FactsAreUseless posted:

I think there's an entire genre of white male 20th century literature that's all about how unhappy a lot of authors were in their marriages (Updike, etc.) and I'm not fond of it in general, but I think Bukowski is one of the more interesting ones. Sadly I think a lot of American literature discussion begins and ends with these authors and completely misses out on a huge swath of fascinating works. The literary world (as in the whole thing, schools and critics and publishers and writers all together) is still very white and very male, with some pretty strong misogyny in its culture.

extra stout posted:

You said that you respect an author who is willing to make himself look vulnerable, so am I fair to respond to just this post honestly without being punished for mod sass? I might just skip it because my response will somehow be called racist by someone, which means in a sense my inaction over it proves the modern media combined with tumblr terrorists have already won

FactsAreUseless posted:

The literary world (as in the whole thing, schools and critics and publishers and writers all together) is still very white and very male, with some pretty strong misogyny in its culture.

Eela6 posted:

non-genre fiction:
Blood meridian by Cormack McCarthy. Man's inhumanity to man in the Mexican American war. This has the most powerful ending of any book I've rws.

The Amazing adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon: Two Jewish kids in 1940s New York and the beginnings of the golden age of comics. Very light magical realism.

FactsAreUseless posted:

I think there's an entire genre of white male 20th century literature that's all about how unhappy a lot of authors were in their marriages (Updike, etc.)

Eela6 posted:

David Foster Wallace had a great take-down of Updike. It's an essay called "Certainly The Death Of Something Or Another" and ends with this:

"It never once occurs to him, though, that the reason he's so unhappy is that he's an rear end in a top hat."

Sorry for the double post, I'm on my phone.

Horniest Manticore posted:

pot, kettle

Eela6 posted:

You can be a dick and still be right. Which is true for you too, I guess.

Sheep-Goats posted:

Lit has nothing to do with what the subject of the story is or how tan its characters are and in 2016 the publisher's doors are open to anyone. Even saying something like this indicates a warped set of concerns.

extra stout posted:

Optimistic ending: Feel free to recommend me a Bukowski novel that isn't just alcohol/cigarettes/prostitution/Seinfeld observations about this society and the characters of it's dark gritty underbelly.

extra stout posted:

I keep trying to think of the simplest way to combine a generally accepted public view of art with actual data. I'll put it this way: Art is accepted as a therapy for pain. It sometimes can be good enough that a lot of people relate to it, not just making you famous or rich or whatever, but it can sometimes actually lead to change. If we accept the obvious that "artists are often people with internal struggles" and suicidal people are often people with internal struggles, a combination of data and opinion can actually explain this "We're mad that white males dominate the best seller list and the classics!".

If anyone here is ignorant of suicide data, specifically the history of American suicide data in your life time, go give it a look. Spoiler alert: Elderly white males, or generally just white males as a whole shoot themselves in the head about always more often than any other group in comparison. So a large group of people, a huge population of a kind of person who are statistically having an internal struggle that is great even if a modern society claims their life is pointless, dull, boring easy spoiled etc, are making a lot of great art about internal struggles.

This is not a conspiracy theory, just plain fuggin facts boys

extra stout posted:

You said that you respect an author who is willing to make himself look vulnerable, so am I fair to respond to just this post honestly without being punished for mod sass? I might just skip it because my response will somehow be called racist by someone, which means in a sense my inaction over it proves the modern media combined with tumblr terrorists have already won

Sheep-Goats posted:

Lit has nothing to do with what the subject of the story is or how tan its characters are and in 2016 the publisher's doors are open to anyone. Even saying something like this indicates a warped set of concerns.

Horniest Manticore posted:

may i suggest a little book called the koran

namaste

H.H posted:

I honestly tried to read it. It's not that interesting TBH. It's sort of a mix between the muslim version of psalms and religious laws.
The laws are written pretty vaguely since it's in a purple prose style. Maybe that's why that are so radically different interpretations of them.

There is very little theology, as in metaphysics, which is another reason why I didn't like it.

I admit I didn't read THAT much of it, so maybe I'm not being fair to it.

H.H posted:

Here's one example of a good minority writer: Sylvia Plath.

A Catholic Englishwoman who was also a Lesbian. She converted to Catholicism and lived in time when even the Catholic part was an issue, not to mention the Lesbian thing.

FactsAreUseless posted:

Don't read religious texts. They're not useful or interesting without a lot of notes, education, etc. Books about religious texts are way more interesting.

H.H posted:

I see your point. I studied both Judaism and Christianity academically, so I never thought of it like that.

FactsAreUseless posted:

Don't read religious texts. They're not useful or interesting without a lot of notes, education, etc. Books about religious texts are way more interesting.

Vegetable posted:

If you don't read religious texts you'll never get the sick references that other people find. Growing up I was always bummed out that the Christians had a leg up in literary analysis.

Then again they're Christians

Ibogaine posted:

Have you ever read "Ham on Rye"? It's mostly about his childhood and youth, and decidedly different from his other novels. (IIRC, he doesn't even have sex in it and he's still a virgin at the end of the book).
edit: One of my favorite Bukowski poems is "The man with the beautiful eyes".

FactsAreUseless posted:

Nope, go for it. It's a literature discussion.

FactsAreUseless posted:

I think there's an entire genre of white male 20th century literature that's all about how unhappy a lot of authors were in their marriages (Updike, etc.) and I'm not fond of it in general, but I think Bukowski is one of the more interesting ones. Sadly I think a lot of American literature discussion begins and ends with these authors and completely misses out on a huge swath of fascinating works. The literary world (as in the whole thing, schools and critics and publishers and writers all together) is still very white and very male, with some pretty strong misogyny in its culture.

extra stout posted:

Nope, and it has been recommended to me several times before, so I will add it to the list. Admittedly, the list is already like 60 books high, I think I still have 20 of the last 30 books I bought unread. There's this local fundraiser used book sale where for like 5 dollars everytime they do it a few times a year, I am drowning in books. And that's not some kind of grabbing garbage at random, talking unread Sam Harris books in hardcover for a dollar, T.S. Eliot collections for 80 cents, it owns.


I did, my slightly coherent white males = most suicidal, white males = most good books theory was above somewhere. Maybe you indirectly replied to it by making a different post about how white male authors aren't the problem rather than other groups being ignored, but I would revert to my brilliant, soon to be celebrated in the the goldmine post about how white male suicide = white male good at writing, Cormac McCarthy is more depressing than Hemingway and has not shot himself, life is interesting and terrifying, I maybe had a drink before writing this post

extra stout posted:

FactsAreUseless posted:

And? He wrote tons of stuff that is not genre fiction, there's not some sort of one-drop rule.