/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4975372]

>Main character is a professor of literature

[Anonymous No.4975387]

>Main character is female
>Main character is non white

[Sebastian Cuello No.4975400]

>Main character is a woman who lost her husband

[Anonymous No.4975410]

>>4975372

[Anonymous No.4975416]

I love a good book from a professor's point of view. It's always interesting getting into the minds of people who spend so much of their time consciously thinking.

[Anonymous No.4975482]

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is from the point of view of a professor of marine biology, and around 40% of it serves as a biology textbook
>pretty good book though
>muh Captain Nemo

[Anonymous No.4975489]

>>4975387
try again, sperglord

[Anonymous No.4975501]

>>4975387
>I have never read Virginia Woolf
>I have never read Jane Austen
>I have never read The Rubaiyat

[Anonymous No.4975523]

>>4975501
>taking that bait

[Anonymous No.4975537]

>>4975523
>taking that bait

[Anonymous No.4975539]

>implying Stoner was bad

[Anonymous No.4975547]

>>4975537
:^)

[Anonymous No.4975549]

>>4975387
>main character is female but you don't notice it till halfway through the book

[Anonymous No.4975553]

>a book within the book

[Anonymous No.4975558]

>main character is a 14 year old girl with (semi-)supernatural powers

[Anonymous No.4975566]

>Main character is a professor of Hitler Studies

>>4975553
This is basically the same as "a play within a play" - which was featured in Hamlet. Get some taste, plebeian.

[Anonymous No.4975567]

>book about cancer

cheapest tier of drama

[Anonymous No.4975572]

>Book has titled chapters

[Anonymous No.4975574]

>based on a real story

[Anonymous No.4975578]

>>4975566

>implying that's bad

i think you want to colonize east like your predecessors, the jews

[Anonymous No.4975585]

>All of this happened, more or less.

[Anonymous No.4975587]

>>4975578
He's talking about White Noise and that particular aspect satirized liberal arts programs.

[Anonymous No.4975610]

>character is heartbroken, and consequently bedridden for 6 months

[Anonymous No.4975615]

>>4975482
this
dear lord the amount of fish and muh straits

[Anonymous No.4975617]

>>4975572
>as i lay dying

[Anonymous No.4975627]

>>4975572

[Anonymous No.4975668]

>>4975372
>eating people is wrong
>Malcolm Bradbury O.B.E.

[Anonymous No.4975674]

>main character is a writer or a book nerd
>never says anything meaningful about literature or books in general

[Anonymous No.4975692]

>>4975387
>half the characters are black but it's not mentioned until late in the book
b-but muh le socio-behavioral race-specific identity

[Anonymous No.4975694]

>Protagonist loves books and has good taste in literature
>Other characters do not

[Anonymous No.4975738]

>>4975410
Ohboy.gif

[Anonymous No.4975745]

>>4975617
>my mom is a fish

[Anonymous No.4975771]

>>4975372
>Main character is Nabokov
>The book is Lolita

[Anonymous No.4975796]

>The story is a reinterpretation of an ancient myth

[Anonymous No.4975812]

>>4975796
Hey, I liked Eaters of The Dead!

[Anonymous No.4975814]

>>4975796

>story is a modern reinterpretation of an ancient myth
>the characters keep the same ancient names

[Anonymous No.4975815]

>book consists of words arranged in a specific order

[Anonymous No.4975818]

>>4975814
>Hercules is named Urkel

[Anonymous No.4975819]

>>4975553
I have never read Eco's Foucault's pendulum

[Anonymous No.4975826]

>>4975815

[Anonymous No.4975901]

>book is written in words

011000010110001001110011011011110110110001110101011101000110010101101100011110010010000001100100011010010111001101100111011101010111001101110100011010010110111001100111

[Anonymous No.4975941]

>>4975901
>they're not words if I write them this way!

[Anonymous No.4975954]

>>4975372
>book is alternate history
>it's not mentioned
>or it's mentioned in an obscure or complicated manner
I'm eighty pages into Ada

[Anonymous No.4975976]

>>4975941

[Anonymous No.4975978]

>>4975610
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takotsubo_cardiomyopathy

[Anonymous No.4975993]

>>4975954
I love that. Gimmicky alt histories with a big sensationalist set-up are no fun. Give me stories where it takes half the length to figure out why the French still run Louisiana or whatever.

[Anonymous No.4976011]

>>4975954
>tfw I always forget that A Clockwork Orange is supposed to be a science fiction novel taking place in the future
>tfw no matter how many times I read the book or watch the movie it never comes off that way to me

[Anonymous No.4976016]

>>4975818
>Urkules

[Anonymous No.4976022]

>>4975993
The only time sensationalist alt-history worked for me was Yiddish Policeman's Union, but that was actually written to be sensationalist.

[Anonymous No.4976025]

>bird imagery

[Anonymous No.4976027]

>>4975993
But in that case it's still set up as a plot hook / foreshadowing. It's retarded when it just comes out of the blue for no reason.

[Anonymous No.4976029]

>>4976011
>dis nigga for serious?

[Anonymous No.4976031]

>>4976022
I think alt history would work a lot better as a concept if it wasn't *always* that way. The best alt history is regular fiction that just happens to be set in 1999 Austria-Hungary or Japan-colonised China or republican London.

[Anonymous No.4976032]

>>4976029
It just doesn't. Strange and bizarre, sure, but nothing outside what was plausible or happening even around the time of the book's release.

[Anonymous No.4976038]

>YA novel with super powers
>still attempting to be original with super powers

[Anonymous No.4976040]

>>4976031
Or Estoty or whatever. Have you ever had the feeling that subtle alt-history evokes a better sense of wonder than fantasy? Most fantasy divulges huge info-dumps about worlds that are basically our own.

[Anonymous No.4976046]

>>4976038
It's possible to be original with super powers, anon.

[Anonymous No.4976052]

>>4975501
>>4975523
>>4975537
>>4975547
>dat metabait

[Anonymous No.4976054]

>>4976040
I have, and I sorely wish there was more of it. Ada's the only really prominent example I can think of.

[qt !fFaGGOtxMw No.4976059]

>>4976011
>a future that seems exactly like the present
It's the most accurate sci-fi novel ever written!

[Anonymous No.4976064]

>>4975585
>All of this happened, more or less.
>implying Huck Finn and Catcher in the Rye are not good books

[Anonymous No.4976069]

>>4975572
>Brothers Karamazov

[Anonymous No.4976076]

>dfw there's a character i thought of that i really want to write a story about who's actually nothing like me but he'll still look like a self insert anyway
he's a smooth talking eccentric independent nature documentary filmmaker who's really into spiritualism. it's not as gay as it sounds, i promise.

[Anonymous No.4976079]

>Main character's first time is loveless, brief and unpleasant

[Anonymous No.4976080]

>>4976059
But then what makes it sci-fi? I don't mean this as an affront to you, or anything, I just want to know what it is that I'm missing because I really the book and the little world in it.

[Anonymous No.4976092]

>>4976079
>Main character's life is brief, loveless and unpleasant

[Anonymous No.4976100]

>>4976046
Jojo's is special. Only prolonged exposure to several kinds of drugs produces something like it.

[Anonymous No.4976103]

>>4976076
>DFW
>good characters
I could name a half dozen of what you would consider 'genre writers' who do character better than DFW, and I love most of his books.

[Anonymous No.4976104]

>>4976076
You should make him suck a dude's dick, but in a non-gay way. Then the reader will understand perfectly.

[Anonymous No.4976105]

>>4976080
>But then what makes it sci-fi?
The technology to re-educate alex is fictional.

[Anonymous No.4976107]

>doesn't just give you a list of detailed characters and settings
>doesn't let you figure out how the characters and settings would interact, ultimately ending up with the story that the author intended

i bet you guys listen to music rather than just looking at sheets and scores

[Anonymous No.4976110]

>>4976103
">dfw" is /lit/ for ">tfw". get with the times.

[Anonymous No.4976114]

>>4976110
oops

[Anonymous No.4976115]

>>4976104
good plan!

[Anonymous No.4976117]

>>4976105
But his re-education essentially just conditioning. I know that the injections he was given were supposed to help incite a sickness, but I find it hard to believe that something like that wasn't already available in 1963.

[Anonymous No.4976131]

>>4976110
check out this funny joke i just made :)

[Anonymous No.4976132]

>>4975372

[Anonymous No.4976138]

>>4975387

[Anonymous No.4976148]

>>4976104
Or, you know, make him fuck a woman.

[Anonymous No.4976155]

>>4975400

[Anonymous No.4976166]

>>4975558

[Anonymous No.4976176]

>>4975692
>Implying names like Lafawnduh, Lederrick, and Shabazz wouldn't give their race away in the beginning

[Anonymous No.4976177]

>>4975574

[Anonymous No.4976183]

>>4976176
too American for me

[Anonymous No.4976187]

>>4976148
I don't think it's suck in for you, yet.

[Anonymous No.4976188]

>>4976131
Epic.

[Anonymous No.4976190]

>>4975674

[Anonymous No.4976195]

>>4975954

[Anonymous No.4976201]

>>4976025

[Anonymous No.4976204]

>>4975372

[Anonymous No.4976205]

>>4976131
tip top lel

[Anonymous No.4976211]

>>4976079
>>4975553

[Anonymous No.4976213]

>>4976204
Don't forget Pail Fire

[Anonymous No.4976216]

>>4976105
The science isn't fictional, the application of the science is. To put it clearly and concretely, it's a book about what (given the truth of the behaviorist psychologist of the time) would happen if they were allowed to do what they did in the book.

[Anonymous No.4976224]

>>4976213
Unpopular opinion, but Pnin is superior.

[Anonymous No.4976233]

>>4975387
this

[Anonymous No.4976243]

>>4976224

[Anonymous No.4976259]

>>4976216
>The science isn't fictional
i said the technology was.
>it's a book about what (given the truth of the behaviorist psychologist of the time) would happen if they were allowed to do what they did in the book.
it's a book about free will.