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/lit/ - Literature

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3535865 No.3535865 [Reply] [Original]

If you could pick one writer whose entire work you could somehow consign to oblivion without leaving so much as a residue of a trace of its existence who would you pick?

In my estimation Herta Müller, Gary Shteyngart, Henry Miller, David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Lethem, Bret Easton Ellis, Dave Eggers, Cormac McCarthy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Miranda July, Jonathan Franzen, and Jennifer Egan are worthy of this particular distinction. But no one single writer deserves it far more in my estimation than Jane Austen. Her body of work is bad enough, but even worse is the whole cult she has inspired, which seems to fit very well with the worst of today's pop culture.

To quote some thread I read here awhile back: "And into the garbage it goes."

Pic unrelated.

>> No.3535867

Homer, for the lulz.

>> No.3535869

>>3535867
lel

>> No.3535877
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3535877

Some of those I agree with, but some surprise me. What did McCarthy and Lahiri write that was so offensive as to deserve damnatio memoriae? I would choose Coelho.

>> No.3535885

Upton Sinclair

>> No.3535905

>>3535877
>What did McCarthy and Lahiri write that was so offensive as to deserve damnatio memoriae?
>McCarthy: Everything.
>Lahiri: Neuters her narratives about the minority/South Asian experience by slathering them with a gloss of exotification, thus making them palatable to middle-brow, yuppie, pseudo-liberals.

Also, your feel made me laugh. Thanks.

>> No.3535906

>>3535885
I can see that.

>> No.3535923

>>3535877
>Coelho

Agreed.

>> No.3535932

>>3535905
>can't into mccarthy

>> No.3536120

You're a fucking idiot. Jane Austen is an incredible author. As for the rest, I fail to see why entertaining literature somehow deserves oblivion. If you read David Foster Wallace's best stuff and thought it was unreadable, your head is so far up your ass as to leave you free from hope.

>> No.3536149

jane austen was one of the masters of the craft

>> No.3536154

>>3536149
and also, i guess I would send Palahniuk into the trash bin. but really, you saying Jane Austen makes me so upset I almost don't want to go along with your schtick.

>> No.3536157

>>3536149
also ezra pound thought she was one of the best novelists in the english language.

yeah

>inb4 Ezra Pound was a charlatan, etc. He definitely had good taste

>> No.3536186

John Dryden, a stuffed wig.

>> No.3536212

Dee Eff Dubyou

Then you guys could only ever talk about Joyce, Pynchon and Ayn Rand instead of Joyce, Pynchon, Ayn Rand and that dead fucker.

>> No.3536238

>>3536212

There isn't a single conversation about any of those authors where at least half the posts are detracting.

Fuck off, newfriends.

>> No.3536239

>>3536238

aren't*

>> No.3536266

Ayn Rand.

>> No.3536269

God

>> No.3536284

Tao and DFW

>> No.3536288

L. Ron Hubbard

>> No.3536330

JRR Tolkein, for whom we can attribute the entire fantasy genre, and without which we may still be reading stories about real myth, and faerie tales, history passed on in an inconspicuous manner.... just a thought.

>> No.3536340

>>3536330
We'd already begun to move away from "real myth, and faerie tales" with the rise of children's stories in the Victorian period. If you're going to blame anyone, blame Lewis Carroll or Dickens, or even the Brothers Grimm, for replacing that tradition and causing Tolkien to become nostalgic in the first place.

>> No.3536345

BEE
Tao Lin

>> No.3536348

What's the painting called? I fucking love it.

>> No.3536364

>>3536330

Yeah man, I'd rather read the "real myth" they thought up a thousand years ago than new and original stories.

>> No.3536369

>>3536348
pleb

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mauriziobongiovanni/

>> No.3536391

>>3536364

>fantasy
>new and original stories

Are you kidding?

>> No.3536402

So glad im not the only one who cant stomach eggers and his pompous, self righteous fucking nonsense. Zeitoun was easily one of the most poorly written rags I've ever read.

>> No.3536427

>>3536238

>newfriends

>> No.3536462

Glenn Beck, Al Franken, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Micheal Moore, Billy Graham.

>> No.3536502

>>3535865
Mitch Albom, if he can be considered a "writer."

>> No.3536842

>>3535865
Why'd you pick Müller to go with the trendy Yanks?

>> No.3537060

you, OP, so no one would have to read your posts any more

>> No.3537078

Karl Marx

>> No.3537086

Michel Foucault

>> No.3537087

Adam Smith

>> No.3537089

Ludwig von Mises

>> No.3537126

>>3535865
>McCarthy
>Not even a mention of Ayn Rand

Ya need to leave and think about what you're doing with your life.

>> No.3537813

Does it change history? I'd pick Confucius just to see what would happen to China.

>> No.3537832

>itt: angsty undergrads

>> No.3537839

Stephanie Meyer

>> No.3537849

>>3536238
>newfriends
Back to /b/ with you

>> No.3538293

>>3537813
lel

>> No.3538303

>>3536120
>Jane Austen is an incredible author.
Stopped reading right there.

>> No.3538315

>>3536842
Because her revanchist feminist doo-doo just needs to go away forever.

>> No.3538321

Maimonides and Marx probably.

>> No.3538324

>>3538303
the post was like 4 sentences long you doofus, saying that is only effective if it's several paragraphs long

>> No.3538345

>>3538324
Wouldn't have mattered if it was only one sentence. Professing admiration for Jane Austen deserves to be met with outright dismissal.

>> No.3538369

You didn't specify fiction. Im going to go for silent spring by Rachel Carson

>> No.3538371

>>3538369
Good one.

>> No.3538404

>>3538345
>Professing admiration for Jane Austen deserves to be met with outright dismissal.

Please explain why.

>> No.3538425

Karl Marx

>> No.3538895

Charles Bulowski said 'shun those who steal from libraries for they are not one of us'.

OK so I can't remember the exact quote but the point still stands. Who are you to declare knowledge worthy or not? Sure thats up to the readers to come and by denying them that chance your actions are worse than anything that may have been written in those selected books and writings you despise so much.

>> No.3541439

Homer.


Take that, Western civilization.

>> No.3541534

>>3536330

You can still read real myths you stupid asscunt

>> No.3541540

le bible

>> No.3541545

>>3538345

I'd love to hear you elaborate.

>> No.3541567

I don't think Ayn Rand has been mentioned enough.

>But muh LaVeyan Satanism!

>> No.3541588

>>3535865

... dude, what? What did Jane Austen do to piss you off so mightily? And what tendencies in her work corresponds to 'the worst of today's pop culture'?

I mean, I'm no massive fan or anything, she's really not my thing, but for what it is her stuff is pretty good. And she seems hugely unobjectionable. What's with the hate?

>> No.3541613

>>3541588
>>3538404
if he's anything like the average highschooler, he probably saw the title of "pride and prejudice," saw the author's name (female), read the opening page and rejected everything that might have followed, and now holds a grudge.

>it's a cheesy romance novel
>victorian era is boring

lœl

>> No.3541615

>>3541439
Too bad he never wrote.

>> No.3541619

>>3535877
>>3535923

Fuck yes. Burn him.

>> No.3541626

>>3535865

Only if I were actually concious that it existed before it were obliviated.

In which case it would be interesting to remove Shakespeare and see how literature and culture would have evolved differently.

>> No.3541635

>>3541615
We kill the Homer, before he ever utters a word.

>> No.3541687

Jane Austen

>> No.3541703

>>3541687

Let me guess: Austen was just a soap-opera author who wrote love stories?

>> No.3541708

>>3541703
Old school (whoever wrote 50 shades)

>> No.3541711

>>3541703
Nope, she was simply imaginatively bankrupt and thus her works are for people who are dead on the inside.

>> No.3541713

>>3541708

Have you been tested for autism lately? Did you miss the (blatantly obvious) irony and social commentary in her work?