Holy fuck this is so boring I want to eliminate my own map. only

>>9903853
>he actually got memed into McElroy
nobody here has actually read him

>>9903917
sheeeeeeeeeeeeit

>>9903853
>eliminate my own map
is this supposed to be an infinite jest reference

I've read that, The Letter Left to Me, and Night Souls and Other Stories.

He's fucking shit. There's a reason even academics don't give a fuck about him. The only people who take him seriously are the overcompensating pseuds who think reading long postmodern tomes is impressive or makes them even a little intelligent just for finishing them (shit like Vollmann's work and Darconville's Cat can be thrown in here). You'll notice the people who read this shit haven't read Woolf, Faulkner, Joyce, Elliot, James, Shakespeare, Cervantes, or any poetry). They actually think reading some obscure bullshit makes them well-read (deep down they know that they're just reading them because they'll never actually be well-read, but they can fool themselves by reading a few forgotten books).

I don't hate all postmodern stuff. Barthelme, Gaddis and Barth are all worthwhile.

>>9904665
>this book is not to my taste, therefore no one must actually like it

>>9904692
That anon is basically right though. Mackle is a hack.

>>9904665
pretty much

it's people who treat literature as a competition and realize they can't win by traditional rules (like, read the canon) so they try to change it and pretend reading these obscure works will somehow make them patrician

>>9904665
>Woolf, Faulkner, Joyce, Elliot, James, Shakespeare, Cervantes, or any poetry
This is probably my biggest gripe about university students. I took uni courses in the UK, Germany, California and New York, and by an large the students fucking hate reading the classics. One guy told me fucking Julius Caesar was boring; and another girl told me she didn't have the patience to read Byron, Coleridge, Tennyson, Shelley, Browning, basically any of the romantic and Victorian poets let alone Villon, Boccaccio, Montaigne, Rabelais. Fucking, Rabelais! And Chaucer: I read aloud some of Troilius and Cressyde to another student and he said, "I don't fuck with that, I read the modernization." If you wanna study literature but don't wanna read the classics, fuck you. If you wanna pretend reading is like being a DJ and you only choose the coolest beats, fuck you. If you can't read Cervantes, Shakespeare, Montaigne, Rabelais, Melville and feel humanity coursing through your fingers, fuck you.

>>9904443
I think IJ made me dumb. Super comfy, but things were so painstakingly explained (on the prose level, if not the plot level) that I somewhat lost my capability for inference when working through obscure language.

>>9903853
>you guys ever read books you didn't like but then something happens around the end that made you like it?
Infinite Jest, as it happens

McElroy writes about Being better than any other writer. He's a prose genius.
>>9904665
Pleb confirmed. I bet you think Gass is "overwritten" too.

>>9905001
I actually love Gass. I think his work best represents the move away from modernism (in the US, anyway).

To anyone who reads obscure bullshit because you want to seem erudite: go look at the Literature GREs (plenty of practice tests online). If you consider yourself well read/"a big reader" and don't know at least 85% of the stuff on there, you're not well read, and you're almost certainly a pseud.

I only suggest the literature GREs because it's probably the purest test of canonical knowledge--not because it's a great test. There aren't a lot of ways to test that type of knowledge.

>>9903853

Isn't it like that with all books? We're talking about hundreds of pages of prose with most novels. Of course there's gonna be pages and pages of shit in just about every piece of literature you can imagine.

>>9904665
Woolf and McElroy are my favourite authors fuck you good sir

>>9904665
>shits on Vollmann while propping up Barth

You're shit at 'big books' it seems, get some taste.

>>9904665
You're not entirely wrong. Theres plenty of people that read obscure and obtuse literature for it's sake. give instagram a quick search for Joseph Mcelroy and you'll find a wealth of these "First edition Mcelroy Ugh so good that prose man no one does it like him"

>>9906102
In fairness he has a very unique style. Uniquely Shit, but unique nonetheless.

>>9904665
>Darconville's Cat
You're going to hell. I've read Darconville's Cat and every classic writer you've mentioned and Darconville's Cat is amazing.

McElroy and Vollmann are kinda shit though, yeah.

File: 08BOOKCOHEN-blog427.jpg (64KB, 427x623px) Image search: [Google]

64KB, 427x623px

Holy fuck this is so boring I want to eliminate my own map. still 200 pages to go.

>>9904731
>adding nothing

>>9904665
I've read every author you listed, and I would be willing to bet money that you haven't, based on how retarded your comment is. Although it is entertaining to see how easily others who haven't read will fall in line with anything written confidently. Also, you read what are considered his worst novels, if you read them at all. Though I'm assuming you picked them because they were short and easy, because you're a pussy. Have any actual criticism rather than assumptions about the fans?

>>9906557
Fuck off, Kyle. You have not read all those authors.

I wasn't talking shit about that book anyway. Just mentioning it because people like you read it be its "le obscure wordplay"

>>9904809
Good DJs understand the history of the genre they work in as well. The people you're describing are gonna go on to be corporate copywriters or whatever, they don't care about any of that shit.

>>9904665
What do you have against Theroux?

>>9906929
Nothing. He's fine. It's just one of those hipster books people seek out to seem well-read.

File: IMG_6505.jpg (2MB, 4032x3024px) Image search: [Google]

2MB, 4032x3024px

>>9906618
I bought them because they were his cheapest. I'm not spending 100 bucks on a novel by someone I've never read anything by. There were two stories in Night Soul that I liked (and I actually think one of them was from Women and Men). I can't speak for all of his books, but he has trouble getting to the point. He goes to great lengths to avoid any sort of clarity (gnarled syntax), even though I can sort of appreciate his effort to avoid cliches and such. I am not fond of the results, though. Pic for shits and gigs.

>>9906948
So why attack authors when you really resent their readers, people you perceive as inauthentic

>>9906906
This is creepy. I think you're referring to me, Kyle, likely because of goodreads. I didn't make that post you responded to, though. I did really like Darconville's Cat.

>>9906963
Give Cannonball a shot

>>9907009
Oh and also I can't think of any authors I like because they're obscure. All my favorites are memes desu

>>9906093
>I'm a giga pseud
Keep that shit to yourself m'lady

>>9907014
Okay, I will. Did you like it better than his other stuff?

>>9907009
I just inserted a random name lol. I think we might be friends on Goodreads, though.

>>9906963
So you've only read one novel and a few short stories by him? Read Plus.

>>9907075
I've read Letter, Smugglers Bible, and Night Soul and other stories.

I'll give him another shot, dammit. Plus just went way the fuck up in price as far as used stuff on Amazon goes.

>>9907069
Cannonball and Women and Men are the two best, overall. Lookout Cartridge is good too.

>>9906576
>another sucker who got memed into reading Cohen instead of Levin

>>9907198
piss off cunt levin is just as bad. hes literally the jewish dfw. even signs his books like dfw.

File: 20170802_180309.jpg (3MB, 4032x3024px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 4032x3024px

>>9907209

File: 20170327_182135.jpg (3MB, 4032x3024px) Image search: [Google]

3MB, 4032x3024px

>>9907209
>>9907259
Hmmmm

>>9907270
what a fag

>>9907069
Actress In the House is my fav. And it's in print so p cheap. Enjoy.

>>9907069
ancient history was a nail biter

>>9903917
this

it's just another meme implemented to shovel coal onto the bonfire of American nationalism, but not even burgers read it

>>9904665
>There's a reason even academics don't give a fuck about him
There's also a reason it's not been translated in any language

>>9904665
>The only people who take him seriously are the overcompensating pseuds who think reading long postmodern tomes is impressive or makes them even a little intelligent just for finishing them
>You'll notice the people who read this shit haven't read Woolf, Faulkner, Joyce, Elliot, James, Shakespeare, Cervantes, or any poetry)
The truth has spoken.
/lit/ has no reason to exist anymore

>>9904692
You got a new meme right there, uh?
Kill yourself

>>9907527
his books have been translated and he has been discussed plenty among academics. what the fuck are you spouting?

>>9907546
>his books have been translated
In what languages? Maybe one

His wikipedia page exists only in English and Russian. Do you realize you waste your time reading shit like that and then you don't even know who is Rabelais, Manzoni or Lope de Vega?

>>9907563
>i am wrong about a patrician /lit/core author so i will namedrop instead

How do you genuinely enjoy reading when you're this far up your own ass?

>>9907563
We're talking about actual literary fiction, not "muh classics". How do you waste your time reading shit like that and you don't even know Jason Schwartz, Alexander Theroux, Ann Quin, and Vanessa Place?

>>9907617
>Jason Schwartz, Alexander Theroux, Ann Quin, and Vanessa Place
Literally who?

>>9907270
Based

>>9907663
exactly bud

>>9907663
>fucking gigaplebs that never get beyond /lit/ charts
do you even read

>>9907732
I don't read obscure burgers fiction because I'm not a burger, thankfully

This thread is top. Where's the toiletposter? I know that faggot has a copy of w&m

File: image.jpg (27KB, 250x238px) Image search: [Google]

27KB, 250x238px

>>9907760

>>9907740
it's the only place where anything interesting is happening in english literature, all britain has is fucking will self, the last good british writer was ballard

>>9904665
This. They often don't even have much to say about it. They define complexity in an incredibly superficial way, wish they would read some Goethe.

>>9907829
if you're not interested in experiments and explorations into language and consciousness then stick with your goethe and novalis kraut

>>9907889
keep telling yourself that pseud

>>9907895
Tons has been written on authors like Gass and Mcelroy by academics and critics. The onus is on you.