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/lit/ - Literature

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894180 No.894180 [Reply] [Original]

Michael Chabon is boring and purple, and his attempts at genre-fiction are too self-conscious to be enjoyable.

>> No.894182

Michael Chabon is awesome and I want to doubleteam Sam Clay with Tracy Bacon.

>> No.894200

James Joyce is overrated shit and people only read it to look down on others who haven't.

>> No.894217

James Joyce is awesome and I want to doubleteam Nora with him.

>> No.894219

/lit/ doesn't really hate Tao Lin.

>> No.894221

>>894200
Who wants to bet this guy has never read Joyce, or gave up after ten pages? And he will probably lie and say he has.

>> No.894228

>>894221

Way to prove my point, broseph.

>> No.894230

>>894221

Yeah man Portrait was the only book I was assigned in school that I did not read in totality, but looking back it was a pretty great book disregarding the first chapter. Joyce is awwwwwright.

>> No.894237

>>894219

Wait... since when did /lit/ hate Tao Lin?

>> No.894240

>>894237

since Tao Lin was a piece of shit

>> No.894241

I love communism and the USSR but I'm not an idiot and I know those were complete failures when applied in real life to a real country and could no longer be sustained.

Still, I really want to believe ;_;

>> No.894243

>>894217
http://vocaroo.com/?media=vM19Leox2auPtD94L

>> No.894244

>>894228
Nowhere in my post did I look down on you for not having read Joyce. I looked down on you for judging a world renown author without even having read him.

>> No.894262

>>894244

Of course, you assuming that everyone who has read him likes him is pretty, I don't know the word so I'm gonna say stupid.

>> No.894269

>>894237

/lit/ thinks he is a hipster or something.

I've never actually heard a real criticism of his writing (although there are plenty of legitimate criticisms of it)

Personally I like his work.

>> No.894281

>>894262
The fact that you haven't actually read any of his works leaks right through your posts. You resent the fact that you couldn't understand him or found him boring (or even worse, resent his reputation without even owning one of his books).

>> No.894287

>>894281

See, there's that smug sense of arrogance coming out. It offends you personally that some people don't find his work enjoyable. Maybe you're worried you wasted your money on an English degree, or maybe you're trying to justify the time you spent reading his work. Either way, you need to get that stick out of your ass and realize that different people are going to like different things.

>> No.894303

Nowadays, I'm spending more time talking about reading and what I have read more than ACTUALLY reading.

I think you guys are bringing out the best and worst in me.

>> No.894308
File: 19 KB, 200x200, 1274463580339.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
894308

I think Salinger is a fucking shit hack.

>> No.894314

>>894240
2deep4u.jpg

>> No.894322

I really, REALLY love the works of Bret Easton Ellis. I own every book of his, save for Imperial Bedrooms, which I intend to pick up once it comes out on paperback.

>> No.894325

Well this thread turned out well

The fact that nobody can resist Chabon's dreamy eyes and gross long stringy eccentric artist hair doomed everyone itt from the start, OP

>> No.894326

>>894322
this is the only post in this thread that has me raging. man i hate that guy

>> No.894330

>>894308
I don't you know what that word means. Call him edgy, superfluous, superficial, immature, or anything really judging his style. But calling him a hack? Ehhhh...

>> No.894332

>>894326
u homophobic bro? for shame

>> No.894336

>>894332
naw, i love chabon for ex. i'm 80s edgymophobic

>> No.894342

>>894326

Well, you don't have to like what I like, and I can certainly see why others may take a disliking to him.

>> No.894353

>>894342
tch it's not fun if you don't have a bitchfit

>> No.894355

I hate books. /lit/ is /v/ for books.

>> No.894359

I love The Catcher in the Rye. And everything Jack Kerouac wrote. Also, I think Lord of the Flies is overrated and I can't believe it won Golding a Nobel Prize. Same goes for The Old Man and the Sea.

>> No.894364

I find the sudden backlash against J.D Salinger hilarious.

I despise 1984 because i believe it turns a complex issue into a black-and-white moralistic dichotomy.

>> No.894368

I feel that people should read Shakespeare more then they do.

>> No.894391

>>894180
chabon is totally moving towards just doing shameless genre stuff rather than trying to make it respectable. bless his soul

>> No.894427

>>894359
personally, i think that prize was more to recognize Hemingway's career than The Old Man and the Sea specifically, which kinda blew.

On a related, note confessing I thought The Old Man and the Sea kinda blew (though Hemingway's godly)

>> No.894429

>>894391

I hope not, Kavalier and Clay is much better than his genre stuff. It's a great mix of the two sides, not trapped by the conventions of either--what other Pulitzer prize winner has somebody build a plane out of dead dogs?

>> No.894432

>>894429
shitty ones

really shitty Pulitzer prize winners

>> No.894433

>>894359

Golding

>"for his novels which, with the perspicuity of realistic narrative art and the diversity and universality of myth, illuminate the human condition in the world of today"

Almost no one wins a Nobel prize on the strength of one book

>> No.894435

I seriously want to read your books, mrs Woolf, but it's so fucking boring i actually fall asleep if i try so.

>> No.894438

>>894432

Just a little too deep for you

>> No.894570

I enjoyed The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and Digital Fortress.

I'm an English Undergraduate.

>> No.894577

>>894570

Man, me too. Well, I've only read A&D. But I enjoyed it a lot. Maybe it helped that I used it to while away a spell in the airport and most of the following plane journey - pretty much exactly the intended context in which to read it.

>> No.894584

>>894577
Definitely, I think I was on a long coach journey when I first read DVC. It's one of those brain off, sit back and enjoy the ride sort of books.

>> No.894586

David Sedaris can't write for shit and he's barely funny. There, I said it.

And if you haven't read DFW you don't know a THING about modern fiction.

>> No.894596

I don't know if my tastes are really mine, or if i just like them because everyone does

>> No.894616

I onw every one of Matthew Reilly's books and enjoy them immensely.

>> No.894621

>>894433

Yeah, yeah, whatever, The Lord of the Flies was a shitty book and failed to make me want to read more of Golding's work.

>> No.894625

rudy rucker writes juveniles.

>> No.894643

I hate Neil Gaiman's books and I don't get how can anyone enjoy them. He's just horrible.

>> No.894684

Jane Austen is boring and the only reason she's so popular because of undersexed housewives who fap to Darcy.

>> No.894685

Mark Twain is just the Dave Barry of his time. If they had the internet back then, nobody would have cared about him.

>> No.894687

The best genre fiction is better than the best literary fiction.

>> No.894706

Catherine Cookson suuuuuuuuuucks.

>> No.894711

The God Delusion is Twilight for atheists.

>> No.894722

I have more respect for Stephenie Meyer than I do for the people who are too stupid to mock her but still go ahead and do so anyway

>> No.894759

God fucking damn I hated Moby Dick with a passion. It was bland as fuck, boring, and the whaling techniques were stupid and outdated.

Fuck you, Melville.

>> No.894762

>>894711

Really? My boyfriend told me I should look into it.
Is it THAT bad?

>> No.894784

>>894759

I'm struggling with it right now.

>> No.894788

I don't care much for books after the 1950's and I don't care if you think that makes me pretentious. I am kind of. Modern books are either too simple of needlessly complex.

>> No.894809

I hate people who can't separate science and religion.

>> No.894827

i hate to kill a mocking bird. hate HATE HATE!

>> No.894834

I love the Rincewind novels and think that the guards from discworld are shit.

>> No.894841

>>894711
this

>> No.894847

I don't like Murakami.

I've never read him. Thanks to you, /lit/.

>> No.894850

>>894827

I loved To Kill a Mockingbird.

>> No.894854

I hate Tolstoy. I got 350 pages into Anna Karenina, then gave up. If I wanted a fucking soap opera, I'd go watch daytime TV.

>> No.894859

>>894834

But the guards are awesome!

>> No.894862

i didnt enjoy American Gods but i did enjoy the Elvish Gene.

>> No.894868

>>894243
Wha-hahahahahahahahaha

>> No.894869

>>894859
leave him, he's clearly got severe brain damage.

>> No.894870

I hate American Pastoral.

>> No.894871

>>894219
Sup Tao, still lurking?

>> No.895209

I get kinda tired of people saying other people in the past were all hot shit. Seriously guys, stop putting them on pedestals. It is friggin annoying.

>> No.895213

Isaac Asimov's science fiction is his worst writing.

>> No.895215

I enjoyed Anne Rice's first three books of the Vampire Chronicles.

>> No.895217

>>895209
I hate people like this who assume that if it isn't modern, it isn't worth shit. Humanity has existed for thousands of years, are you truly so egotistical to think that only YOUR lifetime has worthy literature?

>> No.895222

Richard Dawkins is a stupid hack who pushes ideas that have been known for years in the name of anti-religion, rather than making science easier for people to understand while leaving ideas open to anything like Carl Sagan.

>> No.895228

>>895217
I'm not sure that's what he was trying to say. It's just common (and ridiculous) for people who consider themselves intelligent to think that they were "born in the wrong time." I can't remember if it was Descartes or Tolstoy who went on a funny rant about that.

>> No.895233

>>895228
Ah, I misunderstood. Sorry. I still stand by hating people who hate all books not published during their lifetime.

>> No.895241

>>895233
I'm with you on that one. We should meet up sometime, and maybe kill some hobos or something.

>> No.895243

Neil Gaiman's prose is sub-par and his stories borrow heavily from other writers.

>> No.895249

I don't like The fucking Giver, I don't see the big deal.

>> No.895251

I read all of the Twilight books to impress women.

>> No.895252

I think Eddie Murphy is annoying as fucking hell. Not funny at all.

>> No.895254
File: 21 KB, 471x480, Hayashida.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
895254

>>895213

>> No.895260

American Psycho is one of my all time favorite books.
I read Fight Club and thought it was good.

>> No.895287

The Road is Cormac McCarthy's worst book and the Pulitzer was the committee's way of apologizing for not giving the prize to him for Blood Meridian.

>> No.895288

The giver is terrible and if you like it I hope you face goatseization by a pack of wild niggers

>> No.895345

>>895222

Anyone who isn't a tremendous tool/pseudo-ntellectual thinks this.

>> No.895382

I feel obligated to finish reading Lolita, but I just don't want to do it.

>> No.895385

I read Twilight and I liked it

>> No.895395

i hate Heart of Darkness, anything written by Steinbeck, anything written by Agatha Christie, The Metamorphosis, and i thought Brave New World was only good until the native kid came in.
I have never finished The Return of the King

>> No.895405

>>895222
Why should any scientist be pro-mythology when it is the main obstacle scientists deal with for funding?

>> No.895406

>>895254

I don't know what you mean to say.

>> No.895409

>>895382
The last 10 pages or so are the most beautiful prose you've ever read in your life. It's worth it, it really is.

>> No.895417

Amy Tan is an awesome author and chinese-american women seriously need to write more about their experiences with first gen parents.

>> No.895426

I can't take any books based on films or games seriously. Ex: star wars and D&D novels.

>> No.895430

I loved Slaughterhouse-Five
I hated Cat's Cradle

>> No.895435

>>895430
I didn't really like Cat's Cradle and I don't want to read Vonnegut again, but maybe there's hope...

>> No.895440

>>895382

I got kinda turned on by Lolita.

>> No.895442
File: 64 KB, 640x480, dawson-crying.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
895442

The main reason I like George Orwell and Ernest Hemingway is because they're easy as hell to read. THERE. I SAID IT.

>> No.895449

>>894241
>>894711
>>894711
>>894711
>>894711
>>894711
>>894711
fucking this. It's worse than half the pseudo-science christfag book out there.

>> No.895462

any book that focuses on British oppression in Africa automatically goes on my shit list. i dont care if its well written, the story just doesnt do anything for me.

>> No.895474

A near 2000 year old book on completion written by 40 men over the course of 1500 years is no less mythology nor more factual than any other mythology.

>> No.895475

>>895462
What about books focusing on the British kicking ass in Africa in a positive light?

>> No.895477

>>895475
that sounds good.
what books are we talking here?

>> No.895491

>>895475
>>895477
http://www.amazon.com/Legionnaire-Years-French-Foreign-Legion/dp/0891418873/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s
=books&qid=1278792291&sr=1-1

I've started reading this. So far it's pretty good.

>> No.895494

>>895477
Zulu Dawn is one example.

>> No.895495

>>895477
H. Rider Haggard on the Imperial Frontier: The Political And Literary Contexts of His African Romances is also good.

>> No.895501

>Michael Chabon is boring and purple

WHAT DOES PURPLE MEAN?
(in this context)

>> No.895509

>>895501
as in purple prose?

>> No.895512

>>895501
So unbelievably overdone and extravagant as if to draw attention to itself that it sucks.

>> No.895519

>>895512
you mean like your use of the word purple?

>> No.895523
File: 17 KB, 306x432, wicket.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
895523

Michael Chabon is GAY. Can we just say that? I mean, he might think he's bi. And his wife Ayelet might publish a LUDICROUS memoir about how she feels like a bad mother because she just can't stop having sex with her husband. The lady doth protest too much, methinks. Does anybody really believe that he's write so explicitly about buggery in Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Wonder Boys, and Kavalier and Klay if he wasn't ACTUALLY A BUTT PIRATE. I mean, seriously, look at a photo of the guy. He has the same hologram eyes that so many gay guys have (along the lines of what Tom Hanks does in "Philadelphia" to seem gay without mincing and lisping). But I mean seriously. MICHAEL CHABON IS A HOMOSEXUAL. And he doesn't seem to realize it! Who the fuck does he think he is, Thomas Mann?

But yes, his genre-fiction is an embarrassment. I'm sure a lot of people have had that same "The Final Problem" / "The Final Solution" idea. But most of us had the good taste NOT TO FUCKING WRITE IT. And write it BADLY for that matter.

Michael Chabon is clearly the Liberace of American Literature. So depressing that this is what passes for Quality Lit nowadays.

>> No.895525

>>895519
>0/10

>> No.895527

>>895525
you know it's true.

>> No.895528

>>895519
What

>> No.895532

>So unbelievably overdone and extravagant as if to draw attention to itself that it sucks
>WHAT DOES PURPLE MEAN?

I rest my case.

>> No.895536

>>895532
You aren't making any case.

>> No.895539

>>895532
Did sixth graders get out of school today or something?

>> No.895541

>>895477
The Wealth and Poverty of Nations describes how Europeans became the MOST AWESOME PEOPLE EVER.

>> No.895542

>>895539
They've been out for a month and a half. It's more likely that one wandered over from /v/.

>> No.895544

>>895539
>>895536
>>895528
>>895525
>>895512
obvious samefag

>> No.895547

>>895544
Dude, what the fuck are you even talking about holy shit

>> No.895548

>>895512
>>895512
Thanks.
Never heard that before.

>> No.895551

>>895523


>hologram eyes

que

>> No.895557

>>895544
Nope. Nice try tho.

>> No.895558

>hologram eyes
>que

"I used to be afraid of becoming gay because I thought gay men had eyes like holograms: I couldn't tell apart the fierce controlling stare of a Moonie and the gay man's cruising gaze, each species willing to establish eye contact on the street and to convert me."

--Wayne Koestenbaum, "The Queen's Throat: Opera, Homosexuality, and the Mystery of Desire". Page 31.

That answer your que, Pablo?

>> No.895561

>>895544
I'd gander that this is the same stupid dickbag making senseless, inaccurate posts on other threads in /lit/ tho. Go back to /b/

>> No.895562
File: 76 KB, 390x585, Chabon-Michael.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
895562

Look into my hologram eyes, Ayelet. I have never gay.

>> No.895564

>>895561
samefag

>> No.895565

>>895564
Samefag with himself? You need more than one post number.

>> No.895566
File: 28 KB, 300x435, michael_chabon_narrowweb__300x435,0.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
895566

No, seriously, do I look gay to you? Ayelet just wrote an entire book about how I do the sex to her ALL THE TIME. Really, I love pussy! I eat it for breakfast! Disregard all of those protagonists in my work who take it up the ass! I'm a married man, like Oscar Wilde!

>> No.895571
File: 43 KB, 327x458, chabon_photo.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
895571

No, seriously, folks. I'm as straight as Fifth Avenue. Yup. You can hear my balls clank together as I walk, that's how butch I am. I just wrote a book about fatherhood.

>> No.895573

>>895564
>>895565
samefag

>> No.895576
File: 38 KB, 300x400, michael-chabon-1008-def-83574073.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
895576

Verily, I am as ruggedly heterosexual as Ernest Heminggay. Oops! Sorry. I meant Ernest Homoway. Look into my eyes. Or ask my lovely wife Ayelet.

>> No.895585
File: 52 KB, 330x375, 4580_chabon_michael.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
895585

I wrote the screenplay for "Spiderman 2"! You don't think they'd let a closet homosexual write a screenplay for "Spiderman 2", do you? I have a wife and kids! I am only interested in sodomy for its sheer aesthetic value!

>> No.895622

>>895573
wha-what?

>> No.895625

>>895622
don't try to deny your samefaggotry

>> No.895633

>>895625
>>895622
Samefag.

>> No.895637

Oliver Twist is the worst piece of shit I have ever read.

>> No.895653

>>895585
>>895576
>>895571
>>895566
>>895562

I am now imagining his wife pegging him

Feels good man

>> No.895658

>>894322
>>894314
>>894308
>>894303
>>894287
>>894281
>>894269
>>894262
>>894244
>>894243
>>894241
>>894240
>>894237
>>894230
>>894228
>>894221
>>894219
>>894217
>>894200
>>894182
>>894180
samefag

>> No.895970

>>894241

What? Millions died, and that entire region will continue to recover for generations. Maybe, you meant that you love the fashion or art?

/lit/ is filled with high school and college age boys. I am disappoint. But, I keep pretending that intelligent people secretly post here.

>> No.895984

Catcher in the Rye is overrated. Everyone only waxes poetic about it because they read it as a teenager. Read it again as an adult and see if it's still good. Hint: it sucks dicks.

>> No.896018

Read The Deerslayer. Liked it. Screw Mark Twain.

>> No.896024

>>895970
As someone who lived behind the wall and still lives in eastern Hungary, I tell you with all honesty that many many people would rather deal with the USSR than with how the world is today.

>> No.896063

>>895984
>I'm an adult

>> No.896101

I don't like when niggers write books and poetry. It's always the same themes repeated.

>> No.896105

>>895984
Sad when Salinger is 2deep4u

>> No.896252

I hate Burroughs and I just think he tries too fucking hard. Actually, I hate all the beat generation. The only parts of The Road that I really enjoyed were the ones about cocks/gay sex.

>> No.896376

My name is Mary-ann and I think that books about kittens are the best!!

>> No.896449

What the fuck are hologram eyes?

>> No.896461

mah rhinestone eyes are like factories far away.

>> No.896480

I stop reading any book that has religious allegories, no matter how far in I am.

>> No.896632

Arthur C. Clarke da bomb, yo.

Never looked at a starry sky the same way after 2001/2010.

>> No.899144

SAVED

>> No.899148

>>896461
good song

>> No.899177

The hobbit is shit, aggravating and it makes me feel nothing but hatred.

>> No.899179

>>899177
No the hobbit is the first one with the dragon, you mean Lord of The Rings.

>> No.899181

>>899179
I mean the whole fucking series. Just thinking about it makes me annoyed, they're so shit and over-rated.

>> No.899185

The return of the king is shit, aggravating and it makes me feel nothing but hatred.

>> No.899186

>>899181
I can see hating Lord of The Rings with its songs and its walking and it's piss poor pacing but the hobbit is damn near perfect.

>> No.899189

>>899186
The strange thing is, I never really watch television but I recently watched The Lord of the Rings movies and they weren't that bad. I thought they were quite good to be honest but God Forbid I ever have to read those books again.

>> No.899204

>>895562
Homophobic, much?

>> No.899217

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay was awesome, but Chabon has been steadily worsening ever since. He is the M. Night Shamalan of /lit/.

>> No.899243

>>899217
I thought Yiddish Policemen's Union was pretty good. Here's hoping the Coen brothers do the movie justice.

>> No.899307

I love you from the very bottom of my heart, Victoria. It is you I want to spend my life with. Thy outstanding intellect and beauty haunts my dreams, your appearance leaves me in awe.

I only wish you reciprocated my love.

>> No.899311

>>899307
This is why you creep me out, David.

>> No.899313

>>899311

Who is David?

>> No.899315

Hal's best friend is David

>> No.899392

Cormac McCarthy is a pretentious, illiterate, old man who covers up his inability to punctuate and narrate with lofty abstractions so as to make himself seem so much smarter than the reader, which invariably, the reader falls for.

>> No.899392,1 [INTERNAL] 

green-oval /lit/, i love michael chabon but this thread has haunted me ever since i read it with the thought that he's the m. night of popular literature