Share your edgiest, most contrarian literary opinions

pynchon and dfw are complete hacks
im a pretty conventional guy

Literature is not that important.

If I could do it all over again I would have started with the Greeks.

>>9267632
Tolstoy and Dostoevski are equally good writers

>>9267632
Ulyssess boring as fuck desu

I'm a libertarian

All Western Literature is largely a failure for anchoring itself in the external world.

>>9267632
Shakespeare is nothing outside good prose, that's not a great writer

Literature was a mistake

>>9267927
See, I'm of the opposite opinion. The prose is fine I guess, the word play nice at times, what makes Shakespeare great in my mind is the plot, the character's arguing and debating with one another, and the humor!

>>9267632
Naked Lunch is the epitome of 20th century lit.

>>9267927
hnnnnggg

what shakespeare have you read, anon? some of his works are no doubt better than others and some are solely just for masturbation to prose, but I'm unsure how you could say king lear or hamlet had poor plots.

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>>9267632
There is nothing wrong with Harry Potter

David Foster Wallace didn't kill himself, we did

The Holy Bible is still relevant

>>9267984
We killed ourselves?

literature is a waste of time.
prose if fucking useless, i only care about the information the words carry.
all the meme books are utter crap.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men was pretty mixed. Some of it was great, some of it wasn't. It's really left a bad after-taste in my mouth for David Foster Wallace though and I'm hesitant to read more of his works. I feel like his skills as a writer would have been better for writing essays and reference text books.

>>9267983
I'm gonna be honest with you, right now I only remember my deep hatred of Macbeth. I am sure I didn't read king lear though.

Kafka - the Trial is enormously overrated

>>9268467
Shakespeare is only good for the humor.

>>9268014

I N T E R I O R I S M

N

T

E

R

I

O

R

I

S

M

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A lot of the canon are just outdated historical curios, and nothing more.

Just because they were influential doesn't mean they are still worth reading outside of historical value.

>>9268241
he wrote those too
(if you're willing to call Everything and More a reference text book (it's not a very good one))

books are for fags

walden was pretty boring and unmoving

>>9267984
>The Holy Bible is still relevant

probably the least controversial thing said in this thread desu

I strongly believe in the death of the Author

>>9268598
they gotta die sometime

>>9267927
He didn't write in prose pleb

Most words ending in "ism" or "ian" are completely useless and serve to obscure rather than clarify thoughts.

asian lit > western lit

only people who can't understand the languages disagree

There is no humor in Kafka

>>9268698
why can't people understand this?

do they think kafka was trying to be funny?

Stephen King did nothing wrong

>>9267663
This is not contrarian. Everyone I know who's read it has hated it. I think the only people who pretend to like it are those who do it in an attempt to look 2smart4u.

>>9267927
Shakespeare wrote in verse not prose you stupid fuck

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Infinite access to information makes polymathic, esoteric tomes far less impressive in our time.

"Post-moderns," for the most part, rely on ambiguity and nonsensical scribbling to compensate for the fact that they're just worse artists and intellectuals than the modernists.

Literature is absolutely, unequivocally dying, and this is because it serves little to no purpose in the modern world.

The Recognitions should have been 300 pages.

>>9268506
S P O T O N
P
O
T

O
N

>>9268698
>>9268767
Over the top depression comes off as funny to normal happy individuals because it's so far off from what they can relate to.

>>9267632
On the Road is good.

>>9268698
I never even understood where people find the humor.

>>9267728
What does this mean? What is an example of something not grounded in the external world. Not trying to argue here. Just curious.

>>9268797
They saw that one DFW video on youtube and read the anecdote that Kafka was laughing when he wrote something and bada bing bada bang

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>>9268787
Yeeeeeee boiiiiiii

>>9268698
>>9268767
Kafka reportedly found his own works hilarious.

>>9268774
>Everyone I know who's read it has hated it. I think the only people who pretend to like it are those who do it in an attempt to look 2smart4u.

Maybe for you, brainlet.

>>9268815
Source
From reading his letters and most of the stories it seems highly unlikely that humor was a theme in more than a handful of the short stories and to a degree the castle

>>9268817
Maybe for me what?

Free will is the most stupid concwpt being debated ecspecially by christians. Free will in the context of when you go to be judged god has the right to send you to hell for eternity. Nothing comws out of nothing so then every action since birth has been decided by previous experiences, choices based on experiences, genetics or other things inspirimg bad choices. Do you really think Hitler could have said no to killing the jews, not unless you change something that happend in his past. I know this isnt edgy to actual intellectuals but only to my dumb christian friends. Im 14 by the way so sorry for my bad grammar its not my good point.

No one should read the greeks except historians

>>9268774
What's to hate? I don't get it. There are a couple words and references you need to look up so you you start to convulse?
It was all just fun for me lad. Approach it like a friend.

>>9268890
Why

>>9268698
What about the Assistants in the Castle? They're slapstick goofballs

>>9268924
Yeah, I admit that their role in the Castle and the Castle in general, along with a handful of other short stories, might be an exception

harry potter is shit
YA is shit
DFW is shit
the greeks are shit
shakespeare is mostly shit
women are shit
women authors are shit
indian two-spirit fagbois are the extreme absolute worst shit ever undeniably
neutral on bloom
reading is boring

>>9268958
sorry, you must have mistaken this for the brainlet thread

Style guides for the English language, especially style guides written by Americans in the later half of the twentieth century (Strunk and White), are actually damaging to good writing, and should be ignored.

>>9268903
there isn't a single one of them for whom the majority of their views aren't stupid and uninformed. it's not their fault really since they lived 2000 years ago but we shouldn't bow to ancient dimwits just for the sake of "honoring the tradition" or something like that.

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>>9267663
my (more) controversial opinion: ulysses is extremely entertaining
>>9267927
what does this mean? his verse was good, but his plot, characters, etc. weren't? how many productions of shakespeare have you seen?
>>9267954
not sure you're using the word epitome
>>9268537
some examples?
>>9268580
agree
>>9268654
>autism
>>9268698
i definitely think the metamorphosis and the castle have humorous elements. something surreal can be terrifying and hilarious, in the same way that it's both familiar and strange. penal colony, the trial, and a hunger artist can be funny as well, in a morbid way
>>9268859
your grammar isn't too bad, but we have to remember that words like espresso and especially don't have an extra "k" sound before the first s

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Non-fictional books are more interesting than fictional books.

>>9269124
a shame they fucked up the ending of the bow so badly it destroys the whole look

>>9268825
Here's my contrarian opinion.

Pure absurdism is horrible. But mixed with slapstick, it's cool!

>>9268654
>lesbian

Deconstructionism is just a dressed up form of nihilism and a complete misreading of Heidegger.

Lacanian psychoanalysis is a critical lens that tells far more about those that chose to use it than any text.

Joyce was not a very good writer.

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>>9269177
>implying lesbians aren't completely useless
>>9270040
who are your favorite writers?

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>>9268793

>>9269009
Aristotle was right about literally everything, fuck you brainlet

>>9268537
>>9268496
>>9267927
>>9267663
>>9268890
Contrarian/Uncommon=/=Retarded
>reading in english for the prose is wasting time, talent can't make up for how shit the language is.

>>9267632
Greeks, Romans, and so on are trash.

Reason and such is trash.

The West is sick with the above.

>>9270261
>how shit the language is
In what way is it shitty? VERY genuinely curios

Heart of Darkness isn't racist and neither is Conrad.

>>9268985
hey... fuck you

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>>9270272

>Greeks, Romans, and so on are trash.

Confirmed for not gonna make it.

>>9267632
Something being more difficult for the average reader to enjoy doesn't mean it's better.

>>9268975
t. brainlet

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Eva Green is truly the most beautiful woman in Hollywood, hell, she’s the most beautiful woman in the entire profession of acting, if not the most beautiful woman in the world. Her dark hair, her smoky gray eyes, her perfect little pink lips, and yes, her gorgeous milky skin, are all unmatched in quality. Not anywhere in Hollywood, or the rest of the world, can one find a woman of such beauty. Along with her her physical perfection is her mental perfection; Eva overflows with sexual energy, not the loving and innocent kind, but the dark, lustful, passionate, and vulgar kind. Her lascivious energy, behavior, and appearance makes the /pol/tard enraged, as do her Jewish roots. Take for instance her casual attitude toward nude scenes, in particular her scenes in Noam Murro’s masterpiece: 300: Rise of an Empire. In the film Eva is fucked, choked, pinned against the wall, and absolutely ravished by the virile Stapleton. She takes great delight in the forceful fucking (Both her character, and the real her.), smiling and gazing at Stapleton throughout. She even goes so far as slapping Stapleton in order to make him dominate her further. All these attitudes and behaviors make the /pol/tard recoil in rage and horror. The /pol/tard cannot comprehend a woman enjoying sex, let alone revealing her true nature through it, and completely reveling in it. Truly, Eva is a woman who will not bend to any man’s will, least of all the will of a neckbearded neo-nazi who posts on obscure internet image boards founded by child pornographers. She is, in complete honesty, a strong and independent woman, and she expresses this through her sexual freedom primarily. I believe what enrages the /pol/tards the most is the fact that they will never have her (nor any Jewish goddess like her), and so they attack her on her Jewish faith and origins in order to protect their own cold, weak, and pathetic hearts.

Most of the time, it's more valuable to live your life than to escape it by reading books.

>>9269129

But this is true.

75-80% of what I read is nonfiction. With rare exception, all fiction is shit.

>>9270386
Wrong.

>>9270290
I really wish this didn't even have to be contrarian opinion seeing as heart of darkness isn't even about racism or niggers

>>9270318
Are you implying I should go outside?
If so, FUCK you

>>9270317
I have to admit for a kike she is pretty hot, like honorary Aryan tier desu

>>9270653
>cheat angle
>professional photography
>kilogram of makeup
>professional stylists
The tricks of the Jews can never surpass the inherent virtue and beauty of the white Aryan woman

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>>9270317
>that hound
>most beautiful actress
try again bucko

>>9270691
Seydoux has been in fucking everything the last couple years. I used to think pretty highly of her. She's just another piece of meat these days.

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>>9270700
to be honest i think there was a "gap" where she was doing shitty movies. her earlier stuff is pretty good and everything since sister has been great, it was just that gap where she did mission impossible and that movie about how marie antoinette was a lesbian

all art is propaganda. Art is a lie and only good liars make good artists. the rest must work. A painter gets paid to either paint a house a decent color with no stains, but an artist gets paid to paint something to either remind someone of someone else who isn't there, or create a false ideology. Art distracts us from the truth. Art creates death. As I listen to hardstyle on youtube...that's legit how I feel sometimes though. I don't take photos to be a photographer, they are documents and nothing more. I don't create music to take people away, but simply to create noise that sounds pleasing to the ear, but not to escape the inevitable...

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murrican literature is one of the worst in the world

there's maybe 5 authors in this picture (these are considered the classics, and no, there's no Pynchon and other actually talented writers) that are good, not even great, just good

it's all hyped bullshit

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>>9270764
hey, that's not henry james...

>>9270764
Melville, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Twain, Poe?

>>9268489

T H I S
H
I
S

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I unironically enjoy art that was made after 1989.

>>9270771
GET OFF THIS FUCKING BOARD

>>9268489
this is also my controversial opinion pretty much except i thought it was just more of a fucking snooze for me personally.

>>9267632
Latin america has the best poetry of the west right now

>>9270306
Fuck off, Strunk.

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>>9267632
you don't need to know words to read

David Henry Hwang is shit

Fight Club has a lot of good philosophical existential points.

>>9267632
I don't like shakespeare

>>9271814
How many of his plays have you read? You don't like a single one?

>>9267632
Tolstoy is among the worst writers of all time, and wattpad fanfic is superior.

Ancient Greek and early-modern English are the two best languages for poetry.

Complete disregard of the world is an idealism. We can never reach the perfect apathy the world has towards us.

I have created an ideology which I call Anarcho-Quixotism, and it is a muddle of absurdism, egoism, and of course the valiance of that great knight.

I'm 18 btw ;)

>>9268559

this is true

>>9268698
The metamorphosis is one of the funniest things i have read

>>9270805
That wouldn't support his idiotic argument, though.

>>9268805
He's just a retard that believes in magic

there's nothing inherently bad about "prose with linebreaks"

White people have higher analytical intelligence to plan for winter

>>9272232
Sorry lads, didn't see "literary".
Joyce becomes more technically accomplished and more soulless as his work advances.

>>9271839
>thinking this is original

good lord

being 18 is funny

>>9268787

Agree with all this except the past because i haven't read it. Bleeding edge exposed Pynchon as a Wikipedia skimmer.

Underworld, gravity's rainbow, and no doubt many other long books are just meandering pieces of shit that try to do a million different things and achieve nothing. They have the arrogance of not even attempting to be enjoyable.

>>9268805

Noumena.

>>9267632

All universities should be taught in Latin, and only Classics (Greco-Roman philosophy, art, poetry, history.etc) should be the only thing taught in the undergrad.

>>9270272
>and so on
go to bed zizek

>>9269009
kys

>>9269009
> ancient dimwits
I'm sorry anon but this is unacceptable.
You can dislike reading the Greeks all you like, but you can't call them dimwits.

>>9267632
Redwall was a better series than Twilight

>>9270491
Fiction is to literature what humanities are to sciences.

>>9270386
nonfiction is just as much fiction as fiction is

The Jack Reacher books are the greatest literary work in history.

>>9268698
I suppose it depends on who is reading it and maybe the translation. I thought The Trial, albeit pessimistic and somewhat morbid, had some very funny moments due to their absurdity.

Faulkner is fucking garbage

>>9268958
> hates greeks, shakespeare, virginia woolfe, and the process of reading itself

you are literally on the wrong board

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>>9270317
she's beautiful but she isn't my waifu amy adams who i genuinely believe to be a reincarnation of a greek goddess because there's no other logical explanation

>>9267632
>>9267632
>>9267632
Best literature is about good plot. Post-modern trick doesn't work and are only a cover for a scarce imagination ad inability to build stories.

Kafka was mentally ill. And nothing more.

Existentialist were stupid as fuck. Sartre was a pathetic moron. Camus slighty better, but still a pretentious bulshitter.
Classics are mostly outdated.

Asians are shithead. And they looks all the same. I wouldn't touch a book by them with a stick. They are overrated because appeal to a niche of fucking pseudo-alternatives.

>>9272773

This. Everything made by humans is sort of "fiction", you underaged morons. We build thing as we build woròds and systems where to immerge ourselves. But it's the same thing. Even studying the life of a fucking animal is about creating an history that it's just not there. We need that. And don't even start talking about history... the most artificial imposing of meaning on things that exists, apart from philosophy. Searching patterns is creating patterns.

IF YOU want to become a BETTER WRITER you should WRITE and NOT READ. Reading is a waste of time.

>>9268859
You're a bit young to be on here, lad. Though I suppose this is one of the better boards you could frequent.

>Could Hitler have said no to killing the Jews.

You're killing me.

>>9267632
Harold Bloom sucks the life out of everything he touches, and his "canon" is worse than useless.

1. Audio books are superior to electronic books and electronic books are superior to paper books
2. Any YA book that manages to get a movie or movie trilogy is automatically more culturally important than any other literature.
3. Nothing is worth reading or writing anymore, everything has been said and now it's just a massive circle jerk to sound smart.

>>9267632
Don Quixote is pretty overrated. The book is exceptionally good, especially considering it is hundreds of years old, but the best book ever written? Come on now.

>>9273879
how is "don quixote is exceptionally good but not the best book ever written" a fucking controversial opinion

you don't need to read stuff in order

>>9273887
Come on. If you ask what the best book ever written is you'll have dozens of people screaming "Don Quixote!!". If you ask who the best author of all time is you'll have dozens of people saying it's Cervantes. Don Quixote doesn't even make it into my top ten desu.

>>9267632
Philosophy is for the retarded, and for the retarded only

Needing other people to think for you and then proudly parading around, acting like its an actual badge of honor is embarrassing at best

>>9268467
>i only remember what we read in my high school together
>i have not read anything else
>i think it's ok for me to talk about things i don't know about

>>9273936
>Needing other people to think for you
You really don't seem to understand how far this criticism extends.

>>9273902
literally never heard someone say it is the best book ever written. that it was the first "novel" sure, but never the best. That honor often goes to Madame Bovary, which I didn't enjoy but I read a translated copy when I was pretty young.

>>9273936
Im not a huge fan of philosophy either but this is embarrassing to read.

Poetry is gay. Like, poetry is a pointless style if writing for homosexual men. When it rhymes it is poncey. When it doesn't it I'd stupid. I can't get my head around it. What's the point?

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>>9273981
>>9273936
this thread is making me angery

>>9273936
>Needing other people to think for you

Well, I think you are the one who needs that, maybe then you wouldn't have such an idiotic view.

>>9273936
>Needing other people to think for you and then proudly parading around, acting like its an actual badge of honor is embarrassing at best
i take it you dropped out in kindergarten then?

>>9273968
Never heard anyone call Madame Bovary the best book ever written. It's usually just anything by Tolstoy, Proust, Joyce, Dostoevsky, Homer Shakespeare, or just Don Quixote, Divine Comedy or Moby Dick.
>first "novel"
First "modern novel", that is.

Don Quixote is usually listed as one of the best books ever written. Don't know what else to tell you mate.

>>9273936
I'll take the bait. Who comes up with their thoughts entirely on their own?

>>9274014
Zygians

>>9271790
I saw your post... Sneaky. I agree though ;)

All true art is moral.

Symbolism and allegory do nothing but dilute and simplify otherwise good literature.

>>9267632
Wallace Stevens's poetry is the ramblings of a fat, drunken slob in Florida...Basically a high brow mix of Jimmy Buffett and Disney World.

>>9273737
Do this if you want to be a shit writer. Having bad taste will make you a bad writer. This sounds like advice coming from someone who does neither.

>>9274160
I will agree with that, but I will not exclude, at the same time, that it is necessary.

>>9268698

MOM'S

>>9268698

GONNA'

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>>9268698

>>9267632
Librettists are the most overlooked people in the literature world.

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>>9270764

>Melville
>Not even great, just good

Basic income isn't just a nice idea. It's your birthright.

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>>9275104
"my mom made me move out and i don't like having to get up at 9am for work"

>>9268651
>>9268779
He also wrote in prose, you blithering idiots. Have you not read Henry IV? Shylock's famous monologue? King Lear's and Hamlet's ramblings?

>>9275166
yeah but i really doubt that guy meant "only his prose is good." he probably didn't even know shakespeare wrote both and actually did mean verse.

>>9272797
Go to bed Ernest

>>9269124
>what does this mean? his verse was good, but his plot, characters, etc. weren't?
Different anon, I think they were good but nothing special. They're not as deep as it might seem from all the analysis heaped on them over the centuries, they're just decent stories that people are attracted to because of the superb style.

>>9270764
>pynchon
>actually talented

>>9275616
have you read richard ii?

>>9275639
Admittedly no.

>>9275648
do so
pay attention to the differentiation between the male and the female roles

Wuthering Heights and anything written by the Bronte sisters are the gayest shit I've ever read, really. I'll never let myself be fooled by softbound cover quotes.

>>9267632
I don't like seeing this picture, distressed cat distresses me
saged

>>9272859
now we're talkin'

America is evil and i hate it.

>>9267632
Writing a book should be enjoyable
Sure, challenging, but in the sense that solving a sudoku puzzle is challenging, and yet enjoyable. If its a chore then I don't want to read your stupid chore-book.

>>9273089
>science is just an opinion maaaan

If I were white I'd probably have the same stale taste as the rest of this board. That's the only way not being white has been useful.

>>9275760
Das racis mane

Magic Realism is fucking stupid.

studying philosophy is like sharpening a sword in preparation of a pillow fight

>>9267632
I like DFW

>>9275658
Nigga are you on crack? Wuthering Heights is the least gay novel ever written.

>>9272851
"I’ve become so accustomed to not reading that I don’t even read what appears before my eyes. It's not easy: they teach us to read as children, and for the rest of our lives we remain the slaves of all the written stuff they fling in front of us. I may have had to make some effort myself, at first, to learn not to read, but now it comes quite naturally to me. The secret is not refusing to look at the written words. On the contrary, you must look at them, intensely, until they disappear."

>want to shitpost about catcher in the rye
>can't tell what's would be more contrarian, liking it or disliking it

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>>9276103

>>9275992
then go a swordfight you dumb fuck

CORMAC MCCARTHY IS SO FUCKING OVERRATED AND BLOOD MERIDIAN SUCKS SO MUCH.

>Scrotie McBoogerballs and the tale of the Wild Wild West.

>>9276130
this, whip it out at start swingin

Shakespeare is the first iteration of the Joyce/Wallace/Pynchon idiom. Conscious Linguistic Formalism, relative vulgarity, excruciating Rococo aesthetic, stupid puns - it all started with Shakespeare.

>>9268767
sadly that's what people think when they hear "absurdism" because they relate the absurd with humor althought they are not entirely unrelated, the humor of absurdism is existential in nature and people expect normie humor like fart jokes

also for my unpopular opinion:
>you don't really need to read the Greeks to understand them or philosophy in general

Poems like W. C. Williams's The Red Wheelbarrow or This is Just to Say are utter shite.

>>9270317
>Eva overflows with sexual energy, not the loving and innocent kind, but the dark, lustful, passionate, and vulgar kind.

I hadn't thought of this until now and I believe this pasta is right

>>9276212
agreed my man

>>9267632

Ulysses is mostly "lel what am I referencing nao xDxDxD" dogshit, not unlike Ready Player One and Family Guy, which is a great shame, since the Sirens chapter really illustrates what Joyce could do with language when he wasn't getting high off of his own farts. People who read annotated versions of Ulysses are the biggest middlebrow plebs of all time, and I unironically have greater respect for people who exclusively read crime fiction than people who read an annotated Ulysses - it's so profoundly pseudy.

Finnegans Wake is completely unreadable shit, and the people who disagree are ridiculous. The Emperor is not wearing any clothes.

>>9268795
You speak as though normal happy individuals can't become depressed or the other way around. Do you also think your melancholy is proves, or at least implies, that you're intelligent?

>>9267632
Books are for people that can't have original thought themselves.

Reading is inferior to sensual experience.

Fiction is hampered by the tradeoff between being authentic and telling a good story.

>>9271839

I actually laughed. What has this website done to me...

>>9267632
99% of literature is useless. Pareto's Law is so prevalent in literature it's insane, and people reading hundreds/thousands of books in their lives, with only a few dozen of them actually being impactful on their life.

Quality over quantity is solid. The total number of books you've read is just a vanity metric unless you have a very deep and thorough understanding of what you read.

As far as being a writer, yes you need to read a lot, but you also need to practice the actual craft a lot. You're better off reading maybe 25-50 books, extremely carefully, taking notes, researching analyses online, dissecting prose, etc. while practicing writing than reading hundreds of books before you begin writing.

>>9276103
This fucking book, man. Everyone I've talked to, and I mean EVERYONE, has either loved it or hated it. No middle ground. And when they love it, they really worship it. And when they hate it, they really, really want to wipe it out of existence. These have been people who picked it up at the same age btw. And when the time finally came to read it in school, the class was evenly split on their opinion of it.

Holden should be used as a litmus test for personalities.

>>9275737
Go to bed, Mohammed.

>>9277370
I hold no strong opinions on it desu
I guess I just didn't get it

>>9272253
>>9276983
I should note I have not fully read Don Quixote, or Der Einzige, or Camus. In fact I haven't read Camus at all.

But from posting on /lit/ I'm pretty certain I've got a handle on these guys. I think I've got a bit of Hegel and Nietzsche in there too.

>>9267632
YA is going to save literature

>>9276993
You're wrong. Let us say your only source of contact with the world is Shakespeare. Your end product will be : Shakespeare times your genius coefficient, in other words sub-par Shakespeare, which is useless. Whenas if you accumulate a wealth of varied sources (books, languages, sciences, real-life experiences, your end product will still be restrained by your natural abilities, but it might still be an interesting patchwork.

sartre wasn't a good writer

>>9270317
Write more about Eva.

>>9274123
Do you mean moral as opposed to immoral, or do you mean that it just has A moral/message?

If it's the former, I want to disagree with you, but I'm thinking hard and really can't come up with any counter-examples. Even when the actual story is immoral it's used to show that being immoral is bad, meaning the work is moral despite its contents being immoral. It's very interesting and I'm definitely going to start looking at art in a new way in light of that statement.

>>9275992
Nice. I like this one

female authors are superior

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I don't think philosophy or literary studies will ever recover from the French and will continue to slide even further into irrelevancy while political science will flourish.

i don't know anything.

i don't believe you know anything either