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/lit/ - Literature

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19653216 No.19653216 [Reply] [Original]

Which is the best? Which is the worst?

>> No.19653224

Reading novels is the most midwit shit imaginable. Even Ulysses, which was the pinnacle of the form, is maybe 3% of the brilliance of a Milton or Wordsworth poem.

>> No.19653233
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19653233

>milton
>wordsworth

>> No.19653240

>>19653216
>personal favourite
GR
>least favourite
Ulysses, but it's the first I've read before I developed any taste for modernism. I'll re-read it for the centenary
Willing to bet the least popular here is going to be IJ

>> No.19653247

>>19653216
Ulysses is the best. Infinite Jest the worst. All other opinions are invalid and come from those who have not read them.

>> No.19653255

>>19653247
I used to think Ulysses was the best but recently I’ve been leaning towards Pynch

>> No.19653279

>>19653216
They're all really good, but for me it's U ≥ IJ ≥ GR

>> No.19653491

>>19653240
>Willing to bet the least popular here is going to be IJ
The trilogy goes in cycles, once one gets discussed enough for the trolls to be able to use what they get from the treads to troll with discussion drop and there is a lull before the board moves onto the next in the trilogy for awhile and most posts on the board about the previous is by the trolls vainly trying to hold onto what they had. We left the IJ phase a few months back, GR was before it and we are now moving into the Ulysses phase.

GR is slowly becoming a bit of an outlier and moving towards sporadic but regular discussion. The trolls have never really gotten good at trolling GR threads so never manage to kill discussion, they just offer a few variations of some old copy pasta and moralfag about shit eating.

>> No.19653504

>>19653247
Based.

>> No.19653515

All are crap

>> No.19653531

>>19653515
/thread

>> No.19653539

>>19653515
Based.

>> No.19653574

>>19653491
The best way to GR troll would be focusing on the Hereros and all the "subtle" civil rights stuff towards the end.

>> No.19653596

>>19653216
Ulysses easily. It's the greatest book of all time.

>> No.19653634

>>19653574
At most it will derail the thread into /pol/ but that would also require the trolls to have read and understood GR. No one in the GR threads really talks about that aspect so the trolls don't get enough information to actually bait with. On occasion they do manage to derail a GR but the thread dies and it is forgotten when the new thread comes along.

Ulysses is easy to troll because of the autism which comes with it, IJ because digressing into plot is fun and unavoidable. Plot is simple in GR beyond one or two bits which are commonly missed so there is little discussion there and most is about theme and that is beyond most trolls to utilize.

>> No.19653697

>>19653634
I occasionally made threads about how it's reddit and used the superheroes fighting Nazis, the niggers avenging colonialism through world destruction, and the femdom scat chapter as evidence

>> No.19653757

>>19653697
And the result was a bunch of people calling you a moron? Perhaps some trolls responding? Can't imagine that working on anyone who has actually read it. I ignore obvious bait threads these days. I think what I miss the most about old /lit/ was that we baited about books we love and our own autism about them. I am tempted to do it on occasion but it just seems like handing over effective bait to the low effort trolls, even though they could not maintain the troll.

>> No.19653766

>>19653574
MUH BANANAS

>> No.19653775

>>19653757
The old troll threads calling Pynchon a neoliberal Clinton supporter worked pretty well. You could get people to argue that he was secretly a fascist/communist depending on what passages you posted.

>> No.19653797

>>19653775
>depending on what passages you posted.
strongly suggests you baited people who never read GR. At that time you could bait anything that way and people did.

>> No.19653815

>>19653797
Idk I got pretty high the other day and thought GR had coded messages about Kwanzaa, so they might've been well read dopers.

>> No.19653897

>>19653815
>Kwanzaa
That would have been good bait, should have put in the time to make it seem viable and had some fun. Would be hard to pull off without just being called a schizo, especially considering the time of year, but probably doable.

>> No.19653928

>>19653216
IJ>U>GR

>> No.19653932

>>19653515
>>19653531
>>19653539
Gayest samefaggery I've ever seen.

>> No.19653933

Why is there always at least couple of threads about these three books? These and the bible. Don't you read anything else?

>> No.19653936

>>19653224
you are an insanely huge faggot, respectfully

>> No.19654090

>>19653247
based and correct

>> No.19654233

>>19653775
He's clearly a leftie, but he saw pills kill his best friend

>> No.19654344

>>19653216
IJ is based, it's annoying ADHD text which today's ADHD zoomers are too impatient to read.

>> No.19655428

>>19654344
I don't really get why people call boring or 'ADHD text'. It's an extremely fun book once you get passed the 150 mark.

>> No.19655430

>>19653216
Infinite Jest is scribbles compared to the others.

>> No.19655438

>>19655430
Really?

>> No.19655600

Ulysses is the best.
Infinite Jest is the worst. No I have not read Infinite Jest and I never will. I haven't read Gravity's Rainbow either but I may read it.

>> No.19655610

Gravity's Rainbow is the best. Infinite Jest is the worst. Ulysses is a very close second to being the best. The Recognitions is better than Ulysses btw.

>> No.19655662

>>19653216
ulysses > gr >>> ij

>> No.19655703

>>19653216

Next up, War and Peace, Tale of Genji, Don Quixote.

And fuck all that going to reread Hopscotch.

>> No.19655716

>>19655438
Of course not. It is just trendy to use it as punching bag in literary adjacent circles

>> No.19655821

Ulysses is as good as tolstoy or in search of lost time whatever retards say. Pynchon and DFW would be quite minor writers back in the day talent wise

>> No.19655841

>>19655821
Not sure about that one, bud

>> No.19655846
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19655846

>>19653216
th-the meme trilogy

>> No.19655849

>>19655846
Unfunny anime faggot

>> No.19655853

>>19655841
Neon genesis evangelion is as good as a mishima or Oe novel...

>> No.19655861

>>19655853
I'd say it is better than mishima actually

>> No.19655863

>>19655821
>Tolstoy would be a minor writer post-WW2
Ftfy

>> No.19655869

>>19655716
>literary adjacent circles
the board is called /literature/ you fucking pseud its not adjacent

>> No.19655870

>>19655863
tolstoy and doesto are from the proper era of meme writers, like joyce and kafka. pynchon and other retards all felt they needed to be joyce and kafka for some reason and did it soullessly

>> No.19655886

>>19653933
It's called the meme trilogy for a reason. Not only its endurance guarantees that anons will eventually check it out to see what the fuss is about but all three are very dense and quite complex so there is lots to potentially talk about
Compare it to say a thread on count of Monte cristo, where the height of discuss you could have is yeah this part was cool

>> No.19655889

>>19655870
Pynchon isn’t trying to be Joyce or Kafka. If anything the writer he’s most influenced by is Eliot

>> No.19655894

I know this isn't the trendy opinion but for me personally IJ>U>GR

>> No.19655901

>>19655870
>meme era
>soulless
Thanks for saying absolutely nothing, imbecile

>> No.19655912

>>19655889
the bigger issue is that pynchon sucks

>> No.19655921
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19655921

Pynchon studied engineering physics at the age of 16 at Cornell. He was a mathematical prodigy and has more hard knowledge and is better read than Joyce and DFW combined. He lived his entire career in isolation and has released multiple masterpieces throughout his career.
Meanwhile, Joyce failed entry level chemistry at university and took nineteen years to write the most infamous bellyflop in all of literature. Just worth considering while you read the meme trilogy.

>> No.19655943

>>19655849
Funnier than you

>> No.19655946

>>19655921
>Just worth considering
Not really. I really don't see how being gifted in some hard science field would make his novels better aside for allowing for more knowledgeable digressions bursting with technobabble
A master degree does not a good writer make

>> No.19655950

>>19655946
Joyce has one good book

>> No.19655972

>>19655950
so does spencer

>> No.19655978

>>19655950
Again, as arguable as that is it really isn't relevant, especially when you consider how that one good book crashed into culture like a meteor and changed literature forever
Unless you think that book is portrait, ibwoild just laugh at you then

>> No.19655983

>>19655921
Bullshit. He got in due to all the old money in his family. Failed calculus and figured he is not cut for the course. Ran away to navy, returned for an English degree. Spent the 60s trying to major in Maths but was rejected. Now he copes by stuffing math into his novels.

>> No.19655988

>>19655950
Pynchon has none

>> No.19656030

>>19653216
>best
gravity's rainbow
>worst
ulysses

>> No.19656048
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19656048

>>19653216
They’re all good but I suppose the best way to stoke is to ask for contraries. GR is the best if you want a look at woman, and closest to Shakespeare in its variety of girls and women. One might argue that Joyce does this on a more controlled level, having Molly and Nausicca (forgot her name), and that being enough. This is certainly true, but those readers must admit that DFW holds his own with Avril Incandenza and Joelle Van Dyne. Who cannot in awe picture Avril Incandeza standing over young hot tennis stud Indian John Wayne—the football pads! Who does not want the PGOAT looking down at them POV in a cradle? But yes: Pynchon has tragic Margherita, love at first site Jessica fucking Swanlake, Scorpio Mossmoon, who was Pirate’s hirl, and who Pirate thinks about when he hope Roger fucking Mexico goes down the same path of life as him, who was betrayed (but not really—Pirate kindly catches himself). Pynchon like Nabokov knew his Shakespeare and how to fuse the best of himself with the bard who had Desdemona, Rosalind, Cordelia, Portia, and Portia. Women are the best entry point if you’re a horny little bugger like me.

>> No.19656076

>>19656048
If I had a gun to my head though and I was forced to rank from my heart, it’d depend on my mood. To defend each of them now as they’d be first, I’d say Infinite Jest is unseen allegory, but not moral allegory. Hal Incandenza is a degenerate fusion of Hamlet and Prince Hal, as all promising boys coming of age are. With all his inherited gift from the most willed (and artful) father and the most intelligent (and cold) mother, he memorizes every word in the dictionary…alphabetically. How backwards this is! And listen to how he talks. He carries along well enough in conversation, but he cuts people off, finishes thoughts for them, corrects them, and most tellingly, smiles and laughs at everything. But DFW shows us this slightly. Read the chapter where Ortho Stice gets his forehead stuck to the window wall. The wise academe black janitor tell Hal that he always smiles, always moves. Hal is stuck like this in the shadow of his artful father who was 1. avant- Garde 2. controversial beyond belief 3. a legendary cult figure 4. was ineluctable and 5. someone who killed himself. Now, is (King) JAMES (Bible) Incandenza aka HIMSELF, DFW (and so we are Hal) or was DFW Hal looking back at Pynchon or Joyce, or both? Some might argue that this is not literary criticism, but all of what I am saying is inherently loved if you read and understood Infinite Jest, GR, Ulysses, and TAFT as bonus.

>> No.19656085

I own all 3.
Ive read all of GR, half of IJ and ulysses i think i got to page 100ish.

Therefore Gravity's rainbow is my favourite and Ulysses my least as i dropped it the quickest.

>> No.19656990

>>19653216
Ulysses > IJ > GR

That being said: Pynchon > Joyce > DWF.

>> No.19657001

>>19653247
Correct take. If you get filtered by Ulysses you should come back to it some years later (worked for me)