/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.9701193]

i'm new to reading kinda
I loved Lolita, it's my only real reference point for literature
I'm trying to get into Joyce but Dubliners and Portrait of the Artist are dogshit by comparison.
Am I just retarded? What am I missing? How much better is Ulysses?

[Anonymous No.9701209]

>>9701193
>portrait of an artist is dogshit
okay, look. you're wrong. objectively fucking wrong. it's not what you want to read. just read more nabokov. why force yourself to read shit you don't like? Joyce is the greatest living author, and before you stop me, he is immortal. His works transcend mortality and the dichotomy of art and soul.
Nabokov? Just read Pale Fire, and Ada.

[Anonymous No.9701221]

>>9701193

These threads are always stupid because OP never offers any real points other than "I don't get it," and so there's really nothing to say in response other than to call you a pleb.

There's a wealth of resources available for you for exploring and understanding literature and shitposting on /lit/ is not one of them.

[Anonymous No.9701225]

>>9701221
fuck OP
isn't joyce great?
>Deal with him, Hemingway!

[Anonymous No.9701245]

>>9701209
>>9701221
>>9701225
This is now a Joycey Boy appreciation thread.

[Anonymous No.9701248]

>>9701245
wonder what it was like being o'brien or beckett in his shadow.

[Anonymous No.9701263]

>>9701248
Beckett, I think, self-consciously made his works sparser and more tending towards abstract minimalism, lack of movement, and lack of psychological realism/details of everyday life precisely because he felt Joyce had ended that game with Ulysses.

[Anonymous No.9701266]

>>9701221
The irony of threads like this is that OP is the same as the pleb reviews on goodreads that we laugh at. /lit/ is really no better when you really take a look at this place, because we're being overrun by people like OP.

[Anonymous No.9701270]

>>9701263
sounds like painful work, imagine devoting yourself to being different, when so close in time and culture to the man that wrote the last book and blew its ass out? it's like joyce cucked all of literature by slamming the muse's pussy so hard that it could never be used again.

[Anonymous No.9701277]

>>9701270
I like some of Beckett's works more than anything Joyce ever wrote to be honest. It's more honest, more deflated, and less bombastic

[Anonymous No.9701279]

>>9701277
yeah, some people just like inferior work because it's not so overwhelming, i understand completely.

[Anonymous No.9701285]

>>9701279
that sounded rude, i mean like, i don't listen to bach's goldberg variations played by gould all damn day when i want to hear music.
sometimes i want to hear some shit and just enjoy it.

[Anonymous No.9701286]

>>9701277
>It's more honest

The fuck does that even mean?

[Anonymous No.9701288]

>>9701286
he's saying that beckett took up the mantle of new sincerity immediately after Joyce demolished the literary and cultural world by writing the first and last Post-Modern novel.

[Anonymous No.9701292]

>>9701288
even though Joyce preceded him with the ultimate New Sincerity text, Dubliners. Beckett Eternally BTFO

[Anonymous No.9701294]

>>9701288
wtf I hate sincerity now.

[Anonymous No.9701296]

>>9701277
>More honest
Dubliners and and Portrait, especially Dubliners, are some of the most sincere things ever written. Perhaps you completely missed a lot of what Joyce was trying to say/do.

[Anonymous No.9701298]

>>9701288
what is this sincerity that /lit/ keeps talking about? Aren't all authors supposed to be sincere?

[Anonymous No.9701306]

>>9701298
>t. brainlet
no. they're not all supposed to be sincere, you faggot.

[Anonymous No.9701308]

>>9701298
It's just meaningless English lit 101 garbage that helps you pass. "Flaubert writes in a styles that is simple and sincere."

[Anonymous No.9701310]

>>9701286
>>9701296
I mean, you could tell how hard Joyce is trying in those to be incredibly sentimental and feelsy and get deep into the minds of his characters. Apparently, he believed that Dubliners would change people's lives and make Ireland look at itself and basically just be a sensation ... then he realized, he was too goddamn sentimental and romantic (as Hemingway actually said of him).

Beckett, meanwhile, is colder but also more honest. And funnier. His works are just him pissing around. He doesn't take it as serious as Joyce, and thus there's a more humane quality in it. He's more honestly pessimistic too.

[Anonymous No.9701312]

>>9701296
>dude the soul-crushing mundanities of daily life are actually beautiful lmao

[Anonymous No.9701313]

>>9701298
They should be, but they're not. It's a complicated topic, but sincerity in writing is basically writing from the heart/soul for a higher purpose than money and fame. With Dubliners, for example, Joyce sincerely believed that it would make the people of Ireland see the errors of their ways, and would change the course of Irish history. He also wrote a lot of his personal experiences and anguishes, which can be seen especially in The Dead.

[Anonymous No.9701314]

Joyce is overrated artsy rubbish

[Anonymous No.9701318]

>>9701314
MOTHERFUCKER

[Anonymous No.9701327]

>>9701286
"Honest" artwork means the writer is speaking purely from the heart for the sake of their message; it's a pure expression.
As opposed to work that is written for the sake of impressing a certain feeling from the reader,or if the writer just flexing his muscles with flourishes or maximalist prose, and postmodern techniques that break modernist rules for the sake of doing so. These are Joyce's most consistent criticisms. Not necessarily "dishonest" writing, just not honest.
Dishonest writing would be YA/genre stuff with bombastic emotional manipulation and thesaurus prose.

good dichotomies for "honest" vs "not honest" would be Woolf/Joyce, Hemingway/Faulkner, John Williams/Cormac McCarthy (not that they are ever compared, it's just a good example)

[Anonymous No.9701331]

>>9701312
They are actually beautiful though. It's often the most simple things that are most sublime.

[Anonymous No.9701333]

>>9701327
so the good writers are the ones that aren't honest

[Anonymous No.9701337]

>>9701312
>dude let's skip the epiphanies and the symbols of British oppression. An arm wrestle is just an arm wrestle.

[Anonymous No.9701338]

>>9701333
If you reduce it to a purely literary standpoint, yes.
I could reduce it to a purely artistic standpoint and say that the ones who actually have something consequential to say are the honest ones.
Don't let your bias distort your perception of things.

[Anonymous No.9701339]

>>9701292
holy...

[Anonymous No.9701347]

>>9701209
>greatest living author

No he's not and you're a retard

[Anonymous No.9701352]

>>9701347
>t. butthurt manlet bucktooth biotch
tommy, you lost, aright? Joyce is eternal. You're just quirky.

[Anonymous No.9701357]

>>9701352
use your brain

[Anonymous No.9701360]

>>9701357
>he didn't read the post
tommy, so used to plebbing on /lit/ that he can't even read anymore. truly /ourguy/

[Anonymous No.9701366]

>>9701193

You can't expect to enter the field of reading (not picking up a book every once in a while, but regularly consuming literature) and enjoy classic texts.

What you are expecting is the same as picking up a dumbbell once or twice and checking to see if you have a muscular body. That isn't how this sort of thing happens.

Lolita is so good in your eyes simply because it doesnt hold the same complexity and requirement of experience as a joyce text. If I am to recommend anything it is to: 1) actually get reading (start with page turners, books which while not too complex still hold artistic value) and 2) find out if you actually *want* to be reading what you are. People get caught up in the aesthetic of niches and hobbies and immediately convince themselves that they have to take part of it. If you feel like youre forcing yourself to read as a chore, then go look for a different hobby.

>Am I just retarded?
I mean a little bit, so youre going to have a hard time with the greeks (if you read them)

>What am i missing
patience

>How much better is Ulysses
really depends on your preferences as a reader

[Anonymous No.9701368]

>>9701266
i personally welcome this! i think the goal of our community should really be turned to the education of people who are coming into /lit/. we were all pleb once

[Anonymous No.9701371]

>>9701366
>t. thinks anyone will read this shit
your book is going to be a failure, anon.
tighten that shit up, senpai.

[Anonymous No.9701375]

>>9701371
ay ay captain! thanks for the (you)

[Anonymous No.9701383]

>>9701366
>joyce is complex
>the greeks
>reading isn't for everyone just be yourself :)
wow, sick post dude, you did it

[Anonymous No.9701385]

>>9701193

Portrait is so much better than that Nabokov LARP you have no idea.

But then you admit to being new to reading so I'll take that into consideration.

[Anonymous No.9701698]

>>9701193
If you are a new reader, I'm pretty sure your attitude is awful. I mean, I want to die when I sit to study Kanji and realize that there are 3000 of them, and give up, but I don't call it dogshit and the Japanese retarded.

[Anonymous No.9701926]

maybe you should start with harry potter anon