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/lit/ - Literature

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8508447 No.8508447 [Reply] [Original]

ITT: your favourite writer('s/)s' worst flaws

>> No.8508500

>>8508447
>Beckett
Sometimes a little 'too' terse

>Gaddis
Digressive, dialogue-based story telling sometimes a bit excessive

>Joyce
Can't really think of anything besides occasionally masturbatory

>Gass
Can't really think of anything

>> No.8508888

>>8508447
>Borges
DUDE OBSCURE REFERENCES LMAO

>> No.8509178

,

>> No.8509189

He killed himself.

>> No.8509190

>Faulkner

Ok...really you don't have to describe EVERYTHING. We can take it for granted he had a tough time going to the store that once when he was 14, we don't need three chapters about it.

And the run on sentences? It's cute at first, but later in his career where he habitually uses them and the sentences change what the hell they're about four times? Yeah, little tiresome, faggot.

>> No.8509198

>>8508447
he kill hisself

>> No.8509211

>>8508447
He never killed a single yid

>> No.8509539
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8509539

>Fallada
A little too much exposition through dialogue

>Yates
One Trick Pony.

>Nabokov
Too smug.

>> No.8509564

>Wolfe
too good

>> No.8509582

>>8508447
>Pretty much anyone whose works I care about
HE DEAD

>> No.8509588

>Brautigan
Probably not as good if you've never taken LSD

>Nabokov
Flat out became lazy and trite later in his career, and I don't think he ever actually took anything seriously, which becomes slightly uncomfortable w/r/t pedophilia themes in his work

>Marquez
Literally a soap opera writer at his worst

>> No.8509636

>Nietzsche
he was an atheist

>> No.8509670

>>8508447
>murakami

All his books are the same thing. Even his prose is repetitive and terse

>> No.8509677

>Dostoevsky
MUH MOTHERLAND

>DeLillo
Sometimes his dialogue sounds like he's parodying himself

>Stevens
Wimped out on his visionary mode at the end of his life

>> No.8509688

>>8509636
No he wasn't.

>> No.8509694
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8509694

>>8508888
How can you call his references obscure when they're either made up or detailed and explained right afterwards? That's mine on him, actually: he's pedagogical to a fault.

>> No.8509897

>>8509190
>describes everything
Faulkner is one the most elusive authors I've ever read. Most everything occurring both inside and outside the narrative is implied.

I love it.

>> No.8509913
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8509913

She was snooty.

>> No.8509923

>>8509677
>Sometimes his dialogue sounds like he's parodying himself
His prose too

I think DeLillo is a great novelist but not quite a great writer, and in particular a lot of his writing is heavy-handed in a way that requires a mastery he rarely demonstrates to work. But once in a while he delivers excellent passages

>> No.8509928

>Céline
A lot of the "insights" are bogus and/or have no connection to the narrative.

>> No.8509942

>>8508447

anti-Semitic

>> No.8509949

>>8509539

I cannot believe how incredibly huge that woman's feet are

>> No.8509971

>me
not well known, amazing writer who should try and expand his audiences instead of targeting a few highly intellectual followers

>> No.8510012
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8510012

>>8508447

>Joyce
I love games and reference, but sometimes you make Pynchon look like Beckett with this shit.

>Harlan Ellison
Would it have killed you to learn how to dramatize properly?

>Le Guin
Why do you suffer from theme repetition? Why do you talk about you repeating yourself with half-laughing/half-knowing condescension and yet continue the repetition?

>> No.8510016

>Vonnegut
I'm a pleb

>> No.8510024

>>8509539
>Fallada
I never heard him mentioned here. He's pretty good. Well done.

>> No.8510027

>>8509688
>only two posts later
like clockwork

>> No.8510130

>Proust
Only actually writes well for a few pages every hundred or so pages.

>Gass
Structure (or lack thereof) is a bit full of itself at times. The stylism gets somewhat repetitive after too long

>Joyce
Too hard. Makes me want to kill myself for being stupid

>Rilke
Also pretty hard (harder in ways than Joyce) and makes me feel bad that I don't read German

>Walt Whitman
Feels too erudite at times

>> No.8510387

>Homer
the long-ass lists get boring. Book 2 of the Iliad is a fucking pain to get through.
>Shakespeare
So many boring romantic leads. The side characters are often far more interesting.
>Borges
Overreliance on wacky twists and knife fights.
>Pynchon
Pretty much the same themes every book. Characters are kind of shallow and cartoonish. And would it kill him to write an actually satisfying ending?

>> No.8510404

>>8510130
>Whitman too erudite

Lol what

Many poets hated him and considered him common in his time

>> No.8510415

>>8509923
Can't say I agree. I love his prose rhythms and his keen eye, but his dialogue can get a little too laconic and hip sometimes. Takes me out of his aesthetics.

>> No.8510421

>>8509694
reading aleph right now and some of this shit is lovecraft-tier

>> No.8510463

>>8508447

>Fitzgerald
Writing was so subtle in it's anti-american-dream message enough that it tricked the American education system into teaching it as a story about the American dream, and now millions of high schoolers hate it for the same reason that Fitzgerald wrote it.

>Edmund Spencer
A huge dork irl, and such a kiss-ass (Elizabeth probably never even read FQ)

>Dante
Pompous

>> No.8510507

>>8510421
He literally wrote a story dedicated to Lovecraft.

>> No.8510544

>>8508447

Dosteoevsky : his sense of style is aimless and sloppy. He has no artfulness so that's why all his books are the size of the Oxford dictionary. I can barely read him these days except for my favorite passages.

Nietzsche: overuse of the exclamatory statement! An uneasy, sticky feel to some of his odder declarations! Foaming out the mouth! Half baked ideas!


Schopenhauer: sad sack. Constant justifications for logical suicide contradiction his continuing to live and write.

PKD: actually a bad writer by most standards, just really imaginative and weird and smart.

Rimbaud: didn't write enough.

>> No.8510572

>>8510507
And he called H.P. "an unintentional parodist of Poe" iirc.

>> No.8511419

Gene Wolfe: wrote things other than The Book of the New Sun

>> No.8511427

literally none, that's why I like her

>> No.8511455

>Ilf & Petrov
The NEP ended.

>Tennyson
The fucking plays

>Tranströmer
His antimaterialism is sometimes a bit cliché.

>Pratchett
Explaining his own jokes.

>> No.8511471

>>8508447

I find those comics funny and I don't know why. They're ridiculous.

That fucking fan that has free will but chooses to oscillate kind of speaks to me on an existential level.

>> No.8511475

>>8508447
He wrote in a peculiar blend of ancient Greek dialects which I cannot read, thus forcing me to scour the seven chans and fight the hydra of memery to get translation recommendations.

>> No.8511485

>Hawkes
His strange obsession with horses.

>> No.8511486

>Burroughs

He was a flaming homosexual.

>> No.8511506

>me
Too intelligent and nihilistic to write convincing female characters

>> No.8511554

>Shakespeare
Although he was a master poet, you can sometimes tell when he would use a clunky or odd word for something just because it fit the meter

>> No.8511811
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8511811

>>8511554

It's weird but you can almost tell that he knew it was a bit clunky yet just rolled with it (Midsummer and his sonnets, especially). Even in the eternal tier you got deadlines and shit.

>> No.8511816

>john green

he's jsut too good

>> No.8511844

>>8511811
>>8511554
>people who don't know about the translators

>> No.8511856
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8511856

>>8511844

Enlighten me.

>> No.8511860

>>8511856
Google it, pleb.

>> No.8511872
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8511872

>>8511860

>> No.8511899

>Gogol
only one great novel which is even incomplete

>> No.8512008

>>8511506
and a wicked sense of humor to boot

>> No.8512089
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8512089

>>8509913
aren't all lesbians a bit too pleased with themselves though?

>> No.8512788

>>8510404
"...He's an incredibly difficult author"
-Harold Bloom

>> No.8512863

>>8512788
Bloom also said that Whitman is the only one who could stand in the coliseum with Shakespeare
Memes aside, Bloom is one of the best living literary minds

>> No.8512895

Knee Chi

Kinda feels like he couldn't live up to his own ideology.

>> No.8512953

Cervantes

Didn't proofread, inane digressions

All the man needed was an editor

>> No.8512972

>>8510387
>Characters are kind of shallow and cartoonish. And would it kill him to write an actually satisfying ending?
These are both done for a reason.

And while some themes do repeat themselves, you can't say they're always the same (except maybe for the distrust of history and paranoia)

>> No.8512988

>>8512972
If you weren't satisfied with the way V. or Gravity's Rainbow ended, you're a total pleb.

>> No.8513898

>>8512972
Obviously they're done with a reason. There aren't any mistakes in his writing. I don't think you understand this thread.

>> No.8514826

he gets too caught up in his nationalism, even though he does it in purpose -to propagate-.
i swear, if he didn't waste his talent on nationalist books for highschool-university younglings, he would have been one of the greatest authors and poets of his language

>> No.8514838

>>8514826
Who?

>> No.8515197

>>8510024
>hearing things on an imageboard

k

>> No.8516635

>>8512953
And yet, while most would agree with this, just you try and come up with an abridged version without having everybody cry in disgust...

>> No.8516930

Dostoy
All his female characters lack depth

>> No.8517216

>>8516930
female detected
/spoiler/ (aka: pleb detected) /spoiler/

>> No.8517242

>>8517216
Yeah
But at least I know how to make correct spoiler tags.

>> No.8517260

>>8517242
\==
>/enable spoilers
{{$$$thatsnothowyoumakespoilertagsyoufuckingnewfag$$$}}
>/disable spoilers
==\

>> No.8517274

>Spenser
Petrarchism was played out 100 years before him. And his allegorically-disguised Christian homilies get beyond tedious in places.

>Shelley
Astonishingly self-absorbed. Had little insight into the darker recesses of humanity.

>Keats
Can't do action. His earlier stuff written under the influence of Leigh Hunt is sickenenly sweet, I mean reading Endymion is like trying to eat an entire chocolate cake in one sitting.

>Woolf
Sometimes gets stuck in trivialities. Her attempt to get to the heart of consciousness through meatphor is a failure.

>Joyce
Woolf was right when she called him a massive try-hard. Wasted the last years of his life on Finnegans Wake.

>> No.8517286

>>8511427
It's Toni Morrison, isn't it?

>>8511506
I laughed

>> No.8517364

>R07
He has kinda shit writing, and he takes critique of said writing as a personal attack.
He also hates his readers.

>> No.8517409

>>8509688
When the fuck did this meme start?

>> No.8517424

>>8516930
Nastasya Filipovna lacks depth...?

>> No.8517514

Dostoyevsky
Repetitive if you aren't a depressed man

Kafka
Was a little bitch and died

>> No.8517715

>>8517424
Not him, but yes?

>> No.8517716

>>8517274
>wasted

>> No.8517730

>most ancient greek philosophers
lost a huge chunk of their work

>> No.8517756

>Balzac
Ridiculously overly detailed in descriptions and backstories, especially in his early writings. His later writings have rich descriptions that set the milieu very well and really give his characters real weight. He also throws out these random insights into society and people that make you have to stop reading and think about things for a few minutes. Earlier writings however just don't have that heft to them. He's still dealing with serious matters but he just couldn't write about them in a way that was really compelling. Sort of a tell vs show thing. Takes time to learn though.

>> No.8517759

>>8508447

> Wallace
Humiliating, pathetic narcissism and depression. Somehow managed to become te most fucked up person on Earth.

> Dostoyevsky
For all of his "love and compassion," his work was nothing but a snarky roasting of the nihilistic and self-hating. His work never truly captured the essence of Alyosha.

> Delillo
Wicked brain but the heart of a drone. His works are untouchably genius and completely disposable.

>> No.8517766

>>8510463
>>Fitzgerald
Writing was so subtle in it's anti-american-dream message enough that it tricked the American education system into teaching it as a story about the American dream, and now millions of high schoolers hate it for the same reason that Fitzgerald wrote it.

Lol. What? Americans can't understand even the slightest hint of subtlety. It always weirds me out when I hear Americans talk about how 'subtle' British humour is, because it actually isn't very subtle.

The Great Gatsby's critique of 'The American Dream' seem almost forceful to me.

I can't believe any of what you say is true.

>> No.8517771

>>8517286
>Toni Morrison
Nope

>> No.8517803

>>8508888
Nice quads

>> No.8517810

>>8517759
>For all of his "love and compassion," his work was nothing but a snarky roasting of the nihilistic and self-hating
that was definitely a projection of the nihilism and self-hate he was battling in himself

>> No.8517824

>Calvino
sophomoric humor combined with scientific and complex writing doesn't always work and can ruin the mood
most characters are pretty flat

>McCarthy
sometimes writes like a parody of himself

>Marquez
nothing he wrote compares to 100 Years

>Pynchon
see Calvino

>> No.8517825

>Bataille

His biggest flaw is that people only really know him as "that guy who wrote the fucked-up porn with the eyeball in the chick's vagina". Story of the Eye is hardly his best.

>Ryu Murakami

Focuses too much on shock value in some of his works, to the detriment of his more interesting ideas. Has the same surname as the other guy.

>Melville

Wrote Moby-Dick, perfected the novel. Nothing he or anyone else writes can compare.

>> No.8517862

>>8517825
>Story of the Eye is hardly his best.
What is his best?

>Ryu Murakami
Where should I start? Something with more interesting ideas and less edge, if at all possible.

>> No.8517871

>Jane austen

A little too snarky at times. Comes off as butthurt

>> No.8517887

>>8517862
good luck avoiding edge on Ryu, m8. Almost transparent is where you should start. If you it's too much for you, it only gets worse from there. If you like it, the only other Ryu I've read is Miso Soup and Sixty-Nine, which weren't unenjoyable. youre gonna cut yourself on something like Miso though.

>> No.8517899

>>8517825
bartleby and billy bud are both masterpieces in their own right. I can understand if you think that Moby Dick is his best novel, but that shouldn't discredit his other work. Melville has a prolific catalog, you can add Omoo, Typee and Pierre to the list of underappreciated Melville.

>> No.8517903

>people stating Homer, Spenser, and the like as their favourites

Oh, boy...

>> No.8517909

>>8510012
>I love games and reference, but sometimes you make Pynchon look like Beckett with this shit.
I don't understand this. Are you implying that Beckett is more transparent than Pynchon? Because that's just not true...

>> No.8517917

>>8508447
>Pynchon
Sometimes the corny jokes take away from the beauty of a passage. I don't want to say it ruins it, but sometimes they don't fit and it just seems lazy.
>Beckett
Sometimes he tries too hard to be high brow.
>Bernhard
Sometimes I think hes too death-obsessed. And he was just an awful person in general.
>Wallace
generally masturbatory

>> No.8517926

>>8517903
>>people stating Homer, Spenser, and the like
>the "like"
you mean writers?

>> No.8518330

>>8517917
>>Beckett
>Sometimes he tries too hard to be high brow.
When?

>> No.8518407

>>8517903
Go read Prothalamion and shut the fuck up

>> No.8518466

>>8517771
Then who? I'm legitimately interested.

>> No.8518469

>>8518330
His early work... Murphy and Dream of Fair to Middling, for example

>> No.8518473

>>8517899
I can't help remembering that silly American Dad! episode whenever I think of Typee.

>> No.8518490

>Proust
It takes 4 pages to describe ordninary things like a tree. I get why he does it, but it makes the book really tedious.

>Hesse
Sometimes i feel like his prose is the equivalent to talking in monotone.

>> No.8518495

>>8518466
Ayn Rand.

>> No.8518518

>>8518469
Oh, fair enough, though it's probably that realization that drove him towards French and so on

>> No.8518776

>>8517825
Well m8 what is Bataille's best? Surely not the accursed share?

>> No.8518788

>>8508500
>Chomsky
Too truthful.

>> No.8518827

>>8517917
>>Wallace
>generally masturbatory
That was the entire conceit of Infinite Jest though. The socio-political system is called O.N.A.N.ism ffs.

>> No.8518830
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8518830

>>8514838
this fuckboy. nihal atsız

>> No.8518874

Twain
>he literally did nothing wrong
Genet
>"you must be really stupid to not choose the bad side"
>dead to france and white people

>> No.8518880

>>8518874
>Twain
>>he literally did nothing wrong
What? Are you trying to say his characters are Mary Sues? Because that's definitely not true of Huck Finn, at least.

>> No.8518883

>>8518880
Satan is probably his best character.

>> No.8519273

>>8512089
3 accurate 5 me

>> No.8519277

>>8512953
It's hard to find an editor when you're writing in prison. But I do agree he could have used an editor bit Don Quixote is still a fantastic read.

>> No.8519837
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8519837

>>8509949
It's a girl and her feet are normally sized.

>>8510024
Nice. Are you German? He's fantastic.

>> No.8519889

>>8519837

But look at her though >>8509539
You could barely squeeze her big toe into that mug

>> No.8519918
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8519918

>Too liberal

>> No.8519935

Nabokov
>pedophile

>> No.8520707

>>8510130
What does erudite mean?

>> No.8520779

>>8519918
What did he mean by this?

>> No.8520855

>>8508447
>Tolstoy
His use of repetition can be a bit much

>Homer
Poetry is even harder to translate than prose, so much is always going to be lost

>Steinbeck
Novels are too short

>Tolkien
I will never have the chance to meet him. A fellow amateur linguist, mythology enthusiast. and anarchist, not to mention the GOAT fantasy writer. My chub for him will never go soft.

>> No.8520866

>>8519935
OP said flaws.

>> No.8521746

>>8517862
>>8518776
Blue of Noon, motherfuckers.

>> No.8521761

>>8521746
That's just his best fiction tho

>> No.8523135

>>8518776
>>8521761
And as to the rest, it's The Solar Anus. Fight me.

>> No.8523267

>>8509636
That's practically the center of his work. How can you like Nietzschr without being an atheist?

>> No.8524174

>>8523267
How can you like alcoholics if you're not drunk?

>> No.8525946

>Goethe
Too Big of a Guy for the rest of German literature to handle

>Ibsen
Wrote in the wrong language tbqh

>> No.8526050

Kafka was too lazy/too self-critical (I honestly think that much self-remonstration is a form of narcissism), and his stories aren't really that entertaining, best in the form of a sentence or a few paragraphs. Everything else just DRAAAGS. I know it's technically perfect, but sometimes it just makes me wanna fall asleep... fucker should've shared his gifts with the world, left his Dad, or moved to Israel like he was always planning to (tho I think he'd do better in the US) or something... he cheated the world out of the treasures that he owed it.

>> No.8526057

>>8517766
Because its not. Any competent teacher knows how to explain the book. Hell, its not a subtle work - even the least intelligent people in my HS picked up on what Fitzgerald was saying.

I think that poster just went to a shit school and doesn't realize it (or is muh edge and thinks he's the only one who understood the Great Gatsby in high school)

>> No.8526064

>>8512863
Yup. You shall know a genius when all the dunces are in a confederacy against him.

>> No.8526075

>>8517364
who is R07?

>> No.8526080

>>8517759
>His works are untouchably genius
do you really believe this? Personally I think his works appear genius at first first first blush, but are really quite superficial. Like he scraped the best published New Yorker stories for their top tropes and blent them all into one critical theory mush. Feels perfunctor (at least in White Noise)

>> No.8526947

>>8526050
But that's why kafka was in a position to produce something interesting you dimwit
>his gifts
>technically perfect
It's like you're purposefully seeking out every possible way of being wron- oh.