Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 4045. page

>>7870725
Tell us OP, are you authentic?

>>7870725
If you think authenticity exists anywhere, including yourself, no place will have what you're looking for. Consider yourself in their inauthentic, delusional shoes. You are the same as them; don't fall the le intellectual plight meme.

On the other other hand, move to Bamako or Ashgabat and see what that's like for you. But we all know you're not going to do that.

Don't live in a city. The country is better for writing.

why are you posting on a literature board about non-literature content

>>7870722
Because I write as a hobby, I read actual books all the time, I just spend too much time reading shitty books for stupid reasons and I need to have a use for all this stupid knowledge I've accumulated.

>>7870715
what's the worst line you've read in the book?

>>7870705
What's happening is part of a phenomenon I wrote about a couple of years ago when I was asked to comment on Rowling. I went to the Yale University bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.

But when I wrote that in a newspaper, I was denounced. I was told that children would now read only J.K. Rowling, and I was asked whether that wasn't, after all, better than reading nothing at all? If Rowling was what it took to make them pick up a book, wasn't that a good thing?

It is not. "Harry Potter" will not lead our children on to Kipling's "Just So Stories" or his "Jungle Book." It will not lead them to Thurber's "Thirteen Clocks" or Kenneth Grahame's "Wind in the Willows" or Lewis Carroll's "Alice."

Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

Our society and our literature and our culture are being dumbed down, and the causes are very complex. I'm 73 years old. In a lifetime of teaching English, I've seen the study of literature debased. There's very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she'd been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn't even good nonsense. It's insufferable.

>>7870714
Is this a copy pasta?

Fuck this is sad if it´s true.

>>7871382
No

>>7870665
Why would he say that?

>>7870665

Whoa

>>7870665
Can black people ever catch a break?

>>7870274
Courtesy bump. Godspeed OP

Is the MLIS in Ireland in UCD? Trinity is the one with all the badass library pictures.

I say apply postgrad to Trinity, and do your masters elsewhere. Check out your shelf stacking employment prospects too.

>>7870274
Hi! American Librarian here. There are library undergrad degrees, but to hold the official title of "Librarian" you need the master's degree, MLIS.

He looks down at the boy next to his feet with a snide smile on his face - "Isn't that right?" he asks in a lower voice, then reaches forward to pet the young man's dirty blonde hair, who appears to be studying the floor with an intense focus.
Vladimir looks back up, and continues "When I say we've had setbacks, I'm talking about Poland of course. Petty, mutinous, backstabbing Polish. They've given us a really hard time taking over this continent. But...They're not so rebellious now, are they?" - he chuckles, then reaches down and lifts the boy's head up with his finger, eyes finally visible, anger, defeat, but also fear shining through. "They do make excellent cocksuckers however" He continues with a belly laugh. The boy's eyes swell with tears and he quickly looks down again in shame. "Now, now, none of that" continues Putin, and softly, almost affectionately pulls him between his legs and buries his hands in his hair, gently comforting his distressed prize.

Looking up as if nothing had transpired he continues. "I'm sure we'll have more difficulties along the way, but do not let that discourage you. Our enemies are many, but we're strong. We're resourceful. Nobody can deny that. Our great nation will always prevail" he exclaims forcefully then motions behind his back, at a huge Russian flag. "Glory to Russia!" he yells, and similar cries echo in the room, but also outside on the streets. Unseen to all of them, in secret, the first carriers depart from the Iberian Peninsula.
It has begun.

>implying Putin wouldn't take Turkey first and have his palace in Istanbul

more like a utopia t b h

>>7870116
get out of here old man

A cliche in every sentence. The only writer I've ever had a more allergic reaction to is Dan Brown. I love genre fiction but King just plain can't write. I wonder if people who love him aren't bugged by cliches or just don't notice them.

>>7870116
You write shitty tomes of scat and scares.
Meaningless. Drivel.
On how many pages have been mentioned the "hairs growing from the edges of her areolas?" How many magic negros? How many telepathic children? How many readers defiled? How many bookshelves groaning under the weight of your ignominious collection?

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>tfw 6 word essay due tonight at midnight

Mates, I'm having a fucking panic attack

I shouldn't have put this off for so long

>25 word shitpost due in 30 seconds
>haven't even memed yet

just fuck my shit up senpai

>>7869945
You get an hour each page, that isn't even hard. Get off of /lit/ and start writing.

How do you read an opera? If you've been to one, does that count?

>>7869936
Depends on if you did read the libretto.

>>7869943
They project the English translation above the stage and I read that...

>>7869621
tfw I can't say Umberto Eco is my favorite living author anymore.

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This was good IMO

Pynchon, DeLillo, Ferrante, Rushdie, Ishiguro

Open City, A Visit From the Goon Squad, The Buried Giant, all 4 Neopolitan novels

DFW

>>7869405
Kafka.

Philippe Sollers.

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I liked the inter-mingling of three narratives; the use of graphology to reflect what was happening in the book (or to emulate scattered notes on various papers, etc); the atmosphere of the book; and the Navidson report (moments of it were genuinely unsettling and I don't know a book from recent days that has been effective in unsettling me).

It's not perfect, it's flawed, but I did enjoy it. I don't think I'll bother with that 27-volume shit he's doing now though.

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this helped me communicate with anons. I have with it the same relationship your mother does to an electric dildo: I didn't enjoy it itself, but rather the effects it brought on me.

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Read it after people on /lit/ told me how boring it was, out of curiosity. Genuinely loved it.

>>7869023
Just when I though lit couldn't get any more embarrassing...

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1iRxwNrmhBo

>>7869036
thank you, i thought that was the right way to pronounce it.

also what kind of accent is that exactly?

tailchasers song

>>7868847
Do human animals count?

if so, Infinite Jest and Gravity's Rainbow

>>7868869
Dude, humans arent animals, we're people,

>>7868596
The bug guy represents someone who's too stupid to do their own homework

>>7868614
he's a bug guy

I think it's fairly evidently supposed to be along the lines of the alienation, dehumanization and crippled self-worth/image of the modern working man.