/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.6586623]

ITT: Universally liked authors.

[Anonymous No.6586639]

>>6586623
Get this ostrogoth fucking shit out of my face, fucking italian faggots.

[Anonymous No.6586650]

>>6586623
The only people who don't like Shakespeare are high school girls who were excited to read it because The Fault in our Stars is based on a quote from Julius Caesar, but then their complaints are "the english is too hard D:"

[Anonymous No.6586663]

>>6586623
>>6586650
I'd agree with these, although you'll surely find contrarians on /lit/

[Anonymous No.6586683]

I never really see him insulted.

[Anonymous No.6586717]

What translation of The Divine Comedy should I read?

[Anonymous No.6586722]

>>6586650
It's nice to learn Tolstoy was a HS girl.

Universally liked authors ? Homer. Even the Greeks who didn't like his portayal of the gods had to work from him as unavoidable reference, it's impossible to survive two millenias and a half of literary history and do better than that, consensus-wise.

[Anonymous No.6586737]

>>6586683
talentless hacks needn't even be acknowledged tbh

[Anonymous No.6586761]

>>6586717
John ciardi

[Anonymous No.6586836]

Dickens

[Anonymous No.6586900]

>>6586650
Which quote?

[Anonymous No.6586929]

Universally liked authors aren't real you faggots.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6586940]

Oh, well *universally* liked.

[Anonymous No.6586941]

>>6586929
So how about Pierre Menard then faggot

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6586944]

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6586946]

[Anonymous No.6586970]

>>6586663
>not knowing about Nabokov's faggy opinions

[Anonymous No.6586972]

>>6586737
Give him a fucking break, he never wanted to be published.

[Anonymous No.6586984]

William Gaddis
Jane Austen
John Barth
Irvine Welsh
Homer
Jim Jarmusch
James Joyce
Leo Tolstoy
Langston Hughes
Charles Bukowski
Vladimir Nabokov

[Anonymous No.6586995]

>>6586946
>liking a Trotskyite

not even once

[Anonymous No.6586997]

>>6586900
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves that we are underlings."
act I scene II

[Anonymous No.6587004]

>>6586717
The Italian version

[Anonymous No.6587022]

Good ol' Gogol

[Anonymous No.6587044]

>>6586984
I was extremely underwhelmed by the one Gaddis book I read (Carpenter's Gothic), but I would still like to try one of his doorstops. Thanks for reading my post

[Anonymous No.6587045]

>>6586717
musa

[Anonymous No.6587055]

>>6586944
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN6UNVwlRbk

[Anonymous No.6587144]

>>6586623
http://s000.tinyupload.com/index.php?file_id=99073585134447685753

He's universally disliked but close enough.

[Anonymous No.6587164]

>>6586737
BTFO

[Anonymous No.6587202]

He writes better with the years. His novels at first were really simple, now they are rich.

[Anonymous No.6587216]

>>6586717
La versione originale é la singola versione che dovresti leggere.

Read the original.

[Anonymous No.6587220]

>>6586984
>Charles Bukowski

[Anonymous No.6587226]

The Greeks are universally liked. If you don't like them, you can't write, and therefore your opinion does not count.

[Anonymous No.6587240]

>>6587216
>that good feel when you speak french so italian's pretty understandable

[Anonymous No.6587279]

>>6586984
>cornfather

[Anonymous No.6587301]

>>6587240
In my (the person you're quoting's) case it's Portuguese. I don't even know Italian, btw.

[Anonymous No.6587399]

>>6586717
Ciardi

[Anonymous No.6587413]

>>6586984
Lots of people here hate Bukowski, I'm not really sure why.

[Anonymous No.6587418]

>>6587413
Bukowski is unwelcome for the same reason Douglas Adams is: most of /lit/'s users do not want the author's fans to think they've found a haven to plop down in indefinitely.

It's just a crying shame they never extended the same prejudice to DFW and Tao Lin.

[Anonymous No.6587427]

>>6587418
You shouldn't be able to justify your hate of an author by the behavior of their fans.

[Anonymous No.6587429]

>>6586984
>>6587413
>>6587418
'women' is one of the most emotionally dense and honest contemporary text I've read, bar Disgrace, I don't care what anybody says

[Anonymous No.6587445]

>>6587413
>>6587429
>>6587418
I think it's mostly because of Bukowski's being identified with contemporary free-verse and his not living the most intellectual life by /lit/ standards.

[Anonymous No.6587465]

>>6586717
Durling, Singleton, Binyon, or Bickersteth

[Anonymous No.6587469]

>>6587429
certainly a matter of personal taste but Coetzee and Bukowski both feel very affected to me, like you can see the words they cut out to make room for their minimalism. it doesn't read honest or penetrating at all to me.

[Anonymous No.6587475]

I cannot believe anyone would actually like something as boring and crappy as the Divine Comedy. It's a book for tryhards.

[Anonymous No.6587496]

>>6587469
I definitely see that in his prose, but I more meant his poetry. Because his rhyming scheme feels so complete and flows so easily, his minimalism seems less, I guess, intentional.

[Anonymous No.6587508]

>Rimbaud
>0 of 0

[Anonymous No.6587514]

>>6587429
>>6587418
>>6587413

Beyond an aversion to his fans, I think Bukowski is also disliked here simply because there are many things to dislike about him.

I'm fond of him myself, but I still accept that in many respects he's not a very good writer. His prose is mediocre to bad, he can't weave a storyline for shit--he's not even as skilled as those authors we force upon high school kids. He is below entry-level.

[Anonymous No.6587522]

>>6587427
You misunderstand. It's not justification and it's not even real hate for Bukowski.

It is a signal to his fans to move on.

[Anonymous No.6587527]

>>6587514
So then, is Bukowski one of those authors who you have to possess some background knowledge on to fully enjoy? Not asking this in a stand-offish way, genuinely curious.

[Anonymous No.6587533]

If we exclude the opinions of idiots, I'd say these authors are universally liked and respected, regardless of individual taste.

Shakespeare
Dante
Homer
Joyce
Dostoevsky
Tolstoy
Proust

[Anonymous No.6587535]

>>6587514
so you only appreciate traditional storytelling?

[Anonymous No.6587540]

Why is there no love for Rabelais on /lit/?

[Anonymous No.6587554]

>>6587514
I think this is unfair. You can criticize his prose if you want but he is very effective at conveying emotions in a simple and beautiful. He can be honest and to the point, through his minimal (some say poor) prose. I will dig through several lines that I dislike, because maybe they are repetitive, and I will find one that is very pleasant and heartbreaking and that is when I like Bukowski.

I'm sorry if this hard to read I am not a very good english.

[Anonymous No.6587563]

>>6587554
>Not very good at English
Then you don't get to judge English language literature.

[Anonymous No.6587575]

>>6587533
Nabokov and a few other prominent writers (or so I have heard) are not fans of Dosty boy.

[Anonymous No.6587578]

>>6587563
I should have said writing it. I have also read translations first.

[Anonymous No.6587587]

>>6587575
Being contrarian so they could have their edgy publications gobbled up.

[Anonymous No.6587590]

>>6586941
kek

[Anonymous No.6587594]

>>6586984
>Jane Austen
Jane Austen is the "The Room" of literature.

[Anonymous No.6587602]

>>6587535
i don't think his narratives are just *different,* i think they're also not as good as that of most classic writers. for comparison, most of the stories from the modernist and post-modernist movements are far more unconventional, but they're also far better woven. i don't really care to argue this point though, because if you can't immediately see what i mean when you read him and then read the more classical authors, i don't think i'll be able to convince you over the internet.

>>6587527
i think if you're the kind of person who would like bukowski, you will enjoy him whether you know his background or not because his material is not particularly abstruse. knowing his backstory though does add additional layers, in a way that's actually above and beyond most authors. he writes about his life, but it's presented through a lense that's both sincere, confessional, and yet also bullshit. like, for example, there was time when he rode on aeroplane with a journalist, and bukowski got drunk and started hitting on the flight attendants and just making a general arse of himself; when bukowski wrote about this event however, he wrote it as if the journalist was the scum bag.

>>6587554
sure, but the ability to convey a sentiment is only one part of prose. you might value that above all yourself, i don't know, but there are other things like musicality, variance, prose play that he's quite lacking in. the very best prose stylists are able to do these things, even if they choose not to i'm not convinced Bukowski was one of them.

[Anonymous No.6587633]

Anyone really hate on Johnny?

[Anonymous No.6587637]

>>6587633
Yeah, I definitely should have included Keats on my list. Universally liked poets are really a lot easier to find than prose writers.

Keats
Yeats
Dickinson
Whitman
Wordsworth
Bryant
Tennyson

The list could go on much longer if I gave it some thought and that's only English language poets.

[Anonymous No.6587641]

>>6587637
wordsworth and whitman are not universally liked

[Anonymous No.6587642]

>>6587475
tryharder

[Anonymous No.6587643]

>>6587641
You can prefer other styles of poetry but you can't deny that they were excellent poets.

[Anonymous No.6587651]

>>6587643
you can very easily deny wordsworth was an excellent poet

and i say that as a wordsworth fan

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » !mxvabIoSIE No.6587686]

>>6587022

[Anonymous No.6587731]

>>6587686
i still wanna fuck her so hard

[Anonymous No.6587748]

>>6586683
The Nazis weren't particularly fond of him.

[Anonymous No.6587790]

>>6587637
Tennyson is not universally liked by any means and the dislike of him comes from the same sources as criticism of Kipling.

[Anonymous No.6588072]

>>6586717
the turkish

[Anonymous No.6588074]

>>6586946
u wot m8

[Anonymous No.6588187]

>>6587633
Looks like Sam Hyde

[Anonymous No.6588226]

>>6586717
Read the french translation it sound even better then the original

[Anonymous No.6588229]

>>6588074

[Anonymous No.6588233]

>>6587540
Because we care too much about the abuse of geese, you fecalphiliac slime.

[Anonymous No.6588656]

>>6586972
Then he must be the most humble author in the world.

[Anonymous No.6588680]

>>6587533
Shaky was disliked by Tolstoy, Dosto by Nabokov, Proust by Céline. Wether their opinions are idiotic or not is a matter of debate, but all those are legit big writers.

[Anonymous No.6588689]

>>6588680
>Celine
>relevant to criticism

[Anonymous No.6588724]

>>6586995
he wasn't a trot you twat
he was critical of trotsky as being too similar to Stalin

[Anonymous No.6588787]

[Anonymous No.6588812]

>>6587216
The accent is wrong ("è"), and nobody in Italy would use "singola" instead of "unica" in this case. However, the "original" version (we don't have the manuscript, remember) is fucking hard to read even for well educated Italianfags

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6588821]

[Anonymous No.6588823]

>>6586984
Virginia Woolf disliked Ulysses because she found it obscene. But she was a woman, I guess.

>>6587475
Still better than that Canterbury tales wannabe poet

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6588828]

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6588834]

>>6588823
>But she was a woman, I guess.
I think she was a woman too, but I don't think an objection to "obscene" materials has anything to do with a persons sex.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6588836]

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6588840]

[Anonymous No.6588842]

[Anonymous No.6588886]

>>6588834
We're talking about Virginia Woolf, the fact she was a early 20th century woman can't be ignored (I don't think a woman would have written Ulysses in 1922). But I agree and apologise, I spent too much time on /g/ and forgot how to be a human being.

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6588913]

>>6588842
What a hat!

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6588920]

>>6588886
*Curtsies*

[Anonymous No.6588922]

>>6588840
what is /lit/s opinion on this guy? he doesn't seem to be talked about too much here. Does he live up to the hype?

[Anonymous No.6588927]

>>6588689
He could write better than most critics, the only reason he's not listened to is because deliberate hysteria. If we could have honest-to-god criticism from him it'd be interesting.

[Anonymous No.6588931]

>>6587790
And what criticism is that?

[Anonymous No.6588935]

>>6588823
Even Woolf eventually came around to recognizing that Ulysses was a brilliant book.

[Anonymous No.6589039]

>>6588922
"Well, what do you expect? The human body, when confined, produces certain odors which we tend to forget in this age of deodorants and other perversions. Actually, I find the atmosphere of this room rather comforting. Schiller needed the scent of apples rotting in his desk in order to write. I, too, have my needs. You may remember that Mark Twain preferred to lie supinely in bed while composing those rather dated and boring efforts which contemporary scholars try to prove meaningful. Veneration of Mark Twain is one of the roots of our current intellectual stalemate.”

[Anonymous No.6589067]

Homer
Huysmans
Hölderlin

[Anonymous No.6589264]

>>6586623

I respect Dante and I think that the language in which he wrote is the most beautiful and sweet sounding in the entire world (I am Brazilian, so I speak Portuguese: Italian is not my first language, and yet I adore it).

However I must say that I find Dante extremely boring. I don’t like the main character (himself), and his very restrictive style of poetry (with not many metaphors and verbal fantasies). I also can’t connect myself emotionally with the characters (all those contemporariness of Dante and historical figures of the time). Also, since Dante doesn’t have much time to present all the characters, many of them are not very well exposed, with a few exceptions.

However it must be said that Dante’s imagination was very powerful in creating and populating imaginary worlds: he was something like a middle-age Tolkien. This is, to me, his greatest gift; in second place comes his ability to use rhyme (his rhymes seem to be inevitable, and not simply a mannerism) and to say a lot in small spaces and little verses: he is always very precise and to the point, and uses few verses to construct large portions of narrative.

But I still can’t stand the fact that Dante is all the time forcing his view of life and after-life upon the reader. I don’t think that he was a very pleasant person; someone who would be fun to talk and hang out with.

But in resume: his straight-to-the-point language and scarce use of metaphors; his personification of the main character; his sermons; the characters of the comedy (many of them Dante’s contemporaries and historical figures of the time); the prejudices and arrogance of the author to put his views as supreme moral-authorities’ (although he camouflages them as the “will” of God, “the king of the Universe”).

He is some sort of great poet with Tolkien’s gift to create words. But he is not for me: he and I were not born for each other. I respect him; I admire him, but I can’t like him and even less love him.

[Anonymous No.6589470]

>>6586683

He was modest and gentle, and his themes are mainly about enormous degrees of self-disgust and anxiety finally accumulating in so large a scale that the universe ends up breaking his eternal rules and the logical nature of his operating and, overflowing, punishes the individual (generally Kafka himself) by making all his self-disgust to crack the prison of the mind and become palpable, leaking from the brain and oozing over the body to actually crystallize in absurd and monstrosities in the actual word where human beings come and go, where people walk and breath.

I think many people can identify with that (we all probably feel very incompetent, depressed, unnecessary and guilty of existing some time in our lives), and Kafka’s humility, the reports about his shyness and his education toward others – all of that makes him a figure that it is hard to hate. One might not like his work, but to dislike Kafka himself is quite difficult.

[Anonymous No.6589496]

>>6589470
nah he's a fag

[Anonymous No.6589529]

>>6589470
Kafka is literally a hack, and you should feel bad

[Anonymous No.6589554]

>>6589529

To be fair he is not the kind of writer that I like. I prefer lots of characters with different word views, great prose, the ambitious works of Shakespeare and Tolstoy, things like that. But Kafka, in his simple and gray notary-clerk language managed to create some pretty haunting visions of reality.

I don’t think he is a genius (only a small group of artists can receive this compliment), but he is surely a very influential and independent artist.

[Anonymous No.6589555]

>>6589529
fuck off dude

[Anonymous No.6589601]

>>6589470

lelelele, that is the contemporary interpretation, it only speaks about how faggy we are compared to him.

Kafka was a womanizer and also a very ironic guy, all his self-pity you encounter in his books is just him laughing at things. It is a fact that Kafka himself laughed at his books with his friends

[Anonymous No.6589630]

>>6589601

>>6589601
>it only speaks about how faggy we are compared to him.

I made that post and I am aware of his brothel visits.

I myself were an avid frequenter of those enchanted places and spend a great deal of cash with the ladies. Then I would find a girl and date for a while and, when alone again, I was back in the old live of womanizing. I am now dating a girl that I really love, and I don’t see a future away from her. But if that happens (we break up) I don’t see way not to go back to the old life of whoring and partying. The music and many of the people on those places are mediocre and disgusting, but it’s worth it. If you are young, gentle and handsome you might even get the phone number of the girls and take them out for free.

But many of Kafka’s journals made reference to sexual guilt, to shame of his own body, to anxiety and insomnia, to digestive problems and problems with his family (the notorious father-son relationship, for example). He had some deep emotional problems and anxieties, there is no doubt about that.

But like I said: he is not my favorite writer or my ideal of writer, so I can be wrong and I still wouldn’t care much about it.

[Anonymous No.6590040]

>>6588821

I'd fuck her so hard. How the hell did Sartre get a piece of that?

[Anonymous No.6590061]

>>6586650
I think Shakespeare is a pile of dung.

[Anonymous No.6590070]

>>6586984
I hate
>Langston Hughes
He's not even the best writer of the harlem renaissance. His poems are simplistic and droll
>Bukowski
c'mon
>Austen
oh I see this must be b8. well here is your reply.

[Anonymous No.6590097]

>>6590061
>is a pile of dung.

He use that material for a lot of images and metaphors.

[Anonymous No.6590281]

>>6588812

>cos'è una nota a piè di pagina

>what is a footnote

[Anonymous No.6591836]

>>6589264
underrated post

[Anonymous No.6591840]

>>6590070
>doesn't like austen
pleb

[Anonymous No.6591844]

>>6586946
>reddit's favorite author.jpg

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6591867]

>>6591844
Only someone from Reddit would know this

[Anonymous No.6591892]

>>6587445
He was the improvement of the beats. Same powerful messages without the flowery bullshit. The man may have not lived the most intellectual existence, but fuck was he real. He didn't lie about life as most artists or writers do. He told the truth warts and all, nitty fuckin gritty! God bless his alchie soul.

[Anonymous No.6591901]

>>6588823
Virginia Woolf was a fucking cunt.

[Anonymous No.6591910]

>>6591901
but she was a genius

and james joyce as a person was like the world's biggest cunt so who cares

also she praised the cemetary chapter in ulysses before the book was released iirc

[Anonymous No.6591914]

>>6591910
A woman cannot be a genius. Brush up on your Schopenhauer.

[Anonymous No.6591915]

>>6591867
Yeah, I browse reddit.

[Anonymous No.6591925]

>>6591914
how did she write better books than schopenhauer then

[Anonymous No.6591965]

>>6591914
Virginia Woolf wrote some of the most beautiful prose in the English language.

[Anonymous No.6591970]

>>6587748
no shit, they killed all his sisters and other relatives

[« Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ » No.6592018]

>>6591901
I could name dozens of male authors who are cunts.
What's your point? Butthurt she had a knee jerk reaction to a weird book?

[Anonymous No.6592344]

>>6586984
How did none of the people that replied to this notice that he put Jim Jarmusch on the list. He's not even a writer.

[Anonymous No.6592462]

>>6588812
We read it in high school in Italy, one year for each part. You'll come to hate it.

[Anonymous No.6592503]

>>6586650
The complaint I always got was "he treated women and minorities like shit"
For which I was amazed that they didn't find lady Macbeth or Othello progressive enough for a late 16th century British poet.

[Anonymous No.6592509]

>>6592503
Is that an actually common criticism of Shakespeare? I don't know what it'd be based on, on The Taming of the Shrew maybe, or on very selective sections of The Merchant of Venice.

I always thought he was remarkably modern in the space he gave basically every character to be a full character, whatever sex or race they were.

[Anonymous No.6592752]

>>6592344
Screenwriter.

[Anonymous No.6592906]

>>6586717
original all the way.

Beware though, it's hard as fuck to understand even for a native speaker

[Anonymous No.6593174]

>>6586972
>implying

[Anonymous No.6593188]

>>6592509
tbh both shrew and merchant seem to be satire

>shrew gives a rousing argument for the independence of woman
>"she just didnt have the right DICK in her hahahaha"
>afterwards she espouses all the virtues of good womanhood and how mistaken she was to believe she could exist separate from a husband

>shylock gives rousing speech about his humanity
>then is forced to convert to christianity and lived happily ever after xD

i always thought he wrote them with the intention of making fun of people who genuinely think that problems are resolved by jews converting or women marrying

[Anonymous No.6593197]

>>6592462
Come tutte le cose che si leggono a scuola

[Anonymous No.6593428]

>>6589264
This is the worst thing I have ever read.

Você tem adquirir sensibilidade para a poesia antes de meter-se a abordar o tema. Tolkien? Faça um favor a todos: cresça ou mate-se.

[Anonymous No.6593489]

>>6593428

There are far worse things in this thread, brah.

The fellow there was very respectful to Dante. He simply stated that he doesn’t like the guy and his writing, and what’s wrong with that?

And if you are thinking that Dante is “oh, so deep”, think again: most of his views about the world and his philosophies are all wrong and surpassed. You are simply reading some old manuals of dead philosophy in a lot of the cantos. The guy was a great poet, but as for his thinking, he was just a man of his time. Montaigne, for example, a man that is still remote in time from us, although more modern than Dante, was far more wise and humane than the Italian.

Then again, that doesn’t change the fact that Dante is one of the greatest writers of all time. There is no doubt about that.

[Anonymous No.6593769]

>>6593428
>Você tem adquirir sensibilidade para a poesia antes de meter-se a abordar o tema. Tolkien? Faça um favor a todos: cresça ou mate-se.

Por que você me odeia? Não sou um grande apreciador de Dante, mas mesmo assim posso ser um leitor atento e mesmo uma pessoa dotada de sensibilidade.

Você diria que Tolstói não era um leitor sensível? Creio que temos de concordar que sim, ele não só era um leitor sensível como um escritor dotado de percepções quase sobre-humanas. Ele, porém, não suportava Shakespeare (e nem Dante: lembro-me de ter lido em algum lugar que ele reclamou de que havia tentado por diversas vezes começar a comédia, porém sem jamais progredir para além dos primeiros cantos, sendo a obra muito enfadonha para seu gosto). Mas isso não fazia dele um completo desastre e um ser humano de gosto anêmico, com deficiência de sensibilidade artística.

Qual a razão para você mandar que eu me mate?

[Anonymous No.6593885]

people either like him or don't know about him yet

[Anonymous No.6593887]

I dislike every author posted in this thread.

[Anonymous No.6594029]

>>6593887
good good. That's the spirit.

[Anonymous No.6594408]

All of the very big names have had harsh critics, which is normal considering the contrary would indicate conformism more probably than le universal writer.