[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 360 KB, 1038x1600, 021915_ReadyPlayerOne_Cover.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7160223 No.7160223 [Reply] [Original]

This book's popularity is proof that no matter how fashionable it is in geek culture to locate and tear down bad entertainment, geeks know nothing about quality fiction.

>> No.7160239

>>7160223
Surprise, ugly social outcasts who feel a perverse pride at sinking their time into escapist entertainment will fellate anyone who congratulates them on being ugly social outcasts who sink time into escapist entertainment.

>> No.7160254
File: 657 KB, 1750x1916, 1433285806731.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7160254

>>7160223
>geek
>culture
you mean corporations turning the hobby of social recluses into a profitable product to sell to teenager girls?

>> No.7160259

geeks are STEMfags and we all know they have no soul

>> No.7160393

>>7160239
Which is why people read James Joyce.

>> No.7160403

>>7160393
Zing!

>> No.7160406

>>7160393
I'd say it's more like why certain people read Bloom.

>> No.7160412

>>7160223
its a good book though, if you grew up with a lot of 80s culture you will get all the references

>> No.7160424

>>7160412
I don't care about references

>> No.7160434

>>7160412
If "getting the references" is the new measure for quality, Family Guy must be equal to the greatest works of the Western canon

>> No.7160440

>>7160223
>geek
Does this word mean nothing now? What kind of "geek" is going to read this? The kind of person that comes to my mind when I think "geek" would hate or be indifferent to this book.

>> No.7160456

>>7160223
>geeks

we called em pussy faggots in my day

>> No.7160458

I read this book.

Let me start off by saying that I've been posting on this board for quite a while, and a lot of the standard /lit/ snobbery has rubbed off on me. When information about this book began to spread, I shared everybody's understandable disdain. From where I was sitting it seemed to me like an embarrassing book designed to pander to nerds' nostalgia. As somebody whose reading time is mostly spent rereading my favorites by Joyce, Gaddis, and McElroy, I didn't think there was any chance that this book would be anything but pain for me to read.

Which is why I'm extremely surprised I'm about to give this book the assessment I'm about to give it. Honestly, I thought it was a staggeringly impressive debut that singles out Kline as *the* writer to watch right now. It's well-written, funny, ingeniously plotted and even (this is the big one) moving. As I was reading it, I couldn't believe my own reaction. And when I was finished, I was astonished at how powerfully the novel resonated.

I urge everyone who's skeptical to give this book a shot. You're bound to pleasantly surprised.

>> No.7160464

>>7160223
>have a friend
>in a conversation with some asshole
>criticizes Twilight one sentence
>praises RPO the next

>> No.7160465

>>7160458
God, I'd believe this were almost true if it hadn't been posted before.

Now that it's been made into copypasta, I know it's a lie.

>> No.7160480

>>7160464

fuck, almost had me.

>>/lit/thread/S7126871#p7129097

>> No.7160484

>>7160480
meant to reply to >>7160458

>> No.7160485

>>7160458
I'll say that some of the plot developments were intriguing, but the characters were awful. I mean, they were just absolutely unlikable shits.

The book reminds me of troper fiction, even beyond the references.

>> No.7160492

>>7160485
>I mean, they were just absolutely unlikable shits.
>not liking a book because the character are unlikeable
i mean RP1 is shit , but come on.

>> No.7160508

>>7160223
>geeks know nothing about quality fiction

Counterexample: /lit/

>> No.7160515
File: 56 KB, 400x300, nerdslam.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7160515

>geek culture

>> No.7160516

>>7160412
The Matrix, Tolkien, and Tarantino are my favorite 80s culture.

>> No.7160525

>>7160516
Mine is the books of Dickens and Zola.

>> No.7160565

>>7160492
This is an important point. Character likability is not crucial to a piece of fiction's quality.

>> No.7160584

>>7160565
It's possible to like a character in the sense that you admired their characterization and found their purpose in the story to be coherent and well thought out, but not as a person you'd want to interact with in real life.

>> No.7160589

>>7160584
True, but most of the time when people mention character likability, it means character you'd want to have a beer with

>> No.7160600

>>7160584
that's why I like that one anime about the menstrual stuff and the kid that pilots the robot. He was whiny and annoying but he represented the plot of the story so good.

>> No.7160632

Everyone knows the greeks are vastly overrated

>> No.7160643

>>7160632
They wouldn't be if the Library of Alexandria hadnt burn down

>> No.7160651

>>7160643
Which Library of Alexandria? On which occasion? By whom?

>> No.7160681

>>7160651
Loss of information due to the Library of Alexandia being burned down is such a shitty STEM meme

Now the sacking of the Assassin's Alamut by the Mongols, THAT's a loss of unique books

>> No.7160687

>>7160681
the library of alexandria had so much information, though!

>> No.7160689

>>7160681
im really ignorant about this but i keep hearing people say that the library of alexandria was such a great loss
why is it a meme

>> No.7160703

>>7160687
>>7160689
While the library of Alexandria was huge, there was no "one" burning down - it burned 4 times - New Atheists use the last burning down as "proof" that religion destroys everything (it was burned down by Muslim invaders, maybe). But there are several stories that contradict each other a bit on that.

Here's a good summary: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2233/what-happened-to-the-great-library-of-alexandria

Most of the information was duplicated in other libraries as it was a "public" library.

Now the stuff in the Assassin's library, that was the "secret" knowledge of a secretive cult - therefore, unique.

>> No.7160706

>>7160703
alright thanks for the tip

>> No.7160707

>>7160681
In all honesty, it's impossible to know just how much of a loss it really was due to the fact that we can't exactly know what was lost

A Catch-22 really

Sure, historical documents-wise it might feasibly be measured, but quality of litterature-wise it's impossible to know

>> No.7160719

>>7160689
I think posters here repeat it without knowing which library it was, by whom it was burned, when it occurred etc. It feels like people want to lament some tragic loss of cultural and intellectual achievement without actually knowing anything about the details.

>> No.7160861

What about the loss of the Jain Purvas? Only a few people were said to be able to memorize all of them, and they contained all the Jain knowledge on the entire universe. Almost all the memorizers died in a famine, and now the Purvas are gone forever. In that case, the loss was total. There were no manuscripts surviving elsewhere because it was all oral.

>> No.7160877

>>7160393
I know this is just bait but have you actually read anything by Joyce? Dubliners is basically Poverty: The Short Story collection, Portrait is fairly realistic, Ulysses has some downer moments that pick up where Dubliners left off.

Finnegans Wake is the only one you could really call "escapist" but even then it's like "escaping" into a convoluted labyrinth.

>> No.7160892

I get the feeling /lit/ automatically dismisses all genre fiction as trash. Really, it dismisses anything not considered to be a classic as trash

>> No.7160920

>>7160892
They like the gene wolfe shit though which is funny to me.

>> No.7160923

Geek Culture helps no one.

It defies geekiness.
It invites dilettante geeks.

The very concept of Geek Culture was invented by the same dilettante geeks in order to exploit consumerism.

Nobody profits from this but those outside real geekiness.

I say geekiness is the isolated, idiosyncratic nature of specific entertaining, escapist interests themselves. To ascribe culture to geekiness is to destroy this idiosyncrasy.

>> No.7160930

>>7160920
It's just like 2-3 wolfefags. No one else on the board takes him seriously.

>> No.7161004
File: 133 KB, 600x600, 1440560284706.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7161004

>>7160920
>>7160930
/lit/ today, the world tomorrow. You can't stop us.

>> No.7161014
File: 14 KB, 200x304, 45.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
7161014

This book's popularity is proof that no matter how fashionable it is in literati culture to locate and tear down bad pseudo-knowledge, literati know nothing about knowledge.

>> No.7161017

>>7160254
Underated meme post.

>> No.7161879

>>7160254
This isn't a meme ever

>> No.7161891

>>7160434
There was a punctuation mark that separated the ideas there.

>> No.7161895

>>7161004
i agree with the slimey croat.

>> No.7163628

>>7160412
The references do not make this a good book, it's a shtick. I agree with OP, I read this book because of the hype and thought it wasn't just bad, but flat out lazy, something a high school student could easily write. Also the whole message of this book ponders to self-proclaimed "nerds" in this comic-con-consumer-culture type of way. It gives me a gross feeling that I find hard to explain. I thought it was mediocre, it's easy, it's bland and that's what makes it successful to a large audience.

>> No.7163944

My gf likes this and told me to read it. I couldn't make it past the first twenty or thirty pages, cringed hard and stopped. But I told her I finished it and it was good so I wouldn't seem like a snob, which she accuses me of.

>> No.7163953

>>7160406
Bloom is gr8 u fuckin cunt, ur just butthurt he doesn't like ur fav book

>> No.7165339

>>7160434
If "getting the references" is the new measure for quality, Ulysses and Finnegans Wake must be equal to the greatest works of the Western canon

>> No.7167806

bump

>> No.7169075

>>7167806
bump