Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 657. page

>>9752301
Some one my favorite writers had them and some didn't

>>9752301
studying english has next to no impact on being a writer. english is the study of criticism, and increasingly, cultural theory, not of composition.

>>9752301
There's probably some benefit, but it's probably pretty marginal in most cases. but there's really two separate things that we should be talking about here - being a good writer, and getting paid for writing.

With regards to the first one: majoring in English or creative writing certainly can help you become a better writer. Reading widely and thinking critically about what you read is extraordinarily helpful to improving as a writer. And creative writing classes can be really useful at learning how to write and making time to practice to write. At the same time, all of those are things that you can also do without an English degree - you can take creative writing courses and English courses with a different major, and you can also practice writing and reading on your own.

With regards to the idea of getting paid to write, an English or creative writing degree is going to be much less useful. There's two main ways in which it could be beneficial - first it might make you a better writer. But just being a good enough writer isn't enough to get paid. Second, it could set you up for a MFA, which increases your access to particular parts of the industry. But even getting an MFA isn't going to guarantee you economic security, and you also don't 100% need to major in English to get an MFA. And ultimately, the prospects of being paid to be a writer are just intrinsically precarious.

For me personally, I think it's probably best if you can find something that interests you while also offering slightly better career prospects. The main arguments in favor of majoring in English would be if you don't care about financial prospects for whatever reason, or if you're committed to going the MFA route.

>>9752278
its not necessary but highly highly recommended

death in venice is short as fuck anyway just do it you cuck

>>9752284
mfw i didn;t do this

also skipped the settembrini parts lol

>>9752289
>also skipped the settembrini parts lol
...so yo udidnt read the book?

This is pre magical realism, so don't ever call it that:
Jorge Luis Borges: El Aleph, Ficciones. (This are both short stories collections).
Adolfo Bioy Casares: La invención de Morel. (Novella).

Then, this is parallel to magical realism, but with a less latinamerican-identity-reivindication flavor:

Julio Cortázar: Bestiario, Las armas secretas, Todos los fuegos el fuego, Final del juego (short stories collections), Rayuela (novel).

This is pure latin american magical realism:

García Márquez: Crónica de una muerte anunciada (novella), El amor en los tiempos del cólera (novel).
Carlos Fuentes: La muerte de Artemio Cruz (novel),
Mario Vargas Llosa: Los Cachorros (novella), Conversación en la catedral (novel).
Juan Rulfo: El llano en llamas (short story collection), Pedro Páramo (novel).
Carlos Fuentes: Aura (novella).

This is magical realism (ish) outside of Latin America:

Salman Rushdie: Midnight's Children, Shalimar, the Clown, The Satanic Verses (novels).
Haruki Murakami: South of the Border, West of the Sun, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Kafka on the Shore (novels), After the quake (short stories collection).
Günter Grass: The Tin Drum (novel).
Italo Calvino: The Invisible Cities (sui generis, basically prose poems inside a framework), If on a winter's night a traveler (novel).
Franz Kafka: The Metamorphosis.

I'd advice you to stay away from Isabel Allende and Alejo Carpentier; but you could look into them if you don't expect much. Also, an excellent palate cleanser for latin american magical realism, that will let you unshackle from the boom is Roberto Bolaño. Buen provecho!

>>9752262
pretty good post anon. i usually shitpost in spiclit threads but this was a nice reasonable list.

>>9752271
Please post anything else you have in mind. I posted from the front of my memory; I feel I'm leaving something important out.
I don't truly like cathegorizing, but now that I think about it Sabato might have a place there. I think Sobre héroes y tumbas (especially) certainly has some mystical elements, although in a different way than say, García Márquez.

>>9752070
try the redpill

>>9752077
What does that even mean in this context

>>9752088
im simply redpilled

good, just got published for the first time a few days ago

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not great 2bh. Might try to become a rockstar instead....it sounds more realistic

>>9751958
I don't know, fine. How is your frogposting career going?

>emotionally drained
>I thought it was incredible
>my feelings
everyone who praises wallace writes like they don't have balls and have only had cursory interactions with humans who did have balls in their life and found those interactions unpleasant.

Seriously he is the "lifetime movies and staying in bed eating rocky road icecream drinking red wine and reading dove chocolate wrappers about how tomorrow is gonna be great" of literature.

how often do you fags cry?

>>9751979
>people with emotions don't have balls
>being this autistic

>>9751910
Girl With Curious Hair is another good collection of short stories by him. I think Wallace is better in short form. Happy reading!

nobody has read this.

I know I said I would when you posted this dumb shit last time, but I say a lot of shit I don't mean or forget about.

It probably is bad, but I did too, though. You should read Master of Petersburg.

>>9751887
First time posting about it here friend. Also Coetzee is pretty well known.
>>9751986
Why? What's it about?

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>>9751809

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>>9751809

>>9751809
my top 3 atm

Marienbader Elegie - Goethe
An den Mond - Goethe
An die Parzen - Hölderlin

MOMS GONNA FREAK!

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>>9751765
Nah man, that's not ugly. That's rugged. Still has a charming aesthetic to it. THIS is ugly.

>>9751765
euro hoes used to fly to the US to fuck him lol

he was a fucking boss and got bored of shit and did different shit sometimes

>>9751678
That picture is not of the real author. Will I Am Shake Speare even said his own meter sucked because he wasn't writing for the poetry. Shakespeare is a hidden wisdom text tbqh

Why is he held in such high regards ? Racine and Corneille wrote better tragedies.

Literally who?

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giv Doors of Stone

>>9751607
It would be slightly less liberal and considerably less purple, so yes.

>I'm a bit confused.
then stop getting your education from 4chan and read

stupid cunt

The only way to understand Nietzsche is to read Nietzsche. He's not complicated like most other philosophers, and he says a lot with much less.

>>9751522
Ah, Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky placed above Nietzsche and Sartre. As they should be.

The text is purple?

>>9751442
that's one of the very few books i've started and then given up on
i couldn't get past the first few pages. jesus fuck it's unreadable

Funeral Rites is better

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>>9751426
Library Genesis / Sci-Hub

>>9751452
>good black authors
>good female authors
>Empty Folder
Fuck you.

what?

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You ever notice how it's easy to get your idea across if you're talking to someone you know? That's because you know your audience, and can communicate your idea in a manner that best suits them. You know their qualms, their feelings, their stances on a variety of things, and with these things in mind, you unconsciously construct your story for them with those qualms, feelings, stances in mind. Consider them pathways, or a maze of sorts through which you traverse on the way to making your point.

When, however, you're writing on a word doc, on a white sheet of paper and you have no concrete audience in mind, consequently you also have no pathways through which or around which your mind has to unconsciously traverse. You're left with an idea and no way of knowing the best way to communicate it.

My advice is to internalize an audience, perhaps only a friend, or your mom, or your professor, or a historical figure. Whoever it is, you must know them well. You must have battled with them, and lost and won some of those battles; you must have experienced some instances in which they were left confused by what you said, or unconvinced (depending on what your goals in writing are), and you must have experienced some instances in which they got it, in which they were convinced.

Let me give you an example with pic related in mind. When I play pool, I don't aim down the stick at the cue ball in such a way that it will hit the 8-ball (let's say) at the angle I want. No. I imagine in my head hitting the 8-ball at the exact spot I want WITH THE STICK. I do this all the while I'm aiming at the cue ball, but because my focus is entirely on the 8-ball, my body unconsciously positions itself in such a way on the cue ball that I end up hitting the 8-ball where I want.

In short, what I'm saying is don't focus on WHAT you're writing. Focus instead on your audience. Make sure they're alive right there in front of your mind as you're writing. This is what you do when you SPEAK anyway. Think about this. Do you really rehearse what you want to say in your head, and then say it? Maybe when you're in class, you do, but then you know that what you do end up saying sounds contrived and you're never satisfied with your performance. When are you satisfied with your performance. Chances are it's when you're having an interesting conversation with a good friend, when--because they're a good friend--you can focus entirely on them instead of partly or entirely on your own thoughts, on what you should say and how to say it.

Likewise, with writing, let your mind do the work of constructing the message on it's own while you focus on an audience.

why bother reading someone who couldn't even live with himself. the only sincere moment in the life of David Foster wallace was when he kicked away the chair. the rest of his life was a lie, the new sincerity was a joke whose punchline was the creaking of a leather belt around the rafter.his literary career was a menagerie of self help lies told to keep his depression at bay. the audience pussy and drugs were the ghosts at that feast of hypocrisy. the depression was warranted because behind all the gimmicks and the self awareness and the bandannas was no discernible talent