/lit/ - Literature

>>18936303
Writing fantastical stories and writing genre fiction aren't necessarily the same thing. The authors Bakker is name-dropping here have all been praised by critics for disregarding genre conventions. I agree with him that there are several fantasy/sci-fi authors on the cutting edge of modern fiction, but genre writing as a whole is still totally backwards. Think of the crap that gets nominated for Hugo awards and the like nowadays.

>>18936303
>>18937720
>bakker
pseudo intellectual midwit trash.

>>18936303
I started reading The Darkness That Comes Before and I'm halfway through but idk if I can finish it. It's really fucking boring.

>>18936303
>Other writers, like China Mieville, M. John Harrison, Gene Wolfe, John Crowley, to name just a few, are doing the same thing
isn't this a little self-congratulating?
to put yourself on the same level as gene wolfe?

>>18936303
>Is he right?
Maybe, but he’s a nobody compared to literary realist authors who are writing right now so that kind of undermines his point.

Is it not more likely that he gravitated towards genre fiction and is now doing apologetics? He should be reminded that while these distinctions didn’t exist with the great pre-modern authors, they would not have been considered works of genre fiction. For Homer, the Odyssey was closer to realism than it was fantasy.

>>18938235
If you want my personal opinion on where authors are really saying something (and if I can for a minutegrab my pontificating pseud soapbox just for the sake of conversation), whether it’s profound or not, is in historical fiction specifically. I agree that the post-modern Information Age rendered realist modernism relatively unimpactful and unappealing for many reasons. But what you see is not a reversion to generic genre fiction, but specifically historical appropriation of myths and tales.

>>18936303
no lel, all those writers he listed are retarded. the problem with being stupid is not knowing etc.

>>18936303
China Niggerville and Bakker are hacks.

>dude bro white guy with long hair and glasses

that's a nope

>>18938118
No u

>>18938141
I liked it.

>>18936303
This guy sounds like a lib.

I think what he wants to say, but never says (ironically, because of his own whimsy in “the age of whimsy” most likely) is that none of these distinctions matter anymore. To reduce it all to materialistic and highly economic analyses of the literature marketplace (i.e. age of need to age of want to age of whimsy) only illustrates that he’s exactly part of the zeitgeist he’s trying to critique. What speaks to, really, is the fact that the Information Age renders all of these distinctions moot. Genre fiction vs literary fiction? It makes no difference. In fact, there is no difference, in the most literal sense possible. To remark about the remnants of a highly cloistered academic class of the well-educated and their creative writing programs misses the point entirely. Today’s author is free to draw inspiration from this or that tradition, this or that language, this or that country, this or that genre, and in the end, all of it is utterly meaningless because it’s a fundamentally post-metaphysical age in which there is no foundation for the sort of belief he wants to write about. Thus, all writing is inevitably just a sorting and sifting through the wreckage of meanings and wherein the only truly coherent narrative is the one which describes a sort of exasperated malaise, cultural disenfranchisement, and misanthropic apathy at the state of things. This is why authors like Michel Houllebecq, in particular, are so captivating, more so than anyone trying to offer a coherent worldview via fantasy or science fiction .

>>18936303
>Genre only seems antithetical to ‘literature’ because yadda yadda yadda
I don't think that's the case-- this is just the same self-congratulation he dissaproves of from literary writers.
I have nothing against genre fic, but it's not literary because it follows a predictable and reliable formula, especially fucking epic fantasy

>>18938141
Doing at quick search on it gives me D&D vibes. The book sounds just awful.

>>18938141
>100 pages into first apocalypse book
>the love of one of pov character is literally selling her body while he watched her do so. she's standing on her balcony welcoming him back home, as she's fresh from the downdicking
>their big love story is actually pov character going after (but never finding) a sex customer that hurt the girl.
Dropped it after that and never looked back.

And after reading his blog, and how he talks about the "Trump-Media-Combine" or some other pseudo intellectual bullshit and that makes a rantpost about how he's an atheist and got bullied for it. Bakker might be one of the most embarrassing pseuds writers alive. He's obsessed with his self-image but routinely gets passed over by people in his fields. Not to mention the man is incapable of accepting any kind of criticism.
>dude your characters are all kinda shit and samey
>N-N-NO YOU DON'T FUCKING UNDERSTAND THEY WERE MEANT TO BE UNLIKABLE BUT ALSO FUCK CANADA WHY IS NOBODY SHILLING FOR MY BOOK IN THE MAINSTREAM I AM SO MISUNDERSTOOD REEEEEEEE

>>18938624
He’s another liberal-scientific writer trying to offer apologetics for why he didn’t make it as a literary author or Academic and explain the problems of the liberal-scientific worldview without actually stepping outside of it. Had he seen more success he would’ve been Steven Pinker, but he didn’t so now he critiques Steve Pinker with Steven Pinker arguments. .

>>18938425
It's even worse than D&D lol.
>>18938624
Yeah one of the main characters being a huge cuck was a turn off. Also the entire plot is just the crusades but with magic. Very uninspired. Atheists should stick to writing sci fi and leave fantasy to the Christians.

>>18938772
Looking deeper, there seems to be nothing unique/new to his thoughts and a TON of obfuscation to make it sounds like his philosophy is a unique insight that he developed.

the reality is that bakker can't hold his own with actual philosophers/academics, his writing skills are terrible when he doesn't have 2+ decades to sift through the dross, and he's obsessed with gay rape. i can't tell if he's closet bi or he thinks he's "inverting the stereotype" of raped damsels in distress. the only character who isn't raped by another man is an elderly cuck.

the series was sold as a "philosophical whodunit" and proceeded to shit all over that so that mr. unemployable writer could evangelize his BBT nonsense.

long and short of it is, his philosophy is trash, his books are trash, I don’t know why /lit/ shills for him.

>>18936303
Sorry, I don't read shit written by p-zombies.

Jesus, that author takes a long time to come to the point. I'm >5 minutes in and now it seems the point the text makes is this:
The characterization of "literature" must include that it runs against (and thus expands) the readers views. But since the internet algorithms and marketplaces (including forums, I guess) let us select from anything, then since we do the selection (which won't go totally against our view), we can't access literature. I.e. we filter away (or it gets done to us) literature.

>>18938982
Personally, I think Bakker is on to something, but he’s going about it from totally the wrong angle. The tragedy of Bakker is that he thinks himself into a corner due to the failure of his own paradigm in critiquing and thus, stepping outside of itself. Maybe he’s best described as a man left behind by the shifting overton window, and who can see clearly that shift of the window, but who fails to see exactly where he stands in perspective and the inadequacy of that. If he had ended his whole thesis at a critique conventional modern-post-modern literature, it might’ve been worthwhile. It’s only when he tries to get outside of that and offer an alternative that it becomes glaringly obvious that he is actually just the other side of the coin himself and thus does not have an alternative to offer, let alone a solution.

>>18938989
This.

>>18938425
>Doing at quick search on it gives me D&D vibes. The book sounds just awful.
He's a boring writer who writes bloated meaningless sentences full of random made up words to sound smart while selling a pedestrian philosophy while having very weak characterization. He lacks creativity when he thinks that omitting scenery is a good thing. He is pretentious and self indulging in his writing.

>>18938809
i would suck them based ass titties, no problemo

>>18938141
>The Darkness That Comes Before
I really didn't like them. The philosophy felt ham handed to me, but what really put me off were the characters, who were unlikable and flat, which led to me dropping the books in the middle of book 2.

And then I realized that Kellhus is an idealized version of Bakker, and got really creeped out.

>>18940882
>And then I realized that Kellhus is an idealized version of Bakker, and got really creeped out.
Holy shit that’s pathetic. He made a story for his self-insert.

>>18936303
no. pathetic really. these genre shitters need to learn some humility

>>18938141
>>18938118
>>18938313
>>18938425
>>18938624
>>18938809
>>18941880
>>18940882
>Filtered by Bakker
Thou shalt ne'er a true maiden be. Thou hast neither womb nor ovary. Thou art a catamite, twist'd by foul perversion of chirurgeon's art to crude fleer'ry of Divine perfection.
All validation as thou receivest like unto Janus' own be, and tepid to boot. 'Pon thy hind, good folk fleer.
Thy good father and kind mother art in troth disgust'd and in shame of thee.
Thy friends doth make sport of thine hideous countenance 'twixt themselves.
By thee art all of Adam's sons utterly repuls'd. Our Lord didst fortuitously permit all menfolk to divine thy fraud with wondrous accuracy.
If by trickery, thou didst 'pon occasion "pass", all gentle folk verily wouldst 'pon closer examination revile thee. By the Lord's arrangement, thy very bones betray thee.
And if 'pon chance thou pliest with drink an unfortunate companion unto thy fetid bed, 'twould soonest fly as drink in the aromas from thine diseas'd, fest'ring wound, the which thou cherish in mockery of Eve's daughters.
Tis certaine that never shalt the devil's spawn pass from thine false womb, thus fruitless art thy efforts to ensnare gentlefolk.
Joy shall likewise escape thee.
'Pon waking, thou paint upon thy face a Deceiver's frippery, but inside thine heart, parlous despair circles like Leviathan, eft t' crush thee 'neath th'unbearable weight.
In the end 'twill be too much to bear - thou shalt find thyself procuring firm rope, mocking the hangman's noble art, and plunging into the bitter abyss of the Divill's embrace, to spend thy days better cavorting with thine masters.
Thine father or mother shall occasion upon thine empty shell and weep, caught 'twixt heartbreak and relief that the shame thou broughtest them hast, anon, abated.
Thine headstone shall reflect thine Christian name, and hist'ry shall record thee a man.
As worms and creatures of the earth feast on thine unholy corpse, thine bones shalt betray thee again - unmistak'bly like unto Adam's.
'Tis thy fate, self-appointed. Ne'er shall thee revoke it.

>>18936303
I love Bakker’s work— the Second Apocalypse series is amazing, particularly the last two books and the insane ending— but the man himself is the epitome of a pretentious blowhard obviously insecure about the fact that he writes masturbatory epic fantasy and that he dropped out of his philosophy PhD program. He posts in /sffg/ sometimes by the way, hi Richard.

>>18938118
>pseudo intellectual midwit trash.
He is actually literally a pseud, because he failed at getting a PhD in psychology and now just churns out """"""""""deep"""""""""" fantasy schlock for midwit edgelords.

>>18938425
I will literally kill you

>miles and miles of alien gold...

>>18938425
>Doing at quick search on it gives me D&D vibes.
No, with D&D novels, you can at least have some fun with the, but with Bakker, there's nothing good about his novels, I read the first book, Prince of Nothing. Despite a promising beginning, this series botched the characters, plot, and story structure so badly that it isn't worth reading. Whether you're looking for good writing and deeper meaning or just an entertaining fantasy story, you'll find neither with his works.

>>18941948
Must be hard given what's living on your head rent free.

>>18936303
Would take him seriously if he didn’t write genre fiction himself, he is obviously an insecure genre author mad that the big boys don’t give him the time of day and trying to legitimize genre fiction as a way of legitimizing himself. Dishonest and arrogant.

>>18940882
>>18941880
This absolutely isn't the case. Achamian is Bakker's self-insert. Like criticize the books all you want, but get it right at least.

The character of Achamian, nicknamed Akka (rhymes with the common mispronunciation of Bakker) a essentially a student of continental philosophy forced to reckon with the death of human subjectivity in the face of an AI-God, mirroring Bakker's own journey.

He has mentioned in interviews trying to "Think like Khellus" in the process of trying to write his chapters, and finding the experience incredibly unsettling.

>>18943306
He’s just insecure

>>18938393
Yeah, I think that 'literary' is often a good way to market a book as something more than mere entertainment. Genre fiction can be great just like how a pop song can be great, in the graphic arts you have Naive artists really picking up academic attention so literary is not really what a writer should set out to come up with in the era of information. Personally, I am unmoved by realist YA stuff and genre fiction but I am also not the most avid reader in the first place besides the occasional Poe reading or opening Pedro Paramo on a random page. That being said, I did read the start of On Pain by Ernst Junger and he said something that really stood out to me: "Tell me your relation to pain and I will tell you about yourself" Junger goes on to say that the cruelty depicted in works like Bosch had only in the XX century begun to be grasped by everyone and not just elite clergymen who had read up on art and theology. Just as well, I would suppose that over time, works that we consider to be "low brow" will gain significance in the future notwithstanding any sociocultural dumbing down. I think Bakker is like an anti-Waldun in this regard where he is not chasing anything asymptotically, although his relation to his work is still reciprocal so to say. I think it is better not to chase perfection, for modernists it was about something entirely different than it will be for the mosaic of current artists; I do not believe that the future is in webcomics or concept albums but I do hope that more people catch on to the fact that however good Woolf, Joyce or the Beats were, their time has passed and in emulating them there is not much new ground to be covered.

>>18936303
midwit cope for reading YA

>>18946684
Good points but it’s a matter of distinctions. You likened fantasy to pop music, and what Bakker argues is that in some way, shape, or form, fantasy, is or will be the inheritor to a literature tradition just like we can suggest pop music to be the inheritor of the music tradition. But what I’m arguing is that’s not right and the reason it’s not right is because to even distinguish between pop music, or fantasy, and non-pop music, or non-fantasy, in the Information Age is meaningless. You have the total leveling of distinctions almost in their entirety and so these classifications no longer make sense. And you actually see this happening in real time. There’s now a genre that people refer to as “magical realism”. Magical realism isn’t actually a genre. Magical realism is something that people use to try to denote fiction which they either can’t neatly fit into a pre-existing genre box, or don’t want to. Post-modernism, the same. You’ll often here people say “it’s not clear what post-modern literature is but you just know it when you see it”. You could suggest that these are referring to an expanding of classifications (distinction) but really, what they suggest is the wreckage of distinction. If there’s a a Bosch to be found in the 21st-22nd century, it’s unlikely that it will because it fits neatly into any one pre-existing genre and that includes fantasy. If there’s one thing that I think Bakker is right about is thay there’s a growing distaste and actually inability to digest literary realism, but you can move in any direction from there. You need not rewind to what preceded it and I think Bakker makes the mistake of using fantasy as a catch all term to refer to the type of literature that people are going to retreat to as subjective, individual readers in the age of the internet, but that’s exactly that, a mistake.

>>18946852
Good points, fantasy as a broad genre can be considered to include unreality and mythos in all their varied literary forms, like Borges and even the writings of surrealists like Michaux, Carrington, Breton. I do see a throughline between older forms of fantastic literature and some of Tolkien's more polished descendents like Wolfe, and yes, Bakker.

Still, none of this changes the fact that 95% of the genre is paperback garbage power fantasy slop, and Bakker heavily indulges in the most sperglord genre tropes, which sometimes works amazingly well in his books when they border on self-parody, like the Dagliash scene in The Great Ordeal. Also, keep in mind he comes from a rural working class background and has an apparent chip on his shoulder about urban elite culture in general.

>>18938141
No it’s not? I usually lurk but this is a blatant lie and I can’t have you sway the mind of young impressionable (transsexual) readers

>>18946932
What's with your obsession with transsexuals?

>>18946905
>Also, keep in mind he comes from a rural working class background and has an apparent chip on his shoulder about urban elite culture in general.
Based Bakker

>>18938154
>isn't this a little self-congratulating?
>to put yourself on the same level as gene wolfe?
Bakker is a huge narcissist and genuinely believe he’s that great. Doesn’t help that he has a small army of sycophants discordtrannies shilling him whenever they can.

>>18946852
Good assessment yeah. I don't think fantasy will be an inheritor considering that poetry/literature has changed as an art a lot. People in the late XIX century and early to mid XX century had like socialist ideals and expectations that made them write a certain way and it was through propaganda that they have made "literary fiction" its own thing...Yeah it's a tough subject forsure but thanks for the (you)

>>18946905
>I do see a throughline between older forms of fantastic literature and some of Tolkien's more polished descendents like Wolfe, and yes, Bakker.
Can you explain this?

>>18946905
>fantasy as a broad genre can be considered to include unreality and mythos in all their varied literary forms, like Borges and even the writings of surrealists like Michaux, Carrington, Breton
Exactly. Bakker seems to think fantasy is anything that’s not realism and that’s clearly wrong.

>>18944673
This. Achamian is the closest to thinking like Bakker, has the most Bakker in him. The rest are clearly alien. Even the reader can feel this difference. Why would an emotionless superhuman that's nothing like Bakker be his self-insert?

>>18938118
This.

>>18940882
>philosophy felt ham handed to me
I keep hearing people praise or bash the philosophy but 1.5 books in I don't see it as an overwhelming part of the book.

Do people see Kellhus' ramblings as philosophical? I understood them to be mostly just manipulation, besides his core idea of not being controlled by The darkness that came before TM

>>18947516
Bakker never seemed like he knew what he was talking about.

>>18941948
>Goes immediately for the trannie insults
Baker’s fan are literally children.

>>18951559
That’s kind of the irony in at all. He’s grasping at this idea that all objective meaning has been destroyed and he’s retreating into his own personal meaning to illustrate that and provide a solution, not realizing it’s inherently not a solution because it’s his own subjective meaning. There’s no common ground for us to be intelligible so he defaults to his own language to highlight our mutual intelligibility, which is absurd.

>>18953159
Sounds about right.

>>18953159
I wouldn’t worry about it. No one takes him seriously and he’s a literally who in modern academia. Nobody, outside a small few, even know him.

>>18936303
He forgot the #1 GGK

>>18956245
Which is?

>>18939009
That is honestly a problem. YouTube music algorithm, for example, annoys the fuck out of me precisely because it gives me what I want, normally. I want new stuff! Expand my horizons! If I click random I want fucking random!

After seeing how many pseuds he makes seethe ITT, I've decided to read bakker

>>18957657
Nobody is seething and the only pseud is Bakker himself.

>>18957668
Not true, you're seething, and you're a pseud.

>>18957657
based

>>18959315
>you're seething, and you're a pseud.
Not even seething nor am I a pseud. I find Bakker boring.

To me modern fantasy is a race to see can be the most grim and it's all so derivative. Give me tales of heroics, of virtue and courage like we see in Robert E Howard or David Gemmell. That's something we don't see anymore. Men being men.

I don't understand why people are obsessed with him

>>18959896
>obsessed
In what way? The only time I hear him is on here, and even then, it’s just a bunch of shills from Reddit.

>>18957481
guy gavriel kay

>>18960068
It’s absolutely criminal that he’s underrated and not talked about in /sffg/.

>>18936303
lmfao this is the stupidest essay ive read in a while

what is this dumb motherfucker even talking about

>>18960738
>what is this dumb motherfucker even talking about
Nothing. He’s all style and no substance. It’s the main reason why he’s often called a midair pseud.

>>18959667
Maybe in the west.

>>18962020
Maybe in the west. This implies that it may be otherwise, both in the west and the east, whatever you mean by west and east. What are you trying to communicate? I have a feeling it's going to be trite.

>>18938624
Please tell me this picture is nothing more than a meme. No one can be that fucking insecure writing a book.

>>18938425
Saying that is a disrespect to D&D novels.

>>18960738
>lmfao this is the stupidest essay ive read in a while
This pretty much sums up Bakker

Bakker dabbing on /lit/ midwits.

>>18959667
Fiction is informed by lived reality and unfortunately, in lived reality heroism means absolutely nothing and is, in fact, a non-value in front of a machine gun or under a drone strike. The optimism of the mechanized world which gave you fantasy and sci-fi a la mechavangelion is long gone and actually absurd now. Heroism doesn’t exist.

>>18953051
>is a tranny
Bakker’s detractors are literally faggots

>>18965095
I pulled 3 dogs out of a burning house before. What was that if not heroism? Heroism may not be on a battlefield in a classical sense but it's still there. It's in our world all around us. The modern man is a materialist, a hedonist, and a narcissist. He fears death and it paralyzes him when action is needed. Heroism is no longer in our literature because these are the people writing our books. They don't know what's good because they don't even believe in a good, and that's where heroism is born.

>>18965410
>The modern man is a materialist, a hedonist, and a narcissist.
Maybe the American man, but don’t lump the rest of the world with your declining nation.

>>18965471
oof, got em

>>18965471
As if it doesn't describe every European country today, you weird insecure bastard.

>>18965410
>Heroism is no longer in our literature because these are the people writing our books.
Legitimately redpilled post

>>18965489
Maybe west and centra Europe.

>>18936303
Makes sense. No shame making bucks with entertainment genre productions, while maturing and writing the world-changing magnum opus on the side (which won’t sell anyway because it rubs the majority wrong way).

>>18967811
>No shame making bucks with entertainment genre productions
Consoomer mindset

>>18936303
>https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/essay-archive/the-future-of-literature-in-the-age-of-information/
Read it and realize this guy is a midwit of the highest caliber.

>>18969921
That would explain why pseuds love him.