.3714090]

>>3714080
The author lived once, but might as well have never lived. What was once the author, what was once the man, has merged with the entity. He is a drop, rolling down sands, filtering through earth, and joining with the ocean. He can no longer exert any independence, forces beyond his, or any individual's, control now dominate the hivemind. He may say "I am the real sunhawk" but so too can any other, and perhaps he was, at one point, but the name of sunhawk is no longer his. He is a single cell in a behemoth.

[Anonymous No.3714098]

>>3714091

>there's not much there to like, aesthetically I mean.

Untrue.

>So what you're "liking" isn't the work itself, but rather its reputation or formal features that aren't actually authentic

How can you make this call?

>you can't like it as art

oh, so you're an idiot. alright, later.

[Anonymous No.3714100]

>>3714076
what the fuck are you talking about?
sunhog is still around and is still being a big faggot. his trip in M9something

[Anonymous No.3714101]

>>3714078

>It is art because it is seen as such.

Ah, the Bjork argument. That's the defining criterion? Very well then, this post is art. Earth is art and the Sun is art.

>>3714086

I'm familiar, but I'd categorize the Fountain as a statement about art rather than art in and of itself. The idea that is taking precedence is instrumental--he wants to make you think about what is and isn't art (among other things).

[Anonymous No.3714105]

>>3714101

>Very well then, this post is art. Earth is art and the Sun is art.

Is this somehow news to you? Are you in high school?

[Anonymous No.3714107]

>>3714091
but I do like it for its aesthetic, I like it for the content itself, I like it as a product, I like it as a piece of art I can also enjoy. I enjoy it on many different dimensions.
where I think your going wrong is that you think there has to be a definitive groundwork basis on which you can base how much you enjoy something, and also forgetting that another individual will never enjoy things on the same level you do. you seem to have a hard time accepting it.

[Anonymous No.3714110]

>>3714105

If everything is art, that means nothing is. The term loses all meaning.

[Anonymous No.3714114]

>>3714110
my sides are in orbit

[Anonymous No.3714117]

>>3714110

Everything CAN be defined as art. That's up to you. And me. The term doesn't have any inherent meaning beyond how it's defined.

>explaining subjectivism to a child

[Anonymous No.3714119]

>>3714110
But of course everything isn't art. Only what people think is art is art, and nothing more.

It's theoretically possible that everything could be art, if people believed it to be art, but that's a ludicrous hypothetical with no basis in reality.

Art is the result of complicated, impercebtible interactions between individuals, groups, and - on a macro scale - humanity in general. W

[Anonymous No.3714125]

>>3714117
>>3714114

You guys like your personal attacks, don't you.

>Everything CAN be defined as art. That's up to you. And me. The term doesn't have any inherent meaning beyond how it's defined.

How is that related to what I said? If you define "art" to mean "anything and everything that can be thought of as art," that boils down to "everything is art" and your definition is useless. "Art" becomes a meaningless word, so we might as well not even use it.

Also, I think you meant "subjectivity."

[Anonymous No.3714135]

>>3714125

I did mean subjectivity, thank you.

> If you define "art" to mean "anything and everything that can be thought of as art," that boils down to "everything is art" and your definition is useless.

What the fuck does utility have to do with it? It's the nature of language.

[Anonymous No.3714136]

>>3714119

what this man rings true, also anything a person perceives as art fits into this category of the interactions, thoughts, and emotions an individual has when he decides what is art and what isn't. by that logic, anyone can choose for themselves what art is

[Anonymous No.3714138]

>>3714119

>It's theoretically possible that everything could be art, if people believed it to be art, but that's a ludicrous hypothetical with no basis in reality.

So you're saying there's another important difference between what is art and what isn't. I agree, but what is that difference? What makes The Last Supper art and the Pleiades, or my car, not?

[Anonymous No.3714140]

>>3714125
You ignored the one person who actually rationally responded to you.

A nice touch.

7/10

[Anonymous No.3714146]

>>3714138
in my opinion, if you perceive it to be art

[Anonymous No.3714147]

>>3714138

>What makes The Last Supper art and the Pleiades, or my car, not?

You can use whatever metric you choose. There are plenty out there.

[Anonymous No.3714149]

>>3714005
What did you dislike about it?

[Anonymous No.3714150]

>>3714135

Because words are valuable insofar as they are useful. If a word is useless it doesn't communicate anything and has no value.

[Anonymous No.3714155]

>>3714138
The fact that people think they're art. The reasons people think they're art are myriad. At one point it was if the art showed realism, showed skill, invoked emotion, or perhaps had religious or cultural significance.

Now I think those aspects remain, but are more subtle, cloaked in shadow and rhetoric.

[Anonymous No.3714160]

>>3714150

>if a word is useless it doesn't communicate anything

But it's not useless because it is personally defined. It communicates something different for everyone. The value is inherent in the use of the word.

[Anonymous No.3714161]

I love the smell of /lit/ in the morning

[Anonymous No.3714165]

>>3714150
Now we're getting into semiotics, which I don't think is the subject of this thread.

[Anonymous No.3714172]

>>3714146

Bjork thinks everything is music. Hypothetical Mr. X thinks everything is art. We're still left with a fairly useless term that does nothing to clarify (what I hope should be obvious) differences between The Last Supper and the Pleiades.

>>3714147

So there isn't and needn't be an agreed-upon definition?

>>3714160

Yes, but a word with no distinctive value doesn't have any meaning. Not to mention the fact that we're trying to communicate about art here, and if everyone has their own private and conflicting definitions, we can't really get very far.

LessWrong is a little cultish, but here's a great page about language and the ways it can fail: http://lesswrong.com/lw/od/37_ways_that_words_can_be_wrong/

[Anonymous No.3714176]

>>3714172

>So there isn't and needn't be an agreed-upon definition?

There ARE agreed-upon definitions, but these are socially/culturally learned and are by their nature temporal.

>if everyone has their own private and conflicting definitions, we can't really get very far.

This has been the nature of art discussion for the past 60 years.

[Anonymous No.3714196]

>>3714176

>There ARE agreed-upon definitions, but these are socially/culturally learned and are by their nature temporal.

But ought there to be? "You can use whatever metric you choose" seems to imply that there aren't any "better" or "worse" definitions, so I could say that the Pleiades and only the Pleiades are art. That leaves everyone arguing from different starting points, unable to really communicate meaningfully.

>This has been the nature of art discussion for the past 60 years.

To an extent, but I think the point is finer than that. I don't think anybody really claims that we can't come to an informed consensus--actually, most aesthetics centers around ways of coming to a common definition, not professing complete aporia.

[Anonymous No.3714204]

>>3714196
>most aesthetics centers around ways of coming to a common definition, not professing complete aporia.

This is also true of ethics, but all they're doing is gathering consensus on arbitrary parameters. One can still choose to believe that the Pleiades and only the Pleiades are art. That's all that art would be to that person.

Things like art and ethics don't exist in a vaccuum. They're assumed into being and reinforced for any number of reasons, often social or personal/emotional ones.

[Anonymous No.3714237]

I tried reading it again 5 years later. I still can't sympathize with her teenage dramas. Fuck it, I can't sympathize with HER. What a piece of little shit cunt she was.

[Anonymous No.3714249]

>>3714237
Did you read the uncut version where Anne is a lesbian?

[Anonymous No.3714257]

>>3714237

You probably think Catcher in the Rye was a bad novel too, amirite?

[Anonymous No.3714274]

>>3714257
Fuck no. I actually devoured that shit in High School.

>>3714249
That explains her fascination in one entry with the female breasts and vagina.

[Anonymous No.3714281]

>>3714057
Your point is right, but citing C93 as experimentalism being misused as an end demonstrates misunderstanding of a lot of Tibet and Stapleton's project. Some of their work is experimentalism as an end, like Faust, and that quotient is shit. Faust is particularly terrible.

However, the majority of their discography is experimental but established by a good guitar, like Hitler as Kalki and Emblems. I write this so no one is misled about C93: some of the stuff is overexperimental tripe, but the majority forms some of the most emotionally powerful music I've ever heard.

[Bob Sage It !!ntyQNA7sf8L No.3714320]

I read some stupid book about teenagers but it was just filled with political bullcrap. I don't even like politics, but basically it was an angry libtard writing a story aimed at teens that was filled with the most blatant suggestions of universal health care and gun control. I hope this post doesn't derail the thread, I am not trying to take a stance on these political issues, but I am saying that the book was a poor attempt to hide her views on these issues within a narrative.

I can't remember the name of the book, I hated it so much I threw it out. I was probably 13 when I read it.

[Anonymous No.3714348]

>>3714281

Yeah I was kinda typing on the fly, maybe I painted with too broad a brush. I will say their album Black Ships Ate the Sky is fantastic at times. I just generally dislike the mindset that goes into making "experimental art" for the sake of it being experimental, because a lot of artists are able to push the envelope for a better reason than just to do it.

[Anonymous No.3714362]

>>3714348
Yeah. I'm no aesthetician, but I think good art has some connection between the means and the end, and so experimentalism for its sake alone is bland, like plastic fruit.

[Anonymous No.3714404]

I read Perks of Being a Wallflower for whatever reason.

What a load of wank, and one of the few things I would label "pretentious". It was like someone read Catcher in the Rye but tried to modernize it by making it much more accessible with its core fanbase being people who browse Tumblr.

[Anonymous No.3714415]

Ugh, I hate Thomas Hardy with a passion.

[Anonymous No.3714441]

>>3714415
I hate him because he never published a sequel :(

[Anonymous No.3714524]

I read most of Scientology books.

Oops!