Share your most pleb literary opinions.

The Great Gatsby's prose makes it almost unreadable

Finnegans Wake is more trouble than it's worth.

I've read Chaucer, Shakespeare, Melville and others, yet for the life of me I just can't read Dickens, I struggle with everything he writes. I found myself constantly going back to re-read pages because I just completely blanked out reading them. Tale of Two Cities was the worst, I had literally no idea what was going on until the very end, and even then I've forgotten every character involved.

I believe humour is always essential. I can't call a book great if it doesn't make me laugh.

>>9523973
I'm with you, brother. Dickens' works are hollow. You can get the most important and influential parts in a synopsis.

>>9523948
I enjoyed The Return of the Native, especially the first 50 pages.

>>9523973
I know the "Dickens wrote tons of words because he published serials!" is a bit of a meme but I think there's something to it. Then again, Tolstoy did the same thing and he's much more readable than Dickens.

I think high school English curricula should replace Dickens with George Eliot. Nathaniel Hawthorne should also be discarded in favor of Mark Twain.

Gaiman and other YA fiction is the best thing that happened to literature in recent years. This kind of early-tier is good to further literary interests

I hate Kafka.

>>9524046
wew

I feel like one of the biggest travesties in American education is that a majority of students are forced to read shit books like Catch-22 and The Great Gatsby

>>9523966
my pleb opinion is to turn my brain off when reading finnegan's wake and really not try to even summarize the plot or catch the allusions. i literally just laugh at the funny little sounds he writes.

>>9523976
this

Crime and Punishment is the first "classic" that I'm really having to slog through

>>9524212

Those books aren't shit though. Your opinion is wrong.

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I think Plato just blames god for everything because he was lazy

Max stirner was racist and complained about god too much

The Bible is too repetitive.

Asian literature is too vague.

I think Philip dick read like an autistic kid explaining the plot of transformers

Audio books at x3 speed are the best way to read because it both forces me to pay attention and I can do chores or drive while I'm listening.

E-readers are a pain in the ass just like audio books. Either you pay out the ass for amazon like some apple watch fag, or it takes up all your time managing and organizing files like some android austist.

I think fiction is a waste of time when there are movies that can do it better in a shorter amount of time. Nonfiction is the only thing worth reading when you don't have time to read 3000 pages about a drunk Irish guy or some French dude stealing bread or some Russians going to war.

Everything should be as clear and easy to digest as possible. Tough words and complicated description should only be used when necessary.

>>9524388
Also every fiction book should have cool action scenes. Literally all of them.

>>9524387
I disagree with you on plenty of these but I think I really like you anyways

I think Bleeding Edge and Inherent Vice are superior to The Crying of Lot 49

(V. is still my fav Pynchon though)

>>9524387
>this is your mind on STEM

>>9523973
same

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>>9524387
>forces me to pay attention
>and I can do chores or drive while I'm listening

>>9523948
The Catcher in the Rye is one of the greatest books ever written.

Ayn Rand is actually okay. Not great, but okay.

Atlas Shrugged isn't a slog.

>>9524394
And that's okay. I'm a /lit/ pleb anyway. >>9524403
>LAW
Ftfy
>>9524413
>selective auditory listening
>low impact low mental processing yet productive activity
>????

>>9523961
ironically this holy fuck, there's no fucking point and it just obscures what little content is actually there

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The Garnett version is the best for all Russian literature

>>9523961
Literally John Green with higher aspirations.

>>9524387
>I think Philip dick read like an autistic kid explaining the plot of transformers

How so?

I read what I want.
This sentence's plebness is defined by my aspirations.
If I were a pleb, this sentence would be pleb too.

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>>9523961
I agree, it's so anti-immersion
>>9523966
Nah man, Finnegan's Wake is fucking beautiful
>>9523973
I get the idea that Dickens would have been a great costume drama miniseries writer in the 1970s when budgets were limitless and insane. Actually reading him ought to be /comfy/ but isn't.
>>9524020
Gaiman and Le Guin are great gateway drugs but people rarely use them as such. It's become too easy to stick around in YA now that it has co-opted normie literature.
>>9524442
>>9524447
Yeah, it's somehow wishy-washy as fuck but maintains a sense of conviction. I really wish she were still around, she'd be a top-tier troll against academia and her Twitter would be fucking hilarious

Mine:

Cannot get into Dostoevsky and a lot of first-person Russian literature. There's something so cavalier about their inner monologues, must be cultural or alcohol-induced. I can't have that kind of conversation with myself so reading someone else's is weird as fuck.

>>9524533
Now this is a god-tier post

I haven't read Dostoevsky yet so I can't agree with you there but every other response is spot-on

>>9523948
I think Japanese lit is pretty good

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Gravity's Rainbow is too hard.

>>9523948
Dostoevsky is the shitest out of all the Russian meme authors

P&V translations are trash

The books you find on "the best of" science fiction lists are usually all exactly the same.

King James Bible is trash

I can't stand miserable books about miserable people.

>>9524387
>Either you pay out the ass for amazon like some apple watch fag, or it takes up all your time managing and organizing files like some android austist

First of all
>pay
Second of all just keep it all in one folder and transfer it to calibre or some shit.

>Nonfiction is the only thing worth reading when you don't have time to read 3000 pages about a drunk Irish guy or some French dude stealing bread or some Russians going to war.
I agree that non-fiction is undervalued but I wouldn't right of fiction entirely, especially when it provides perspectives and information that you would get out of a nonfiction book.

>>9524387
I love you

>>9524564
I get this vibe when the miserable in question bring it on themselves or in no way attempt to address their station.

>>9524519
Ubik aside, there was just something about his anphetamine induced prose.

>>9524570
Then I have to remember to charge the little fucker, even if it's made "simple" with that 1993 vaporwave tier opensource piece of trash.


And yeah, fiction can be fun and you get "perspective" but that's almost learning secondhand. When in a time crunch I'd prefer to go to something with sources and information just waiting to be used.

>>9524572
Y-you t-too

>>9523973
I've only read Great Expectations, but I have to say this seems like quite an unusual one anon. I can't imagine someone finding Dickens more difficult than Shakespeare.

Ideal prose contains roughly 75% medium length sentences, 5% short sentences, and 20% long sentences.

Short = 5 words or less
medium = 6-14 words
long = 15+ words

>>9523948
Crime and Punishment is way to long for what it is

the catcher in the rye is unironically my favorite book.

>>9524558
>King James Bible is trash
it really is

>>9524683
>Then I have to remember to charge the little fucker, even if it's made "simple" with that 1993 vaporwave tier opensource piece of trash
Just plug it in nigger when you add more books

>>9523961
never liked the great gatsby, don't think this is a pleb opinion

Camus is the shittiest existentialist ever.

>>9524564
Maybe I'm the opposite here. Proust has one of the greatest prose I've read in my life, still I could not stand more than 150 pages of his bourgeois ass.

>>9524988
Love this book but I agree.

I don't reread books.

I dislike people who read classics in public.

I prefer physical copies of books to e readers.

>>9525079
THANK YOU

>>9524696
Okay, Stephen King.

>>9526350
Faggot

>>9524056
this

>>9525079
>>9526355
In what way? And how is he worse than Sartre?

DeLillo doesn't deserve to be ranked among the other great postmodernists.

>>9524371
Catch 22 is cringy edge-lord garbage.

I'm not a native English speaker, so very canonical old stuff like Shakespeare is pretty difficult for me.

I have read a lot of it though, like the sonnets and Macbeth, but it really is difficult to keep up with the dialog.

I had the same problem when I tried to read Blood Meridian too. I understood most of it, but it really is written in a peculiar style.

Harry Potter is really damn good other than the ending and deserves the love and praise it gets.

Sarah J Maas is tolerable, until she isn't.

Steven King is a little bit overrated and if he does his stupid muh religion, muh new england any more I am going to scream.

The Great Gatsby and Jane Eyre are both atrocious. The Great Gatsby has like, one really great paragraph but the rest of it is muh color symbolism, muh hangups.

Color symbolism and other symbolism is generally pointless and shallow. It's obnoxious.

Grendel is a better story than Beowulf.

I think the first 20 Goosebumps books should be mandatory reading.

Wayside School should also be mandatory reading.

I think fiction should always be entertaining in some way.

I love the Beats.

I only read ulysses for the language. I read it with the abandon i read prose poetry with. Nothing beyond that is worth the effort.

>>9526664
also
Most if not all lit crit is hollow masturbatory word salad and i dont think any of them actually understand the things they read and the authors they study and just inject whatever they can to sound like they do.

>>9523961
Came here to post this

>>9525079
Camus is not an existentialist

>>9526655
>Grendel is a better story than Beowulf.
My nigger
Grendel is probably the most important modernist work, in terms of thematic layering and literary depth, that isn't "English Grad Student" levels of complex like Ulysses

>>9526655
>Wayside School
Holy shit anon I havent even thought about that book in like 15 years ilove you holy shit

>>9523948
I buy a book if it's cover is cool.

- Seems like nearly every Shakespeare play is about a love triangle of some kind.

- Cormac McCarthy tries too hard to impress.

- Portrait of an Artist was meh.

- Women authors do not produce works of literature as great as men do.

- Hemingway novels are terrible, but his short stories are great.

Feels good to get off my chest.

>>9526655
Harry Potter Is overrated garbage. It benefited from a great marketing campaign and virgin teen nostalgia. She's not very talented, which is why she still won't let go of Harry Potter: she knows she'll never produce anything else worth reading. Five minutes on her twitter account shows her critical thinking skills and overall intelligence pretty clearly, I think. It's a great children's novel, but anyone who, as an adult, still thinks it has any real merit, clearly hasn't moved on or read anything outside of YA. It doesn't hold up to any criticism, and the fans have no way to defend it but getting so triggered the conversation ends. It's pathetic to latch on to something so shallow, and I would strongly recommend that you move on and try some big boy books.

>>9524552
Same here

>>9524387
All correct except

>Asian literature is too vague.

because you don't full grasp the Buddhist mindset and the way its symbolism, storytelling, and philosophy work.

stephen king is an important american writer

>>9527031
>thread about unpopular opinions
>sperg out massively when you find one you don't like

Why.

I like Lovecraft's prose.

a short, single comment on /lit/ can make me like or dislike a book which i haven't even read

>>9527313
For giggles

>>9525001
god here is one I might get shit for:

New King James (not my fav translation by any means) is way better than the King James

>>9523966
Most people who read Finnegans Wake are psueds. Only a handful of people have ever truly understood that book; it's basically worthless from the standpoint of all but the most singularly fanatical scholar.

>>9526655
>babby's Symbolism unit in high school literature was taught using The Great Gatsby, so he thinks that The Great Gatsby is the only book that uses symbolism

>>9526676
Only true if you've only read Harold Bloom or scholarly criticism.

Coleridge, Johnson, and Dryden are all great critics. D.H. Lawrence's critical writers are also very insightful

>>9526587
Have you read the myth of sisiphus?
>>9526701
"Absurdist", whatever

>>9524387
>Audio books at x3 speed are the best way to read
>E-readers are a pain in the ass just like audio books.

So do you like audio books or not?

>>9527338
I agree

>>9524533
>There's something so cavalier about their inner monologues, must be cultural or alcohol-induced. I can't have that kind of conversation with myself so reading someone else's is weird as fuck.

Do/did you feel this way with Ulysses? I just supposing you've read it since you're defending FW, but it has a ton of inner monologues

>>9524988
What parts would you omit?

>>9527282
That's a fact, regardless of where you stand on his writing

Lawrence Durrell is one of the best authors ever and he's also a great poet

I'd rather read authors from my country that appeal to me instead of classics such as Twain, Dickens, most Russians and pretty much the majority of americans too

Black people writing incessantly about race is completely fine and makes sense. You take a writer (an obessive) and from a young age tell him he is not only unintelligent, but immoral and ugly. Of course it's going to hang over his work.

>>9524696
Nah, it depends on what your book is.

>>9530203
sure but it's also perfectly fine for Europeans to say that these subjects don't appeal to them nearly as much as to americans, making it feel like america is trying to shove these subjects down Europe's throat with these books.

>>9524368
Karamazov is much better. Crime and Punishment was too trance-like in style for me to follow it easily. I think it's meant to be that way though, to simulate Rodya's delirium.

>>9527313
There's nothing wrong with debating.

>>9526898
>Women authors do not produce works of literature as great as men do

The only reason this is the case is because women tend to be in the average when it comes to IQ, whereas men are more likely to be either low or high IQ.

No matter how hard I try I can't bring myself to enjoy Mark Twain's writing

There exists good manga

>>9530231

That wasn't debating though. Anon attacked everyone and everything except for the actual book where the only thing he mentioned was "it doesn't stand up to criticism." Conveniently he doesn't spend any of his post providing legitimate criticism towards the actual text. The post is nothing but a classic spergout.

I don't dislike Cervantes but I despise his moral-superiority-but-not-really-but-yes shit in all his works. It's the sole reason braindead faggots accuse literature being a normie art.

>>9523948
Franzen should get a Nobel

>>9530240
Same thing could be said about blacks whites and asians.

whites simply have higher variance, black and asians have very small distribution of IQs.

>>9530203
I assume you're speaking about American writers like Baldwin. But in this day and age? In the 60's and 70's, sure when race relations were at and all time high, but anyone writing 90's onwards is a bit self-indulgent if they only write about race, unless it is for satirical like the Sell Out, but contrast with that Ta-Neshi Coates who demands friviolous concepts like reparations, its aggrevating.