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I like witty, haughty, sprezzatura aristocrats. Lord Henry Wotton from A picture of Dorian Gray is a great example. Can you guys help me find more of them? I'm thinking I should read more French writers, this feels like it is right up their alley. I'll get started with à rebours for now.
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Jan 4, 2021 22:00
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KVeezy3 posted:its utter lack of moral courage. What does this mean? uguu posted:I like witty, haughty, sprezzatura aristocrats. Lord Byron
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Jan 4, 2021 22:13
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uguu posted:I like witty, haughty, sprezzatura aristocrats. Chateaubriand, though he's also pretty gloomy
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Jan 4, 2021 22:38
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uguu posted:I like witty, haughty, sprezzatura aristocrats. Anything by F. Scott Fitzgerald, but The Beautiful and Damned is my favorite.
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Jan 4, 2021 22:45
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CestMoi posted:i would also like to use this joke as an opportunity to say i know what death of the author is My b to Lil Mama; too bad they're already dead. ThePopeOfFun posted:What does this mean? Contemporary U.S. literature is extremely insular, 'apolitical' and is petrified of antagonizing anyone. Then it re-frames those attributes positively as the utmost devotion to literature as pure craft. KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Jan 5, 2021 |
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Jan 4, 2021 22:46
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uguu posted:I like witty, haughty, sprezzatura aristocrats. Try Pleasure by D'Annunzio (but make sure you read the new penguin classics edition, the old public domain translation is bad).
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Jan 5, 2021 01:00
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KVeezy3 posted:My b to Lil Mama; too bad they're already dead. I think that the problem is actually the opposite, since most contemporary US literature seems to opt for 'important' politics(though generally boring liberal ones that won't raise too many eyebrows) over attention to craft. If people were writing apolitical books with extremely good writing that would be better than the current state of affairs.
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Jan 5, 2021 01:09
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A human heart posted:I think that the problem is actually the opposite, since most contemporary US literature seems to opt for 'important' politics(though generally boring liberal ones that won't raise too many eyebrows) over attention to craft. If people were writing apolitical books with extremely good writing that would be better than the current state of affairs. Who are the young contemporary writers from the U.S. writing overt polemics? No ironic detachment here, I would genuinely like to read them. KVeezy3 fucked around with this message at 02:12 on Jan 5, 2021 |
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Jan 5, 2021 01:23
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are we still trying to convince ourselves there’s subversive art?
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Jan 5, 2021 02:35
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Lil Mama Im Sorry posted:are we still trying to convince ourselves there’s subversive art? I don't know about 'We', but my dumbass certainly does. An example that I think left an indelible mark on history is Diderot's Rameau's Nephew.
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Jan 5, 2021 03:38
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KVeezy3 posted:Who are the young contemporary writers from the U.S. writing overt polemics? No ironic detachment here, I would genuinely like to read them. I don't think writers need to write polemics to be political or be mainly known because of their politics. Like to take a random example, that Marlon James book that won the Man Booker seems to have mostly been talked about because of its perceived relevance to the political situation in the US. Most of the big 'literary' American books that anyone talks about seem to be discussed similarly.
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Jan 5, 2021 04:19
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Am I missing something here or is Marlon James not a writer from the United States?
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Jan 5, 2021 04:24
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A Human Heart is saying like random example, American authors are talked about the same. They don't need to write overt polemics to be considered political. I'm curious what polemics you're wanting authors to write. Grab a Black authors list from last summer and I guarantee you'll find some politics.
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Jan 5, 2021 06:22
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A human heart posted:I think that the problem is actually the opposite, since most contemporary US literature seems to opt for 'important' politics(though generally boring liberal ones that won't raise too many eyebrows) over attention to craft. If people were writing apolitical books with extremely good writing that would be better than the current state of affairs. yeah
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Jan 5, 2021 09:44
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my wager is that anything that's moving, well crafted and aesthetic is also redemptive, and programmatic political stuff in a novel is just going to make it boring and stilted which serves nobody
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Jan 5, 2021 09:58
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uguu posted:I'll get started with à rebours for now. À Rebours and the rest of Huysmans' novels are great but all his protagonists are the opposite of sprezzatura in my mind, people who are sincerely, undisguisedly unhappy because of the lack of a moral and intellectual framework to their existence. I don't think you'll find many positive examples of the trait in post-Renaissance French lit, and even in du Bellay or Ronsard who stole everything from the Italian court poets there's a certain disdain for studiously indifferent Italian wastrels
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Jan 5, 2021 10:04
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Me, a poo poo-for-brains moron: "yeah good literature probably has content IDK?" You, an intellectual: whatever the gently caress people are spouting ITT
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Jan 5, 2021 10:05
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KVeezy3 posted:Am I missing something here or is Marlon James not a writer from the United States? He was born in Jamaica but lives and works in the US as a professor of literature. The book in question received extensive coverage in the US(and elsewhere in the anglo world which covers literature in a pretty similar way) based upon its political content and relevance to the American political situation so I don't see how it contradicts the point I'm making. Substitute in a natural born American writer if you're feeling pedantic. 3D Megadoodoo posted:Me, a poo poo-for-brains moron: "yeah good literature probably has content IDK?" Very interesting stylistic choice to sign your post at the beginning, rather than the end.
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Jan 5, 2021 11:05
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Shibawanko posted:my wager is that anything that's moving, well crafted and aesthetic is also redemptive, and programmatic political stuff in a novel is just going to make it boring and stilted which serves nobody everyone read Amalgamemnon by Christine Brooke-Rose please
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Jan 5, 2021 11:59
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it's a beautiful word drunk monologue and deeply political and it's perfect, best book I read in 2020, not particularly contemporary but the malaise of anglo literature has existed for decades
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Jan 5, 2021 12:05
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3D Megadoodoo posted:Me, a poo poo-for-brains moron: "yeah good literature probably has content IDK?" the content is the form is the content is the form is the content is the form is the content is the form is the content is the form is the content is the form is the content is the form
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Jan 5, 2021 12:08
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CestMoi posted:everyone read Amalgamemnon by Christine Brooke-Rose please this looks like it's kind of like the passion according to gh, which is a great book
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Jan 5, 2021 12:20
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A human heart posted:He was born in Jamaica but lives and works in the US as a professor of literature. The book in question received extensive coverage in the US(and elsewhere in the anglo world which covers literature in a pretty similar way) based upon its political content and relevance to the American political situation so I don't see how it contradicts the point I'm making. Substitute in a natural born American writer if you're feeling pedantic. I'm not trying to be pedantic and I'm not saying they have to be natural born citizens, but James wasn't just born elsewhere but raised and primarily educated there too. I'm unable to simply swap in another contemporary writer from the U.S. because I don't know any that fit the bill, that's why I asked you for recommendations.
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Jan 5, 2021 13:53
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KVeezy3 posted:Contemporary U.S. literature is extremely insular, 'apolitical' and is petrified of antagonizing anyone. Then it re-frames those attributes positively as the utmost devotion to literature as pure craft. I know we're now discussing counterexamples, but any particular examples of authors or books that represent this insular, apolitical, "cowardly" trend?
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Jan 5, 2021 17:14
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TrixRabbi posted:I know we're now discussing counterexamples, but any particular examples of authors or books that represent this insular, apolitical, "cowardly" trend? Dave Eggers, Anne Tyler, and Richard Powers.
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Jan 5, 2021 18:11
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http://daveeggers.net/the-captain-and-the-glory
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Jan 5, 2021 18:19
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Writing a satirical takedown of Donald J. Trump is not my idea of moral courage.
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Jan 5, 2021 18:21
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KVeezy3 posted:Writing a satirical takedown of Donald J. Trump is not my idea of moral courage. A human heart posted:most contemporary US literature seems to opt for 'important' politics(though generally boring liberal ones that won't raise too many eyebrows)
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Jan 5, 2021 18:22
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I've got Don Juan, Childe Harolde, the beautiful, pleasure and Mémoires d'Outre-tombe on my ereader, thanks guys.lost in postation posted:À Rebours and the rest of Huysmans' novels are great but all his protagonists are the opposite of sprezzatura in my mind, people who are sincerely, undisguisedly unhappy because of the lack of a moral and intellectual framework to their existence. I don't think you'll find many positive examples of the trait in post-Renaissance French lit, and even in du Bellay or Ronsard who stole everything from the Italian court poets there's a certain disdain for studiously indifferent Italian wastrels I don't see why sprezzatura would be in opposition to unhappiness? I figured the French salons would've affected their literature and given us some great fictional conversationalists, but maybe the 19th century wasn't very kind to them then? Anyway, I'll move À Rebours to the back of the list.
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Jan 5, 2021 18:52
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That might just be a difference in semantics re: what sprezzatura entails, but to me (based on an admittedly vague memory of Castiglione), it denotes nonchalance and the appearance of effortlessness. It's not so much the unhappiness that contradicts it in Huysmans as the sincere & unaffected striving for some kind of meaning to one's existence. If you just mean "urbane and scornful" then you should still like À rebours plenty. Also you'd probably like Proust a lot, even though In Search of Lost Time's narrator comes to realise the vacuity of cultured conversation over the course of the novels.
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Jan 5, 2021 19:14
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KVeezy3 posted:Writing a satirical takedown of Donald J. Trump is not my idea of moral courage. I'm also not being pedantic. What is your idea of moral courage in a book?
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Jan 5, 2021 19:40
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Shibawanko posted:my wager is that anything that's moving, well crafted and aesthetic is also redemptive, and programmatic political stuff in a novel is just going to make it boring and stilted which serves nobody 
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Jan 5, 2021 19:42
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mishima is the best example of what i mean. he doesn't really work as a fascist author, he's too revealing to be very useful to that kind of cause, instead he undermines it by demanding courage and self sacrifice, two things which real fascists arent usually capable of, it's the aesthetics and craft of what he writes that takes him beyond that. he's closer to someone like malachi ritscher boring novels are the real fascist literature by teaching stupidity, curiosity about the wrong things, and impotent language
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Jan 5, 2021 20:03
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Shibawanko posted:mishima is the best example of what i mean. he doesn't really work as a fascist author, he's too revealing to be very useful to that kind of cause, instead he undermines it by demanding courage and self sacrifice, two things which real fascists arent usually capable of, it's the aesthetics and craft of what he writes that takes him beyond that. he's closer to someone like malachi ritscher man plz read any book about ideology published in the last 200 years
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Jan 5, 2021 20:29
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KVeezy3 posted:I don't know about 'We', but my dumbass certainly does. An example that I think left an indelible mark on history is Diderot's Rameau's Nephew. what i mean is that conditions have changed considerably since Diderot’s time — subversion is a marketable quality now. our culture has the capacity to carry and even exalt all critiques or cynicisms about itself. this has been the problem since atleast the situationists when the idea of leading a cultural revolution instead of a political one began to take hold. its all been diagnosed and examined to death; if anything critiques of postmodernity and capitalism are reproduced and absorbed with a masochistic glee, and we all get to communally despair about how things just keep on truckin, no matter how much anyone points at any one piece and says “there it is! that’s the problem!” “man, it sucks how much we suck, doesnt it?” this isnt to say you’re a dumbass or anything, i dont mean it like that. i just figured we were all collectively as jaded as it appears. i think this is why anyone that makes any sort of political content is considered a grifter — because no one can actually conceive of anyone doing that without being a cynic.
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Jan 5, 2021 20:56
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ThePopeOfFun posted:I'm also not being pedantic. What is your idea of moral courage in a book?
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Jan 5, 2021 21:07
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Sham bam bamina! posted:It's a moot point. Regardless of whether or not US lit is preoccupied with anything, I still want to know what KVeezy3's looking for in a polemic. What specific contemporary stance/polemic would KVeezy3 find courageous?
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Jan 5, 2021 21:30
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Don’t get me wrong, I’m under no illusions that art can/will save us. I agree that a cultural revolution in a vacuum is no revolution at all. I didn’t intend to imply that anything worth reading must be a political tract, but that the work itself would benefit from being genuinely adversarial towards something, and this involves some kind of risk. One example of risk is in politics. Writing a satire about Trump is not politically risky. Another poster expressed that overtly political work would make a work bland, and cite neo-liberal U.S. writers as proof, but I find that reasoning faulty. Like contemporary Latin American writers don’t suffer from this issue.
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Jan 5, 2021 21:40
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The problem isn't that no-one is writing anything risky (I have no idea if they are or aren't) but that there's no risk attached to reading anything for you. Edit: Death of the Author? more like death of the reader Haha
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Jan 5, 2021 21:42
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Is it really controversial to say that contemporary U.S. literature is extremely conservative, unambitious, uninterested in big ideas, and that this has an effect on the end work?
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Jan 5, 2021 21:48
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