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/lit/ - Literature

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4112714 No.4112714[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Let's make ourselves feel better by pointing out some really cool people, heroes even - that failed hard somehow.

Pic related - virgin until 33

>> No.4112724

>>4112714
>if I point out my obvious self projection then other people won't call me out on it, allowing me to justify my actions to myself.

>> No.4112736

Even then I think he only had sex once.

>> No.4112747

>>4112714
How is that a fail? If anything, it's a win.

>> No.4112749

>>4112714
>not being a virgin past 30
do you even /lit/?

>> No.4112755

How the fuck do you think we get our wizard powers.

>> No.4112785

>>4112714
I'd totally pityfuck lovecraft.

>> No.4112803

>>4112714
Lovecraft was a failure as a writer and a failure as a person. He was uneducated, he was dull, and he wrote for pulp mags throughout his life, deservedly unpublished anywhere else. There's nothing cool, let alone heroic, about his person or oeuvre.

>> No.4112809

>>4112714
So close to wizardhood

>> No.4112816

>>4112809
He was past wizardhood.

>> No.4112841
File: 138 KB, 407x559, GodfreyKneller-IsaacNewton-1689.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4112841

>>4112714

I can go one better.

>> No.4113044

>>4112803
This. His writing was even more needlessly verbose than DFW. He had a great imagination though, but he squandered it.

>> No.4113111

Yesterday I was in a book shop. I was looking for a collection of Joseph Conrad's stories. He's my favorite author. Anyways, I found a pretty nice copy of Heart of Darkness, and I was considering buying it as it's one of my favorite stories and I realized I didn't have a copy of it. On the back it said there were numerous thoughts or intros by various authors on Conrad like Hemingway and various others, none of which I had read. I started to read them.

To my surprise, every single one started along the lines of "In defense of Conrad", or "Everyone agrees that Conrad is a terrible writer, but...". I was taken aback to say the least. I never knew that he was considered a bad writer. I personaly think he was simply brilliant, and had never met anyone in real life who had any strong negative feelings towards him.

So there you have it. Conrad was lambasted when he was alive and writing, but is now considered by most to be pretty good.

>> No.4113137

>>4112841
Trololol, nice

>> No.4113153

>>4113111
You've never read Chinua Achebe's stellar takedown of Conrad? Conrad is an amazing stylist; his prose is impeccable. His fucking racial politics are awful and it's not because "he's a man of his time" it's because he was a racist.

>> No.4113171

>>4113153
You don't have to take everything Achebe says at face value any more, you know. It's 2013. It's not 1983. I kind of agree with his characterization of the work, but I'm just saying.

>> No.4113181
File: 133 KB, 308x400, Harry Tuttle.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4113181

>>4113153
>muh prose
Plebeian.

>> No.4113186

Yeah but there is being a virgin till 33 because you were obsessed with your craft and didn't pursue social interests, and being a virgin whilst not furthering yourself at all

And I'm not disrespecting virgins, I think it's an infantile thing to focus on when and how often a person has sex

>> No.4113192
File: 566 KB, 200x133, 1327274287445.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
4113192

>>4113137
>Trololol

>> No.4113212

>>4113181
Fuck off, lazy writing is indicative of lazy thinking. You're probably one of those people who assume that just because the prose is great, therefore there is no 'substance' (i.e. trite political messages, other platitudes). Art isn't a carrier pigeon.

>>4113153
I've read a fair amount of Conrad (just recently finished Under Western Eyes) and I just don't see how the accusation of racism is legitimate.

To begin with, Heart of Darkness was written from the perspective of Marlowe, a British sailor, so his thoughts, etc. are going to differ from Conrad's. Moreover, the main character of The Nigger of Narcissus is black. In An Outcast of the Islands the main character is a vain and somewhat dull guy who considers himself superior to his ethnic wife and their biracial child, the irony obviously being at the expense of the main character.

A lot of criticism is aimed at how Conrad depicted the tribal 'savages'. The criticism goes something like: ''How dare he depict these tribal people as being tribal!'' Considering the prejudices of that time, I'd say Conrad was definitely not a 'man of his time', but not in the sense you describe him. Neither am I aware of him being supportive of colonialism or imperialism.

I'm genuinely curious what his 'racial politics' (never mind that Conrad was very apathetic as regarded politics) were, and how he was a racist.

>> No.4113225

>>4113212
I was looking around for this thread to basically say what you did in response to the Conrad racism charge.

One thing you failed to mention is he even has positive portrayals of Muslim characters and comes from a corner of the European block which is subjugated, though not in the same colonial sense, Poles often aren't recognized as being equals.

>> No.4113250

>>4113212
Would you recommend Nostromo? It sounds pretty interesting, and I loved HoD.

>> No.4113261

>>4113225

Yea, I'm a huge fan of Conrad, and it just seems absurd to me to accuse him of racism, or, even more absurd, criticizing his 'racial politics' whatever that means.

If we take the accusation of 'racism' to be a serious impugnment of one's morals, not just a term to scream kneejerkwise whenever someone says something ignorant, then it would essentially mean putting Conrad in the same league as some blockhead from the KKK or a Nazi, which is laughable.

>>4113250
Of course. Heart of Darkness is his best-known work, but most of his novels, in my opinion, are much better (not to degrade HoD), including Nostromo. My own favourites are The Secret Agent and Under Western Eyes.

>> No.4113263

>>4113225
>He can't be racist because Polish people were treated like shit by other white people

seems legit

>> No.4113264

>>4113261
excellent logic dude. As if being a racist is a binary proposition and not a spectrum.

>> No.4113306

>>4113264
I very carefully qualified my statement. IF we take etc. I don't personally think Conrad was a racist in any way, but my point was this: there's an obvious distinction between the guy who makes a faux-pas and says 'nigger' or 'kook' or whatever, and someone who actively seeks the extirpation of another race, and to blandly call them both racists without qualifying your accusation is to say that their moral degradation is identical as regards race.

Now, when someone, such as Conrad, is denounced as a racist as viciously as he has been by many, then I take it that there is something to the accusation. When it turns out that there's very little to this accusation, that at best he could be convicted of having prejudices (the only instance I can think of is his having thought that Russians are congenitally incapable of a humane form of government), and even that accusation is pretty shaky, then any moral denunciation has to be more precise than just calling him a 'racist', and thus giving the impression that he was some vile old man who actively hated blacks or arabs or whoever.

>> No.4113321

Warhol died a virgin, Michelangelo was described as having the chastity of a monk, Tesla, countless holy people. There would be no modern world without permavirgins.

>> No.4113324

Tao Lin only lost his virginity when he met Megan Boyle at 25

>> No.4113323

>>4113263
Subjugated people know more about subjugation typically than the ones doing the subjugation, it also lends a more empathetic view.

Compare Conrad, a Pole, to Kipling, a colonial Brit through and through.

>> No.4113326

>>4113321
Warhol also had a double-digit IQ

''Warhol is the only genius I know of with a double-digit IQ'' -Gore Vidal

>> No.4113328

>>4113326
That was a joke.

>> No.4113332

>>4113328
The joke turns into a half-joke if you consider it in light of the fact that Warhol actually scored something like 86 on his IQ test. I'm serious. Look it up.

>> No.4113339

>>4113332
He skipped a couple of grades in school when he was a child. I can't find any source on the fact he had an IQ of 86, it was probably derived from that quote. Or maybe he was just being Warhol when he took the test.

>> No.4113357

>>4113321
A lot of those people who supposedly never had sex were just homosexuals who managed to hide it very well.

>> No.4113359

>>4113357
Only if you assume they're liars, and many of them believed that that would land them in hell.

>> No.4113360

>>4113357
It takes one to know one.

>> No.4113372

>>4113153
>rACIAAL POLITICS
are you my senior year english teacher?

>> No.4113380

>>4113357
[citation needed]

>> No.4113503

Hans Christian Andersen died a virgin didn't he?

So did Lewis Carol I think.

>> No.4113514
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4113514

>>4113212
>Fear and pity may be aroused by spectacular means; but they may also result from the inner structure of the piece, which is the better way, and indicates a superior poet. For the plot ought to be so constructed that, even without the aid of the eye, he who hears the tale told will thrill with horror and melt to pity at what takes place.

>> No.4114128

I heard Socrates had crabs...

>> No.4114141

Woody Allen is a jew

>> No.4114142

>>4114141
>really cool people, heroes even
Woody Allen is none of those.

>> No.4114147

>>4114128
And where exactly did you hear this?

>> No.4114171

>>4113321

Warhol once got treated at a hospital for genital warts, which is sexually transmitted. He claimed to be a virgin either out of hesitation to admit his homosexuality or he was just being Warhol.

>> No.4114186

>>4114171
Just got back from Google. Now that's some clever marketing.

>> No.4114255

If Lovecraft is your hero then you will always be a loser.

>> No.4114530

>>4112755
>we
>implying you're a wizard

>>4113153
>His fucking racial politics are awful
man, other people are saying it better than I am, but you KNOW that Achebe went into that novel hoping to be bothered by _something_
in his whole essay on HoD he kind of ignores the fact that Conrad was using Marlow as a device; reading into Marlow's racism is kind of like reading into Jason Compson's douchebaggery and using it to label Faulkner as an inconsiderate, immoral asshole.

>> No.4114559

>>4113044

I love Lovecraft's purple prose though. It's what gives his writing so spooky.

>> No.4114567

Lovecraft is my hero and inspiration for my short stories

>> No.4114774

man joyce was fucking bitches madly
he was a fucking perv lmao

>> No.4114947

>>4112841
But, he's a chiseled slab of hunk meat!

>> No.4114950

>>4113503
J.M. Barrie was asexual or a pedo or something.

>> No.4116088

>>4113326
I miss vidal so much.

>> No.4118365

Gore Vidal was the opposite the guy apparently fucked over 500 men and women.

>> No.4118464

>>4113339
>Or maybe he was just being Warhol when he took the test
I am sure it was just this