/lit/ - Literature

infinite jest by david foster wallace

Gatsby

Light in August

>>3277797

I refuse!

>>3277774
moby dick
/thread

>>3277774
Huckleberry Finn

>>3277814

Wrote my thesis on that.

>>3277774

the old man and the sea

>>3277835

Suffered through 200 pages of this before I gave up. Reading it half asleep may not have helped. Should I try again?

Gravity's Rainbow by Pynchon

I'd say Of Mice and Men, but then again I haven't read a lot of American litterature.

>>3277837

Not him, but what reason would you have to force yourself through something you don't like?

I personally think it's one of the all-time great novels, but that doesn't mean you should read it

In Our Time, for me, even though it's not exactly a novel.

The Sun Also Rises?

>>3277837
It's not for everyone. Depends on your educational background/intelligence etc.

>>3277850

I remember reading automatic writing that made no sense whatsoever, so frustrating. Beatnik LSD-induced prose, that's what I remember.

>>3277851
>Depends on your educational background/intelligence etc.

Right...

>if you don't like it, you're a moron

I got an MA in literature, linguistics, and sociology, and I still didn't see why that was so amazing.

>>3277856

There isn't even a sentence of 'automatic writing' in GR. Did we read the same book?

>>3277818

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

>>3277860

Some parts seemed to be nothing but automatic writing.

GR, I read it as a novel, maybe I shouldn't have? Is it like a prose poem?

Moby Dick and Gatsby are big hitters

>>3277860

“Danger's over, Banana Breakfast is saved.”

What's that mean then?

1. Mason & Dixon - T.R Pinecone (tie)
1. Moby-Dick - Melville (tie)
2. Something by - Faulkner

>>3277837
GR is really funny. If you're not laughing, then don't bother reading it. You don't need to understand it, but you do need to laugh.

>>3277870

I thought Gatsby was weak.

>>3277875

It means the danger is over and the banana breakfast is saved.

>>3277877

Only part I remember is when some dude goes into the toilet, swims through used TP and notices the race of a user by his shit stains.

Sure, that's funny if you like poop humor, which I do, but great american novel? Dunno.

>>3277882

What does that mean?

>>3277878
It is, but it's still one of the best American novels

>>3277881
It's not, because Mason & Dixon is 10x greater.

>>3277875
Means they're not gonna get bombed so they can chill and eat their retarded breakfast.

>>3277859
>>Depends on your educational background/intelligence etc
Ignore that guy.
If you didn't like it you didn't like it.
Read V., it's great novel. If you like it, maybe it'll acclimatize you with Pynchon's idiosyncrasies, try reading GR again, maybe you'll find the humor.

>>3277892

Is it automatic writing again?

>>3277895
Why is breakfast capitalised?

I'm not sure what "The great american novel" entails.
I hear the expression often, but I can't quite place a single book in it.
On a grand scale, it is perhaps Moby Dick
On depicting the American condition, perhaps On The Road or Grapes of Wrath.
On being beautifully written, perhaps The Sound and The Fury or The Great Gatsby.

Lolita by Nabokov

>>3277905

To emphasize its importance as a structured event.

Picking apart sentences isn't a good way to judge any work, btw

>>3277897

When I read GR, I would always be tired and usually dozed around and fell asleep, so there's a chance I wasn't reading properly. On the other hand, I remember having the impression that, while well-written, the words had no meaning.

I liked the bits I understood, but I hated the parts where I was completely lost and had no clue what was going on, if anything.

I can admit that because I know I'm not retarded, but I understand others wouldn't for fear of snobby anons who want to think GR is the best book ever because some people don't understand it.

Some people have problems with Moby-Dick, which I've read three times and never thought was any difficult.

>>3277909

I know, but that's all I could find that didn't make sense amongst the quotes I saw. Everything else was legible, made sense, and I even liked them a lot. Scared to start the novel again, though.

>>3277900
I don't think so. He was like 60 or 70 when he published it and he's been working on it since he wrote V.

What I'm saying is that I don't think he was as high writing M&D as he was writing GR.

>>3277931

He was 60 in the 70's and he's still alive today? Are you sure?

>>3277939
http://www.rhlschool.com/reading.htm

>>3277939

Mason & Dixon is from the 90s

>>3277945

Sorry, was thinking GR.

>>3277864
Not that there's anything wrong with Tom Sawyer, but Huck Finn captures the American zeitgeist.

>>3277774

>great
>American novel

Pick one.

>>3277774
>What is the great American novel?

awww, wook at the wickle Americans, putting the word 'great' before their name so the can be great like Britain. So cute.

>>3278095

You guys are just the annoying mini-US of Europe, We are your political spawn, remember.

>>3278100

>You guys are just the annoying mini-US of Europe

No, the USA is the irritating euro-wannabe of the Americas.

>>3278106

I never said that wasn't true.

>>3277774

Terra Nostra - Carlos Fuentes.

>>3278100
>We are your political spawn, remember.

Does anyone else think there is any merit to the theory that Countries (Empires) follow the same patterns, similar to the behaviour of a human. Birth, growth, a somewhat violent alpha male teenage period (in countries this consists of dominating/bullying other countries), old age/decline. All Empires seem to have followed the same, and the US seems to be a teen at the moment, following on from Daddy Britain, who is now in a retirement home.

>>3277774
Call of the Wild/ White Fang - Jack London

>>3278130

This is as silly a political theory as it is a behavioral one.

gatsby. it's about america.

or maybe the grapes of wrath for the working classes

>>3278136
The behavioural one is irrelevant, really. I just view global politics as a school-yard situation. Countries are people who seem to follow the same patterns, and there are always big kids, the Romans and Great Britains, who bully the other kids in the playground. You have the full spectrum of different countries that seem to appear in the average class of kids, the same hierarchical structures and social placements, only with countries we have different age groups. This has always seemed to be the case since Mesopotamia.

>>3278144
>gatsby. it's about america.

Gatsby's underlying message is how futile the American dream pursuit is. It's a cautionary tale that is far from celebrating America.

>>3278158

Read Foucault on power. It doesn't exactly work that way

>>3278165
it's still about america though. it's about the failure of the american dream

The Great American Novel was just a set up for the Cheesy Canadian One-liner.

Poutine!

>>3278168
I really disagree with Foucault when it comes to power. He says "power is constituted through accepted forms of knowledge, scientific understanding and ‘truth’" And constantly claims there is a correlation between power and a group that is the most intelligent, or in possession of truth, but history shows us that is not the case.

The Roman Empire collapsed, not because they were lacking in knowledge, but from a few bad decisions about splitting the empire, and from attacks from more primitive peoples. Equally, the British dominated at a time when the Chinese possessed greater knowledge. Foucault states that intelligence, knowledge of greater truth, will lead an army to victory, but this is not the case. 1000 barbarians can overun 100 of the wisest men.

He claims that individuals will follow this too, yet Polymaths don't always lust for power and George Bush's become presidents.

>>3278231

You need to reread dat foucault

>>3278247
Sure, can you recommend a specific text? I read 'power is everywhere.'

>>3278165
OP didn't say "what's a great novel celebrating America?" though.

Of Men and Mice

David Copperfield

>>3277814
/Thread

>>3277903
Moby Dick does a fine job of depicting the American condition as well.

>>3278083
We have. Moby Dick.

Guys, guys, it's:

Gravity's Pynchon

>>3277878

You're weak

Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Novel

>>3278231
Foucault is bad history, bro.

Lotta overdetermined bullshit and Foucault fags will never accept that it's just bad history because all is discourse.

>>3277814
/thread

Moby-Dick has, more than anything else ever, except maybe Emerson's essays, made me stop wishing I weren't American.

>>3279332

Good. I'm Swiss and always loved American thinking because of these authors: Hawthorne, Melville, Hemingway, Emerson.

When I see Americans bashing their nation, I feel bad for you guys. You have incredible wealth and you shit on it as if it didn't exist.

>>3278752
This, Lolita, or Moby Dick. If I had to pick one I guess I'd say Absalom, Absalom!

The Game of Thrones

>>3279406

Protip: When Americans bash America, most are either Northerners bashing the South or Southerners bashing the North.

You can usually tell whether the griper's Northern or Southern based on their proficiency with language. If they can't spell, can't reason, and end all arguments by shouting "States' Rights!" -- they're Southern.

>>3279465
>end all arguments by shouting "States' Rights!" -- they're Southern.

Yeah, like that Faulkner dude, always banging on in a semi-literate manner. I particulalry hated his book "Muh freedumbs".

>>3277814

This.

Again, /thread

>>3279471

> "...most are..."
> "...you can usually tell..."

lrn2qualifiers you corn pone-eating southern faggot

Where can i get a good copy of Gravity's Rainbow? apparentally a bunch of the stores around me have censored versions, or that penguins deluxe edition which deleted words, and made a bunch of typos.

tl;dr Where can i get a copy of Gravity's Rainbow? Not the Penguins classic deluxe edition

Blood Meridian

By a landslide.

1. Grapes of Wrath
2. Moby-Dick
3. The Great Gatsby

Why the fuck is Moby Dick so popular here? I hated that book. Or maybe I'm just too pleb to appreciate it.

>>3279562
same here

>>3279562
Your opinion shouldn't affect your choice for the great american novel!

A Christmas Story - Charley Dickens
Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
The Cat in The Hat. Dr. S

>>3277791
Only acceptable answer.

>>3279562
> hasn't been out to sea in a while
> knocking people's hats off in the street

SHIGGY!

>>3277814

Shiva?

Slaughterhouse-Five or Fahrenheit 451.

>>3279643

Why bring Bradbury into this?

>>3278758
>foucalt in a Great American Novel thread
Goddammit, you guys.

To Kill a Mockingbird

>>3279646
Why not?
The Martian Chronicles were god-tier.

>>3279651

>god-tier

more like readable

>>3279648
I loved the part where the ninjas, Boo Radley's pirate armada, Robot scout, and several thousand flaming bears and sharks charged the Mockingbird armada on the moon.

>>3279654
I loved the part when Boo Radley jumps out of nowhere and stabs someone in the ribs.

>>33279654
I loved the part where Scout is hiding in a big piece of meat

Fifty Shades of Grey, as it is a compelling book. It uses the story of sexual perversion as a metaphor for the socially and politically perverted America. It is not only a story about corruption and morality gone wrong, but also a story that encapsulate the soul of this era's most powerful Empire; a soul that has rotten under the bondage whips of our rich to the extreme extent that we have begun to enjoy this masochism.

Probably greatest book since The Divine Comedy.

>>3277814
Good choice, but I would have to go with one of Tao Lin's works. No offence to Mr. Dick, but Tao Lin is a master of literary expression and storytelling.

>>3279744

>a metaphor

You mean an allegory

What is a social perversion? What is a political perversion?

>3279771

Insult my language, sure! But it does not lessen the absolute greatness of this masterpiece. It speaks for itself.

Plus for the questions, you should read the book and face the salvation, Republican bastard.

>>3279787

>Insult

I did no such thing.

I've read the book.

I'd like to hear you justify your reading of the work. 'Speaks for itself' is not an argument for any kind of merit.

>Republican bastard

There's the insult you were looking for

>>3278752
Blood meridian

>>3279853
No american novel will ever compare to Blood Meridian.

Melville, Twain, Hemingway, Faulkner. They all come close. But McCarthy has go this one.

No other American novel illustrates the violence and insanity and darkness that America was born from. Judge Holden also wins the prize for best villain. And McCarthy for best living writer.

>>3279858

Absalom, Absalom would be the book you're looking for. Sutpen is that villain you're looking for. Faulkner is the single greatest American author ever to have lived.

I'm not even that other guy

>>3279744
Not sure if troll....

Regardless. I hope you and family fucking die. If I were to get a letter telling me you and all your next of kin have died horribly in a pool of broken glass it would make my christmas

>>3279863
Read it, love it. Love everything Faulkner has written. Even Mosquitoes.

Doing my MA in American Lit at UofT, not to pull rank at all. I have a lot of friends that would agree with you. I just happen to prefer McCarthy. And his subject matter.

>>3279873

BM is a damn good book - perhaps one of the finest of the last 40 years, but I think it's often made out to be more than it is. The language is evocative, the subject matter illuminating, and the depth of characterization is brilliant - but I don't think its got enough going for it in the direction of a GAN to claim it as such - Faulkner's opus has far more to say about society and human nature than McCarthy's, imo

>>3279406
Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. America is far from being a perfect nation.

>>3279877
Interesting.

I personally don't think any of McCarthy's character's have much explicit depth at all. And I also think McCarthy asks much more questions in his work than he answers so I don't particularly think he "illuminates" his subject matter rather than explicates it.

Granted Faulker writes in a much more social context, he was a very social man and McCarthy is anything but. I think any decent writer must address human nature/ death/ love in some way and I think both writers do but McCarthy's execution is nothing short of genius. Call me a pussy but his stuff just makes me cry sometimes, straight up. Not even while drunk or stoned or anything. It's just the best stuff I've ever written by a completely unfair margin.

>>3279877
Spoken by Judge Holden of Blood Meridian
(America's westward expansion, the killing and scalping of thousands of native Indians in a ridiculously short period of time. Judge Holden spares no children or women and he rapes them all before he kills them).

“Suppose two men at cards with nothing to wager save their lives. Who has not heard such a tale? A turn of the card. The whole universe for such a player has labored clanking to his moment which will tell if he is to die at that man’s hand or that man at his. What more certain validation of a man’s worth could there be? This enhancement of the game to its ultimate state admits no argument concerning the notion of fate. The selection of one man over another is a preference absolute and irrevocable and it is a dull man indeed who could reckon so profound a decision without agency or significance either one. In such games as have for their stake the annihilation of the defeated the decisions are quite clear. This man holding this particular arrangement of cards in his hand is thereby removed from existence. This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification. Seen so, war is the truest form of divination. It is the testing of one’s will and the will of another within that larger will which because it binds them is therefore forced to select. War is the ultimate game because war is at last a forcing of the unity of existence. War is god.”

>>3279858
I AM that other guy, and may I just say that you are certainly my nigga

>>3279925
Likewise, nigga. Have a nigga christmas

Just posting to remind y'all that McCarthy wrote Blood Meridian with a roget thesaurus in one hand and his scabby cock in the other.

Don't believe me? Watch his interview on Oprah.

>>3279924
Look man no one's arguing that BM doesn't have some really truly meaningful things to say about society and human nature quaquaquaqua but for me at least the language and force of Absalom, Absalom! hit home in a way that the insanity and violence of BM (which had it's own artistic beauty, I agree) didn't.

>>3279935

Why are you posting without adding anything to the conversation?

Nobody in this thread is concerned with anything but the text, from what I can see

>>3279943
You sure I'm not concerned with the text? Have you even read Blood Meridian or Evening Redness in the West?

>>3279950

Yes, I've read it a couple of times. Talking about an author's process isn't the same thing as discussing the text.

Blood Meridian will surpass anything Faulkner's written when McCarthy learns how to write a female character.

McCarthy isn't universal. He barely transcends his gun-loving, republican demographic of Texas. Enjoy your purple prose Call of Duty novels.

>>3279935
Even if that were true, I've heard of writers doing weirder shit.

Bet you've never even fucked two bitches at once or worked a 14 hour day hard labor or read a 300 page book in one sitting. Probably just some kid. 0/10, not even 1 mad from me.

>>3279956
His new book, "The Passenger" features a female protagonist. It's not out yet, but there's a bit of information out there on it. How do you feel about that?

>>3279955
Actually, I am discussing the text. Almost every overwritten paragraph screams "OHWEE MY SCABBY COCK! ROGET'S THESAURUS SAVED MY LIFE!"

Just read Dante or Milton instead.

>>3279961

Now you're discussing the text, childishly.

I'll read what i damn well please. Your taste isn't mine.

>>3279961
Immaturity. Bad look. Post not taken seriously. Moving on.

>>3279959
How do I feel about the longest book he's written, featuring a female protagonist, which he's never done, which was supposed to be released three years ago?

I think it's going to be shit. He clearly knows it's garbage and is frantically editing it so that Harold Bloom won't come down on it and declare it worse than anything David Faggot Walrus has written.

itt: newfags don't recognize Thomas Pynchon/Steve Erickson's dismissal of Blood Meridian

>>3279938
Of course
different strokes..

>>3279968
What are you talking about? Harold Bloom called Blood Meridian America's greatest aesthetic achievement!

>>3279970

>taking your cues from commentary in lieu of thought

>>3279968
>Implying it's important to stick to publication deadlines in art
>frantically
>taking a long time

You're just pants on head retarded aren't you, son?

>>3279974
And he's said that everything else he's written is shit in comparison.

His praise of The Road was so paper thin. The Passenger is going to be terrible. It's going to be as bad as Terrence Malick film.

>>3279981
It's been three years. On his famously retarded Oprah interview he admitted he had no clue what women were all about and that's why he avoided writing about them.

He's realizing he still has no clue about women.

>>3279970
>Implying thomas Pynchon is worth a goddamn

LOL newfag yourself, leave

>>3279977
> biting the troll

merry x-mas, faggot

>>3279994
> believing Thomas Pynchon actually posts on /lit/

It was Bill Murray, dumbass.

>>3279996

I take every post at face value. Suck my cock.

>>3280010
I see what you did there.

ITT: People get mad because they don't actually know anything about Cormac McCarthy. (who is so obviously one of America's leading minds).

>>3280004
That's not very festive, friendo.

>>3280009
> leading intellectual

He's Franzen-tier.

Enjoy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RmgK0ds2d4

>>3280012
We've all seen it, faggot

What's your point?
You've read nothing of his. I can tell.

>>3280012

Franzen is much, much worse.

Stop making a fool of yourself

>>3280033
I read the one about cowboys and the other one about some fat white guy going around fighting for the 2nd amendment right.

He's a period piece.

>>3280075
My god, fucking die scrub

>>3280061
> unironically posting in a great american novel thread

You're the fool. There's nothing great about america.

>>3280084

Nobody's claiming that. Do you know what a GAN is?

>>3280075

I'm howling with laughter, I don't even care if you're serious or not

>>3280128
Thank you, kind sir.

>>3280137

At your expense, I might add.

On The Road

>>3279530
>or that penguins deluxe edition which deleted words, and made a bunch of typos.

WAIT WHAT? That's what I have...

>>3279633

I lol'd.

>>3279748

Yeah, but is Mr. Tao Lin an American? Didn't think so.

>>3279974

Harold Bloom rapes.

>>3280510

I bought his big book The Western Canon, is that worth my time? Or should I go straight to Jewishly raping women and claiming they wanted my fat, old body?

>152 posts
>not a single post has mentioned Catch-22
>NOT A SINGLE POST

I have lost faith in you, e/lit/es.

>>3280521
It's worth it, man. Don't read it straight through, use the table of contents and index and look up writers you're interested in learning a bit about.

Harold Bloom is good in small doses, and usually only to motivate you to read something.

I ignore him when he gets dismissive but I pay attention when he's praising.

I don't think he's said anything new since The Western Canon. It's one of his best.

>>3280523
Because it has been surpassed by Gravity's Rainbow.

>>3280523

Because, great book though it is, it's more about war than America.

>>3280592

Does the Great American Novel need to be about America? Is its author necessarily American?

>>3280633

For me personally, yes, it has to be about America.

The author doesn't have to be American but you'd think it would help.

>>3280497
it got fucked over, a bunch of words are taken out from the original, either accidentally or purposely, its not the same as the original

>>3280713

What edition should I get?

>>3280803

WHICH SEAT SHOULD I TAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE!

>>3277797
Not incorrect, but debatable.

>>3277835
No.

>>3277818
Getting warmer.

>>3279938
>quaquaquaqua

You're a fucking tool.

Also I hate all your professors. Fuck you.

>>3277885
It means that the bomb is not going to fall on them so the banana breakfast they eat every day can continue to happen.

>>3277913
It's actually kinda the opposite for me. The sentences all contain so much information, they're really concentrated. I couldn't focus on it enough to get all the detail and action out of the sentences. 3deep5me

>>3278784
I couldn't get through this book, but I loved White Noise. What did you like about this book?

hehe

>>3281063

It sounds like GR is readable after all, and not automatic writing. Maybe I should give it another try. But what edition?

>>3280713

I hope to God you're joking. How do you know this? Link pls?

>>3277878
Then what better choice for the great American novel?

>>3279858

Warlock by Oakley Hall illustrates all those things without being boring and silly and desperate. Blood Meridian is shallow and overrated. Pretty sentences, though.

Naked Lunch is a great American novel

>>3279530
The Vintage editions are good bar the awful covers we Brits get

>>3282144
Lolita

>>3279406
Unfortunately our nation has committed great crimes over the last 50 years, and the nation as represented by our supposedly democratic government engages in monstrous hypocrisy. As far as literary and cultural wealth, I would agree, although with a caveat that since the late 70s American popular culture is devolving into decadence and anti-intellectualism.

For me the Great American Novel is either Moby Dick, Blood Meridian, or To Kill a Mockingbird.

>>3279541
>>3279853
>>3279858
>>3279924
>>3279935
>>3279950
>>3279956
>>3279970
>>3279974
>>3282153
>>3282288
ah, blood meridian, monsieur? that novel is the sark an chaparral of literature, the filament whereon rode the remuda of highbrow, corraled out of some destitute hacienda upon the arroya, quirting with main and with pyrolatrous coagulate of lobated grandiloquence. our eyes rode over the pages, monsieur, of that slatribbed azotea like Argonauts of suttee, juzgados of swole, bights and systoles of walleyed and tyrolean and carbolic and tectite and scurvid and querent and creosote and scapular malpais and shellalagh. we scalped, monsieur, the gantlet of its esker and led our naked bodies into the rebozos of its mennonite and siliceous fauna, wallowing in the jasper and the carnelian like archimandrites, teamsters, combers of cassinette scoria, centroids of holothurian chancre, with pizzles of enfiladed indigo panicgrass in the saltbush of our vigas, true commodores of the written page, rebuses, monsieur, we were the mygale spiders too and the devonian and debouched pulque that settled on the frizzen studebakers, listening the lobos howling in the desert while we saw the Judge rise out of a thicket of corbelled arches, whinstone, cairn, cholla, lemurs, femurs, leantos, moonblanched nacre, uncottered fistulas of groaning osnaburg and kelp, isomers of fluepipe and halms awap of griddle, guisado, pelancillo.

>>3282313
10/10
Nice to have you back, monsieurfag, even if you're a different person.

>>3282025
I see no proof of any issues with the deluxe edition.
But if you're paranoid, wait for the Vintage coming out next year. Pic related.

Best option: Go to a used book store, Pynchon books are almost almost always sold untouched at the one I go to. Get the one with the V-2 blueprint on the cover.

>>3282313

>>3282321
i have live a thousand years upon this unblessed earth, monsieur, a buzzard round the fronds of niggers and indians and 4chan as well, to the thrapple of her replevined tern, that veritable dosshouse of helved sutlers, astrolabes, farriers, mallet, shale, malabarista, tonto, drygulch, hackamore, carreta, weskit, wikiup, and diptheria besides. must of been here a long time, monsieur. must of learned a lot and spat on the gourd of lemniscated tisnin. see the paloverde. the baldric of the selvage the sprue of the hock, the nickered sere. must of been slaloming at the pizzle of the escarpment with bandoliers of idiocy hanging at your yuccas and magueys not to have euchered the miquelet and egress of my gibbous arcature, monsieur nigger.

>>3282333
i made as lief you were a buskin, or a bit of cirrus, a silkmullioned pyracantha luffed out of the rill of mare imbrium and parfleches of discalced sloe-eyed gentian, having morningloried a latent pblano and ocotillo of serape nor neither not vinegarooned the gingham of his self own gypsum, estuary of his chert.

>>3282329
Get the one with the blue cover. It has the best spine.

Penguin Deluxe and Vintage have shit spines.

But it's all the same if you don't give a fuck about spines.

>>3282144

In Our Time, although not technically a novel, still far more important to American literature and worldwide literature than any of those.

>>3282159

Is it? I thought it was a great piece of shit. I too can describe my dreams, on drugs or without drugs, and that doesn't make it important to anybody.

>>3282358
why is it important, honey?

>>3282360
tell me about importance, honey, and how to predicate it on my sweetest bookfriends.

>>3282361

It revolutionised the way we wrote prose, for better or worse, and introduced these famous maxims:

>show, don't tell
>style must help the story, not divert attention from it

There is a before Hemingway and an after Hemingway; that much can't be said of all classic authors.

>Iceberg Theory

>>3282367

The only thing I liked about Naked Lunch was the introduction. Everything else after that was an abstract dream of sex and violence. For that, I go to /b/.

>>3282372

Junkie was shit too; readable, but shit.

Some people assume that you're awesome if you do both drugs and literature. Nothing new, honestly. At least Baudelaire had talent.

>>3282372
Yep.

Naked Lunch, much like Catch-22, has been surpassed by Gravity's Rainbow.

Catch-22 is still much better than anything Burroughs farted out.

>>3282410
>anything Burroughs farted out.

One thing we can agree on. If I can get reasonably certain that GR isn't automatic writing à la Burroughs, I'll give it another try some day.

who is "we", monsieur? you think hemingway is responsible for the movement of time, that he is a "great man", that he is a historical force above and beyond you and i? do you understand historical foeces and forces and all that? do you think you can defend your distributions of the predicates 'cause' and 'effect' on the endless data of history?

Nobody mentioned pic related, shame on you.

>>3282428

>that he is a historical force above and beyond you and i?

No. I'm about as badass as he was, and less gay.

As to the rest, yes, Hemingway was the first to use his distinctive style in that context; before him, everyone was expected to write long ass sentences to show something that wasn't related to the story itself but more about proving to the reader that you "could" write, which, ironically, proved the opposite.

Et vous serez gentil d'arrêter de faire semble de parler la langue de Molière car à part "monsieur", vous n'y connaissez rien. Merci.

>>3282428
cuz i say you can't, honey. i say that god is the ultimate historical "force." all your heroes are just His effects. all your unfatalistic secular history a blasphemy, a Lie, and a Rote Lesson in How to take a shit on everything true.

>>3282432

I'm not disagreeing with that, but I maintain that Hemingway was the father of 20th century prose.

There are many who imitated him with more or less success, with more or less reason.

That homosexual Camus for instance, he just stole what Hemingway did and made it absurd.

>>3282431
hemingway was the first to use his own style? you got to be shitting me. before hemingway? you don't know a damn thing about literature you lying sack of shit. don't you come on here and read out your lying ass textbooks and their chronological orders premised on the crucifixion of a rotten kike in the year of our lordy Zero.

>>3282414
It's not, but they deal with sort of similar themes. Word virus, weird fucking sex, destructive impulses of western culture, manufacturing of war etc

Burroughs is automatic writing. Think of Pynchon more as a funny but really intelligent slightly stoned guy telling you a bunch of connecting stories. It was difficult at first for me to figure out what was going on but when I came back to it it felt super easy and hilarious.

But Mason & Dixon is my favourite of his.

>>3282434
that's about as absurd as saying england caused the second world war because they were the first to declare. and you think you're a historian of literature you dumb lying sack of shit. teach me some history, monsieur, perhaps some french 2.

>>3282440
Why not blame it on England? Fuck that curry eating colony of India.

England is america-tier.

>>3282435

Hemingway's style resembles Biblical texts in their simplicity, that's what I meant. It's very different from the Victorian style used until Hemingway. It's far less impressive today because we're all used to what Hemingway opened for everyone else.

Don't get so mad.

>>3282449
thank you for your erudite and well written opinion of the nation of england. i thought it was lacking in moral severity until i ran up against the imperative mood of the verb 'to fuck', the gastronomically phrased racism, and 'america-tier.' you have brightened my day.

>>3282451
i have every right to be mad you lying sack of shit.

>>3282454
your welcome faggot

1984.

>>3282454
Why are yuropoors such terrible posters?

>>3282462
are you trying to predicate 'terrible' on my posts, coward? can't just come out and say it you got to go sleuthing about with the indirect questions like you all clever i tell you what in a fight i would lick you good european style or whateverwise you like boy.

>>3279858
Half of it was in fucking Mexico

>>3282465
got to say, no other american novels illustrate america's potpourri style at its most imitative.

>>3282136
>>3280803
>>3279530
http://www.amazon.com/review/RBVC0DP41ALIK/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#RBVC0DP41ALIK

idk what edition to get but not that one. im too lazy to look further into it. feel free to if you want but its too much effort. and before you say hurr durr shut up fag, look it up yourself. other people have complained about it on forums just search for yourself

>>3282567
buy it from here, not this specific one but the website http://www . alibris.com/booksearch.detail?invid=11510271755&qwork=2690039&qsort=&page=1

>>3282567
>http://www.amazon.com/review/RBVC0DP41ALIK/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#RBVC0DP41ALIK

I just checked my edition: it contains the words, but between hyphens, and I never noticed typos or else.

My edition has been abandoned in a corner of my room, it's covered with nasty dust.

Not sure when I'll gather the courage to tackle this monster again.

>>3282589
theres a bunch of forums talking about the typos in this book. googles your friend

>>3278095

'great' refers to it being the largest island in the british isles, not because it's good.

>>3278693

i laughed and agreed.

>>3282628
remember july 4th 1776? i think we know at that point which country is truly great.

>>3282628
>>3282660
ahh shit my bad, i meant to say that to
>>3278095
sorry

The Call of the Wild. London's story about the dog who leaves civilization, first to be a servant to harsh masters, later as a servant to a benevolent master, and still later as a savage who has eschewed his previous knowledge of society to redefine it in his own image, is literally the story of America.

It's a concept that's practically an entire genre at this point in time.

>>3282613

Uh? I know that, I just saw the same link we all saw. I'm telling my old edition is fine. That doesn't contradict anything.

>>3278095
Your time has ended, Nigel. Accept it and get over it.

>>3279486
>makes generalizations
>"South dumb. North smart. Hurr."
>"I didn't mean everybody, jeez."

Typical generalizing Northerner. Every single northerner I have ever met has been a condescending, arrogant, smug asshole, and with the exception of two times, it has always been undeserved.

>>3278165
What greater indication is there that a novel is American than that it shows a harsh criticism for the American institutions that we all take for granted as Americans?

>>3282717

Thankfully, the south has enough people to prove its worth:

>Bill Hicks
>Faulkner
>Bill Mars

>>3282728

>citing Bill Hicks

>not Tennessee Williams, Carson McCullers, Flannery O'Connor, Truman Capote etc.

>>3282727

I never understood the criticism against the American Dream. The American Dream always was the world's dream, and it became a nation.

My take is this: people expect the American Dream to do your shit for you, until you become rich automatically. That's why they're buttmad when things don't happen.

>>3282734

I haven't read any of these (yet), or even Faulkner, but that's on the list. I'M SORRY!

>Bill Hicks
>anorite

Define "American".

>>3282744

From and/or about the USA

>>3282736
Yes, that was the entire point of the book. People misunderstand the American Dream, thinking that it means, "Move to America and become rich and happy." It does not. It means, "Move to America, and you'll have the opportunities presented to you to make money, and possibly to be happy as well, though not certainly."

>>3282755
Fuck I hate liberalism so much.

has anyone used the word "zeitgeist" yet? don't miss this chance to use your favorite word /lit/. You don't want to have to shoehorn it into a DFW thread later.

>>3282728
Don't forget

>Edgar Allan Poe
>Zora Neale Hurston
>Maya Angelou
>Harper Lee
>Mark Twain (?)
>Mencken
>Thomas Wolfe
>William Gilmore Simms

>>3282760
It's quite grating, yes. But such is the way of things.

>>3282749
That would be "The Great North American Novel"

>>3282764
See:
>>3277966

>>3282784
>Edgar Allan Poe
Famous southern locales Baltimore and Boston

>>3282787

No. That is what the title refers to, regardless of whether or not it's too broad a term.

"All American Literature is naught but a set of footnotes to Huckleberry Finn." -Hemingway

>>3282787
this is why you have no friends.

>>3282797
But it's blatant bullshit and typical American exceptionalism at work.

>>3282800

I'm actually shocked his opinions are worse than his writing

>>3282806
>Louis CK quote
>no Louis CK face

2/10 would not save

>>3282813
i don't have time to make my own.

>>3282808

So what? That's what it refers to, regardless of your objection to it

>>3282821
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbRf7yaVN9w

It is Huck Finn. Any other answer is incorrect. Except maybe Moby Dick.

I am surprised by the lack of Grapes of Wrath in this thread

>>3282795
In his time period, Baltimore was considered southern. Also, he was raised in Richmond and went to UVA before he dropped out.

>>3282438
What the fuck is 'automatic writing' and how the fuck do Burroughs or Pynchon fall into it?

there have been a lot of them but there can never be one

Huckleberry Finn. Posting on behalf of Ernest Hemingway.

Infinite Jest is my personal choice, but I'm not American.

>>3283330

It's when you write whatever comes to your mind, like the Surrealists did. It's what Pynchon does in GR.

>>3283426
So stream of conscious thought? Surely this demonstrates a writers ability, grasp / knowledge of words etc?

I took it as an insult to Burroughs. 'Naked Lunch' was fascinating

>>3283426
>It's what Pynchon does in GR.

Still pulling this line? Didn't we have this discussion? Don't start posting sentences about Bananas again.

>>3283500

I just pray to God you're right and that I had merely been too sleepy for Pynchon. I'd HATE to start this fucking book again and find myself surrounded by phony surrealism of the drugged up sort.

>>3283513

Give it a shot if you want to.

You don't have to believe anything about the book positive or negative - if it reads as automatic writing to you, that's all you'll get out of it.

Maybe try getting an annotated copy or following a guide online - there's a fuckload going on there structurally

>>3283532
>if it reads as automatic writing to you, that's all you'll get out of it.

Why does the book depend so much on me? That sounds like automatic writing BS defenses. I'd never say that about Moby-Dick: I know it's not random words put next to each other. Aren't you CERTAIN that GR is meaningful and not random words?

>>3283584

>Why does the book depend so much on me?

You haven't read any Barthes? If someone thinks Moby Dick is just a huge slew of automatic writing, that's all they'll get out of it.

The writer's already done his job when the text is complete. It's up to the reader to find any meaning - or lack thereof - in the text. It's not necessarily inherent, and the critical models we do have to ascertain the quality of the text are based on personal referents and are only incidentally interesting when a larger reading of the text, involving multiple theoretic and critical lenses, is got at.

>>3283628

The difference is that no matter what some retard, Chinese, or blind person THINKS the text is, we KNOW it wasn't random words because it can be explained and isn't that fucking hard to understand.

If your text sucks so much that nobody can tell for certain that it even means anything, you're in deep doodoo.

>>3283426
I don't know what the actual nuts and bolts of Pynchon writing out a story entail, but GR is def not automatic writing.

There is obviously a great deal of research and care taken with many parts of the work, lots of intricate relationships between characters and institutions and a great deal of historical detail. I mean maybe he researches for weeks and then spins dozens of pages off at a time or something but that's not the same thing as automatic writing.

>>3283638

It is indeed not the same. The parts I can remember from GR, almost nothing except the whole thing about how you don't HEAR the V2 because it's faster than sound, were epic.

>>3283584
No asshole, if you go into the book with some douchey prejudice that it's all hippy-trippy nonsense, chances are that's what you're gonna get out of it. If I were to read Moby Dick thinking, gee, I bet this is going to be an antiquated snooze fest, I'm probably not going to enjoy it.

You might not think GR is any good. That's fine. Most critics are going to disagree with you, and the book (along with the rest of Pynchon's oeuvre) is going to be read for a few more decades, if not centuries. Whether or not some uppity anon on /lit/ likes it doesn't mean squat. So stop with the whole, "Ohhh, woe is me, shall I read this work again, or abandon it completely? I fear my initial suspicions may be accurate, but perhaps you can convince me otherwise," bullshit. Either read it again or don't.

>>3283637

The book HAS been looked through time and time again by critics and theorists - and most of what they've found is enormously interesting, if you'd bother to look it up after finishing the book. Your own reading of the book is what is most interesting, though, to be sure.

>>3283653

You're missing the point and drowning into French pseudo-intellectualism.

I know what Moby Dick is about and I know it's not an exquisite cadaver. You know it too. If I present the volume to a teenager and he doesn't understand a chapter and is under the impression it's random, I can assure him it's not and explain what the text means until he, too, understands there's nothing random about it.

You're using of Barthes is like some autistic child refusing facts because he doesn't like them.

>"No, war is bad so there never was WW2 because no, I choose so."

Your interpretation of anything doesn't make the thing a way or another. If I call you a cunt, no matter how you take it, it's an insult.

>>3282736
> The American Dream always was the world's dream, and it became a nation.
damn, you read the authoritative record of the world's dreams too, freddie kruger?

>>3283426
What's the difference between aleatory and automatic writing. Word limit:20.

Gravity's Rainbow tl;dr

One autistic stoner hippy engineer tries to shove every single french post-modernist theory into his book that has flat one-dimensional characters and reads at times more like a comic book or a film.

It's bretty gud but Moby-Dick and Faulkner are better.

>>3284800

Pynchon's laughing at you.

>>3284988
Am I the man for whom Christ died?

Oddly enough, Nabokov did a good representation of the American style in Pale Fire.
Either way, great question.
Perhaps Of Mice and Men?

>>3284891

Pynchon is laughing at you for having been fooled. Anon had it right, so Pynchon's not laughing.

Emperor's clothes.

>>3284988
this

>>3279486
>pone-eating southern faggot

goddamn why am i laughing

Of Mice and Men. "The American Dream" can only be realized by shrewd, calculating, neurotic people. There is no room for sensualists in the American Dream.

>>3282709
god you're a prissy bitch aren't you

im not even the guy you were replying to

>>3277774
i'd have to say The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot.

>>3286836

The Hollow Men remains my favourite poem of all time. I cry to it. The rest of poetry seems funny compared to it.

>>3286754

>says Google is your friend
>doesn't expect backlash

It might be that you got your numbers confused, though, I wasn't replying to any namefag.

>>3286751
>There is no room for sensualists in the American Dream.

>Timothy Leary
>anyone who never became famous but made what he wanted with his life
>most porn stars

American Dream seems alive and breathing. When a cock isn't in its mouth, that is.

>>3285021

What does that mean? I'm intrigued as fuck, please someone explain!

for me "The Library of Babel"

>>3289334

Pictures? Explanation? What is it?

>>3289338
it's a borges short story? idk wtf he's on about

richard yates by tao lin

ask the dust - john fante

pic of dan fante i took at a reading...that typewriter is what his father john wrote his later novels on...

>>3289338
>>3289366

Sorry, I mistook this thread for another where we discuss favourite editions... Because of the Library of America, I thought Library of Babel was an edition that did translations...