/lit/'s new and improved book and writers poll. Thread #5

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>>7314697

still bullshit and evidence of ballot stuffing that ij has 15 more votes than second place

Looks like /lit/'s all about dat novel

word

>>7314697
Thank you so much, polling anon. I was in the original thread where you decided to make a new poll, and it's been wonderful watching this all take shape.

>>7314697
This should solidify Moby Dick's place in the second meme trilogy

>>7314714
Someone proposed that it be included in a classic trilogy instead.

>>7314704
It's dumb that Dante and Milton are so low on both lists, and there are very few other poets

>>7314702
well everyone had three votes for books and authors senpai

>>7314727
Ehh, I think that a great deal of crossposters interfered, but, overall, it is still fairly accurate.

>>7314702
Where's the evidence?
>>7314712
It's been a lot of fun doing this.

Good night /lit/, love you

>>7314720
What is the rest of the second meme trilogy?

>>7314704
or ballot stuffers are all about DFW memes

>>7314754
The Classic Trilogy would consist of Don Quixote, Moby-Dick, and War and Peace

>>7314791
So we have the first meme trilogy: IJ, GR, and U
And the first classics trilogy: DQ, MD, and WP

We need more discussion of the latter three and a second meme trilogy then to freshen up this board.

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There's a thread about a second meme trilogy up right now. Here's the pic of what is, in my opinion, the best idea so far.

>>7314796
Isn't there another one comprising of Blood Meridian, Book of the New Sun, and Name of the Rose?

>>7314742
The evidence is that there's a very sudden spike in votes for the first place winner, and if you count the votes I think you'll find that most of the votes for IJ came later in the poll, when people could have noticed it wasn't getting too many more votes than other books, so they decided to stuff the ballot

68/100

Infinite jest has to be the board's #1

If it wasn't then what are we doing here.

>>7314835
I think we've foudn the ballot stuffer

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>>7314697
69% of the books from the last poll made it onto this new one.

The highest placing new additions are:
1. Confederacy of Dunces (26)
2. Book of the New Sun (27)
3. Les Miserables (35)
4. If on a Winter's Night a Traveler (50)
5. For Whom the Bell Tolls (53)

The highest placing books to drop off the old list are:
1. The Plague (35)
2. The Silmarillion (42)
3. Leaves of Grass (53)
4. Harry Potter series (54)
5. A Clockwork Orange (55)

Of the books that stayed on the list, the greatest gains were made by:
1. The Iliad (94 to 18)
2. The Old Man and the Sea (97 to 34)
3. Paradise Lost (98 to 37)
4. Portrait of the Artist (67 to 12)
5. Steppenwolf (93 to 42)

The greatest losses were:
1. Dune (29 to 83)
2. The Picture of Dorian Gray (16 to 64)
3. A Farewell to Arms (46 to 93)
4. Journey to the End of the Night (10 to 52)
5. Invisible Cities (22 to 57)

>>7314840

I'm not him and I agree

you must be new

>>7314866
If it had only 5-10 more votes I wouldn't be calling bullshit, but 15 is too many

>>7314872

you must be seriously offended if you've brought it up this many times

it had to be number one and it is.

>>7314882
Because of ballot stuffing

>>7314803
it should be Moby Dick, A la recherchechec du temps, and war and peace my bru

People who should not be on the authors list: Stephen King, Alan Moore, Terry Pratchett, George R. R. Martin and Neil Gaiman. Who voted for these?

>>7314853
sad to lose The Plague but overall I think the new one is better

>>7314884

the author is dead

I doubt any actual ballot stuffing took place, but even if it did, in this particular it hardly changes the meaning of the results

remove the vote count pleeaseeeeeeee

>>7314903
Actually it changes the meaning in that it reveals that DFW fans are stupid babies unwilling to play fair

>>7314904
Nope. It will be there to stay in order to remind us forever of the egregious ballot stuffing that took place.

>>7314916

>play fair

get fucked

do you know where you are? the memes will never die and the ballots aren't stuffed

sorry your Russian papi didn't get more votes

>>7314922

take some ritalin dude

>>7314934
Actually I would have liked Moby-Dick to win, and it actually won an earlier poll that also used Google (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1373EVoFPffWUVOdDyUHzz4qJD5AE_NB5dsZoGiKNPyI), but no one made a pic of that poll.

>>7314853
Those are some big improvements.

>>7314853
I'd love to see all the information you collected on this. Overall I concur with what other people are saying, this new poll and chart are significantly better than the earlier ones.

>>7314701
try getting into a party with that ratio

>>7314853
New list is much better.

>>7314697
Somebody edit this, so there isn't the vote count anymore.

>>7314872
I think a big part is that DFW votes weren't split between more than one book. Just look at the top of the authors chart -- he's actually fourth, but Dostoevsky, Joyce, and Pynchon all have more than one book near the top of the list. Since we only got 3 books most people didn't choose two by the same writer.

>>7314697
there is a typo in Siddhartha, you are missing the first h

>>7316308
Yup
The reason is that DFW fans either have only read IJ or mostly care just for it.

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>>7314697
>Kafka on the Shore
>The Great Gatsby
>American Psycho
RIP /lit/

>>7316340
I've actually read everything he's written and just think Infinite Jest is the best. I used my other votes on other writers. I just think that with him it's more clear cut what his best work is, rather than choosing between (say) Gravity's Rainbow and Mason and Dixon or Crime and Punishment and Brothers Karamazov.

Also people tended to only vote for novels, which makes it more clear-cut for DFW fans.

>>7314701
So it's true: Dostoevsky isn't only better than Tolstoy; he's way better.

>tfw you were the one to suggest ranking authors as well as books

Don't know how Fyodor got first though wtf... Muh tolstoy

>>7316423
Nabokov would like to have a word with you

>>7316413
those are all fairly acceptable. plebby, sure, but not as bad as >4. Harry Potter series (54), etc.

ITT: OCD

>>7314892

Fucking hell, putting Proust in a meme trilogy would probably do great things for /lit/

I have an idea here too, hear me out guys:

the anti-meme trilogy: short, entry level meme novels
maybe Of Mice and Men, Slaughterhouse Five, Catcher in the Rye

The goal is to resist the temptation of the pleb books until you've finished the trilogy of meme trilogies. ie if you've read the anti-meme trilogies before completing all the other meme texts, you're a certified pleb

What can I find on this list that's not referenced on other lists on the internet?

>>7314697
Mason and Dixon is definitely too high up. More people should have voted. (I somehow missed the voting).

>>7314697
>Tropic of Cancer
What the fuck?

>>7314697
I've never read American Psycho, is it really good?

>>7316899
i loved it, a lot better than the film

>>7314697
How is Goethe not on the list?

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>>7316509
>more people should have voted
>literally the largest poll /lit/ has ever done for the yearly chart
>missed voting in a poll that was open 11 days with a continuous thread

>>7317385
L O L
O
L

Will paypal $10 to anyone who creates a torrent containing these 100 in epub or mobi

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>>7314827
That isn't very compelling evidence
>>7314853
Nice was thinking of doing something like this. Thanks for that
>>7314904
>>7315962
Why can't you do it? It's not that hard.
>>7316321
Fixed it
>>7316493
What do you mean?
>>7316899
>>7316914
Isn't the book a lot more brutal/edgier or something?

>>7314697
>Votes
>2
That is pathetic

>>7317981
as long as we're helping you fix typos, the correct name of #67 is The Sirens of Titan

i still feel like showing the votes is a mistake
keep that shit opaque, man

>>7318063
>i still feel like showing the votes is a mistake
Seriously, the fact that # 69 - 100 only got 2 - 3 votes means this is a complete joke.

>>7314697
HOLY QU'RAN

>>7314701
Holy shit Murakami made it to #20 and Mishima isn't even on the list?

>>7318036
>>7318092
/lit/ is a small board.
>>7318060
Thanks for that. I'll make a more corrected version of the list later in the thread. Don't want to post the list everytime someone points out a mistake.

>>7317686
Fuck yeah - some one do it!

>>7318118
Yeah, what the fuck.

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>>7318118
>>7318235
You guys talking about Yukio Mishima?

Polling /lit/ for a chart is fundamentally flawed

The vast majority of posers and voters on this board have read a very very small number of books/authors, so it just ends up being "vote for who I've read." The result is that a very small group of memed/popular authors get a lot of votes and you have a huge long tail of 2 - 5 vote books/authors, leading to a very very skewed and inconsistent list outside of the top 25/50.

>>7318280
Bless you child

>>7318092
All of the 2 vote books aren't there, they had to make it through tie breakers and were ranked from there based on that. So it's somewhat better.

>>7319644
The "tie breakers" were based on assigning numbers and then using random number generator to determine the ones on the chart.

>>7316538
Get out you pleb.

But seriously, what didn't you like about it?

>>7319654
That was the second-tier tie-breaker. The first-tier was a long and involved poll pairing up authors and books that had the same number of votes and people choosing their favorite from those smaller sets.

>>7318926
I mean..he's completely right. Just look at the results..

>>7316538
Plen

>>7317686
Nigga, it should be 50 cents per book at the very least.

>>7314701
>bunch of dead white men

>>7321774
>implying

>>7321774
Also a couple of dead white women

Something I will never understand: what's with the underrepresentation of to kill a mockingbird? is it just too reddit-core?

>>7314697
I can't remember what I voted for so I don't know whether I'm happy or not.

>>7323514
... Don't you at least know what you books on the list you appreciate?

>>7323514
>>7323921
Or rather, if there are books on the list that you do appreciate. If so, then you can bask in the glory of their presence.

>>7314701
where's goethe?

>>7323502
it's just not very good

>>7323929
Nowhere cause /lit/ users are plebs.

>>7314697
>the invisible cities
>the tropic of cancer
Go back to /mu/ so you can listen to the neutral milk hotel and the death grips and the animal collective

>>7324368
"waaah stop liking what i don't like/haven't read"

>>7314697

>Infinite Jest
>#1

I'll never understand this fucking meme

>>7324371
Not even that guy but Invisible cities is just genuinely bad.
I love Calvino, but that must be his weakest work by far

>>7324374
It's the perfect /lit/ book, since it's a book written by a talentless and depressed upper middle class white guy about the experiences of being white in the modern age. It's destined to be a book of its time, and we'll all be glad when it fades into obscurity in a couple of decades.

>>7324371
>>7324385
You two are idiots, the point of the post is the unnecessary "the" added to both.
Also Invisible Cities is fucking great you pleb.

My favourite books have changed since the poll. Can we get a redo?

>>7324390
Actually,

>>7324401
agreed

>>7324401
Quite.

>>7324395
Can you tell me what exacly did you like about Invisible Cities?
I found that it could have been a very interesting Idea, but it did not explore any themes in depth, and as a poetic prose exercise it is honestly average at best.

>>7324435
(1/2)
I think the brevity of Invisible Cities belies the density of content here. For me, the easiest way to understand Invisible Cities comes exactly at the mid-point of the novel, in the dialogue between Marco Polo and Kubla Khan where Marco Polo states that all the cities he is talking about is actually Venice. You can note that the work is symmetric, since the first and last chapters have 10 sections, and all the other ones have five, and this structure naturally lends to examining the center point.

Now, you can interpret what Marco Polo said about Venice literally, but he also states that he is using Venice as a lens to distinguish the characteristics of other cities – a compare and contrast in a sense.

Beyond the symmetrical in the 10 – 5 … 5 – 10 structure, there is also a “spiral” in the way he labels the sections. It’s hard to describe in words, but if you think of each named section (memory, desire, etc.) as a point on a wheel, the story progresses from the first spoke to the last spoke along the circle, though with structured shifts backwards and forwards.
Yet another structure is the linked chart, another version can be seen here - http://www.complit.illinois.edu/242/Calvino_2_files/an%20elaborately%20conceived%20formal%20structure.png, where the book is organized in layers.

I think the key here is that you can read the book both linearly or otherwise, organized perhaps by section (i.e. read all the memory chapters, then all the desire chapters, etc.), forwards or backwards (Diomira-Isidora-Zaira-Zora-Maurilia or reversed, Maurilia-Zora-Zaira-Isidora-Diomira). For the layered chart,you can see how you can read the book horizontally or vertically, forwards or backwards.

>>7324435
>>7324454

(2/2)
The way the book is structured simultaneously gives you the freedom to read it differently – in multiple ways that’s not just traditional linearity, but also in a sense restricts you to the possibilities yielded by the formal structure. Various cities (forgive I don’t remember which ones) have inhabitants who are in some ways freed and/or enslaved by connections, whether they be physical or abstract. There is also a city who is described as a spider web, which I think it’s a fairly explicit rendering of the way these connections both free and trap us, not unlike society/life/the human condition/insert generic motif here.

All of this leads to the structure of the book as a way to highlight the relationship between the universal and the specific. These descriptions are ostensibly of Venice, a single city, but Venice is used as a way to examine all other cities, and by extension, humanity. The individual parables are abstractions of a component of human life, ranging from the mundane to the extraordinary. I guess a straightforward way to interpret the labels is that each examines a single idea and how it affects humanity. Human experience is simultaneously singular and distinct, with all of us living experiencing the same world, but differently, similar to how different readers, or even the same reader, can read the same text in very different ways.

>>7324458
I have to admit I did not pay that much attention to the structure. I have it lying around, I might give it a reread

>>7324458
>>7324454
Thank you for this, truly.

>/lit/ will never be able to take a good favorite-book poll again because of redditors putting high-school tier books near the top

the Katie fiasco going on the front page of reddit for a day or so was the worst thing to happen to this board desu

>>7324374
There's something incredibly sad and banal about it.

>>7324458
You're a tripping faggot but you make good posts. Im conflicted.

>>7314701
>tao lin
solid lists apart from this aberration desu

>>7325102
see
>>7314853
We actually voted the plebbest of the pleb off this time, Harry Potter, and a lot of "high school tier" stuff didn't make big changes. The /lit/ you think existed is a spook.

>>7314701
>>7314697

these lists just reveal the sad state of the board.

mccarthy ten spots ahead of proust?
stephen king ahead of chekhov?
george rr martin ahead of keats?

sounds about right.

>>7327264
>ten spots ahead
obviously the point of the poll is lost on you.

>>7327264

Pretty sure the saddest thing is how few votes there are in the first place.

>>7327278

How so?

>>7318280
this desu ngl baka

good work tho OP

>>7327292
It doesn't have to correspond to what you think is good. There is nothing 'sad' about author A above B since you like B more.

Also, i bet a million imaginary dollars you haven't read more than 13% of those books.

>>7327322

If more posters on a literature board list Cormac McCarthy as a favorite than Proust, that is sad.

I'm well aware it wasn't a ranking poll.

As for what I've read on that list:

IJ
Moby Dick
Ulysses
Crime and Punishment
Blood Meridian
Lolita
Catch-22
Portrait of the Artist
The Stranger
Dubliners
Catcher in the Rye
The Iliad
Ficciones
Siddartha
The Trial
In Search of Lost Time
Dante's Devine Comedy
The Sound and the Fury
Paradise Lost
Hamlet
Slaughterhouse V
The Great Gatsby
The Metamorphosis
The Lord of the Rings
Pale Fire
The Hobbit
Meditations
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Of Mice and Men
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
To the Lighthouse
Dead Souls

How about you?

>>7318280
It's kind of sad how true this is. There surely ought to be something by Henry James among the horrible amount of science fiction and Hemingway.

>>7327344
Well done, anon. You win the imaginary million dollars i'd bet. I'll shut up now.

>>7325102
/r/4chan is a blight and a disease.

Infinite cockfest

>>7314697
>>7314697
I'm glad The Stranger isn't so high on the list anymore. Well, the 13th place is still high, but at least it's not fucking first or second place.
Overall a solid list, although similar titles are on here, in different order.

>>7314701
>Dosto and Joyce in top 2
Perfection.

>>7314697
Link is not working fag!

>>7327344
cant be fucked to list them all but this is only 30 something and I counted & have read 58/100

fight me if you dare

>>7329555
i've read 75/100 and I've no desire to read at least like 10 of them (IJ, GR, Blood Meridian, V, Ego and Its Own, Naked Lunch, etc.) so I'm almost done with this chart.

Is my e-dick bigger than yours now?

>>7329803
You sound well-read.

>>7329803
its bigger than mine friendo. though I've read all of those you named except the Stirner (which I will never read thanks to /lit/)

>>7329826
American lit has never been an area of particular interest to me desu so I was never super compelled to read those works. I was permanently turned off IJ by how much it got jerked on both Reddit and here t b h ;;

>>7329803
Your e-dick is quite long, but I'm afraid your planning never to read GR or Naked Lunch severely limits its girth.

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removed vote count and straightened out bottom text sorta with paint

>>7331345
Memes got stronger.
Also Dubliners on 14? It's so fucking basic tho. I'm pretty sure if it wasn't James Joyce's dummy bullet it wouldn't have any consideration.
It's the "well I haven't quite read Ulysses yet but I'm patrician you know" pick

>>7331777
>retarded opinion: the post

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>>7331345
You're my nigger.

>>7331915
He's kind of right. The Dead is really the only great work in Dubliners, and maybe A Little Cloud.

>>7332615
Consider suicide.

>>7332908
Consider Phlebas.

>>7331345
#67 should be "The Sirens of Titan" and #94 is missing the "t" in "Lighthouse".

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>reddit's top 200.

http://www.listchallenges.com/reddits-top-200-books

I'd say we win.

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>>7332615

Why even have a top 100 if some people have just 2 fucking votes. Make it a top 50 or something dude.

>>7334214
It's a strange list with both really great novels and trash like Sagan, Dawkins, Rand and Vonnegut.

For a board that is supposed to be so smart, this sure was done terribly.

Instead of voting on ONE BOOK. You should have voted on THREE or FIVE. That way you wouldn't get so many books with just 2 fucking votes, Jesus Christ.

>>7334283
>"users answered the question: What are your THREE favourite books?"

>>7334214
Holy shit, that is atrocious.

>>7331915
no u

>>7334283
Each vote was for three books. Learn to read.

>>7334253
unironically, what's wrong with vonnegut?
he's not an amazing or exceptional writer, but you mention him before jk rowling

>>7314697
Seriously, how is Goethe not on the list?

>>7334806
He's not in vogue. I'm absolutely certain that he's going to be a /lit/ meme within a few years though.

>>7334742
The fact that I didn't read Rowling and have recently read Cat's cradle which was terrible.

these lists need to be rebranded as books being memed in the 2015 calendar year. if you want to make a case that this board should continue to exist you can't say the top 100 books of all to is 50% dumb shit for existential high schoolers. this list is a fucking joke and the IJ meme needs to die with all the 17 year olds here

>>7314697

>Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

literally why?


please, tell me why

>>7336519
Because it's good

>>7334214
>the giver
>the declaration of fucking independence
I vomited a little. Say what you will about /lit/, but it has so much better taste than reddit.

>>7334283
Considering your reading comprehension, it is pretty surprising that you can even post.

>>7336549

oh wow now that I think about it, it was a pretty good book.

>>7336519
its a commonly discussed book here. You should be telling us why you don't like it

>>7336650

I didn't enjoy reading the words.

I guess it being the precursor to Ulysses would make it an important book. I don't think as a standalone title, its content would merit being on a best of list.
There are 3 Joyce titles on the list...

I've read some of the books on this list (and have most of the rest in my queue) and comparing any of them to Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man just seems stupid, the other books were actually fun to read

>>7336697

that being said, I guess this is a flaw of the voting system. the book was ok. and I can see the use of innovative literary techniques being a cool thing. I wouldnt put it on the list. probably just a meme list anyway

yikes

gr8 job tho polling anon and bless your heart

>>7334214
There are some good things in there, esp. the books in the old sticky picture what happened to that? like 1984.

>>7336650
>>7336697
Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man is one of the most sublime experiences I have ever had as a reader. I prefer it to Dubliners and Ulysses due to the extremeness of the sympathetic immersion in Stephen's mind. His thoughts are extremely complex - a combination of visual, aesthetic, political and religious ideas all come together in his bird girl vision, and if it strikes you in the way it struck me as I read it, you are right there with Stephen, understanding his reaction to the vision and his commitment to art and aesthetics as a kind of religion.

It also probably helps if you were raised Catholic

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>>7331345
The Lord's work anon.
Can you do the same for the authors?

>>7336985
My one and only real problem with this chart is how in the fuck Terry Pratchet got on there.
I even like Terry Pratchet, but never in a million years would I vote for him on a list of great writers.