/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.20523564]

Does anyone feel like writings after Modernism aren't really literature, even the good ones? They can have some cool ideas, but they always feel like someone desperately trying to pretend they're a writer, instead of being real writers.
I'm not trolling, I feel like it's a discussion that should be had. Im not lewrong generation either, I enjoy lots of pop media like Danny L Harle

[Anonymous No.20523572]

Who

[Anonymous No.20523581]

>>20523572
a simpsons voice actor

[Anonymous No.20523635]

Other way around. Premodernist writers come across as fake. The register, language and syntax is forced, compared to more contemporary stuff.
>I have of late wherefore I know not

[Anonymous No.20523686]

>>20523564
Yeah, totally. Feels like literature just stopped being possible sometime around the 60s.

[Anonymous No.20523690]

Oh Jessica, don't leave me.

[Anonymous No.20523721]

>>20523635
I never really got the criticism that literature is supposed to be natural - and even then, what is or isn't natural changed over the years (in the 18th century plays were written in iambic meter because it was a "natural language" to the people back then).
In any case, literature is art, so I don't see why it can't be artificial.

[Anonymous No.20523739]

>>20523721
English naturally falls into Iambic more than any other IMO

[Anonymous No.20523759]

>>20523739
I failed to mention that I was talking about German plays there.
I personally think German is much more iambic than English due to the huge amount of weak secondary syllables, but neither German nor English sounds completely natural if you only speak entirely iambic. I understand WHY people back then would consider iambic plays to sound natural, but to a modern person they don't sound natural at all. Which is all besides the point because "naturalness" is just a really silly qualifier for literature.

[Anonymous No.20523760]

>>20523721
I'm not saying it's better or worse, only that I disagree with op that modern writers come across as trying to pretend they are writers. Because to me, they appear to write much more naturally, more effortlessly, than older writers.

[Anonymous No.20523780]

>>20523760
Eh. I disagree. There have been older writers who wrote effortlessly. (Rilke drives me mad in how simple he makes it all seem, and he wrote fucking poetry.)
In any case, what you consider unnaturalness and effort is likely just the result of multiple generational gaps that shifted language around. Which is fair, as you are reading old literature from your own contemporary perspective. But I disagree with your assessment, because I don't think modern writers write much more naturally per se, there is always a clear sign of effort put into literary texts. Even someone who does his best to ape "natural" speech is in the end just aping it, imitating something for some literary purpose. Which is, again, why I think "natural language" is a silly qualifier for literature.

[Anonymous No.20523786]

>>20523564
Pull your head out of your ass

[Anonymous No.20523816]

I am going to read some Borges, I noticed one contemporary author post Borges poetry on goodreads so I figured I'd give the posts a shot.
I couldn't find it in myself to start them because Nabakov's criticism of Dostoevsky just didn't seem right to me and the overthetop sarcasm of what I've seen of Pynchon and Vonnegut make. Don't get me wrong I did enjoy Vonnegut years ago. I'll eventually come around and read them because I found only 1% of contemporary fiction interests me at all.

[Anonymous No.20523819]

>>20523780
Which modern writers do you consider as 'desperately trying to pretend'? And even if they were, why would that be bad?
Or are you not OP?

[Anonymous No.20523874]

>>20523564
>Does anyone feel like writings after Modernism aren't really literature,
You're a woman aren't you? Or at least trying to larp as one. right? Anyway, genres exist irrespective of your feelings. Things can also belong to a genre, and just be very bad entries in the genre.
There are many biographies, some are great works of art in their own right, the "lives" of Plutarch have been passed down for well over a millennium. But some biographies suck. They are both biographies, irrespective of your judgement or your feelings.

[Anonymous No.20523980]

>>20523564
Have you completely lost it? What the fuck is a “real writer?”

[Anonymous No.20523984]

>>20523980
me

[Anonymous No.20523995]

>>20523984
Real writers do not visit this God forsaken site

[Anonymous No.20524020]

>>20523564
When I was young, yes.
Now, no, but without the filter of time I have a hard time choosing modern books to read.

[Anonymous No.20524062]

>>20523564
art just reflects the spirit of the time. if post-modernism seems fake and strange to you, that's kind of the feeling it's trying to evoke, because that's the societal 'feeling' it emerged from. the style of literature will change throughout history but like all proper art forms, great works and great authors like pynchon will arrive in every generation

[Anonymous No.20524150]

>>20523995
You're not supposed to take the polfag jesters seriously

[Anonymous No.20524383]

>>20524062
>great authors like Pynchon

The absolute state of this board

[Anonymous No.20524480]

>>20523564
It was pop art and the industrial revolution.
Before the 50s art was divided into fine arts and folkloric arts, which basically art for the upper and educated middle class and art for the common class. For example, novels and folk tales, classical music and folk music, etc. The former can be appreciated by almost everyone, but requieres education to appreciate it to its full extent. The later is more "primitive" and doesn't requires any kind of strict training or skill to make.
After that you got a middle ground that is made for the popular consumption (as in anyone and everyone) and draws elements from fine arts but not too much in order to keep it accesible.
Problem is that after some point it became very easy to mass produce and market a piece as something it isn't, with the internet the difficulty dropped to 0.

[Anonymous No.20524532]

Yes. I think it’s a result of technology and this consumer/producerificiation of society that’s happened mostly.

[Anonymous No.20524534]

>>20523564
Yeah. Postmodern literature got me into reading literary fiction when I was younger, but I can’t read most of it now. Most of it seems too gimmicky and try hard

[Anonymous No.20524569]

>>20524383
f-f-f-filtered

[Anonymous No.20524777]

>>20523564
Who?

[Anonymous No.20524832]

>>20523564
Yeah, totally. Feels like literature just stopped being possible sometime around the 60s.

[Anonymous No.20524840]

>>20523564
>I enjoy lots of pop media like Danny L Harle
Based hyperpop fag

[Anonymous No.20525248]

Yeah man. The Recognitions, Gravity's Rainbow and Blood Meridian are not literature. Retard.

[Anonymous No.20525251]

I bet you're an Anglo that's resentful of America taking over the novel after the war.

[Anonymous No.20525257]

>>20524480
you have no idea what you’re talking about

[Anonymous No.20525811]

>>20523759
Poetry has always been elevated language, a kind of platonic ideal. Iambic is most common, so conscious iambic is super normal, or a distillation of normalcy. It’s always been that way (I’m getting this from Aristotle)

[Anonymous No.20525821]

>>20524062
I think it’s fallacious to claim that every medium will produce artists of the same caliber every generation. Sure, a given art form never fully disappears, but it’s obvious that some generations bear fruit which is thousands of times more worthwhile than others.

[Anonymous No.20525849]

>>20524832
>>20523686
Is this site full of bots im confused

[Anonymous No.20525938]

>>20523564
Which modern writers do you consider as 'desperately trying to pretend'? And even if they were, why would that be bad?
Or are you not OP?

[Anonymous No.20526382]

>>20525849
I thought that was strange too. I wrote one of those posts (the first), not the other.

[Anonymous No.20526436]

>>20526382
I think theres a bot duplicating peoples real comments. Ive seen this in a number of threads
>>20525938
>>20523819
is another example in this same thread.

[Anonymous No.20526680]

>>20524569
Stutter mouse.

[Anonymous No.20526717]

>>20523564
Defending Firback’s capricious novels against the charge of “artificiality,” British critic Philip Toynbee argued (in a 1961 Observer review) “there is no such thing as a ‘natural’ novel; there are simply various methods, tones and styles which appear to us in varying degrees of familiarity.”

[Anonymous No.20528172]

Other way around. Premodernist writers come across as fake. The register, language and syntax is forced, compared to more contemporary stuff.
>I have of late wherefore I know not

[Anonymous No.20528352]

>>20528172
painting is a higher art than photography.

[Anonymous No.20528514]

>>20523564
it would be ok if it didn't come across as some boomer trying to be cool or interesting. in terms of eccentricity or novelty, internet culture is far beyond them, there and back again. they focus too much on that, the rest suffers, and very soon it doesn't hold up.

[Anonymous No.20528523]

>>20528172
>The register, language and syntax is forced
is it though, for the time? they're just writing in a tradition. it's not like they're chasing shifting normativity.

[Anonymous No.20528675]

>>20528523
>they're just writing in a tradition.
Yes, it's forced.

[Anonymous No.20528681]

>>20524150
Unfortunately they have the effect of filtering for trash rather than against it. It's like trying to summon a Muse while surrounded by the customers of whores.