/lit/ - Literature

>>2742811

Shouldn't you be watching the NBA chew up its own guts and cry out its death knell right now?

Also,

>>2742522

OP: Short answer, the literary community does not evaluate works in a vacuum; the literary community uses established (and maybe arbitrary but probably not) tools to decide what makes a work of literature good, and at some point it was decided that "Genre Lit" was generally a lesser thing than non-genre. Probably because non-genre worries about being good lit and genre lit worried about being a genre. Of course, it's not a perfect way to categorize works.

>>2742585

Yeah, well, it's certainly fucking true here, so don't act as though his suggestion is far-fetched.

Former /sp/artan here

/lit/ is indeed terribly stupid. But /sp/ is in no position to judge anyone. That board is basically just /b/ with sports. You kids are a fucking joke. And I should know, I saw the board slowly devolve from its birth in 2007.

>>2737638

Okay, but this doesn't change my comment. And I'm not trying to be an asshole, I'm serious.

You're never actually going to feel better until you actually try to understand people.

>>2714374

So did I. Was this board always this bad?

See, and I had drunkenly sparred with this guy yesterday, and I really was sort of pissed at him despite his alleged intentions of making /lit/ better, but this thread seems so deliberately provokative that I have no choice but surmise that Roach Slayer (or a copycat troll) is just trying to get a rise out of people. I don't know how to take this seriously.

>>2712405

>but he also slays roaches that attempt to troll him: the true cancer of this board.

No, he seeks out threads and derails them. No gimmick personality here, Roach Slayer included, is rightfully provoked into being a haughty douchebag.

>These people that ruin everything by creating a monotonous amount of repetitive threads about the same thing over and over again.

So he can ignore them! Guess what? When a board has enough users, they're going to repeat content. Nobody has to create a thread for the specific needs of one user who is apparently so preoccupied with this board that he needs to marshal it and make certain every thread is new and fresh for him. That's the fucking hieght of egocentrism.

>These people that start an unnecessary argument, about something that doesn't need to be argued, simply because they either want to troll

Which is crap, but what Roach Slayer does is basically unzip his pants and add to the pile.

>or because they simply don't understand how to communicate with other people over the internet unless it's in the form of an argument.

Which, of course, he'd be the last person to lecture anybody about this.

>Do you understand the valorous legitimacy of roach-slayer now?

Even if he had a legitimate purpose or attainable goal, his modus operandi is completely self-serving. Again, would say "fuck himself," but pity.

>>2712358

Roach slayer is a fucking asshole when he mentions roaches, though, because he's taking it upon himself to decide what is and isn't suitable for /lit/, despite the fact that his requirements are predicated on his taste of what is good literature, while he full well ignores shit threads or troll posts in favor of letting everyone know he's not a fan of DFW or some other popular author.

Face it, stamping out "plebs" isn't at all what makes this board a massive disappointment, it's an abundance of anti-social, stubborn faggots like roach slayer. No discussion ever sucked because two entry-level readers tossed back and forth ideas; discussions here suck because certain /lit/ kids think we're some esteemed panel on high literature and philosophy and that we're above all that entry-level crap when we're not, we're just a formless board on the internet.

I would tell roach slayer to fuck himself, but the fact is that he's either a troll so it wouldn't matter, or he's completely oblivious to the fact that 4chan isn't his dream setting for literature, and in that case, I mostly pity him.

The Crying of Lot 49 was a motherfucking marathon for me.

Twain was before his time, he was highly critical of racism.

Most literary classics that use the n-word don't really do so maliciously. You have to understand that writers who stand the test of time are usually taken as the high commentators of their particular segments and eras of society, so their use of the word is mostly detached. People cry racism at Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness for the way he depicts Africans, but I don't think that's at all what he's getting at. The same goes for other authors.

>>2711964

I read Cryptonomicon. It is every bit as fucking hilarious and awesome and nerdy and witty as the video you linked. Which is to say, it's good.

>>2709401

Isn't it, though? It's fucking awful.

>>2706584

You've worked there? How was it?

/lit/, where opinions are informed not by the application of any objective standard but by how fucking sick we are of hearing about somebody.

>>2684014

I've only read bits of the rest of his stuff, but, as difficult and lengthy as Europe Central is, I'd say it's the best place to start because it's probably the most accessible to casual readers. For much of WTV, you really have to be a fan of his because he really gets wound up in his techniques and his way of thinking. Whereas Europe Central has seen broader appeal. Won the National Book Award 2005, and all. I'd imagine that's where a lot of readers of his have started, so I'd recommend it.

It's 750 pages, though, beware. Never really bores, but it does take a while.

>>2683975

>wrote a gigantic tome on the history of violence

Rising Up and Rising Down. I'm working on it right now. The ethical discourse going on there is rather straight-forward and agreeable, really - I'm no gun owner, but his advocacy of self-defense is perfectly reasonable - but he spruces the whole thing up so much with personal reflections and poetic language so the book is dense, in a way.

Europe Central is also great if you ever get the chance to read it.

>>2683996

>He's a piece of shit person, and he's a god awful writer.

Wowza

He's terrific. I'm glad he's never brought up here because /lit/ would only ruin my enjoyment of his works.

>>2678564

You DO seem awfully upset. If it was you, indeed, who posted that pic.

>>2678519

Where's the image like that that lists countries by total number of plastic surgeries performed (thus placing U.S. in first) as though that's a good metric for the general state of affairs in a nation? That one was a fucking riot. It also, somehow, qualified "freedom" and rating nations by "Freedom Index". Amazing.

>>2678425

Nobody cares, quit being a faggot, fuck off

>>2678320

Say what you want about her, but she's masturbating her landwhale self to sleep crying chocolate tears all the way to the bank.

>>2678226

This

Also, I'm baffled by the sort of flak World War Z gets. Brooks isn't Joyce, but the prose isn't horseshit, either. If you want to make it clear that you read high fiction, that's fine, but don't belittle perfectly average books for the sake of making that distinction.

ITT: Finnegan's Wake