Which of them better captured the themes of American life?

>>8436865
Noam Chomsky. Michel Foucault was French although BDSM dungeons are surely a central part of US """culture"""

>>8436865
DeLillo because Franzen is a mouth-breathing retard.

>>8436941
Do either care about the immigrant's experience? Sure doesn't seem so, even though America is a nation of immigrants.

File: 1470813044316.jpg (40KB, 250x239px) Image search: [Google]

40KB, 250x239px

>>8436949
Go to bed, Junot

DeLillo, by far. The first three pages of Underworld is better than anything Franzen has ever written.

>>8436949
I'm the guy you (you)'d and an immigrant. All of the authors who consciously focus on the "immigrant experience" as it's currently defined are shit.

>>8436970
I pretty much agree, but it's a potent source to explore alienation and rejection, along the lines of the oftentimes bleakness of Russian literature. I'm astounded that no black author has quite brought afro american experience to the levels of dosto.

>>8436865
Roseanne

>>8436979
who is ralph ellison

>>8436949

Delillo is a wop.

>>8436979
Russian literature stems from a completely different sort of culture. The thing about Russia is that it's been a shithole in one way or another for most of its history. I'd even go as far as saying that the average black American has a far easier life than the average Russian living in Russia.

>>8436963
/thread
/Franzen

>>8436996
Having read Ellison, while he does capture the urban collegiate merkin black experience, he doesn't quite portray the despair or nihilism of it. These were better reflected on in film, afaik.

>>8437015
Blacks have been the most trodden upon race in recent history. Even Russian peasants look down on blacks, being able to ride on other white people's success by association. Why haven't blacks been able to produce an enthralling literary talent as the Russians have done many times over?

>>8437070
They really aren't. It only seems like they are because the conditions of their oppression can largely be blamed on whitey.

Objectivity American blacks, even in the ghettos are better off than anyone in a third world country.

>>8437002
>wop
better than a limey cunt

File: 1459910178526[1].jpg (72KB, 650x517px) Image search: [Google]

72KB, 650x517px

>>8436865
The only reason anybody dislikes Franzen is because they're jealous and don't like what he represents politically

He's the single most important American writer still active (yes, better than DeLillo and Pynchon) and will be remembered in a century as a defining figure of our time.

He's the go-to whipping boy for jaded teens and pseuds because white-bread dads aren't considered cool or edgy. The pseuds like to read somebody who they can hang a poster of on their dorm wall and sneer when they hear somebody mispronounce his name.

But in reality, the fiction Franzen's pushing is technically superior and more emotionally relevant than anything the pomo crowd has done since JR. He's warping the limits of American culture and finding kernels of insight deep within topics that are hated by wannabe-revolutionaries, topics like familial relationships, upper middle class milieu, and higher education. Topics that are more urgent and important to the average person than trash like meta-fiction, media, and identity politics, and yet ignored by the pseuds because they offer no image of contrarianism or mindless individualism.

I wouldn't be surprised if he earns the Nobel before his death. I'm looking forward to what will be I'm sure a long and fruitful literary career

>>8437117
Absolutely no one is "jealous" of Franzen, and you'd frankly need to have an extra chromosome or two to believe that anyone would be.

>>8436979
Unfortunately while ghetto stories could be told in a gripping and interesting way through literature, poverty in today's climate does not lend itself to writing. Although you do have a point, like, not even one truly great work from a black American. Weird.

>>8437133
Oh hey, the guy who thinks saying "you have trisomy" is an imaginative insult is back.

https://warosu.org/lit/?task=search&ghost=&search_text=%22you+have+trisomy%22

lol

>>8437136
For a while I thought Selby was a black author. Someone like him might do the trick.

>>8437146
lmfao

>>8437144
I have no idea who you're talking about, but that's the level of reading comprehension I'd expect from a Franzen shill.

Don Delillo has a fucking speech impediment and every time I read his books I think about it then slip back into subvocalizing and hear shit like "the whiter is impowtant, biww's new book sucks, he doesn't wike when I say that because he knows it's twue, he likes when I disagree with him." Then Bill says "the theme of the night is fowah"

>>8437161
yeah delillo and harold bloom sound like pussies tb/h

>>8436865
Who is the old guy sitting beside Stephen King?

>>8437178
Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars, the senile old coot. He got confused after resurrecting and wandered his way on stage.

>>8436869

underrated post :")

>>8436865
Gass

>>8438073
The stories from In The Heart of the Heart of the Country do capture that sort of creeping sense of emptiness and impending doom that comes with living a marginal life in murrica.

>>8438167
Yup, exactly what I was thinking

Between later McCarthy and Gass it's tough to decide which depicts contemporary America the best (other than Faulkner because he's undisputed king in that regard)

>>8436949
Lol probably bait, but Delillo has a fucking gay hispanic graffiti artist for a character in Underworld.

>>8438304
Gay characters are rarely leads in films or literature. Do you really think such a stereotype empowers Mejicans?

>>8437136
Yeah, really weird that black people don't produce great works of literature. Must be poverty

File: maxresdefault.jpg (86KB, 1280x720px) Image search: [Google]

86KB, 1280x720px

>>8437070
>>8437103

Blacks have been able to ride along on white people's success by association as well.

In terms of gdp per capita and purchasing power, "African America" was 44th in the world in 2014, between Portugal and Lithuania. Compared to the average African-African they're living a life of luxury.

>>8438362

>Blacks have been able to ride along on white people's success by association as well.

You see this on both sides.

For example "proud" white guys on 4chan have been able to ride along on the successes of great white men through virtue of their race alone when they have done nothing to really warrant the comparison with those men and what they managed to achieve.

>>8438456
>guys on 4chan have been able to ride along on the successes
Ridiculous argument tbqh

>>8438481

It's ridiculous how blatantly triggered you are by this, if that's what you mean.

>>8438456

I'm talking about gdp per capita, not "human accomplishment" or whatever you meant by that post. Blacks are the indirect beneficiaries of the plantation economy that enslaved them. They want reparations but, ah, they've already been paid. How funny.

>>8438494
>how blatantly triggered you are
Am I? I'm not the other idiot you're arguing with, but suggesting anyone can have success on 4chan is dumb bro.

>>8438496

>not "human accomplishment" or whatever you meant by that post.

I meant exactly what you meant. You just find the notion of you riding along on the success of other men disagreeable to the image you'd like to put forward right now. Those coy little "How funny." quips don't seem quite so biting when a hypocritical worm is saying them, do they?

File: 1779.jpg (20KB, 306x306px) Image search: [Google]

20KB, 306x306px

>>8437161
>it then slip back into subvocalizing

>>8438506

There's no need to get all flustered. Of course I'm the direct beneficiary of centuries of protestant industry, something I had nothing to do with, since I'm not 400 years old. I'm just pointing out something I find ironic, I don't know why you're taking it so personally.

>>8436872
he was so dreamy

>>8438456

>This kid has a good life because his foster father supports him better than his original father could have

>You have an inflated sense of accomplishment because you have brown hair like that foster father!!!

Liberal logic
You probably have a degree.

>>8436970
>you (you)'d

I hate this website

>>8437117
bad pasta. stop posting this.

>>8437161
heard many interviews, never heard that impediment. it sounds more like hes dying and gasping for air.