/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.8781686]

>He was written one masterpiece, I would say, is of contemporary American fiction, of fiction written by human beings still alive and among us, I would list Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater and American Pastoral, I would list Don DeLillo's Underworld, I would certainly list Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 and Gravity's Rainbow, and his recent and magnificent Mason & Dixon

>But if I had to vote for one novel by a living American it would be Blood Meridian.

[Anonymous No.8781697]

>>8781686
Can we all just admit that Bloom is a hack with bad taste? He literally just likes what he imagines a good critic is supposed to like + Jew stuff. Corncob McCorncob writes terrible, empty dribble.

[Anonymous No.8781700]

this book wasnt good

[Anonymous No.8781706]

>>8781686
I like it. Sorry /lit/.

[Anonymous No.8781713]

>>8781697
>Corncob McCorncob writes terrible, empty dribble.

holy....I want more....

[Anonymous No.8781716]

>>8781686
I liked it, stop memeing

[Anonymous No.8781722]

>>8781686
I always find it interesting how a pre-war Jew enthralled with classic poetry, teaching the highest literary courses at the most prestigious universities, and author of dozens of critical analyses of classic works fucks with pomo so heavily.
him trashing on IJ is a good indicator of maintaining discerning taste within the genre, but postmodernism is such garbage compared to modernism.

[Anonymous No.8781732]

>>8781697
He also lies a lot, e.g. about his reading speed, reading books he's never touched, in order to seem more intelligent and therefore relevant.

[Anonymous No.8781764]

>>8781732
show me evidence of his lying

[Anonymous No.8781770]

>>8781722
Ah yes so we'll just ignore the present, stay in our safe little boxes of the past. Fuck off.

[Anonymous No.8781780]

>>8781697
Corncob writes great stuff. At least Blood Meridian and Suttree are good, and taken together prove the breadth of his talent as a stylist and the depth of his talent as a thinker.

I don't know about his other stuff but those two works alone make him worthy of a top spot among writers of the 20th century. Even if all his other books are considered cartoonishly spartan or pandering to hollywoodesque bloodlusting.

[Anonymous No.8781787]

>American "literature" xd

[Anonymous No.8781799]

>>8781722
still better than romantic poetry

if there's one thing particularly damning about Bloom and his critical competency it's his unflagging love of mediocre, bland poets like Wordsworth and Blake

[Anonymous No.8781801]

>>8781780
I don't think anyone who dislikes Blood Meridian dislikes Cormac McCarthy for being cartoonishly spartan. I think the idea is something like that he's cartoonishly vague and flowery in all the wrong places. Take Raymond Carver and pepper it with adjectives that don't belong and metaphors that only work if you choose not to notice that they don't evoke anything.

[Anonymous No.8781836]

>>8781801
>adjectives that don't belong and metaphors that only work if you choose not to notice that they don't evoke anything

This makes no sense.

[Anonymous No.8781853]

One of my absolute favorite books are Blood Meridian.

Probably the only book which I wanted to re-read instantly after I first finished it.(I didn't because my to-read stack is collecting dust)

Can't wait for his next books, although he said it will have female lead roles, which makes me fear he is succumbing to feminism and SJWs in his late years.

[Anonymous No.8781861]

>>8781853
>which makes me fear he is succumbing to feminism and SJWs in his late years.

>writing about a woman means succumbing to a minority ideology that he probably has never had contact with ever

[Anonymous No.8781872]

>>8781686
>While inside the vaulting of the ribs between his knees the darkly meated heart pumped of who's will and the blood pulsed and the bowels shifted in their massive blue convolutions of who's will and the stout thighbones and knee and cannon and the tendons like flaxen hawsers that drew and flexed and drew and flexed at their articulations of who's will all sheathed and muffled in the flesh and the hooves that stove wells in the morning groundmist and the head turning side to side and the great slavering keyboard of his teeth and the hot globes of his eyes where the world burned. (All the Pretty Horses, 1992)

This may get Hass's darkly meated heart pumping, but it's really just bad poetry formatted to exploit the lenient standards of modern prose. The obscurity of who's will, which has an unfortunate Dr. Seussian ring to it, is meant to bully readers into thinking that the author's mind operates on a plane higher than their own—a plane where it isn't ridiculous to eulogize the shifts in a horse's bowels.

This is from an article in the Atlantic called A Reader's Manifesto

[Anonymous No.8781877]

>>8781861
I'm sure he watches the news and browse the internet from time to time.

We all know what insufficient contact with these medias can do to people.

So yeah I don't think its invalid to fear it. Ofc the female lead can be true female roles OR they can be the Hollywood type kick-ass badass take no prisoners female roles. The former would be totally fine.

[Anonymous No.8781881]

>>8781770
why are you so aggressively stupid

[Anonymous No.8781882]

>>8781877
>they can be the Hollywood type kick-ass badass take no prisoners female roles

McCarthy isn't some screenwriting hack looking to cash in on strong female lead roles trend

[Anonymous No.8782137]

>>8781872
Is that an actual passage? It sounds like self-parody. The critique however I think goes to trivialize it a bit too much. I find both ridiculous. This gives me such a welcome sense of superiority now, I shall revel in it for a while.

[Anonymous No.8782146]

>>8781853
>he said it will have female lead roles
Considering most of his male lead's get raped/killed/have horrible shit happen to him I'm not worried his going to go SJW mode.

[Anonymous No.8782264]

It is one of the better books of the 20th century that stupid people here love to hate and meme about because its violence makes it popular and therefore necessarily bad according to the 4chan mentality

[Anonymous No.8782287]

>>8782264
I don't get the violence criticism either tbqh. Yes, it's more violent than the average fiction novel, but writing a Western without including gratuitous violence was the problem with the Western genre to begin with. It was too romantic and saturated with politicized narrative.

That said, it's really no more violent than a thriller movie made today that has violence in it's narrative.

I mean, think about it, even the scene in the first LotR movie where Aragorn fights the Uruk-Hai leader, is probably actually close to how brutal medieval sword-fighting could be.

[Anonymous No.8782486]

>

[Anonymous No.8782493]

>>8782486
>Are you Harold Bloom?

[Anonymous No.8782510]

>>8781877
he would never. don delillo would though, but he doesn't use the fancy internet so who knows.

[Anonymous No.8782863]

If you listen to Bloom talk he doesn't seem very smart. He uses a lot of empty words.

[Anonymous No.8782901]

>>8781764
>"I've read a million books at 2000 words/minute"
>"you're probably lying"
>"It's up to you to prove I'm lying"

ok then

[Anonymous No.8783602]

Whoever says the kid got raped in the end is an illiterate troglodyte and should re-read the fucking novel.

[Anonymous No.8783608]

>>8782901
that is not evidence of lying

[Anonymous No.8784851]

>>8781697
>Corncob McCorncob
kek

>>8781706
>>8781716
>>8781780
I liked it too. thought it got repetitive with all the traveling and landscape descriptions though. Of course, maybe i'm not on a high enough /lit/ tier yet to distinguish good literature from sup-par literature.

>>8783602
part of me wishes this is what happened, because that would be hilarious.

[Anonymous No.8786373]

>>8781881
>why are you so aggressively stupid
Said the dumbass yeehaw fascist.

[Anonymous No.8787602]

>>8781686
>The Passenger didn't come out this year
Damn you corncob

[Anonymous No.8787607]

>>8783602
>>8784851

sorry what? i thought that was what happened

[Anonymous No.8787700]

>>8781799
I've never seen someone with such bad taste.

Romantic poetry is fantastic. Much more substantial than the lolfreeverse that's taken the poetry world for the past few decades

[Anonymous No.8787702]

>>8782901

Not evidence of lying about his reading speed or amount, but proves that he spouts bullshit and makes his opinion worthless.

[Anonymous No.8787820]

>>8781799
>talking shit about Blake

fite me irl

[Anonymous No.8789459]

Penis

[Anonymous No.8790040]

>>8781853
>>8781877
Why are you such a reactiontard? Why are there so many of them around here?

[Anonymous No.8790048]

>>8781799
you're the reason /lit/ is bad

[Anonymous No.8790123]

TCoL49 was the most garbage book I have ever read besides Fahrenheit 451.

[Anonymous No.8790186]

>>8781799
Let me guess, you didn't "get" them. Read some more, educate yourself.

[Anonymous No.8790200]

>>8790123
t. someone who has only read two books in his life