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/lit/ - Literature

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5768702 No.5768702 [Reply] [Original]

Which writer understood suffering the best?

>> No.5768726

Mary Shelley.

>> No.5768730

>>5768726
I think it would be Percy Shelley, being married to Mary Shelley and all...

>> No.5768732

>>5768702

Cioran, maybe?

>> No.5768733

>>5768726
Nuh-uh, Hans Christian Anderson

>> No.5768736

No writer understands suffering, just like no writer understand happiness.

Just because you write about something doesn't mean you know what it is.

>> No.5768737

>>5768730
Percy deserved to fall out of a boat.

>> No.5768743

>>5768736
That's completely wrong. Please leave.

>> No.5768745

>>5768743
expand on this

>> No.5768750

>>5768733
Poor dumb fucker brought it on himself

>HCA: I'm not going to marry you because I have to /prove/ that if you love someone, you have to be willing to let them go!
>His dearly beloved: lol okay, I'll just go marry someone else, asshole
>HCA: fuck

>> No.5768755

>>5768750
>>5768733

samefag

>> No.5768756

Nietzsche

>> No.5768757

Anderson Cooper

>> No.5768761

>>5768750
I was thinking of the whipping boy aspects more, but thank you for reminding me of all those times he confessed his homoerotic lust for men and they just awkwardly said no, let's just be friends

>> No.5768771

>>5768757
James Earl Jones!

Tom Waits!

Paul Revere!

Pope Benedict!

Sam I Am!

Chief Sitting Bull!

Stone Cold Steve Austin!

>> No.5768772

>>5768743
Is a person unable to suffer or be happy once they become a writer? This is basic human condition. Of course they suffer in different ways. But to make such a claim is simply wrong. If I'm misreading what you mean, then you're welcomed to explain

>> No.5768774

>>5768772
Meant for >>5768745

>> No.5768837

>>5768702
all the loaded subjectivity in this question

>> No.5768849

Vonnegut, he truly knew how to make me suffer with his prose.

>> No.5768853

Gen Urobuchi, definitely.

>> No.5768856

Charles Bukowski, because he turned his suffering into his living, became known for the suffering, till everyone only wanted to see him suffer.

>> No.5768926

>no Poe

>> No.5768928

>>5768856
bukowski is a fucking hack for plebs

>> No.5768945

>>5768736
Just because writing about it doesn't mean you know what it is doesn't mean writing about it means you don't know what it is.

>> No.5769030

Clearly Dosto
>wringing hands

>> No.5769482
File: 236 KB, 466x528, neetshit.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5769482

>>5768756
l o l

>> No.5769487

>>5768856
I wish he had suffered so much that he lost his hands and couldn't write

>> No.5769488
File: 46 KB, 278x121, sickburn.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5769488

>>5769487

>> No.5769599

céline

>> No.5769632

>>5768702
John Green

>> No.5769656
File: 145 KB, 400x574, kafka.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5769656

you know it's true.

>> No.5769728

>>5769656
pretty sure he just wrote boring body horror and courtroom novels

>> No.5769742

probably nietzsche or kierkegaard

cioran was a dork

>> No.5770182

>>5768702
The Buddha
>inb4 he wasn't a writer
>inb4 there are many buddhas

>> No.5770231
File: 27 KB, 674x758, 1413577579704.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5770231

Dostoyevsky

>sentenced to exile and hard labour in Siberia
>suffered from epilepsy
>gambling addict
>experienced the death of two of his children

>> No.5770309

>>5768702
Schopenhauer was very good at articulating it, but he had far from the worst kind of life.

>> No.5770351

Soljenitsyne

>> No.5770362

Those who have the privellege to write don't suffer and therefore cannot understand suffering

>> No.5770369

>>5768736
writers have a life outside of writing you dumb fuck

>> No.5770374

Probably Nietzsche.

>> No.5770375
File: 2.78 MB, 1920x1080, 1415725235503.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5770375

The answer is Gustave Flaubert.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-zicxfwHoE&index=5&list=PLRDZXQMN5aW2YoyeCEPcxNNPCw0YP2POt

>> No.5770385

>tfw no one mentions Kierkegaard

>> No.5770398

>>5769742
>>5770385

>> No.5770455
File: 4 KB, 187x269, download (7).jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5770455

I don't know of any other writer who suffered enough to think it was a good idea to load their pockets with stones and walk into a river, so I'm gonna go with pic related.

>> No.5770462

>>5770455
yeah right, my friend did that: he wasn't suffering, it's called being drunk off your ass.

>> No.5770494

>>5769728
gb2 tvtropes

It seems so dreadful to stay a bachelor, to become an old man struggling to keep one's dignity while begging for an invitation whenever one wants to spend an evening in company, to lie ill gazing for weeks into an empty room from the corner where one's bed is, always having to say good night at the front door, never to run up a stairway beside one's wife, to have only side doors in one's room leading into other people's living rooms, having to carry one's supper home in one's hand, having to admire other people's children and not even being allowed to go on saying: 'I have none myself,' modeling oneself in appearance and behavior on one or two bachelors remembered from one's youth.

That's how it will be, except that in reality, both today and later, one will stand there with a palpable body and a real head, a real forehead, that is, for smiting on with one's hand.

>> No.5770504

>>5770455
>I don't know any other authors who killed themselves in a dramatic fashion

Are you for real?

>> No.5770506

>>5770231
winner

Or Kierkegaard

>> No.5770566

>>5768928

take that back

>> No.5770585

Which writer was the most sheltered?

>> No.5770591

>>5770585
Marx

>> No.5770599

>>5770504
Most of them are candidates too you know.

Osamu Dazai is another good one, he seemed to be depressed his entire life and attempted suicide at least 3 times before succeeding.

>> No.5770608

>>5768702
Robert Frost

>> No.5770638

>>5770585
Those young Hegelians like Stirner and Marx

>> No.5770660

>>5770506

Kierkegaard was a dilettante, always blowing daddy's money on fancy clothes and cigars.

>> No.5770676

>>5770660
Ya but he pushed love away from himself. Idk how poor you are, if you've got a squeeze by your side then things look bright.

>> No.5770712

>>5770660
>blowing daddy's money on fancy clothes and cigars.

What's wrong with that?

>> No.5770716

>>5770638
What's with all the shitheads trolling /lit/ who can't even read wikis (bad as those are)?

>> No.5770733

>>5770712
it means he doesn't know shit about suffering and thus cannot write about suffering in a profound manner

>> No.5770738

>>5770733
But he seemed to suggest those things as evidence that he was a "dilettante."

Also,

>suffering doesn't count if you're wealthy

>> No.5770739

>>5770504
Um, I was talking about a very specific method of suicide. Are you always such a piece of shit?

>> No.5770787

>>5770733
Material privation =/= suffering

>> No.5770828

Louis Ferdinand Céline

>> No.5772702

Does Sade count because he seemed pretty okay with some of it?

>> No.5772850

In spanish, Antonio Plaza.

>> No.5772866

Keats has got to be in the running
>everyone you know and love dies
>then you die young and insane from opium while drowning in your own blood

>> No.5772868
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5772868

Charles Dickens.

>> No.5772873

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

>> No.5772880

>>5770455
>Woman lives comfortable middle-class life in an inherited property
>She writes from time to time, has 3 meals a day, and gets crazy cat lady syndrome
>Kills herself becuase 4everal0ne
>Understands what it means to have a life of suffering

Yeah nawh.

>> No.5772887
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5772887

Poe is up there too, had a shit life--had to burn furniture to keep warm a couple of times.

>> No.5772900

>>5768702
me

>> No.5772933

Herman Melville. His life seemed pretty bleak, his son killed himself, and he died poor and with the assumption that he'd be forgotten.

>> No.5772949
File: 56 KB, 170x200, Stop+being+so+edgy+you+re+scaring+the+children+_4cb079b8760757c4a70d0aa3949e111f.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5772949

>>5772880
Are you stupid or just baiting
>hur dur because you are fed and have material possessions means you can't be depressed

>> No.5772955

>>5772949
If we're introducing relativism, how pissed off do you think Nabokov was that he was no longer patrician? The dude lived in a hotel room because it was as close to comforts he was afforded by blood he could find after the revolution.

>> No.5772981
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5772981

>>5772949
lol it's ok to be proven wrong, you don't have be such a baby about it.

>> No.5773150

>>5770585
Alexander Pope

>> No.5773365

>>5769656
I agree, but suffering is different for everybody, so you can't really understand everybody's sufferings.
>>5769728
His suffering was that people were always telling him what to do and that he hated responsibilities, which I'm sure a lot of us could relate to. If you read his letters and journals (which thankfully weren't burned like he wanted), he says his days spent sickly and living on his sister's (or his cousin's? I can't remember) farm where he had no responsibilities were the best days of his life.

>> No.5774433

>>5768702
Understanding suffering does not necessarily imply an experience of suffering. Do you mean which writer experienced the most suffering, or which writer exposed the most about the processes of suffering?

>> No.5775018
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5775018

>>5770828
also Ezra Pound only writters who suffer in real life can tell you whats real suffering

>> No.5775026

>>5770455
>Woman
>understanding suffering

Pick one, faggot.

>> No.5775050

>implying the writers themselves would have ever argued who suffered the most

Bunch of circlejerking new generation pesudo-intellectuals. Go ahead and defend your favourite writer, I'm sure they would not care.

>> No.5775067

>>5775050
You're right; how could we forget Peig Sayers?

>> No.5775074

>>5775050
>no discussion allowed
>implying you know what the writers would or wouldn't think

At least you briefly made yourself feel "above all this" even though you waste your time here like everyone else.

>> No.5775080

Kafka and Dazai.

>> No.5775083

>>5775074
>implying the writers would have sat around talking about who suffered the most from the greeks or romans
>seeing life in such a narrow view

Stay pleb

>> No.5775094

>>5775083
>implying you've read any satire from either
Pollutes pls go

>> No.5775101

>>5775094
>implying implications of the highest order of implicity

>> No.5775117

knut hamsun

>> No.5775127

Solomon in ecclesiastes. If siddhartha actually wrote anything he'd be up there too.

>> No.5775133

Mayakovsky

>> No.5775146

>>5775117
yes

Also
>Bjorneboe

>> No.5775354

>>5768702

Romain Gary's also quite big on suffering

>> No.5775664

Jordan B Peterson

>> No.5775697

>>5772887
Dis

>> No.5776824
File: 47 KB, 590x333, horse.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5776824

>> No.5776845

Siddharta Gautama

>> No.5776866

Dumas? circa The Count of Monte Cristo

>> No.5776874

>>5768702
J K Rowling

>> No.5776915

>>5776845

Was an orator. Not a writer.

>> No.5776965 [DELETED] 

>no ligotti
Saging a shit thread full of shitheads


Lick my taint niggers

>> No.5777031

>>5775117
Fwiw, my parents spent some time more or less starving and they say Hunger was completely on point.

>> No.5777037

>>5768702
schopenhaur by a mile

>> No.5777070

Jesus Christ. He wrote the Bible.

>> No.5777126

Me.

>> No.5777735

>>5770585
DFW
Tao Lin
Pynchon

>> No.5777740

>>5775117
Not really. He has a wealthy sugardaddy who paid for him to write since he was liek 22 years old,

>> No.5777774

Paul Verlaine.

He lived a haunted life.

>> No.5777825

>>5770828
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmL56-cFrz4

being céline is suffering

>> No.5777827

>>5770585
Jane Austen

>> No.5777990

>>5770585
obviously Dickinson she never left the house

>> No.5778004

>>5770585
Proust

>> No.5778008

Edward Thomas

>> No.5778014

>>5778008
>privately educated
>married young
>worked as a book reviewer
>muh war

Boring af brah

>> No.5778020

any questions about literature can easily be answered by hemingway.

>> No.5778022

All you flags giving descriptions of a person's life events aren't understanding the question, literally.

Which writer UNDERSTOOD suffering the best. Not which writer had the shittiest life experiences. It doesn't matter how much of a shitstorm of suffering you have had direct experience with, it doesn't mean you understand it.

It's like saying because I masturbate all the time, in can explain exactly how jazz is produced and ejaculated,

Protip: I can't
OP wants to know who had the best articulation of explaining suffering to their audience.

>> No.5778025

>>5770231
don't forget
>seconds away from being executed
can you even fucking imagine

>> No.5778027

>>5778022
The answer is Nietzsche:

>"To those human beings who are of any concern to me, I wish suffering, desolation, sickness, ill treatment, indignities, profound self-contempt, the torture of self-mistrust, and the wretchedness of the vanquished.”

>> No.5778034

>>5778027

How does that even begin to explain he had the best grasp on the ideas of suffering?

>> No.5778245

>>5770585
kant

>> No.5778286

>>5768928
someone actually bashing bukowski?
in my lit?
my nigga

>> No.5778299

>>5770182
I think this might be the best answer.

>>5770585

sheltered in what sense of the word?

sheltered as in he/she lived a life of pleasure not knowing suffering?
sheltered as in a recluse?
cant really answer that question without knowing what you mean

>> No.5779391

>>5770585
>nobody has said nabokov yet

>> No.5779392

Solomon

>> No.5781002

>>5770362
More like those who understand suffering enough to judge a writer's understanding of it would have only disdain for 4chan.

>> No.5781045

>>5768756

Nietzsche is ironic in sense that he never got close to the idea of ubermensch during his life... and in definition became one posthumously

>> No.5781055

>>5768849
wocka wocka!

>> No.5781073

>>5778022
Marcel Proust

>> No.5781136

>>5768853
kuk ebic

kawashita yakusoku

>> No.5781145

>>5769030
shit nigga you would know suffering too if you came within a minute of being shot down by a firing squad for your beliefs.

>> No.5781158

>>5770455
>"I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way. You, with all your un-dumb letters, would never write so elementary a phrase as that; perhaps you wouldn't even feel it. And yet I believe you'll be sensible of a little gap. But you'd clothe it in so exquisite a phrase that it would lose a little of its reality. Whereas with me it is quite stark: I miss you even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is just really a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan't make you love me any the more by giving myself away like this --But oh my dear, I can't be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don't love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defences. And I don't really resent it."

damn....

>> No.5781170

>>5781158

Beautiful passage. I hope to be able to inspire people similarly one day soon.

>> No.5781183

John Green

>> No.5781185

>>5781170
That's an excerpt from a letter she wrote to Virginia Woolfe. It's pretty bizarre how something that personal is still penned so eloquently isn't it? I hope it's an attainable goal.

>> No.5781190

>>5781183
sorry bub, you're late to the party

>> No.5781197

>>5781185
oops, *Woolf

>> No.5781211

>>5781185

It's topical for you to share an excerpt from such a personal letter. I'm currently trying to express how I feel to a woman I'm very close to. Would you like to give me some feedback? If you think it's shit, I'd be pleased to know so I can beautify it.

It's a poem and I've only gotten a couple of lines down, so feel free to critique if you'd like:

>Sunset and sunrise gleams in your hair,
>but the world remains still as I hold your gaze. I cry,
>“Give to me your unsung sorrows and take in return
>the exultations foraged from this wonder—
>the ballad of you and I.”
>To know a soul marks the blessed.

>> No.5781250

>>5781211
It is different from what I write usually, but your sentiment comes across very clear. I can't imagine whomever you're sending this to not being impressed and touched by it.

>> No.5781253

>>5781250

Thank you, anon. You've no idea how good it feels to be complimented on something which comes from the heart.

>> No.5781977

>>5781211
ignore me if you want,

for the first line, it may be better to put -
"sunset and sunrise gleams in your eye"
for the purpose of sounding nice, rhymes better but her hair may have significance i am unaware of

>> No.5782390

>>5776915
good try though, originalattempt/10

>> No.5782391

>>5781045
you probably haven't read nietzsche, and if you have, you've misread him completely

>> No.5782515

>>5768702
Schopenhauer.

>> No.5782619

>>5779391
this

>> No.5782711

job

>> No.5782712

>>5768702
My vote is Nietzsche

>foreveralone
>terrible blinding headaches and indigestion for much of his life
>his homie that he looked up to turned out to be a total antisemitic dick so he had to break up with him
>etc

>> No.5782731

James Agee

>> No.5782856

Aren't all these "suffering" writers just spoiled faggots from the middle to upper class?

>> No.5782863

>>5782856

Coincidentally, so is most of /lit/

>> No.5782872

>>5772949
>"depressed"
>suffering

>> No.5782944
File: 220 KB, 703x2350, Bukowski - where was jane.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
5782944

>>5768856
I completely agree with this.

Initially I hated Bukowski - but that is only because i didn't understand him. You have to go some way to understanding Bukowski as a person before you can appreciate his work.

Watch the documentary about him Born Into This and then watch the film Factotum and then you can understand the most iconoclastyic, visionary - and genuine - poets that ever lived who cut to the quick of real life and America itself.

If you drink at least half a bottle of red, read the poem in my image and don't cry then you're an inhuman monster who could never appreciate the emotion of any poem.

>> No.5782963

>>5782863
yes heh.. coincidence.. heh

>> No.5782996

>>5782872

Depression is like a mental cancer. Once you read about it, you assume all is depression and you became a self-contempt faggot

>> No.5783003

>>5782996
This.

All those fucking spoiled faggots; "wah life is so much suffering, my intellegence is making me depressed!"