>there are people on /lit/ right now who unironically believe

Jacques Derrida here.

Before I make another post and engage in any discussion in this thread, I must first ask you to define the following words:

"greatest" (this one I'd like to understand the most)
"unironically"
"(all) time"

And what do you mean THESE books?

This is extremely important and I can't be an active participant of any discussion here, unless I know the meaning of the words you used.

You can't have a list of greatest books without including The Bible.

>there are people who unironically let memes influence their opinion of books they've probably never read

>>8060484
i can agree with GR
ulysses i never read, doubt i could
IJ was too boring to finish. dfw has some good ideas, but fuck his prose is shit

File: image.jpg (67KB, 500x500px) Image search: [Google]

67KB, 500x500px

>>8060511
>>8060519

File: 1447560796311.jpg (94KB, 540x639px) Image search: [Google]

94KB, 540x639px

>talking amongst classmates at uni
>one girl says her favorite three books are ulysses, gravity's rainbow and infinite jest
>/lit/izen detected
>i turn to her with a smirk "okay, tao lin"
>"tao lin?" she asks
>"the alt lit author"
>she looks confused
>"he didn't write any of those books"
>i can't withold a laugh
>"look don't get me wrong, I love all three of those books ..."
>she still doesn't understand
>"the meme trilogy, babe"
>she doesn't have any idea what i'm talking about
>she tries to discuss the books with me and it becomes clear i haven't read any of them
>somehow these other total reddit classmates have
>mfw people actually read the meme trilogy

>>8060535
I've heard Infinite Jest and Ulysses both mentioned by people in real life, but I've never met anyone who has read Pynchon or has even heard of Gravity's Rainbow.

>>8060552
I find a lot of English Students know of Gravity's Rainbow as some 'cra-a-a-a-azy' book, but few have read it. Most English Students have read Infinite Jest and Ulysses.

I know three people personally who have read Gravity's Rainbow though, and most professors/critics in the literary world have all read it. Not obscure by a long shot here in Canada, I assume Pynchon recognition decreases the further you move from America though.

File: image.jpg (23KB, 223x270px) Image search: [Google]

23KB, 223x270px

>>8060552
I tell people it's pronounced Pinecone. By tell I mean I just say Thomas Ruggles Pinecone.

>>8060552
How is it even possible that you people haven't met a person in real life who knows about Pynchon or DFW?

My situation is different, I live in a shitty third world, third rate, third class slum, so of course no one here knows about the writers of the meme trilogy, but in the States/UK or any advance country...? How?

File: 1460843416641.jpg (51KB, 530x600px) Image search: [Google]

51KB, 530x600px

>>8060564
>mfw I call him Thomas Pinchy to people who've never heard of him and they go on actually believing that's the way it is

>>8060584
they don't leave the house

>>8060564
y du we call him pinecone

>>8060584
Ive never met anyone who knew who Pynchon or DFW were, I know several people who would know the name James Joyce but wouldnt be able to connect it with anything else

>>8060484
I'm reading Ulysses now because I'm curious how an author reimagines a piece of literature and makes it his own.

>>8060613
Where do you live?

>>8060535
please tell me this is a true story.

>>8060613
I've met someone who was familiar with 4chan and he thought infinite jest was great.

File: memes.png (1MB, 1127x701px) Image search: [Google]

1MB, 1127x701px

post 'em, /lit/

Patrician here:
Ulysses and Gravity's Rainbow are equal in their importance to the world, they're highly innovative, reach the sublime, and transcend all the memedom into pure unadultered Canon.

IJ is good, it's not the best thing ever, probably important for some early 20 year olds on here for getting through stuff, that's fine. It won't be the most memorable piece from his generation of authors, great ideas, some near perfect chapters, but too try hard at points especially Marathe's and Steeply's governmental debates. That being said, it's good and entertaining, not transcendent. The Pale King had potential if he would've finished the 2-3k pages he was planning on writing for it.

People from ages 18-35 mostly know Ulysses is, especially in urban areas. Most people in academics are very aware of it but very few, maybe 5-10% of English students at a given college/uni read it.

GR is much less known than Ulysses. Usually only adults that binge the Time 100 list or English students have heard about it but very few, I'm talking count within all 10 fingers at a given uni/college have read it.

IJ is becoming incredibly popular as a rite of passage for most college aged people, in the past year alone his name has blown up on campuses (residual effects from the End of the Tour). People will usually read an essay or a few short stories and proceed to talk about them ad nauseum for a year in any conversation about books until they decide they have ample time to overcome the hurdle they think is IJ.

That being said, GR/Ulysses some of the most important and influential work in the modern novel category at least, are they the best ever? I don't think anyone argues that because that's just pedantic, they're a lot of people's favorite books and thats okay. IJ is also a lot a favorite to a lot of people for obvious reasons, but again no one says its the greatest seriously, at least.

File: Gravitys 2.jpg (293KB, 1200x1600px) Image search: [Google]

293KB, 1200x1600px

>>8060637
>having the worst edition

File: unknownpuke.jpg (56KB, 576x379px) Image search: [Google]

56KB, 576x379px

>>8060645
>laminated

File: infinite.jpg (57KB, 629x376px) Image search: [Google]

57KB, 629x376px

>>8060637

>>8060637
they all look so new

did you even read?

>>8060645
what's wrong with it faggot. nice book club edition. what are you my mom

New Skepta's album is trash.

>>8060670
Looks like a hardcover, you mong.

File: 1462419707501.jpg (27KB, 238x351px) Image search: [Google]

27KB, 238x351px

>>8060535

>"the meme trilogy, babe"

>>8060739
are you retarded?

>>8060535
you should seek out a therapist

>>8060535
christ

>>8060535
There is no way this happened.

And how the fuck would she not know about Tao Lin then?

>>8060720
of course not

>>8061248
do you seriously think tao lin is as well known as pynchon, wallace, or joyce? do you get 100% of your literary news from /lit/?

>>8060724
>projecting

>>8060484
I mean DFW was talented but the other two were in a completely different tier
>Ulysses
>Gravity's Rainbow
>Infinite Jester

Tell me which of these doesn't belong.

>>8060484
Ulysses is pretty interesting from technical POV, not a must read for most people but definitely valuable for a writer.

Haven't bothered with Gravitys Rainbow nor do know anybody who did.

Infinite Jest is meme tier though. DFW can be witty but not witty enough to write a whole book.

>>8060506
It has a great impact but it's pretty shitty from technical, story, plot or characters POV, and everything else. Quite a big fanbase though.

I like Joyce, I really do. But he, Pynchon and Wallace are nowhere near half as amazing as some of the memeboys make them out to be on this website.

>>8060484
How did I not see this fucking thread here?

I could've just posted this here >>8061645

>>8061824
Ulysses doesn't
utterly unreadable behemoth

>>8060584

People don't recognise that America is a third world, third rate, third class slum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c9TyeKnGGk

>>8060586
SAVAGE

>>8060611
An old lady who saw me reading V. outside literally asked "Is that pronounced pinecone?"

>>8060484
Why would anyone not read these books? Aren't they considered classics at this point? Criticizing people for reading them is like criticizing people for reading catch 22 or Proust. Get over yourself

>>8062258
ulysses is a classic
gr is fairly important
ij is meme tier. won't be read in a couple decades

Definitive Meme Trilogy ranking:
> Ulysses > Gravity's Rainbow > Infinite Jest

No, this isn't up for debate. Ulysses is a truly transcendent and monumentally important piece of literature.

Gravity's Rainbow aspired to be the same and at times even comes close but it will never have the cultural impact that Ulysses did.

Infinite Jest is a good book but doesn't belong in the same conversation as the first two. A better, more comparable meme trilogy would be: Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow, The Recognitions.

I propose we follow Pound's advice and MAKE IT NEW. Well, only slightly new since we will only be replacing one book.

>>8062389

Do you really think IJ is only popular and highly regarded on 4chan?

>>8062109
Heh, that's it.

>>8062392
>The Recognitions
replace that with Women and Men

GR is a wonderful book. Perhaps the best Pomo in the past fifty years.

Ulysses I'll agree with. Bears repeated readings. Multiple layers of subtext, references, and not a misplaced word. A book I'll turn to again and again till I die. Perhaps only bested by Hamlet or Homer himself.

IJ I haven't read.

>>8062396
no he's very popular among a certain demographic - primarily US, 18 - 30, white, male, middle/upper middle class from suburbia and college educated/ing. IJ is currently popular because it describes and focuses on a very particular experience that fits the demographic I outlined, but it lacks the same kind of universality that something like Ulysses does.

Joyce managed to connect a very narrow experience of early 20th century Dublin and tap into something that is communicated globally across culture and backgrounds, but IJ falls short of that.

IJ is not bad, but it's not canonical masterpiece tier like Ulysses - not even close.

GR is somewhere in between.

>>8062411
No. I was picking books of similar quality and importance that also happened to be memes. Not books that are purely memes with no actual readers on this board.

File: ulysses.jpg (19KB, 375x500px) Image search: [Google]

19KB, 375x500px

>>8060637
Ulysses- 1961 Random House Hardcover (pic related)
Gravity's Rainbow-Penguin Deluxe Edition
IJ- 20th Anniversary editon

>>8060501

kek

>>8060501
There are people on 4chan who literally look at things from this perspective.

>>8060484
Is there a way to get all three printed in the same volume set?

>>8062499
Reading the 1946 version at the moment. In a cafe near a piazza in veneto.

>>8060724
owned

>>8062446
You echo my sentiments

>>8062601
Nice, you gon see all the epic ancient Roman ruins?

File: lildeadhand.jpg (91KB, 1080x720px) Image search: [Google]

91KB, 1080x720px

>>8062063

>>8062627
Thought about revisiting the Duino near Trieste tomorrow...with a copy of Rilke in hand. Aquilea isn't too far and worth the trip.

>>8062063
Didn't make it past proteus huh? That always weeds the plebs out.

>>8062691
>Aquilea
Nice, I wanna go there and steal a 2000 year old piece of stone.

You should visit Ostia Antica, but that's like on the other side.

>>8062858
It's worth it despite not much still existing or buried. Great mosaics but not rivaling those found in Ravenna

>>8062921
>Byzantine Empire
not even once

they are three solid choices though

>>8062396
Saw the book in some Paul Rudd movie

>>8063037
Hagia Sofia was sad in its curent state.

While i disagree, it's not a bad perspective. I haven't read any of these books, so of course i can't call the greatest, worst, or anything in between. But having these books on that list is an agreeable actitude.
Ulysses is a highly important work within modern english literature, while the other two are within postmodern english literature.
And that's what i can admire. People who aren't looking into a distant and inexistent past, like most movements have done.People who want literature talking about right now, not some deified greek writer. And yeah, you may say, Ulysses is clearly taking cues from homer, but that's not the same at the looking back of romantics. I was never in arcadia, i was born on an hospital, full of machines and people my family didn't know.
I'm not saying that romantic poetry is bad or that you shouldn't read homer. Neither i'm saying this three book list is perfect, i mean, does anyone unironically belive good literature has only be written in english?
But i can understand the sentiment of someone who stands by those books and think it can be pretty noble, in it's own way.

>>8063435
>I haven't read any of these books

why the fuck are you posting then

gas yourself

File: 1177 BC When civilization collapsed.jpg (48KB, 312x499px) Image search: [Google]

48KB, 312x499px

>>8060644
Thanks for the paste.

>>8063365
>ruined Hagia Sophia
>destroyed Parthenon and turned it into a mosque
>stripped pyramids off the outer casing stones
>obliterated the Eastern Roman Empire and the Balkans
>recently destroyed ancient cities such as Nimrud and Palmyra

Why do they do this?

>>8060670
Going out on a limb here, it may be a plastic sleeve

File: 88a.jpg (35KB, 486x355px) Image search: [Google]

35KB, 486x355px

>>8063435
>I haven't read any of these books
Then why do you think your opinion matters?

Is Infinite Jest worth reading?

File: 20160520_185331-1.jpg (3MB, 3027x1652px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 3027x1652px

kek I think I'm the only one who actually read my copies.

>>8062109
If being a first world country means being cucked by muslims, I'd rather be third.

>>8062858
Nigga, the rocks in my garden are more than 2000 years old. You can have them for free, don't even need to be a degenerate thief.

>>8064645
Yeah, but these are rocks that have been altered/shaped by humans from over 2000 years ago.

>>8064120
Did you ever read your IJ in public?

Why does everyone's copy look like shit? Like, where do you read? I only read at home and none of my books end up looking like that.

>>8060501
>greatest
Most great

>unironically
Devoid of irony

>(all) time
Unbounded by limits of time

File: 1458800912169.jpg (122KB, 768x765px) Image search: [Google]

122KB, 768x765px

As somebody who is just getting into classic literature (read Plato's The Republic, and Dante's Inferno Trilogy, and currently reading Infinite Jest), Infinite Jest is by far my favourite book of all time so far. I also purchased Gravity's Rainbow. What should I read after those 2? I was thinking of buying something by DeLillo, maybe White Noise.

(Someone talk to me about Infinite Jest. Please. I'm 400 pages in and I absolutely love it and how it extensively refers to the footnotes. Does it get better? I'd die.)

>>8064655
>I care more about the pages than the ideas conveyed within them

>>8061827
What? The Bible has influenced the entire modern world thanks to Europe and N. America. Not to mention the sins and the rule of three (heaven-purgatory-hell, father-son-holy spirit) are fairly difficult to argue against even to this day. The Bible honestly is the greatest book ever written from a critical standpoint.
Second would probably be the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Third is whatever tickles your fancy. Probably some ancient Eastern text as far as a realistic placement goes.

>>8064683
>Dante's Inferno Trilogy

oh god

File: 1459072026910.jpg (16KB, 237x250px) Image search: [Google]

16KB, 237x250px

>>8064827
sorry, the divine comedy, semantics

>>8064683
I felt that same way about infinite jest until I started reading Gaddis after I finished infinite jest, and I realized just how much prose matters as much as the ideas behind the novel, and while IJ was very insightful to my life, the delivery of his ideas was poor in that his prose was boring and tedious, and his ideas are very culturally specific, and not nearly as universal as other great works.

>>8064890
Any book by Gaddis (or others) you could reccommend?

>>8064946
I'm about 150 pages into the recognitions and I highly recommend it. Pynchon's novels usually greatly explore a moment-by-moment sense of logical cause and effect, whereas each step is logically connected to the next, but the initial premise has little to do with the final result, which for me, is incredibly frustrating and why I haven't even touched gravity's rainbow because I can only imagine how much of a mess it is.

The recognitions is far more linear, just verbose at times, and the insights and moral instructivity that I really liked infinite jest for are overwhelmingly common in the recognitions, and the recognitions was just so fun for me to read.

What's ur favorite passage in IJ so far, I think I remember mine being around page 400 :)

File: 1458611243802.gif (334KB, 454x388px) Image search: [Google]

334KB, 454x388px

>>8064980
Will get the Recognitions, thanks a bunch , stranger. :)
My favourite so far, which I guess is kinda embarassingly elementary, but resonated with me so much so that i had to highlight it (never have done this)
"[...] almost nothing important that ever happens to you happens because you engineer it. Destiny has no beeper; destiny always leans trenchcoated out of an alley with some sort of 'psst' that you usually can't even hear because you're in such a rush to or from something important you've tried to engineer."
if you can remember, what was yours?

>>8064989
His "Boston AA is like no other..." chapter is my favorite, just because it was also thematically relevant to me

File: image.jpg (64KB, 300x451px) Image search: [Google]

64KB, 300x451px

>>8060484
This is the greatest book ever /lit/ers!!

>>8064890
>Gaddis
Well memed my friend!

>>8065024
>>8064989
I'm just about there in IJ now. Did you guys must have started in the summer too?

Those horrifying AA stories, damn.

>>8065065
lool your retarded gaddis is the shit

>>8065107
Joseph McElroy is.

>>8065152
yeah he's dope as well

>>8061579
I don't know anyone that knows Wallace or Pynchon. Tao Lin has had interviews and book reviews in the papers.

>>8065087
I read it almost a year ago dawg

>>8065181
I've had conversations in real life about DFW and Joyce, although those conversations always started with the other party stating they had not read the books

>>8065181
>Tao Lin has had interviews and book reviews in the papers.
uhhh
wallace wrote one of the most well known books of the 90s and has had more interviews than any one man needs

and pynchon is pretty much a literary legend

File: Screen Shot 2016-05-21 at 1.59.49 AM.png (150KB, 546x542px) Image search: [Google]

150KB, 546x542px

>>8065224


I just know people who have read The Crying of Lot 49, maybe some of Dubliners or A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

I see English students as the pharmacist in 2666 pic related

>>8060484
How do you ironically believe something, OP?

>>8065258
too much text in that pic

is this worth reading? someone tell me

>>8060501
Your obscure literary reference is making me wet

>>8065266
nah its really not

>>8065267
>>8060501
i don't get it :(

>>8065305
2obscure4u

>>8064666
How does one "ironically" consider something to be good or bad then?

>>8065258
what the heck
wasn't that exact gag in savage detectives? unless i've read this excerpt before - i havent read 2666 - i could have sworn ...

talking about how one of the pseudointellectual visceral realists always read author's short books so he could say he had read them

>>8064096
I thought it was pretty good. I like his prose which probably puts me in the minority here, but w/e. There is a part about game that I did not like and went on too long, but all in all I thought it was pretty good. Whether it's worth reading is up to you. I had to read the thing twice before I began to understand what's going on. But then maybe I'm just dumb.

File: 1461815750879.png (393KB, 449x585px) Image search: [Google]

393KB, 449x585px

I'm in the middle of Meme's Rainbow, nearly 300 pages in. Is there any point in finishing the book? It feels like an immense chore with occasionally cool scenes like the poop one. Does it ever "get good?"

File: Kim Jong-un.jpg (61KB, 1024x1203px) Image search: [Google]

61KB, 1024x1203px

>>8062109
>t. Kim Jong-un

>>8065482
Read the books you want. There's no quiz afterwards. I really enjoyed GR -- one of my favorites. That being said if you don't enjoy it find something else. Do you really need other people's justifications to continue on?

File: danny.jpg (35KB, 398x600px) Image search: [Google]

35KB, 398x600px

>>8065525
I guess it'll join the stacks with Karamazov and all the other long unreadable classics.

>>8065530
Triggered

>>8065530
Karamazov is extremely readable, the only difficult part about it is its length.

>>8065547
Therefore it is unreadable, you retard.

>>8060501
Derrida would never get to the point in this many words.

>>8065609
t. undergrad

>>8064666
Funnycunt

>>8062499
Same except for Ulysses which is a Wordsworth classic collection of all of James Joyce's novels :^)

File: igSPL2Q.gif (677KB, 322x230px) Image search: [Google]

677KB, 322x230px

>>8065597
lmfao why are you on a lit. board if you cant read a long book
>>8065024
yeah that one was good, im really liking the AA scenes bc joelle and erdedy and gately are cool
>>8065087
haha yeah
the most fucked up chapter so far i think is poor tony having a seizure in the subway. so awesome

>>8060637
not reading the Gabler edition

>>8062452
Can you explain how IJ fits the middle/upper middle class white male demographic and Ulysses doesn't?

How come barely anyone on /lit/ read Finnegans Wake?

>>8065609
Read more Derrida.

>>8066433
he never said that Ulysses doesn't his point was that Infinite Jest lacks the universality that Ulysses has not that Ulysses does't appeal to certain demographics

>>8065530
stick to hitchhiker's guide, redditor

I have the spanish translation of those 3.


Feel like making a question now but just going to post.

File: 1306117342283.gif (62KB, 362x332px) Image search: [Google]

62KB, 362x332px

I've read V. Tcol 49 and inherent vice, pretty comfy reads, am I ready for the ultimate pinecone ?

What should I read by ernest hemingway

File: 1463357537133.jpg (169KB, 600x600px) Image search: [Google]

169KB, 600x600px

>>8062446
I like gravity's rainbow, but I prefer Mason & Dixon and Against The Day.

They take the pomo to less absurd levels, have more coherent plots, but are still mad Pineconian.

>>8064734
>purgatory
have you even read it?

>>8066815
no one even read the meme trilogy

people like to pretend and meme these books to death

>>8068409
You should be, especially if you've read V.

>>8064120
>implying you didn't just buy them used and that you actually read

>>8068480
Yes. Purgatory was my own inference. My fault for not stating so.

>>8069001
The Bible is very clear. There is no purgatory.

>>8062452
that is all just your speculation. I see no reason why IJ would not be popular universally. Its Sadies Smiths favorite book after all

>>8065946
Nigger, I've finished long books such as Ulysses. I finished them DESPITE their length. I literally was excited for the book to end because it was so fucking horrible after a certain point. Think about Anna Karenina and those hundred or two hundred pages Tolstoy spends on fucking corn. Every single one of those long novel writers do this. Literally who cares besides a few agriculturalists from 19th century Russia?

Crime and Punishment is a great example of a well-executed longer novel, but guess what? Brothers K. belongs in the trash. Dos couldn't do it again.

>tfw you want to wring the author by their neck because they think each of their farts smell nice enough to capture on every page and that it would betray the muse to omit a few of them.

>>8060535
if you met a girl who had read even one of these novels like you wouldn't immediately drop to your knees

>>8062109
>America
>Third World
If you read this, regardless of your opinion on the U.S., I urge you to educate yourself and never use this descriptor again in regards to that country; "First World" is a term that was coined specifically in order to refer to the United States of America and her allies. The "First World" can, per definitionem, never exclude the U.S.A.

The actual joke is that no one ever seriously discusses any of those books on /lit/. Ever. There are NEVER any serious discussions on Gravity's Rainbow, Ulysses, or Infinite Jest. Because if there were, if people were actually intelligent and patient enough to read all of these books and then seriously discuss them, /lit/ would be a good board; all there is is "Joyce le FART MEME LOLOLOLOL", "BANANAZ SO QUIRKY," and reaction pics of David Foster Wallace looking silly. Or perhaps, "Which edition of Ulysses is the best? What's your favorite chapter?" "This book is obscurantist pretentious bullshit fuck you /lit/" "What the fuck is the point of Gravity's Rainbow? I tried to get past 20 pages but couldn't," etc., etc., ad nauseam.

If /lit/ actually ever considered that perhaps if Bloom was using the pseudonym of Henry Flower, why couldn't "Martha" have been using a fake name too, and why couldn't she have been a woman character in the story that Joyce subtly suggests to be Martha ... then /lit/ could actually work on solving this enigma (and many others that Joyce threw in --- like who was the man in the macintosh?), and this amount of people being able to work together would instantly be better than the Joyce-literary-criticism factory.

If /lit/ actually decided to research about Pynchon's historical sources in Gravity's Rainbow, they would gain and give a far greater understanding of it than most literary critics would.

And if /lit/ ever actually considered that the anti-entertainment was in James's head and that's why he blew his head up in a microwave...

/lit/ would actually be a good board

/rant

>>8060614

It really doesn't have that much in common with the Odyssey.

>>8065267
>Derrida
>Obscure

lol

>>8070371
>/rant
upvoted

>>8070526
Thanks

GR was probably the biggest waste of time I've ever committed to.

Like it's neat for the first 50 pages but after that the novelty wore off. Might as well just throw it in a corner and say you've read it.