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ZombieLenin posted:P.S. "Genre" fiction is literature and indistinguishable from the category "real loving works of art." This is the case no matter how many self-deprecating quotes from authors you dig up. Yes, the author that vomited this passage: quote:Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up she was making GBS threads brown water. The more she drank, the more she shat, but the more she shat, the thirstier she grew, and her thirst sent her crawling to the stream to suck up more water. When she closed her eyes at last, Dany did not know whether she would be strong enough to open them again Is on the same playing field as Joyce, Mario Vargas Llosa, Dostyevsky and Gabriel Garcia Marquez, I agree Edit: Oh, every single post you've made in TBB apart from this thread is in a thread for some fantasy author, didn't see that coming. 
ulvir fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 20:17
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The issue isn't that its about pooping. Several great authors have written about pooping and farting. The issue is the juvenile and unimaginative way its written, almost as if GRRM is bad at prose. Edit: If anything that passage alone shows the difference between Joyce and GRRM ulvir fucked around with this message at 20:31 on Jun 19, 2014 |
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Jun 19, 2014 20:29
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Since this thread has a lot more activity than the "Books that aren't awful megathread", could anyone hit me up with some contemporary American authors that are worth reading? I've already given Pynchon and DFW a go, and I've got DeLillo on my radar.
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Jun 20, 2014 08:40
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Iamblikhos posted:why specifically american? I'm eurogoon and felt I'd like to read more from still living American authors. I'm already reading contemporary authors from other places and figured why not.
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Jun 20, 2014 09:54
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Strategic Tea posted:I also don't think much of the modern literary fiction genre helps. What's the goonsensus on it? I've literally never read a "High Literature" book that's even close to "navel gazing" and I have no freaking clue where that sentiment would even come from.
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Jun 20, 2014 16:59
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Clipperton posted:Never read any John Updike then. http://www.badgerinternet.com/~bobkat/observer1.html Guess I better add him to my list, this was a great quote "Makes misogyny seem literary the same way Limbaugh makes fascism seem funny."
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Jun 20, 2014 17:22
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Iamblikhos posted:I hate it when people say poo poo like that. Anything can be literary if it's written well. That's not the same as advocating or even admiring it. Thomas Mann and Nabokov sure as hell made pedophilia "seem literary", so what? Also, "the same way" means wtf knows what - here it's a phrase used pretty much to make you form certain associations through Pavlovian conditioning. The quote was brilliant, and accomplished the exact opposite of what intended. But I agree completely that the sentiment is ridiculously dumb. I have a feeling those people he quoted would also actually throw away a book in anger, or refuse to read any of Nabokov's works because they're convinced he's a pedo because of a fictional character he invented.
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Jun 20, 2014 18:33
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is Doris Lessing worth a read? it just occurred to me that the only female authors I've read are Mary Shelly, Agatha Christie, and some assorted children's book authors like Astrid Lindgren and so on I've got Atwood and Ursula Le Guin on my list, but I'm extremely hesitant to bother with sci-fi again
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Jul 2, 2014 05:53
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HopperUK posted:Doris Lessing is incredible, yes, though I realise the most recent thing of hers I read was Mara and Dann which is arguably scifi as well so Furious Lobster posted:Ever since we had the Nobel winner thread, I've put her down on my to-read list but focused on her earlier stuff such as The Golden Notebook, since her work is quite distinct and she's better known for her non sci-fi work according to what little I've googled but it's just an assumption. I'll add her to my list, then. Thanks. Furious Lobster posted:I know that you asked for a good female writer who is associated with Sci-fi but would you consider reading Helen Dewitt's The Last Samurai? I read it a while ago and found it to be pretty clever for a debut novel; it's not without flaws, the prose and the un-edited sentences leave a lot to be desired but there are a lot of good stories that make you think. Oh no, I wasn't specifically looking for sci-fi authors, quite the opposite if anything. I didn't even know Lessing wrote sci-fi. I'll throw in Dewitt as well.
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Jul 2, 2014 16:17
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Who doesn't value goonsensus over the opinions of literary scholars and renowned critics?
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Jul 14, 2014 15:08
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pixelbaron posted:The reason I am reading this cookie cutter fantasy series for the third time in two years is because I am training myself up to fully appreciate Charles Dickens, you see. familiarising myself with magical creatures such as goblins and orcs and elves really helped me understand the nature of the spirits in a christmas carol
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Jul 31, 2014 19:34
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CestMoi posted:There are no good books that are easy to read. the english translations of blindness and death in the andes disagrees disclaimer though is that those are the only ones I've read by saramago and vargas llosa as of yet, don't know how they compare to the rest of their authors' works
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Aug 2, 2014 19:52
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Srice posted:Not gonna pick on you here (or anyone in particular), but I just wanna make an observation that I hear the line about only reading pulp and genre due to having a busy workload so often that it feels like a second cousin to the nerd line about liking all music genres "except rap and country". that line of thought boggles my mind, it's like these dweebs have got it into their heads that good literature can't be entertaining or fun to read
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Aug 4, 2014 21:10
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Mr.48 posted:Of course it can. But it can also be mentally taxing, which after a full day of mentally taxing work is not the ideal way to relax. Also, way to be a douchebag about it. not sure how I'm being a douchebag about anything by stating that I didn't understand the sentiment and using a completely non-offensive word for "a boring person"
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Aug 5, 2014 21:08
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The Dennis System posted:Honoré de Balzac. Straight up. My next read after Dead Souls is gonna be Le Père Goriot actually. I've heard good things about it and hope the public domain translation isn't terrible.
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Sep 1, 2014 13:13
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Kellanved posted:A bit off topic, but I'm interested if there are any serious studies on the way literary criticism evolved within the broader cultural and philosophical movements of the time. A lot of the different critical movements were developed in order to see literature and art in a different light, and to analyse different aspects of a text. You could do a simple analysis of the structure and chronology, or you could dig deeper and try to get a feel for what social dynamic is inherent in the text, and how it pertains to the society at the time. It has less to do with confirming your beliefs and more to do with checking whether you were correct in the first place. Just as in "hard science", you seek out to find an answer to a question or a hypothesis.
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Sep 17, 2014 11:25
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JackKnight posted:literacy is just a metric for basic reading comprehension. False. Literacy as a concept entails more than just basic reading comprehension. It also means having the skill to know where and how to seek out further knowledge and understanding. For example, which reading strategy that would be most helpful to you when reading a novel before bedtime versus seeking out key information from a long scientific journal.
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Oct 24, 2014 20:24
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And anyone who uses a language to it's fullest potential are the ones who uses it in a way to make their message unambigiously clear to the reciever. Just throwing around archaic words and obscure synonyms for no good reason just make you look like a twit.
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Oct 24, 2014 20:27
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JackKnight posted:Most blue collars are morons. Keep that sentence in the back of your head the next time you need an electrician, plumber or carpenter for whatever reason because something in your house broke and you don't know how to fix it. Unfounded arrogance is really cool, keep it up, you'll be the superstar of the SA forums eventually
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Oct 25, 2014 09:56
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JackKnight posted:I did not make any assumptions about the relative IQ between a person speaking simply and a person speaking in sesquipedalian sentences. A person's facility of diction taken by itself has naught to do with his cleverness, though relatively speaking one could make the reasonable inference that a person using such language could be a clever person, because clever people often need a more concise vocabulary to express their concepts and ideas in a manner that precisely represents their thoughts to their satisfaction. loving lol
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Oct 25, 2014 09:56
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JackKnight posted:I know how to fix anything to do with a house. It is not hard. The only reason I would hire someone is if I didn't feel like bothering with it myself, and if I did so I would be the one telling them what to do, not the other way around. Good for you, but they're still not morons, so stop acting like you're above them.
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Oct 25, 2014 10:59
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I read The Tin Drum this summer. It was... Kind of a slog at some points, but an okay book. Give it a go if you like
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Oct 28, 2014 23:12
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UnoriginalMind posted:Plus, I'm a strong athiest, and even though I'm supportive of people's religous choices, I can't deal with those themes in literature. They aren't particularly interesting to me. good luck enjoying anything that isn't sci-fi or fantasy written by neckbeards
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Dec 19, 2014 18:51
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Dystram posted:No, my friend, it is not capital L literature according to some arbitrary standard, hence, it is a bad book, for the pretension of the thread must be maintained. People with anime avatars always have good, and correct opinions. This passage is one of just many reasons why ASOIAF does not qualify as "capital L literature", as you put it quote:Sunset found her squatting in the grass, groaning. Every stool was looser than the one before, and smelled fouler. By the time the moon came up she was making GBS threads brown water. The more she drank, the more she shat, but the more she shat, the thirstier she grew, and her thirst sent her crawling to the stream to suck up more water.
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Dec 21, 2014 23:23
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saramago wrote several passages about people making GBS threads everywhere, and managed to do so without sounding like a perverted juvenile. but he is also contrary to GRRM a good author
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Dec 21, 2014 23:26
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Dystram posted:but the combative tone you retards use 
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Dec 21, 2014 23:57
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somewhere between 90 and 100 percent of the madposts ITT are from people who misunderstood what the point of the thread was and got really upset about the title
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Dec 22, 2014 00:01
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should I go with Name of the Rose or History of the Siege of Lisbon next, real lit thread?
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Jan 19, 2015 16:46
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i'll keep foucaults pendulum in mind for later. i asked about the two books because those are the ones i own that i haven't read yet (there are others too, but i don't own fp). i'm 2/3 through history of the siege of lisbon atm and i gotta say its a p good book so far and is deffo worth a read (to the guy that told me to read it before him)
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Feb 1, 2015 23:25
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You should read canonical works if you want to. Forcing yourself through a novel because you «have to» (outside a school or university context) is not the way to go if you want to enjoy what you read. That said, some canonical works you really should read because they are actually really really good and can tell you a lot about the society at the time they were written. But only if you want to.
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Feb 17, 2015 17:27
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V. Illych L. posted:Hamsun is great, though, I am reading his collected novels right now and they own bones I would go so far as to rank him my favourite Norwegian author, despite his questionable decisions and views in politics during the later half of his life.
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Feb 17, 2015 23:31
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tatankatonk posted:Which novel would you recommend for someone who hasn't read any Hamsun? Hunger is a good starting point for many.
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Feb 18, 2015 09:24
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sepia posted:From what I've read of Jon Fosse, I completely agree. Apart from some of his plays and some of the older poetry I haven't read much, what should I pick up? I've only read Morgon og kveld (Morning and Evening), but I absolutely loved it. It's quite short, but highly recommended.
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Mar 4, 2015 21:39
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V. Illych L. posted:It is literally just Hamsun and a guy who wrote second-rate crime stories, sorry to disappoint might find some biographies from people in NS and volunteers in SS at the Eastern Front as well.
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Mar 5, 2015 22:22
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Ras Het posted:Poetry is trash. lol at having wrong opinions
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Mar 6, 2015 21:42
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lol just read translations you nerds
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Mar 8, 2015 21:18
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CestMoi posted:Because of this, youu are now not allowed to post in this thread. 
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Mar 8, 2015 21:23
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Boatswain posted:Well either you learnt Norwegian or you learnt English so you should know how valuable language-ed is It's absolutely valuable. I just don't think "just learn the language to read the original book" is a good advice on a general basis. Learning the language well enough to read novels written for adults at a good comprehension level can in some instances take a a long time, with a lot of hard work, and might be demotivating if someone is struggling for whatever reason. If you're already in university though, by all means, just hit up a class in whatever you fancy. But if you're planning to learn a language on your own, you might want some additional goals. But to each their own, I guess. Multilingualism is valuable in and of itself, but I will still hold the claim that translations exist for good reasons. (and Norwegian's my first language.)
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Mar 9, 2015 11:17
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Boatswain posted:What do you mean by "additional goals"? I was thinking along the lines of planning to use the language on a semi-regular basis by communicating with others orally/in writing, or having an academic interest in the language or what-not. but that might implicitly be part of the reasons to begin with, so if so, just chalk it up to me interpreting the advice a bit too literally or whatever.
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Mar 11, 2015 19:18
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Mel Mudkiper posted:Also if we are taking about author deaths, everyone always talks about Oscar Wilde's last words, but Henrik Ibsen to me always had the best death joke I really want the story to be true because his passing words fits his personality so perfectly
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Mar 13, 2015 09:32
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