/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6300866]

John Green atrocities thread?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-mkVSasZIM
>muh slavery
>muh patriarchy

[Anonymous No.6300928]

>>6300866
he's a 40 year old man that honestly has no literary ambitions and just writes uplifting books for teenage girls and videos for his fans?
go trash tao lin or something. john green's just your dorky english teacher.

[Anonymous No.6301785]

I wanted to make another thread for this, but well...


What do you guys think is John Green's mangum opus?

[Anonymous No.6301851]

>>6300928
This.
>kindhearted dork encouraging people to think big
>he uses words in the modern context like patriarchy with meanings like "the panopticon"
>writing happy books about sad things
Young adult authors best

[Anonymous No.6301853]

>>6301851
2/10
You got me to respond

[Anonymous No.6301864]

>>6301853
>I'm way too bitter for my young age and you need to be as bitter as me

[Anonymous No.6301872]

>>6301864
>john plen
>big ideas
>hasn't read foucault
>still uses words like the panopticon
>writes terrible YA fiction
>underage girls en masse come to his defense
Tumblr pls go

[Anonymous No.6301900]

>>6301785
It's a mess.

The first problem is the peripheral details. John Green likes to claim his books do shit that they don't. The prime example from this one is Gus: how John Green argues that Gus is pretentious on purpose after people complained about it. The problem with claiming that Gus's pretension is a flaw is that Gus is consistently rewarded for it and it never really causes him any conflict. The other problem is that people are more enthralled with the story of Esther Earl and Green's relationship with her than the actual book. Esther is frequently used as a deflection for any criticism the book faces.

Thematic problems. For a book that supposedly tries to tackle the mythologization of cancer he manages to mythologize it more by making dumb metaphors and existential monologues. When you get comments like pic related you fucked up.

Narrative problems. The whole car egging scene made no sense, especially given the fact that Monica did what Gus was too much of a pussy to do. Van Houten was a flimsy character with no purpose other than to prove how much better Hazel was because she took Gus's death with grace (which is her middle name! Wow such subtlety) while Van Houten took his daughter's death maladaptively. Hazel and Gus were gigantic Mary Sues with no real personality other than to be John Green's ideal teenagers. Isaac could have been written out the book. The parents, like most YA, were really only there to be super supportive with no sense of realism, save for the part where the mother wishes she never had Hazel, which I'll admit was well-done, that's like one sentence out of three hundred pages.

>>6300928
Except for his grandstanding about issues he doesn't really comprehend. And he does have literary aspirations. You've never heard all those YA authors (Green included) who bitch about how they aren't taken as seriously as literary authors? He has this facade of humility, but his writing displays a great deal of narcissism when he has to condescendingly explain his metaphors and themes to his audience.

Basically the problem with Green lies in how he's been built up to be the "literary YA author" when his books have no substance. Now not having any substance for commercial fiction is fine, but it's more the fact that the argument that YA is as good as literary convinces teens (and adults who still act like teens) to stick with YA because it validates them rather than growing the hell up and reading books that challenge them. The overall nerdfighter culture fosters only a hyperdefensive attitude.

[Anonymous No.6302030]

>>6300928
>just writes uplifting books for teenage girls
He's so obviously trying to get at that teen poon.

[Anonymous No.6302106]

>ITT: Sore losers who are shit at writing jealous of a published and successful writer.

[Anonymous No.6302169]

>>6302106
Yeah, and?

[Anonymous No.6302179]

>>6302106
I think most of us would rather rot in unpublished poverty than be a radical leftist pleb ya author

[Anonymous No.6302188]

>>6300866

John Green's videos are awful. I hate him more than almost anyone else on Youtube. I don't care about his books but I hate his videos. He comes across so smug and you can tell he thinks he's smarter than he actually is.

[Anonymous No.6302190]

>>6302179
>Green
>Radical leftist
your understanding of politics is cute and funny and I'm happy I can still openly laugh at this kind of stuff without being considered mean.

[Anonymous No.6302192]

>>6302179
>John Green
>Radical leftist
kek

[Anonymous No.6302209]

>>6300866
>The persians totally hated slavery guise!
>Muh orientalism!

Remember that one time Athens funded a revolt in a Persian city, and Darius I killed all the men and sold all the women and children into slavery 4 teh lulz?

Remember how this was pretty much a normal and reasonable thing to do to people you didn't like?

Remember how shit like this would happen on a routine basis?

>But the Greeks were evil! They KILLED people!

[Anonymous No.6302211]

>>6302106
I don't write. Don't assume everyone here is some kind of wannabe writer.

[Anonymous No.6302217]

>>6302188
>He comes across so smug and you can tell he thinks he's smarter than he actually is.

just like everyone on /lit/

[Anonymous No.6302223]

It's still better than history channel

[Anonymous No.6302233]

>>6302209
I've noticed how people(specifically the Iranian diaspora) have this weird perception of the Achamenid empire as an extremely liberal and benevolently pluralistic paradise that never did anything wrong, where everybody was happy and had all kinds of ahistorical freedoms respected by the Cyrus cylinder, which was apparently the constitution or something. There is plenty of evidence that the Achaemenids had no qualms about murdering entire populations who rebelled, and the empire was itself founded by bloody conquest(mostly through Cyrus The Great, who was a great conqueror and pretty lenient to conquered populations, but still more a Genghis Khan type of guy). The Cyrus cylinder was some standard proclamation text, and the parts of it that are readable are mostly about some Babylonian moon god. I don't know if this is just nationalism on part of diasporas coupled by general ignorance or some reaction to contemporary anti-Iranism(like how in 300 they're apparently zombie ninjas, which is also bullshit).

[Anonymous No.6302237]

>>6302223
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[Anonymous No.6302253]

>>6302223
Bullshit. Ancient Alien Truckers is the best!

[Anonymous No.6302428]

>>6302179
top 5 worst posts I've ever seen on /lit/

[Anonymous No.6302433]

but he is right about patriarchy and slavery. this is elementary material. come off it, lit.

[Anonymous No.6302441]

>>6302233
>Remember how this was pretty much a normal and reasonable thing to do to people you didn't like?
>Remember how shit like this would happen on a routine basis?
>>6302209
why are you judging people for ebing like everyone else was? why are you expecting current ethics to be present in previous times? why do you think this forced peace is how things are supposed to be when for most millenia conquering, killing and controlling by force was the norm well into the 20th century?

[Anonymous No.6302446]

>>6302233

Just read Xenophon. All the Persians do is trick and manipulate the Greeks who were already at their mercy. They would call for an embassy and then assassinate whatever Greeks showed up.

Pure treachery. They were a noble people in certain respects, but the Persians were quite capable of savage behavior.

[Anonymous No.6302463]

>>6302441
>why are you judging people for ebing like everyone else was? why are you expecting current ethics to be present in previous times? why do you think this forced peace is how things are supposed to be when for most millenia conquering, killing and controlling by force was the norm well into the 20th century?
What?
I was responding to the sentiment expressed in the video that the Persians never did anything wrong, whereas the Greeks were relative savages. By modern standards, of course, but that's because John was also operating on those premises

[Anonymous No.6302471]

>>6302179
Nice b8 m8

[Anonymous No.6302483]

I mean it is silly we idolize the greeks and demonize the Persians

also this >>6302223

[Anonymous No.6302613]

>>6300866
>"herodotus was bias :^)"
>muh freedom
>slavery was ebil guize
>having kings is bad and sparta was just like the other greek city-states
>the peloponnesian war started because the greeks didn't want democracy
>the persian empire (EMPIRE) was totally egalitarian with no atrocities

I mean fuck, john green couldn't be more of a post-2010 american leftist if he tried

[Anonymous No.6302639]

He couldn't even locate Athens, how the hell does anyone take him seriously?

[Anonymous No.6302641]

>>6302613

As a race I'd still take the Persians over Arabs and Jews any day.

[Anonymous No.6302649]

>The Persians were totally nice

Holy shit, has John even read the book of Esther?

>Persian king is top ditz
>Friend convinces him to legalize the genocide of all Jews in the empire
>"lol ok"
>Signs up everywhere "hey yo on this date kill as many jews as you want no problem"
>Queen tells him to cut that out
>"lol ok"
>If the Queen wasn't Jewish the Persians would have erased the Jewish people from the face of the earth without a second thought
>Persians
>Nice

[Anonymous No.6302723]

>>6302649
>>If the Queen wasn't Jewish the Persians would have erased the Jewish people from the face of the earth without a second thought

Daymn shame

[Anonymous No.6302724]

I hate the way he talks in his videos.

[Anonymous No.6302795]

>>6301900
You. Yes you. I love you. That review was fucking amazing. 12/10

[Anonymous No.6302807]

>>6302649
>the bible
>accurate and unbiased historical source

top

fucking

lel

[Anonymous No.6302831]

>watch his dark ages video
>begins by saying that the "dark ages" weren't actually all that dark
>spends the entire video talking about eastern empires and factions
>he thinks the dark ages weren't dark because of stuff that happened outside of europe
>doesn't even mention thomas aquinas

[Anonymous No.6302836]

>>6302649
>>If the Queen wasn't Jewish the Persians would have erased the Jewish people from the face of the earth without a second thought
>>Persians
>>Nice
They would've done us a favour.

[Anonymous No.6302906]

>>6301872
>>hasn't read foucault

How do you know that? He's probably more well read than you are.