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Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Seriously. Almost every thread in this place is for genre novels. As Stephen King said, his novels are the literary version of a Big Mac and fries. Is this all you people read? Do you eat only fast food and hate to talk about filet mignon as well? Seriously, try to read something good for a loving change. You're not in high school anymore, read some loving real works of art.

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Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*


Game of Thrones is drivel. It's another Tolkien rip-off except that the author tries to justify it by being "dark and edgy." Also, why is there so much underage loving?

Smoking Crow fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Jun 18, 2014

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Street Soldier posted:

The fact that you know what /lit/ was tells me you're familiar with 4chan, so you must know that OP is acting exactly like the average /lit/ user.

I have never been to /lit/, but if they have more discussion about actual writing and rhetoric instead of cursory analysis, I might have to check it out.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Mister Kingdom posted:

What is "art"?

Look inside yourself.


I genuinely feel this way, I was just checking to see if I'd get banned lol

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Mister Kingdom posted:

Stephen King is miserable. Can I read him instead?

And how does the OP know we aren't reading "real" literature?

I've read the Book Barn

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Mister Kingdom posted:

That doesn't really answer my question. Maybe some of the BB crowd does read real literature, but just doesn't feel like talking about it.

That makes no sense because that would mean that you read both good and bad and only choose to talk about the bad. That would be like drinking champagne from France and Milwaukee's Best and only choosing to talk about Milwaukee's Best.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Zoq-Fot-Pik posted:

Any suggestions OP?

I recommend my favorite book, Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. It's a beautiful look at the types of hosed up people that choose to live in small Midwestern towns. It's wonderful and dripping with subtext. Make sure to read every chapter twice to get the full meaning!

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Mister Kingdom posted:

I would love to know the subtext for that.

It's olive oil. Someone in GBS made it for me because I opened an olive oil appreciation thread and my old avatar was Katyusha.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Mister Kingdom posted:

But what does it really mean?

Click it and find out! :)

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Effectronica posted:

So where should I go in Native American literature after Momaday, Silko, and Alexie?

I'm only vaguely knowledgeable about Japanese, Euro-American and Russian lit, sorry.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Mister Kingdom posted:

I think that's the biggest turn off for Shakespeare. You're constantly looking at the footnotes to know what's being said. Then you have to figure out what he means.

I understand Shakespeare fine but that might be because I was forced to read Shakespeare every year of school after 5th grade.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Big Mad Drongo posted:

I'm currently reading and loving Candide, but it's fairly short so I'll be in the market for a new book pretty soon. A Confederacy of Dunces is pretty much my all-time favorite book, so I'm hoping there's other novels out there featuring terrible/naive people in horrible situations while the Just World Fallacy crumbles around them.

Leaning towards Catch-22 but also open to suggestions from actual well-read people.

If you want the opposite of that, read The Notebook by Agota Kristof. It's about good kids having to become terrible to survive in a WWII era Hungarian village.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Street Soldier posted:

So where does a big idiot begin on the road to real literature? Is there like, a list of books to start with? Thinking back on my high school life I'm woefully unprepared for this, the only book I remember having to read(in my A level english class, mind) was To Kill A Mockingbird and instead of reading Shakespeare we watched that Romeo and Juliet movie with Leonardo DiCaprio and analysed that.

I recommend Hadji Murad by Leo Tolstoy, Citrus County by John Brandon, The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and Death of a Naturalist by Seamus Heaney.

Edit: You can substitute Dracula by Bram Stoker for Frankenstein and The Art of War by Sun-Tzu for The Prince.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Pessimisten posted:

Man i'm going to show these slow rear end fuckwits on TBB who's the boss. I will start this super awesome thread about being superior to people who don't read what i read, drawing a clear line in the sand where my side equals good and the other side equals bad. Then i'm going to tell these bitches that if they weren't on my side when i drew it they suck. Now that I've established my higher standing and good taste they should be be willing to pluck all my apples of wisdom for they shall see that i am the three of knowledge. Come brethren, embrace my ankles as you grovel at my feet licking the ground for the crumbles of intellectual salvation that i spill over you. Love me, for i am better!


.. or maybe i should not be a complete asshat and just start a non elitist thread where i simply discuss and recommend good literature, from a perspective that isn't ten feet above the rest, since that is that i what i'm calling out others for not doing. Maybe that would actually be a good contribution to the forums and draw in people who're getting bored with genre fiction and are looking for better other types of reads but don't know where to start. Maybe that poo poo would actually be welcomed and appreciated.


Naaah, gently caress that noise! I'm bad rear end motherfucking lit god and sheeple need to worship and adore me.
(_)_)::::::::::: D~~~~ aaaaaand post!


(please read this post three times to truly catch all the splendid subtext I've hidden in it. If you don't find it you can't really criticise it)

I did both things and this thread has 4 times the replies and actually has people changing their reading habits. I didn't make this thread because I want you guys to know how much better I am than you, I made this thread because I believe that this forum could be so much better than it currently is.0

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Iamblikhos posted:

Heaney? May I ask why? (Not why you like him, but why you'd recommend him in this context)

Heaney is a fantastic writer, extremely easy to read (especially compared to his contemporaries), easy to understand and a great intro to late 20th century poetry.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Whalley posted:

Okay but this is Joyce sooo

Those are the 20s version of sexting and weren't meant to be published.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Pessimisten posted:

You people don't see how the whole premise of "mine is better the yours" is pretentious? Starting any discussion that way is loving stupid and childish. "Watching sports is for brain dead jocks, stop it immediately or you're classified a stupid man child... now let me present you with this selection of fine classic movies that I'm sure you're willing to welcome with an open mind after i insulted your tastes"

I don't really care to reread this thread (because frankly this thread is pretty poo poo) just to count the amount of times wizard jokes or the like were thrown out there just to make fun of "genre books" and the people who read them.


I'm just going to say this. I wont claim to have read many classics. In fact i read next to nothing at all until a few years back as reading didn't really engage me. But the ones i have, quite frankly didn't impress me a whole lot. That is not to be taken as a blanket statement of "classic literature sucks". It's just that, seeing how what I've read wasn't all that, in that it was neither very cleaver nor engaging i haven't really made an effort to seek out more. I found some books entertaining, don't get me wrong. I found Steinbeck to be read worthy, can't really say why. But the subtleties in most we're not very subtle and even when they we're they were not very enlightening or meaningful. Classic literature kind of comes across to me like poetry: I see what you're going for but i just don't care and the way you wrote it wasn't as impressive as you think.

Your so called genre books on the other hand i do seek out. Because i don't read those to be enlightened or more sophisticated. They can be stupid, silly and juvenile. I read them as a fun pass time or simple escapism, a word i know people like to toss around as bad in several classic literature discussions. Let's just leave it at the fact that i don't share that view and find escapism something of worth. That said, i get bored of them sometimes and wouldn't mind trying something different just to get a bit of variety.

You don't get to make a snap judgement about my intellect or maturity just because you find my tastes different from yours. Your metrics have no objectivity to them. Reading classic literature in an of itself hold no real value. The value lies with what the reader takes from it. I take very little that i don't find in bigger supply elsewhere. If you on the other hand do, then that's great and i will gladly have your favorite books recommended to me when they aren't presented as "my poo poo smells better then yours, therefor i am now a better person" Your fragrance isn't as fine as you think and and in the end were both standing there smelling different kinds of poop, whether or not you're willing to admit to that.


I'm sure my imperfect English will come across in this post too.

I will die on the hill that says "Leo Tolstoy is a better writer than Neil Stephenson."

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Talmonis posted:

I'd rather read Snow Crash than something I'm going to have to try really hard to enjoy enough to get through.

That's good because Tolstoy is a breezy writer that makes long passages seem shorter than they actually are. Most people don't read Tolstoy off of page count and reputation, which is unfortunate.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Pessimisten posted:

If i enjoyed Steinbecks work, whats a natural follow up?

Pearl S. Buck.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Iamblikhos posted:

Tolstoy is history's greatest writer of adventure novels. An I say that as one who is far from his greatest fan.


a tolstoy fan *would* say that :)

imo best possible intro to contemporary poetry is older poetry

I'm not sure that he's the best, he's on the same tier as Dumas and Twain, though.

What do you consider older poetry? I like Tennyson and Yeats as much as the next guy, but I think that Heaney is on a level all his own. He's my favorite poet and all.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Iamblikhos posted:

tbh i've read little heaney that i didn't think is annoying (station island is most agreeable to my taste), though he is a great translator

if you like that kind of poetry, elizabeth bishop is probably the best immediate precursor... and if you like him then yeah, yeats and tennyson make sense, though both are significantly better than heaney imo

i guess by "older poetry" i meant the standout (readable, understandable) works in the tradition familiarity with which really helps understand what a given contemporary poet is up to and where he's coming from (in every sense of the phrase). things like shakespeare's sonnets, milton, pope, lyrical ballads, keats, dickinson, eliot, stevens, etc...

You say Elizabeth Bishop? I'd say that Dylan Thomas is more of a direct precursor to Heaney than her.

And, I'm sorry, but I don't like Alexander Pope. He's a bit too clever for cleverness's sake, you know?

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

tentative8e8op posted:

Ive only read The Good Earth, what else from her would you recommend?

That's the only thing anyone's ever read by Pearl S. Buck lol

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Poutling posted:

Actually, in my opinion the best introduction to 20th century poetry to newcomers is probably Alden Nowlan because he has a very simple style but the poems are beautiful and suffused with great themes and meaning. The first poem that I read to people that don`t know much about poetry is usually "The Word" because the love theme is the easiest for beginners to relate with and yet it's very moving. He's a Canadian poet though so I'm not sure if many people outside of Canada know his work. I like Heaney too though.

Poetry is so subjective though and is really a dying art form, which is sad. It's such a hard sell to people, even people that are open to reading 'non genre' books flinch when I mention poetry.

Poetry's not dead though! It's still a big thing in Russia and Russian poets are celebrities, like Dmitry Vodennikov.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I really don't understand why this is. Poetry has the best aspects of great literature -- the focus on form, on incredibly dense and interconnected meaning -- but in a small enough package that you can see the whole thing at once. You can exercise all the same mental muscles without committing to some behemoth of a novel. (And of course, if you want a behemoth, there are always verse epics.)

The reason is that it's not story based. Some people can only relate to a narrative, which most poetry isn't.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

I guess if you go by sheer volume that might be true but I would think that for the majority of human history most poetry actually has been narrative-based.

Yeah, but the new poo poo isn't narrative. Someone needs to get on writing a modern epic poem

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Same thing happened to Marco Polo (who is similarly worth reading). For several hundred years after his death Marco Polo's name was a synonym for "colossal liar." Then of course it turned out he'd simply recorded the exact truth of what he saw. Paper money! That's just ridiculous!

Dragons exist.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

ulvir posted:

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.

I like John Brandon.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Strategic Tea posted:

To be fair, demanding genre fic readers 'stop being loving children' and telling them to go back to their bad book threads :smug: doesn't help that.

I also don't think much of the modern literary fiction genre helps. What's the goonsensus on it?

Because of it, I think 'literature' to a lot of people is associated with navel gazing by privileged inter-war Europeans, or po-faced reflections on oh-so-topical issues. Not to mention the deluge of totally non autobiographical novels about western ~writers~ with conveniently crazy sex lives. You'd think the artistic relevance of troubled bourgeois academics, or writers writing about writers writing about writing, would be mined out by now. For all the precisely trained prose, a lot of literature-as-a-genre is all craft and no art. This stuff won't be remembered, but there's enough of it to perpetuate the myth and put people off.

(Yes, I know most genre stuff is no craft and no art)

What about The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach? That's a great literary novel that's about college baseball players. What about White Teeth by Zadie Smith? That's about regular people in London. You can't paint literature in one stroke.

And face it, if I didn't title my thread this, you wouldn't have clicked on it.

Smoking Crow fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Jun 20, 2014

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Everyone, please read Gertrude Stein so you can learn what a rose is

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Walh Hara posted:

For whatever it's worth, my go to recommendation for people who don't read a lot is Nineteen Eighty-Four. It's short, it's a classic, well written and the themes are very relevant despite that the book was written almost 70 years ago.

I sometimes recommend "Three Men in a Boat" as well, even though I don't think it's very good.

I personally think that Orwell is a better essayist and short story writer than a novelist. I personally believe that Politics and the English Language is the best essay of the 20th century.

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Officer Sandvich posted:

All goons should read The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, it's To Kill a Mockingbird but good.

sweatpea, to kill a mockingbird is good

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

nutranurse posted:

So I've read a ton of the 'classics' of non-genre lit, but I always find it hard to parse out the good modern/contemporary (like 00's onwards) litfic. Anyone have recommendations? If someone mentions Murakami I'll poo poo down your throat, not because he's bad (I actually really like Norwegian Wood, 1Q84's a loving slog though), but because that's the dude people tend to throw up to show how cool and non-Western they are in their litfic taste.

Ryu Murakami

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Stravinsky posted:

Off the top of my head:
Kobo Abe
Pynchon
Mo Yan
Dellilo
Milorad Pavic
Ryu Murakami
Tao Lin (joke answer do not read)

Ha Jin is also good

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

TheFallenEvincar posted:

What about the likes of Arthur C. Clarke?

No because he beat Pynchon for the Nebula

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

mango gay touchies posted:

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.

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

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

oxsnard posted:

I think GRRM will be considered a legend in future generations, for example

I think you meant to say Gene Wolfe there

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*


I'm happy you disagree with something i posted a month ago

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Blind Sally posted:

I know, right? Why not just make more non-genre literature threads and not talk about genre books in them? There's a Whitman thread now. Sounds like we need a Shakespeare thread.

I did but no one cares mate

Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Farecoal posted:

im glad you've completely changed your opinion since then, dont worry we all make mistakes when were younger

I believe in the post, but at this point, we're all past it, m8

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Smoking Crow
Feb 14, 2012

*laughs at u*

Rime posted:

OP, why are you such a hipster that you believe some "literature" has more merit than others just by virtue of being a couple hundred years old?

I was too busy smoking clove cigarettes on my fixie and scheduling my tattoo appointment to care about it. IRONY

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