/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6666264]

Piero Scaruffi, a noted Italian polymath with strong opinions on art, literature, and music (to the extent that he has become of meme on /mu/) has a list of the best novels in English on his website. He ranks novels with +++ (meaning his personal favorites), ++ (meaning "masterpiece") and + (meaning "outstanding.") He does not bother to rate novels he considers mediocre. How does it make /lit/ feel to know that a respected university lecturer thinks that Will Self, James Ellroy, and Zadie Smith are on the same level as Stephanie Meyer and J.K. Rowling, both of whose works are rated "outstanding"?

[Anonymous No.6666274]

>>6666264
Proof of his rating system.

[Anonymous No.6666275]

>>6666264
Will Self isn't that good.

[Anonymous No.6666282]

don't know him don't care TBH be honest.

seems like an autist though.

[Anonymous No.6666300]

>>6666264
These are popular books.
Books are good because people can connect with them and so they sell a lot.
Philosophy and high culture or whatever you're trying to disrespect is really just equivocal and arbitrary.
No one really believes some books are somehow magically better than others.
Taste is subjective and trivial.
Who cares.

[Anonymous No.6666311]

>>6666264
there's no way he's read them or is serious.

[Anonymous No.6666366]

I don't know if you guys are old enough to remember this, but during McCain's run for presidency it was almost like a fetish among high-middlebrow conservative pundits to express a strong liking and admiration for Sarah Palin, even sometimes while attacking the GOP and McCain himself.

This is a common thing among people who are so sure they belong to the "intellectual class" of society: to set out to defend the "easy targets" in a way that the masses hostile to it typically can't.

Everyone in the humanities remembers that phase, when you were an undergrad and you decided to make a pompous argument in defense of reality TV or something like that because it would take the people who consider themselves "above" it by surprise.

Anyone, this is probably what this pathetic, insecure, faggy, lonely, 70-year old wop is doing.

[Anonymous No.6666390]

>>6666366
lol

[Anonymous No.6666407]

These are DFW's top ten favourite books. Is this what /lit/ calls "being ironic"?

[Anonymous No.6666411]

>>6666407
read >>6666366

[Anonymous No.6666425]

>>6666264
oh shit it's scruffy
no thanks m8
he's a living meme only from /mu/
his memery is outlawed in this board

[Anonymous No.6666622]

>>6666407
Did he write about the Screwtape Letters?

That was a really early book for me. I didn't enjoy it much but it was clearly very heartfelt on the part of its author.

[Anonymous No.6668383]

Maybe they're good in Italian.

[Anonymous No.6668390]

>>6666407
I think it's actually what the cool kids are calling "new sincerity".

[Anonymous No.6668393]

>>6668390
I t hink it's fake, deceptive, or insincere sincerity. People who think "irony" is the opposite of "sincerity" are wrong; the actual opposite is of "sincerity" is "lying"

[Anonymous No.6668395]

>>6666264
he probably just did that to avoid appearing elitist

[Anonymous No.6668397]

>>6666407
He names his actual favourites in other interviews and they are more typically "highbrow" selections. I guess he just didn't like the idea of being involved in officially reifying a canon of Great Books.

Judging by his interviews and essays, I think his favourite books were Wittgenstein's Mistress and White Noise. He also had a strong admiration for Dostoevsky.

[Musil No.6668406]

>>6668383
eh... not really

[Anonymous No.6668411]

>>6668390
>new sincerity

i never understood this, if you're sincere why would you feel the need to remind everyone else about it with a label

it's like a "modest" person bragging to everyone about how modest he is

[Anonymous No.6668416]

>>6668393
Then what's the opposite of irony? And the opposite of truth while we're at it?

[Anonymous No.6668419]

>>6668416
The opposite of irony is literalness. The opposite of truth is falsehood.

[Anonymous No.6668422]

>>6668397
>I guess he just didn't like the idea of being involved in officially reifying a canon of Great Books.
Then he's just a dipshit who can fuck off

[Anonymous No.6668427]

>>6668411
the term was invented and retroactively applied to wallace by critics, ftr

[Anonymous No.6668547]

>>6666425
This. His tweets are entertaining, but that doesn't make him any less autistic.

>b-but muh polymath
Yeah, nah. It will take more than a degree in maths for that.

[Anonymous No.6668555]

Smith and Self are fucking garbage. Scaruffi is a well known troll though.

[Anonymous No.6668567]

>>6668555
Will Self is Harold Bloom-approved.

[Anonymous No.6668571]

Seems he's right about James Ellroy <genre fiction> beign on the same level as Meyer and Rowling.

[Anonymous No.6668625]

>>6668390
>>6668393
>>6668411

Right here. The whole "no really guys I'm being sincere" thing is just another calculated move in a social game. It's designed to cut against ironic detachment's negativity with it's positive, "no really, I actually enjoy shit" but fails because new sincerity isn't actually sincere, it's a move designed to produce a social outcome, whereas the ironic retreat is at least an honest reaction of distaste.

[Anonymous No.6668647]

>>6668625
So should we be sincere or ironic, then?

[Anonymous No.6668659]

>>6668647
be new-ironic

[Anonymous No.6668668]

>>6668555
I liked Book of Dave, even if it was only aping Riddley Walker.

[Anonymous No.6668672]

He also made this:
http://scaruffi.com/fiction/best100.html

[Anonymous No.6668675]

>>6668647
Ironic sincerity or sincere irony
u decide

[Anonymous No.6668691]

>>6666264
"The Quantity Theory of Insanity" is an anthology of short-stories.

[Anonymous No.6668700]

>>6668675

Not the same thing

It would be sincere irony. Ironic Sincerity is when you are being sincere but your sincere opinions end up being ironic.Sincere irony is when you are pretending to be sincere for ironic effect.

[Anonymous No.6668702]

>>6666264
>Searches his entire site for "Gene Wolfe."
>Not a single mention
Scaruffi is a mega pleb.

[Anonymous No.6668727]

>>6668672
I don't agree with it but nice he has Dictionary of the Khazars in there

[Anonymous No.6668729]

>implying scruffles even reads/listens to 10% of all the books/albums listed on his site.

[Anonymous No.6668732]

>>6668700
You have that backwards.
Ironic sincerity is acting sincere ironically
Sincere irony is acting ironic sincerely

[Anonymous No.6668736]

>>6666300
Yeah, the definition of 'good' is entirely subjective, but that doesn't mean that best book lists should just mirror bestseller lists. From my own subjective perspective, Scaruffi's conception of good is worth laughing at if it exalts Twilight and Captain Beefheart but ignores The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, and Drudkh.

[Anonymous No.6668739]

>>6668732
true, I messed it up, but at least I realized it's not all the same thing.

Thanks.

[Anonymous No.6668744]

>>6668736
Sorry he isn't cool and indie enough for you

[Anonymous No.6668745]

housekeeping was bretty gud

[Anonymous No.6668749]

>>6668736
Those aren't really good examples at all m8.

[Anonymous No.6668750]

>>6666264

I can't imagine Scaruffi reading Twilight, honestly. We know he doesn't watch all the films he rates on his site but rather asks the opinions of people he trusts, he probably does the same with some of the books.

[Anonymous No.6668758]

>>6668749
Read it again you retard.

[Anonymous No.6668783]

>>6668393
Sincerity becomes the honesty of people who can't be honest with themselves.

[Anonymous No.6668790]

>>6668744
Quit shitposting

[Anonymous No.6668796]

>>6666264
Self gets hate here after his social media team spammed the board for too long, but prior to that he got no love and likely deserves some. Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys is fantastic.

White Teeth also belongs on any reasonable list of the best novels of the new millennium.

[Anonymous No.6668802]

>>6668796
>Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys

I second that strongly.

[Anonymous No.6668824]

Will Self is a worthless little crack addict whose entire reputation is owed to the depraved "taste" of the inbred, nepotistic British literary establishment.

[Anonymous No.6668827]

>>6668824

heroin*

[Anonymous No.6668843]

I don't know why I found this so funny

[Anonymous No.6668853]

>>6668827
Same shit. He's a horrid little degenerate who needs a deterrent.

[Anonymous No.6668873]

>>6668853
>dissing an author based on his chemical dependence only

[Anonymous No.6668881]

>>6666264
Hes right about the beatles.

[Anonymous No.6668882]

The fact that so many books still name the Beatles as "the greatest or most significant or most influential" rock band ever only tells you how far rock music still is from becoming a serious art. Jazz critics have long recognized that the greatest jazz musicians of all times are Duke Ellington and John Coltrane, who were not the most famous or richest or best sellers of their times, let alone of all times. Classical critics rank the highly controversial Beethoven over classical musicians who were highly popular in courts around Europe. Rock critics are still blinded by commercial success. The Beatles sold more than anyone else (not true, by the way), therefore they must have been the greatest. Jazz critics grow up listening to a lot of jazz music of the past, classical critics grow up listening to a lot of classical music of the past. Rock critics are often totally ignorant of the rock music of the past, they barely know the best sellers. No wonder they will think that the Beatles did anything worthy of being saved.

[Anonymous No.6668893]

>>6666366

The art critic Jerry Saltz does this a lot. He wrote a little think piece defending that music video Kanye did with kim Kardashian on a motorcycle. This is the same dude who acted as resident critic on that fine art reality show a few years ago, so it's not surprising when he sticks his neck out for weird moments in popular culture. He's gained a degree of mainstream visibility for his efforts

[Anonymous No.6668908]

who got this >>6666666

[Anonymous No.6668918]

>>6668853
>pic
It's always one of these faggots who hates him. I wonder why

[Anonymous No.6668923]

>>6668908
>>/lit/thread/6666508#p6666666

[Anonymous No.6668926]

>>6668853