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/lit/ - Literature

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6760080 No.6760080 [Reply] [Original]

Why do you hate him, /lit/?

>> No.6760088

>>6760080
I just started reading Slaughterhouse Five the other day. So far it doesn't seem that great or terrible.

>> No.6760096

Because people I don't like love him

>> No.6760099

I think because the Kurt stans will talk about his work as though it is the pinnacle of postmodern fiction when really he's a pulp science fiction auto who tells fun stories.

None of his ideas are new or very interesting but he's good for 13 year olds who think they're special .

>> No.6760106

>>6760099
Yeah. He writes very middle of the road postmodern scifantasy that people overrate because it's much more palatable to the average person than any of the greats of postmodernism tend to be at their best.

>> No.6760131

He's good, but there's a lot better, even in just SF. Heinlein was taking way bigger risks in his writing at the same time.

I love that passage about Billy Pilgrim watching the war movie in reverse though. That part always gets to me.

>> No.6760176

entry-level normie sci-fi

>> No.6760191

>>6760099
He's better than anything you can throw out.

What, Pynchon?

I'm sorry, is Pynchon important enough to be taught in schools? Huh? How many people will have read and heard of Vonnegut compared to the nonsense writer Pynchon? Honestly. Get off of /lit/ and into the real world every once and a while. Stop being a hipster cunt.

>> No.6760200

>>6760191
>I'm sorry, is Pynchon important enough to be taught in schools? Huh?
Yes, actually.
http://oyc.yale.edu/english/engl-291/lecture-12
http://www.as.wvu.edu/~sbaldwin/engl636.html

>> No.6760204

>>6760191
I know you're trolling but surely you know that neither popularity nor ease of teaching the work to schoolchildren is a good metric of literary quality.

>> No.6760209

>>6760191
You're that guy who admitted to being a shitheel for the sake of it eh?

>> No.6760211

>>6760080
I like his books, but people who quote his "advice" tend to be obnoxious and dismissive. Particularly the "lit crit is like attacking a sundae" and whatever he says the goals of art are.

>> No.6760236

>>6760200
yfw wvu reads more and takes pynchon more seriously than yale

>> No.6760242

>>6760236
Well the first is an undergrad class.

>> No.6760504

I don't hate him or Bukowski, or GRRM for that matter, I just judge the people who proclaim them as "great authors/poets" and find them to be lack. I hate you OP.

>> No.6760514

>>6760080
i love his books, no opinion on him or his views

>> No.6760563

He's Reddit: The Author. His 'best' books were middling at best and had little to no artistic merit. I don't think he ever wrote an original or complex sentence.

>> No.6760896

He's a great role model for younger individuals. His works touch on important and controversial topics, he was a leading figure in human rights, and spoke avidly for the necessity of education and other such "progressive" ideals. Except he didn't do it like YA nonsense author Green. Basically, he was a faggot but cool.

Once you're older than 16, it's definitely time to move on to the big boys. He's ultimately high school lit department.

I love him nonetheless just for being such a comforting character and for the being my gateway to literature.

Except Breakfast of Champions is garbage. Fuck that train wreck.

>> No.6761192

I hate him because his books are simplistic drivel that are held up as masterpieces by pseudo-intellectuals and by high school and college students that never seriously tried to read something on their own time that might appear to be challenging.

I hate him because his writing is filled with cringe-filled moments that feel like they were written for the purpose of allowing 13 and 14 year olds to feel sophisticated.

I hate him because all of his vague themes in his writing and the inherent goodness of people or the mysteriousness of the universe are incredibly heavy-handed and poorly executed, also because most of his supposedly funny scenes aren't funny at all.

I hate him because he ruins peoples intellectual explorations by allowing them to feel as though they have done serious reading just because he is babies first step away from genre fiction and YA fiction and when they have read him they feel content and don't read more serious and better literature.

And lastly I hate him because he was Jewish.

>> No.6761210

I don't hate him I just don't overrate him. that rhymed if you can find the time to chime with a response that's fine ya herd

>> No.6761229

>>6760236
>>6760242
>>6760200

Cornell also offered a full course on Pynchon a couple years back, taught by my faculty advisor. Not really sure why he stopped teaching it.

For some reason Cornell isn't on the Pinecone hype train as much as they could/should be (seeing as they're his alma mater). I guess they're too busy cashing in on Toni Morrison, Junot Diaz, and their ilk.

>> No.6761231
File: 358 KB, 476x359, 1430589553250.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6761231

>>6761192
that might be the most idiotic post on /lit/ at the moment. congratulations.

you're the pseudo intellectual and prob some 20 something who has read a few authors now your nose if up your ass about popular high school and early college level authors.

>ruins peoples intellectual explorations

PLEASE don't pretend you know what intellectual exploration is.

>> No.6761239

>>6761192
All of what you said is true, but none of that is acceptable grounds for hating him.

>> No.6761252

I don't hate him. I read SH5 and his style didn't make me want to look into his other books, also maybe I just didn't read closely enough, but it didn't really seem like the entertaining plot had anything profound to say.

>> No.6761257

>>6761229
>you will never major in Pynchon at Cornell

>> No.6761344

>>6760080
"And Lot's wife, of course, was told not to look back to where all those people and their homes had been, but she did look back, and I love her for that because it was so human. So she was turned into a pillar of salt."

I dunno, I really like him. Knowing Vonnegut, though, he was so self-loathing that he would probably agree with the hate. He sure got enough from critics.

Just for the sake of context, how many posters in this thread have read more than one of his novels?

>> No.6761403

>>6760080
I'm ten pages away from the end of Slaughterhouse-Five right now. It was alright but it seems like he just introduces already well-known ideas and adds nothing to them. He just kind of mulches over the same shit for the whole book. It was quite fun though.

>> No.6761410

>>6761192
>Vague themes
This is my biggest issue with his writing. He introduces an idea or topic and lets it just kind of hang around without ever expanding upon it.

>> No.6761429

>>6761410
>me not being spoonfed means the writing is bad

>> No.6761432

>ctrl+f
>no "so it goes" tatooes pics

dissapointed tbh

>> No.6761434
File: 102 KB, 680x583, 1427818666327.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6761434

>>6761410
Do you have any exampled

>tfw always assume people think I'm being condescending on /lit/ and spent more than five minutes trying to figure out how to avoid it and finally gave up

>> No.6761442
File: 40 KB, 600x514, 1435065095033.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6761442

>>6761434
>exampled

After all that

>> No.6761452

>>6761434
This could just simply boil down to me being a mouth-breathing moron like >>6761429 suggests but I feel like in Slaughterhouse-Five he establishes this idea that humans have no free will and then does nothing with it except occasionally point it out again and mention that it's comforting to Billy Pilgrim.

>> No.6761540

>>6761452
I'm not sure I ever caught that. Do you remember how or in which scene it was expressed?

>> No.6761580

>>6761540
If you re-read most of the Tralfamadorian sections the concept free will will definitely be brought up. Also read the quote that is on Montana Wildhack's locket and Billy Pilgrim's office wall. The fact that Billy knows he can't change anything is how he is able to come to terms with the absurdity of his life and the horrors of war.

>> No.6761620

>>6761344
Which book is the qoute from? I remember reading this.

>> No.6761644

>>6761620
It's in the first chapter of Slaughterhouse-Five.

>> No.6761667

He's Pynchon-lite with a great deal of irksome moralizing. Not awful, but highly overrated.

>> No.6761742

>>6761344
I've read two

Nobody's mentioned Sirens of Titan yet, I thought it was p good

>> No.6761760
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6761760

>>6761229
ayy let's talk about Ivy League pussy instead of this lame thread. How's the pussy at Cornell? Do you know a Chinese girl with huge tits in ILR?

>> No.6761770

I liked him a lot 2-3 years ago. Not as much now, but he's alright. I've read almost everything he's written. He would have been much better as a non-sci author, with the silliness toned down--read Mother Night to understand this (which is his best novel).

>> No.6761779

Aside from s-5 he's shit.

He's the king of:

Hey! I'm presenting this in a way that it looks like it's funny/interesting/profound. I mean, it's not really, but I'm presenting it like it is, so it is!

>> No.6761790

so it goes xDD

>> No.6761832
File: 182 KB, 313x413, sluttered.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
6761832

>>6761452
IMO the whole of slaughterhouse five (which is by the way far from the best vonnegut) is supposed to be permeated by Billy Pilgrim's indifference

>> No.6761870

>>6761832
Yeah, I agree with you but I'm not arguing that. I'm saying that he introduces certain concepts and then really does nothing much with it other than one or two specific things, that being one of them. His themes and ideas never really go anywhere or do anything.

>> No.6762029

>>6761580
I see. I always read it as Billy Pilgrim having post traumatic stress disorder and the movements in time were representative of his flashbacks and his delusions. The whole Tralfamaforian concept of time was reflective of Billy's experience because he was living in the past as the same time as the present while escaping from all of it into the future, though it was fantasy. And it's all helped him into a perspective from which he sees his experience as part of a whole: simultaneous isolation and invasiveness as conveyed through his time in the zoo, the seriousness of the event and the ridiculousness of old autistic Billy Pilgrim with his gigantic dingdong, living in the past, present, future, etc.

I thought it was a great exploration of life during and after war.

>> No.6762168

>>6760080
Because he sold out by appearing in that shitty Rodney Dangerfield movie.

>> No.6762177

>>6762168
>not by doing a credit card commercial
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XZMq9KtHYg

>> No.6762192

I like Kurt Vonnegut.
He's books are a nice quick read when I'm in between books longer than 1000 pages. He also doesn't write about kids or pre-teens or teens.
I've read Slaughterhouse V, Breakfast of Champions, and Cat's Cradle.
That said, I don't have much of a desire to read more of him.

>> No.6762219

>>6762168
>No, Vonnegut, fuck you!

I love that part and that movie in general. The paper Vonnegut writes on Vonnegut for him get's a C.