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/lit/ - Literature

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7090769 No.7090769 [Reply] [Original]

Why are the irrelevant parts of the commonwealth stuck writing samey "we act happy but really everything's fucked and small town life is grim and it's all so goddamn disappointing" novels?
How do we move past it? We're terrible underachievers, our countries should at least be matching Ireland but none of them are.

>> No.7090778

Im from Canada but I've never really thought of it as a game of whose country produced better works. authors generally write works that can apply to anywhere in the world.

>> No.7090786
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7090786

Also what accounts for the similarity between Canadian and Cunts/Kiwi fiction, given they're been more in the American sphere of things for longer? Is it just a shared thing of self-abasement and cultural cringe?

>> No.7090787

>>7090769
OP I am in complete agreement with you. Australian writers seem to hate everything about Australia and that's all that ever gets published.

>> No.7090796

>>7090778
you never once wanted to have a national joyce or shakespeare to rub in the yanks and poms smug little faces? be honest

>> No.7090836

>>7090796
>national joyce or shakespeare
lad even many european countries with millenia of literary tradition don't have a joyce or shakespeare tier writer, why should we? These things take time

Still I see your point. As a canadian with dual citizen, who spends a lot of time in the US , I can't understand why our literary culture is so barren. I honestly don't see much of a difference between the two cultures.
How the hell did they produce Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Henry James, and Herman Melville in just a few decades? Why is it that we don't have one, just one, truly great and original writer? One explanation is that we already import our literature and culture from the US to a large degree, so there is no need for originality, but the US was in a similar relationship with Britain in the 19th century and it still found its own literary footing. I can't find any convincing reasons, no matter how hard I look. Our average IQ is literally the same as that of the US, our musicians are doing well, but there is just something terribly stagnant about our literature.
Yes, I'm mad.

>> No.7090861

>>7090769
Try reading some cunt literature you stupid cunt. It is nothing like that. Start with the odd angry shot.

>> No.7090869

>>7090836
>How the hell did they produce Nathaniel Hawthorne, Walt Whitman, Henry James, and Herman Melville in just a few decades?
By hiring haigographical literary critiques in order to support a nationalist capitalist state?

Critique is the problem, not production.

>> No.7090874

>>7090869
this is the stupidest post I've read in a while congrays

>> No.7090875

>>7090874
Looks like you're an irrepressibly dumb cunt.

>> No.7090880

>>7090787
Any attempt to write about Australian in a positive light will just come off propagandistic.

>> No.7090883

>>7090880
>to write about Australian
Maybe instead of writing about the language, or the state, you could write about people.

>> No.7090887
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7090887

>>7090787
Why wouldn't you hate everything about Australia?

>> No.7090888

>>7090869
>By hiring haigographical literary critiques in order to support a nationalist capitalist state?
Are you serious? Holy shit
You realize they shat all over Melville at first because of some shitty british review of moby dick, and James and Hawthorne got their approval from great Britain first right? If anything their literature was not nationalistic enough at the time, they had a huge fetish for Britain
Jesus christ lad, at least think before you post

>> No.7090889
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7090889

>>7090787
To be fair there's some really great "Australia is literally hell" stuff out there, it just lends itself to it

>> No.7090893

>>7090888
And their greatness was produced by college curriculums. Think before you mouth shit.

>> No.7090897

>>7090893
>And their greatness was produced by college curriculums
>their greatness was produced by the British literary establishment
>therfore their greatness was produced by college curricula
brilliant

>> No.7090899

>>7090887
>Why wouldn't you hate everything about Australia?
Couldn't you go a chico roll?

Why don't we nibble nobby's nuts?

>> No.7090905

>>7090897
… sure thing mate. Sure fucking thing. I don't see the state apparatus forcing undergraduates through canadian literature at 300 sites.

Go wank your idealist shit in a closet. Reader reception is in.

>> No.7090907

>>7090888
The mythology and production of Melville, Hawthorne and co into major literary figures was done through the capitalist culture industry of America. America is probably the greatest nation at writing mythologies of itself and tricking others into believing it.

>> No.7090911

>>7090905
>I don't see the state apparatus forcing undergraduates through canadian literature at 300 sites.
What the fuck are you on about? Don't you think it's better to get to work producing great literary culture than to pretend Melville and James aren't important writers?

>> No.7090914

>>7090911
>it's better to get to work
Oh look, now its protestant work ethics. Seppocunt, get the fuck out of this thread.

>> No.7090923

>>7090914
>protestant work ethics
>is the same as not believing retarded conspiracy shit
kill yourself
So tell me the, what's wrong with Melville and James? You don't need to take on the entire country's literature, just these to, and I'll concede.
>>7090907
Bull fucking shit. Anyone who has studied anglophone literature knows that Hawthorne was huge in Britain, that Melville was a dud who was revived in part by the British, that Faulkner, was mostly promoted by the French,etc

>> No.7090932

>>7090923
>what's wrong with Melville and James

Nobody said there was anything wrong with them in this thread. You might want to check your functional literacy. Great works only becoming "great" due to being forced upon undergraduates does not mean that the works have no admirable qualities. You have serious problems with differentiating categories and imputing motives.

The point is that similarly great works lie in the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand canons, but as they are not promoted by the dominant imperial power's university system as great works of canon, they are not received as such by ignorant undergraduates like yourself.

Read Woolf's essay on the middlebrow.

>> No.7090936

>>7090932
>he point is that similarly great works lie in the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand canons
Except these were recongised as great, with the exception of melville, long before the US was a world power
Anyway, tell me- why is the critical consensus wrong? Why are Melville and James not actually great? Who in those countries is as good as they are?
>Read Woolf's essay on the middlebrow.
No, I don't read undergraduate texts by scurrilous critics.

>> No.7090942

>>7090936
>Why are Melville and James not actually great?
>>7090932
>Nobody said there was anything wrong with them in this thread.
>>7090932
>You might want to check your functional literacy.

>> No.7090946

>>7090923
>that Melville was a dud who was revived in part by the British
Melville did have a better reception in Britain than in the US but that didn't make Melville into Melville. Everyone who has read Melville knows it was Raymond Weaver, an American working at an American university, who made him into a figure. The culture industry hard at work.

>> No.7090948

>>7090942
>And their greatness was produced by college curriculums
That kind of implied it,as you well know, but fine. Who is as great as them. You can't dodge forever.

>> No.7090952

>>7090948
>Who is as great as them. You can't dodge forever.
Nobody. Because, as I noted, Australia, Canada, New Zealand do not have a massive imperial ideology apparatus promoting local culture. The history of the failures of attempts to promote nationalist imperialist culture are fairly well known, you might want to read up on the history of the Australian theatre industry, starting with "New Theatre."

>> No.7090958

>>7090952
Jesus christ lad. Who in those cultures SHOULD be great then? Which writers are on par artistically with Melville and James? My god this is pathetic, you know damn well what I'm getting at

>> No.7090970

>>7090958
And your theory of literary worth is garbage. The contents of "good literature" are specified by the same ideological system that declares Russian Great Realism to be "objectively" good whereas Russian Socialist Realism is "objectively" bad. The US ideology industry is exactly politicised as the Soviet one was and the content of works attain no aesthetic criteria outside of a politicised situation. The shit we see up thread such as '' writing samey "we act happy but really everything's fucked and small town life is grim and it's all so goddamn disappointing" novels '' (>>OP) is the exact proof thereof. None of the three literatures produce these texts, but the formal criteria of analysis is projected onto them in order to belittle them and centralise the US role.

The United Kingdom doesn't have an MLA by the way. Nor do the three noted Commonwealth countries.

>> No.7090977

>>7090970
I've only asked you for the names.

>> No.7090979

>>7090977
You asked me to drink your coolade.

>> No.7090981

>>7090970
So what you're saying is that America has cucked the Commonwealth?

Pretty fucked up tbh. Is there some kind of society or awards thing for literature in these countries, something that'll introduce people to their best works?

I'm an American but I never went to college so I'm just dumb all over.

>> No.7090991

>>7090979
You've said that there are Canadian and Australian writers on par (artistically mind you) with Melville and James, and Hawthorne. Well I love literature, so I'd like to read them. Now please give me their names.

>> No.7090995

>>7090981
>So what you're saying is that America has cucked the Commonwealth?

There was no expectation that the US would support white settler society literatures other than their own.

There tend to be national and regional literature awards, my experience of these is that they promote the local bourgeois' political interests.

>>7090991
>You've said
No I bloody didn't. Learn to fucking read.

>> No.7090996

tbh that's what our countries are like

>> No.7091001

>>7090836
>who is munro

>> No.7091002

>>7090995
>The point is that similarly great works lie in the Canadian, Australian and New Zealand canons
>>7090932
What the fuck man

>> No.7091004

>>7091002
>Great works only becoming "great" due to being forced upon undergraduates does not mean that the works have no admirable qualities.

You are illiterate.

>> No.7091008

>>7090996
yeah but we could at least lie about it like other countries do

>> No.7091010

>>7091004
I don't understand? I'm only assuming that you can recommend me the great works (great not by any sort of social standards, but artistically) that you've alluded to.

>> No.7091011

>>7091008
Why? Even more yanks and poms would try to migrate.

>> No.7091013
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7091013

>>7091008
why wouldn't we just be honest?

>> No.7091016

>>7091010
>great not by any sort of social standards, but artistically
Artistic standards ARE social standards, >>7090970


By the way, at least one title and two authors are up thread.

>> No.7091017

>>7090899
I'm going out to get a Chico roll for lunch. Thanks M8!

>> No.7091022

>>7091011
>>7091013
Art is society's self deception

>> No.7091024

>>7091016
>Artistic standards ARE social standards,
Not necessarily
Anyway, I'd like you to name the ones as great as James and Melville.

>> No.7091035

For a supposedly Marxist board who has read Foucault and the Frankfurt boys, you guys are being woefully naive about power relations, material conditions, constructed jingoistic mythologies and their relation to literature. Literature is not pure, it's not transcendent of all that, literary figures don't become figures solely by 'aesthetic merit'. If you think so, you've been drinking the Bloomaid.

>> No.7091036

>>7091024
>>Artistic standards ARE social standards,
What's the master signifier m80.

>> No.7091040

>>7091036
Lad I just want some good new books, can you not name these artists that are, in your subjective opinions, as great as James and Melville? Artists of such calibre in my experience are rare phenomena and I'd delighted to find more of them.

>> No.7091042

>>7091040
>in your subjective opinions
As I've repeatedly told you, excellence is socially constructed.

>> No.7091044

>>7091035
mate jesus christ just say some books or admit you haven't actually read anything

>> No.7091050

>>7091044
>muh Papuan Proust
>muh Zulan Tolstoy

>> No.7091055

>>7091044
lad it's a troll
I'm actually embarassed that it took me this long
>excellence is socially constructed.
I really need to stop browsing this website when I've been drinking

>> No.7091072

>>7091055
>art is objective
you might want to stay away from 4chan when you're drinking m8

>> No.7091074

>>7091055
You need to stop shoving your thumb in a fucking pie you know nothing about.

The Dead Are Many
Odd Angry Shot
Wake in Fright
Patrick White

Go fuck yourself you useless indoctrinated wanker.

>> No.7091083

>>7091074
>ask for an author 5 or 6 times
>he lies and skirts around the question
>get called ignorant by some faggot who recommends me several films and one seemingly interesting writer

>> No.7091095

>>7091083
>films
You really are a dumb cunt aren't you?

>> No.7091104

>>7091095
Nvm, your shit is so irrelevant that it didn't show on the first page of google
But I'm sure it's every bit as good as James and Melville!
And if it isn't, taste is a social contruct that doesn't exist anyway

>> No.7091113

>>7090836
This-ish >>7090869
Although you hit the nail on the head when you said: >we already import our literature and culture from the US

The US exports its literature and culture to the world, just as the British did in the nineteenth century. As a result the works from those countries are more well known. As that other anon kind of said the problem isn't the quality of local writing, it's the quality of local marketing on a global scale.

>> No.7091116

>>7091104
>Nvm, your shit is so irrelevant that it didn't show on the first page of google

So now you're arguing that aesthetics is entirely reader reception and ideological.

GOOD JOB YOU HYPOCRITE

>> No.7091120

>>7090787
Australian culture developed at about the same pace as postcolonial guilt. By the time the Commonwealth united the colonies and territories, and got past the shock of the war, white guilt was just starting to really take off. Australia exists in a state of arrested development due to a stifling combination of nascent nationhood and guilt mixed together.

>> No.7091132

>>7091120
>Australian culture developed at about the same pace as postcolonial guilt.
No it fucking didn't. Read more about how the CPA established "Australian culture" as an explicitly nationalist project.

>>7091120
>By the time the Commonwealth united the colonies and territories, and got past the shock of the war, white guilt was just starting to really take off.

No it fucking wasn't. Sir John Monash was a white triumphalist and organised illegal white armies.

>Australia exists in a state of arrested development due to a stifling combination of nascent nationhood and guilt mixed together.
Stop projecting the 1980s backwards onto the 1890s. Also look up the white australia policy you useless cunt.

>> No.7091135

>>7091116
No I was just butt blasted at his insults, I actually do plan to read the works he recommended.
>>7091113
Interesting point, but the US still broke through even at the peak of British literary dominance. I'm now out of touch with Canadian climate now, but I really am optimistic about its literary culture.

>> No.7091138

>>7090991
Patrick White for Australia. Try and get your head around Voss.

>> No.7091141

>>7091135
I honestly expect you to bitch about the technical minutae in the recommended works. Especially after you've worshipped a whaling manual which unfortunately contains too much homosexual romance.

>> No.7091147

>>7090936
>No, I don't read undergraduate texts by scurrilous critics.
>I don't read
>admitting you won't read certain things (of objective literate worth, such as Woolf) on a literature board
You should never be proud of saying this, or admit it in polite company. Even reading something you disagree with helps sharpen your mind and frame your future critique. Please get help before you damage yourself.

>> No.7091153

>>7091141
>which unfortunately contains too much homosexual romance.
fuck off faggot

>> No.7091158

>>7091153
>I can't handle whale textbooks

>> No.7091165

>>7091141
>whaling and boipucci
You're only making my memories of that book even better lad

>> No.7091168

>>7091132
>fucking fucking fucking
Haha okay buddy.

>> No.7091175

>>7091168
>buddy
Seppo get out.

>> No.7091180

>>7091165
>You're only making my memories of that book even better lad
You're assuming that was hostile. Get back to me after the minutae of victorian criminal fraternities.

>> No.7091181

>>7091175
>not expecting seppos on a seppo website

>> No.7091186

>>7091181
>valuing sepcunts opinions in a bantz thread

>> No.7091190

>>7091132
You're talking about ANZAC culture aimed at the middle/lowbrow in order to sell recruitment in the army, which is a separate from high culture. That's why we have separate words for low and high culture - because they're often very different.

>Stop projecting the 1980s backwards onto the 1890s
It's not like Australia was totally okay with racism on December 31st, 1979 and then suddenly suffered an attack of guilt on January 1st, 1980. White guilt was a slow-brewing process springing from the black emancipation drives in the US in the 40s and 50s, which had an effect on local movements in the 50s and 60s. Black emancipation movements were themselves tied in part to the suffragette and communist movements of the 20s and 30s. White guilt as a mechanism has its roots in the emergence of first wave of feminism before trickling down to the more discriminated against classes and becoming a full blown movement in the 1980s. High-brow culture, which is generally more in-tune with these subtle social movements, was stifled in Australia due to the emerging trend of white guilt. As such, high-brow literature is stifled more than in other countries, which had a few centuries of good clean nationalism during which they could establish a clear national identity.

Don't get mad because I know your history better than you do. I've met a few Australian's, and most of them don't know shit about their own past. What can we expect from a country which allows the functional literacy of one of its states to fall to 50%, I suppose?

>> No.7091198

the simple dismay and sadness that is at the base of all southern ontario gothic (imo) can hit you pretty hard when you're standing in the grand river fishing.

of course all my friends moved to toronto, if not toronto proper, at least what outsiders think toronto is.

>> No.7091200

>>7091186
>the threadbare bantz defense
Oh dear.

>> No.7091201

>>7091190
>White guilt was a slow-brewing process springing from the black emancipation drives in the US in the 40s and 50s

You useless fucking stormweenie. I hope to one day feed you your teeth before you get fed no more.

>Don't get mad because I know your history better than you do.
You know sweet fuck all about Australian history.

>> No.7091203

>>7091198
i should ad munro won the nobel for this shit, so someone likes it? idk?

>> No.7091208

>>7091201
Stirling defense old chap, I like the part where you deconstructed my argument point-by-point with well cited evidence from reputable sources.

>> No.7091209

>>7091198
blind assassin is probably atwood's best book. i don't think munro is very gothic. just southern ontario

>> No.7091222

>>7091132
>Sir John Monash was a white triumphalist and organised illegal white armies.

Do go on....

>> No.7091228

>>7091208
Like you yourself did instead of talking about the United States. Oh wait.

>>7091222
DH Lawrence Kangaroo
Defending the National Tuckshop

>> No.7091234
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7091234

>>7091104

Australia didn't have the population of America at Melville's birth until the 1960s so your demand is quite unfair. Countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are too small and young to compete with the Great American Novelists.

>> No.7091239

>>7090769

OP, have you ever entertained the compound notion that 1) since the quality of art is subjective, and 2) since everyone dies, that 3) it's not worth it (is futile) to get fussed about details, especially since your expressed sentiment is to "compete" in a field which in addition to being subjectively judged, is also (like the entirely of human endeavor) futile?

Moreover, if we accept for discussion the principle that good art derives from suffering (say, Irish Alcoholism, or abject stupidity a la most of the world), then have you ever considered the notion that it is better for a given country to enjoy a higher quality of life at the cost of inferior art? That is, that you mayhaps have... a... First World Problem that you needn't worry about?

Boredom itself is criminally underrated. Boredom entails that your basic needs (and at least a few wants, since humans are never satisfied with baseline survIval) are met.

>> No.7091244

>people trying to handle the bantz with Australians
As an American I'd just like to point out that strayans are the masters of bants. It's literally the only thing they're good at, it's almost as if they've been trained from birth in the art of being a cunt.

>> No.7091247

>>7091244
>as an american
Shit attempt tbh
There's more australian whinging than babter itt

>> No.7091262
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7091262

>>7091247

>> No.7091274

>>7091262
Bad bants tbqh chang

>> No.7091337
File: 39 KB, 636x357, 51714_16x9_636_0[2].jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7091337

>>7090769
Gerald Murnane lad

http://www.musicandliterature.org/features/2013/11/11/the-three-archives-of-gerald-murnane

>> No.7091348

>>7090769
I never really thought about it until now but in school everything we read about Australia was kind of a downer. This country isn't even that depressing so it seems strange.

>> No.7091638

>>7091348
it's pretty depressing cuz

>> No.7091655

>>7091337
What have you read by him?

I've read The Plains, which was euphoric, and Barley Patch, which was bretty good.