Read Some Real Literature: Anyway hail satantango

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Read Some Real Literature: Anyway hail satantango

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

Has anybody told you nerds to read gravity's rainbow yet

# ¿ Jun 18, 2014 16:12

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 2, 2024 05:58

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

Srice posted:

Speaking of spoilers, one of the neat side effects that branching out to meatier stuff has done for me is that I personally have stopped giving a poo poo about spoilers more or less! I mean, I don't go and seek them out but if I run into them, I just shrug.

The fact that it doesn't bother me if I hear "so and so dies!" is quite liberating, I gotta say. Since hey, if it's well written there's a lot of juicy stuff in such a scene beyond just the death that is enjoyable to pick through!

You shouldn't care how so and so dies, you should care why so and so dies

# ¿ Jun 19, 2014 05:46

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

I think a FYAD-lite for TBB would be a good idea, personally, and I volunteer to be the moderator of it

# ¿ Jun 20, 2014 00:38

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

Iamblikhos posted:

The Satyricon by Petronius is literally about the wacky adventures of two ex-gladiators, an elderly pedophile tutor and a hot twink-fatale.

The Cyclops by Euripides culminates with a satyr getting his comeuppance through anal rape at the hands of a drunken cyclops.

The Bacchae, also by Euripides, is about a king who gets pulled apart by women on a crazy blood high

# ¿ Jun 20, 2014 02:43

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

Mike Gallego posted:

What's everyone's thoughts on Beowulf? I personally enjoyed it in the various classes that had me read it, and think a lot of goons would too.

Part of me wants to learn Old English just to read it in that. The other part of me is sane.

I liked reading Beowulf a lot, actually, and there are a lot of really good plot points and twists that feel really refreshing for something written in Old English

# ¿ Jun 20, 2014 06:30

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

Oxxidation posted:

David Foster Wallace was a poo poo dude, hell yes I said it, fight me

The one thing I've learned over all else being an english major has been that every single author is completely poo poo and crazy nutso if you dig deep enough

# ¿ Jun 20, 2014 18:11

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

A good short story written by a woman is Flannery O'Connor's Good Country People, as well as, of course, Shirley Jackson's The Lottery and Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper

All fairly well known, but for a reason, as they're solid reads and not very time-consuming as they're short stories

# ¿ Jun 21, 2014 21:26

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

Big Mad Drongo posted:

I read John Cheever's short story "The Swimmer" a while back and it's really stuck with me. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a quick, accessible read about wealth, happiness and suburban life.

Any other authors/stories that combine a deconstruction of suburbia with surrealism?

Robert Coover's The Babysitter

# ¿ Jul 1, 2014 17:04

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

PupsOfWar posted:

dogg you should read some short fiction. Literature doesn't always have to be in novel format.

Many of your canonical or semi-canonical authors never got into the novel game, or didn't get far into it. Your Flannery O'Conners and your Raymond Carvers and so on. Also, most of the authors who have written big, imposing novels have also written short fiction, so if you want to be exposed to Tolstoy but don't want to commit to War and Peace or AK, you could read Father Sergius (admittedly the only shorter Tolstoy work I have experienced) or something.

Short fiction's awesome, and a good way to judge whether or not you'd like something longer by an author when you just have to commit to a dozen or so pages versus hundreds.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2014 16:05

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

ASoIaF is definitely the current hotness around town but will people be talking about it the way they talk about Hemingway or Twain or Faulkner? I highly doubt it.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2014 16:27

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

Smoking Crow posted:

That honor is reserved for the Magic: the Gathering Time Spiral block novelization.

Obviously it's gonna be that and the eventual Homestuck novelization.

# ¿ Jul 12, 2014 16:29

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

CestMoi posted:

Holy moly I just found out Seamus Heaney died last year

That sucks, I'm sorry to hear it

# ¿ Jul 16, 2014 01:48

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

Short answer: old books have more merit because they've withstood the test of time. People don't remember old bad books.

Literature was probably just as trashy in its own ways in the days of yore but the trash is filtered to the bottom of the barrel to be forgotten about, whereas the cream rises to the top.

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 05:26

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

It's true that you shouldn't judge a book by (the publishing date on) its cover but arguing against a correlation is just childish

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 05:33

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

Rime posted:

I thought this was the thread where we all wore black turtlenecks and caps whilst telling everyone else that their genre of reading material was lovely, and then pulling out our own lovely choices as an alternative.

Smoking Crow is objectively pretentious, I challenge you to write an essay of not less than 500 words examining his pretension from the point of view of an aging literary critic; who has just realized he wasted his entire life spouting pretentious bullshit about pretentious bullshit.

I'm not sure why you're so mad about the concept of pretension or why you've felt the need to dig up an argument that'd been settled over a week ago but I'm really glad you completely invalidated your entire argument by using the go-to smilie for dull-rear end white noise shitposters

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 06:58

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

I can't handle this many levels of irony

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 07:08

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

You're so far off you're posting on an entirely different website, I'm going to bed

# ¿ Jul 17, 2014 07:11

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

Captain Mog posted:

Fun question I've always wondered and this is the best thread I can see to do it in: who do you think will be regarded as our generation's literary stars one hundred years from now? Who will be our Hemingway, our Faulkner? Will we even have one or has the ease of publication ended the era of literary greats and instead started a new one of the literary "mediocre-to-good"?

Usually when I ask this question, I get a whole lot of "X author who like ten people have heard of". Which isn't answering the question at all.

I've honestly got no idea, and I don't think we'll know until the next generation rolls around and we've forgotten the mediocre stuff and the good stuff's stuck in the collective minds of the public.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2014 02:06

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

Mescal posted:

I'm very very slowly reading Gravity's Rainbow and relishing it. I'd like having some concordance, or discussion spot, or some kind of companion to it as I'm reading. Just started the third section, and would prefer to avoid major spoilers. Any ideas, Real Literature folks?

You could make a let's read thread about it here and try to read a certain length as a group per week and discuss it, I'd post in it because I'm going through the book myself as well

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 02:05

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

If you're worried about spoilers I don't think a general discussion thread would do you too much good, but maybe that's just me

# ¿ Jul 25, 2014 02:15

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 2, 2024 05:58

Mintergalactic: Dec 26, 2012

The Belgian posted:

I'm reading Goethe's Faust I now after reading the Urfaust. I'm enjoying it a lot though so far I like the Urfaust more.

Are you gonna read doctor faustus next

# ¿ Oct 27, 2014 17:16

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > The Book Barn > Read Some Real Literature: Anyway hail satantango