/lit/ - Literature

Salinger

>>10877066
I wouldn't say it was shit, it was just touted by people who usually don't read anything.
Vonnegut is pretty good(for what he is, I mean)

>>10877077
It only took one post for the edgy high schoolers to come out of the woodwork. Learn how to read, idiot.

>>10877077
Salinger is the ultimate pleb filter

>>10877066
>>10877077
Plebs
>>10877080
Reasonable. Expand on what you mean by "for what he is." Pls.

>>10877066
>>10877077
Utter plebs

True answer: Anna Karinina
>half is basically Madame Bovary
>other half is a 400 page version of an earlier Tolstoy novella

Naked Lunch.
Literal garbage without one ounce of talent.

>>10877142
It's hot

>>10877077
Bait but blasphemy

>>10877066
good post OP, agree strongly

>>10877165
for all it's flaws, Dune is actually a decent book.

>>10877185
it's decent, yes, i won't deny that, but it says right there on the cover "Science Fiction's Supreme Masterpiece"
if it in indeed what it claims to be, then i feel a miserable pity for science fiction
if the cover would have said "hey, it's decent!!!!" i probably would have appreciated that and not felt the need to defame it

>>10877224
that's fair I guess. But I do still love it

1984

>>10877130
I'm really bad at writing but I'll try to explain. A simplistic style which expresses easy to identify themes. Vonnegut is an author to get you into reading. His humor makes him more palatable and keep you reading, especially for teenagers. Why do you think every "I like art" type girl's favorite author is Vonnegut? He's sarcastic to entertain you and then has his moments of emotion to make you feel.
His themes are(from what I've read) mostly societal criticisms but also about fate, which most people can relate to either. Is he a deep as everyone claims? I'd(and he'd agree) say not really. He has depth but he's also the deepest writer a lot of people read.
I'm sorry if I'm rambling but another way to put is that Vonnegut is what YA should be, an easy to read style that clearly expresses it's themes with humor to keep you interested. There is nothing wrong with enjoying Vonnegut, but he can't be pinnacle of your literary journey.
Read the Sirens of Titan for similar themes to Slaughterhouse 5 about predestination if your interested.

I will say that his satire can be obnoxious at times. Breakfast of champions really makes him seem like a huge pseud, which he (mostly) isn't.
I hope I could help you understand, I'm mostly a brainlet lurker who looks for recommendations.
Also, Catch-22 > Slaughterhouse 5
>>10877165
>>10877224
>>10877185
Dune Messiah should be packaged with Dune. Dune itself is a set up for the second book which is deconstructs the hero-myth of Paul, and how he himself is trapped by the fate he has been fighting against. Still not "The Best Sy-fy EVAR" but it makes a better read.

>>10877185
Dune is actually a great book. Better than decent at the least.

This

>>10877310
never heard of it, must be even worse than the average bad "classic"

>>10877339
It's god awful
Main character doesn't have a name and marries an billionaire widow who killed his own wife and the MC is constantly whining about how she will never live up to the widow

It's really popular in Britain for some reason, Even got a film adaptation by Hitchcock
My A-level English Lit teacher regarded as a gothic classic to rival Frankenstein

It's not

>>10877066
I've never seen anyone hate as many books as /lit/

>>10877398
It's like /lit/ is comprised of different people who have different opinions on books

Are you supposed to like everything?

>>10877402
this is one of the most reddit posts and I see it all the time.

>>10877411
>complain about /lit/ culture
>now complaining about reddit

I've never seen anyone hate as many internet sites as much as you

>>10877424
you really don't understand what's going on. you seem very confused, very unintelligent rn and it's not humble, just awkward.

>>10877402
>It's like /lit/ is comprised of different people who have different opinions on books

It really isn't. Board culture almost necessitates hatred of the same books collectively.

>>10877450
Doesn't mean anything. Everyone supposedly hates genre fiction while he have a permanent sff general. People have differing opinions of books all the time if you sift through the memes and shitposting.

Pic related literally has no moral. No point for existing. Nothing to be learned. No meaning. Utter wank. God authors first novels are garbage.

>>10877392
so it's the miserable blutherings of a pooo poooor poooooor women being oppressed by the (boo hooo hooo) injustice of the MAAAAN's world?
no wonder it's popular

>>10877310
The movie is a classic though. It has one of my favorite openings in movie history
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsskjJnGN0

>>10877526
I wish gothic romances were still a thing

>>10877066
I don't get what anyone really has against Kurt Vonnegut, aside from just not wanting to like fairly simple writing. He was where I started when I first got into lit, and he still holds up as perfectly good. Not the best obviously, but pretty fucking far from "shit."

>>10877526
Seems like Daphne du Maurier stories are best told by male film directors

>>10877505
This was the first and only book I read by him, since it didn't make me want to read more of his stuff. Did you ever read J R or anything else from him? Any better?

>>10877553
his writing is boring. That's the main thing, but maybe I'm just over reading post-modern nonsense war books. The satire in Slaughterhouse-Five is so obvious and in-your-face, but it lacks any depth
>lol war is pointless and bad think of the children
>lol why is sex offensive but violence is not
this is basically the entire message of the book, plus some incoherent take on fate and predestination

>>10877224
actually incredibly fair comment. I bought it because of the masterpiece endorsements and thought it was good, fun, enjoyable, but not absolutely outstanding.

>>10877066
Whenever I see "and all was beautiful and nothing hurt" tattoo I throw up in my mouth a little.

>>10877562
J R 1000% percent better. Funniest book I've ever read

>>10877139
>half of a 1000 pages book is a 200 pages book

is /lit/ this mindlessly contrarian IRL or is this some weird social performance and appeal to the contrarian hivemind as institution? i've been around here for years and years now, some opinions never change, there is an unwritten hivemind canon.

>>10877895
it's cause they don't really understand how few people bother reading anything other than genre fic and non-fic these days. they gotta take down the big dudes that everyone is talking about like SH5

>>10877077
WRONG
>>10877142
correct

I don't give a shit if it makes me plebbit, I love Vonnegut and think his style is so fun to read I wouldn't trade the hours I've spent reading and rereading his stuff for just about anything.

>>10878045
I hated Vonnegut b4 I ever even heard of 4chan. But all of my pseudo friends called me a pleb. That's why the hive mind rallies against this garbage, we've been told we just don't understand so many times by our hipster faggy friends that we thought there was something we were missing, so we thoroughly enjoy it when other people confirm our suspicions that Vonnegut is complete and utter shit

>>10877895
generally being contrarian is the right choice about 90% of the time nowadays though. Obviously you need to go elsewhere for constructive debate, this is a place of deconstruction

>>10877066
I just got this in the mail a few days ago, is it really that bad? I'm reading Catch-22 right now but should I just toss Slaughter House Five?

>>10878285
Read it and return it if you bought it from amazon
Free books lmao

Anyone who is shit talking Vonnegut without having read God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is dumb.

>>10878292
you just described a library

>>10878199
you legit have to be a retard to hate Vonnegut so much is what you should learn from this

>>10877077
You're lying to yourself buddy

>>10878328
Cats cradle was so terrible I stopped reading it and instead decided to pay attention at jury duty. The power of Vonnegut

>>10878359
pathetic. the problem is with your brain not Vonnegut

>>10878385
The problem is with you being a pseudo 1/2 fag hipster that thinks he's cool by liking Vonnegut. But in the back of your mind you know, yes you know it's crap

Maybe also 1984

>>10877142
I can understand how the plebeian would be deathly afraid of burroughs

He murdered his wife after all

And lived for a long ass time, even lived to see his son die..

Fucking opium fiends..

>>10878409
dystopia is a lazy device and the literary equivalent of calling political opponents hitler, it makes sense

>>10877066

Obligatory As I Lay Dying and Great Gatsby.

>>10878232
this is true

>>10878395
wrong side of history, bub. if I ever hear you talk books around me irl I will end your reading life.

Stranger.

>>10878422
I'm not your bub, pal
I can't help the fact that you find books that bore most people with half a brain to tears great or interesting, that's on you.

>>10878432
I'm smarter than you and read more books, just face it: You hate Vonnegut cause you're a humorless pseud.

>>10878455
>Vonnegut
>humor
Pick one

>>10878455
Vonnegut couldn't even hold Thompson's wild turkey bottle

>>10877077
I would spit on you in real life even if I was dying of thirst and my saliva was the last bit of moisture keeping me alive.

>>10877066
>>>/pol/

>>10878464
bogo

>>10878473
No you wouldn't. I'd fuck your ugly girl friend bc she'd realize she's been dating a beta 1/2 fag, and would want to know how a real man feels.

> just kidding we all know you're a kissless virgin

>>10878500
I take that back seen how much you love Vonnegut you'd probably enjoy getting cucked.

>>10878500
Back to >>>/pol/, edgelord.

>>10878473
The fact that you think that you would spit on me in real life and not get your ass throttled, lol. I can tell you've been reading too many books.

>>10877270
>"I like art" type girl's
stopped reading there

>>10877077
Back to crabbit

>>10877066
Honestly this novel is so fucking bad

>>10877077

>>10878577
Every Vonnegut girl I met also loves MBDTF and nothing else.

There's a reason I don't post.

Nearly everything written by a woman.
Nearly everything written by Jews, especially whiny neurotic Kafka.
Nearly everything written by blacks. (>muh struggle, >muh oppression, we get it)

The Aeneid is garbage and to compare it with Homer is laughable.
Byron is an overrated poet and should be stricken from the canon.
While Shakespeare is the greatest writer ever, most of his comedies are trash tier and should be forgotten.
Also Faulkner, Hemingway and other writers of that modernist ilk. Modernism was a mistake.

Does this count?

>>10878232
>>10878421
Hegel

>>10878788
Top tier bait. You ticked almost every box.

>>10878813

>thinking I'm trolling
Wew lad.

>>10878788
unironically a good post

>>10878788
Why are the tragedies or histories better? Convince me why As You Like It, Twelfth Night, and Merchant of Venice are beautiful throughout. Last time someone said it’s because tragedies cover deeper topics. Sick, dude.

>>10878906
The comedies for the most part rely on word play and puns that are obscure and outdated. And need to be explained in the context of the Elizabethan era.
And as everyone knows, a joke fails if it has to be explained.

Whereas his dramas are timeless because they cover eternal topics and struggles and you don't need to listen to a 45 minute lecture just to understand he's making a veiled reference to vaginas.

>>10878788

>>10877505
>If it has no moral it must be bad

>>10878572
I can tell you haven't been.

>>10878788
>/pol/
>/teenedgelord/
>/brainlet-let-let-of-brainlets/

>>10878961
Vonnegut is awful ask anyone who isn't a hipster

I rarely see it mentioned here but this book was published a couple of years ago to much fanfare and it is garbage. Emotionally manipulative torture porn with no point other than to give the reader a cathartic experience with a box of tissues (or boxes, as this thing is fucking bloated as shit at ~800 pgs).

>>10877066
Agreed. Don't really mind KV but Slaughterhouse is bad.

>>10877077
Eh, read it so long ago I barely remember it but I would have agreed at the time.

>>10878416
>As I Lay Dying
Genuinely triggered. Great Gatsby for sure, though.

>>10878788
Clearly bait.

>>10878790
Yes it counts good post.

>>10878199
>>10878395
>>10878996
To be fair, being "too good" for Vonnegut is more hipster. Unless you are underage or your friends don't read.

>>10877224
>if the cover would have said "hey, it's decent!!!!" i probably would have appreciated that and not felt the need to defame it
It's a fucking blurb to sell copies m8. What cover would go "Yeah it's not that great but it's better than staring at the wall and wondering where my life went wrong"

>>10879027
>It's a fucking blurb to sell copies m8
It's not just the blurb. Dune is widely considered the best sf novel ever. That colored anon's experience reading the book. It's not necessarily a criticism but it is totally understandable especially in the context of this thread which is for discussing books that are overhyped. I happen to disagree I thought Dune was great but what anon said is totally fair.

>>10878790
90% of people already think it's shit.

>>10877077
This is true.
Also, Notes from the Underground. Novelists who hide their juvenile philosophising behind fiction should be shot.

>>10877066
Dostoyevsky

>>10879191
Your bait succeeded in triggering the fuck out of me. Get out.

>>10879191
Unironically kys.

>>10879191
This. Nabokov was right.

>>10877270
For a lurker you should post more. Your thoughts are appreciated.

>people should read more books and watch less television

This highly overrated book can't hold a candle to 1984 or bnw, I can't believe people consider it nearly as important.

>>10879272
I can't believe people consider 1984 and BNW to be good books either.

Salinger is ultimate piece of shit, you need to face this before you hit 21.

Not a classic but ateast highly acclaimed with awards and such.
It also bugs me how this piece of shit is on so many /lit/ recommendation charts.
The story is a mess that drops it's main theme for a shitty monsterhunt after a few hundred pages, the characters are flat even after hearing their thoughts constantly.
And the worst of all, the books drags on forever.
Big waste of time and one of the first book in a long time I was angry with after finishing it.

>>10879191

>>10877506
Actually, it’s about fucked up character relationships, where the man is actually extremely sympathetic and the dead wife turns out to be an evil cunt.

It’s a solid novel. Whether or not it’s an all time great is up for debate, but it’s an excellent contemporary gothic novel.

>>10878411
>murder and obscenity is funny
your Marxist professors have taught you well

The only reason anyone gives a fuck about this hack is that Thucidydes died too early.

>>10877270
loves your points on vonnegut

>>10877310
at least The Key to Rebecca was a decent spy story

>>10877562
Yeah, JR is worth a go. Great book.

>>10877526
Wasn't that Hitchcock's MO? Didn't he say something along the lines of "I won't adapt books that are already great, I want to improve on something and make it great"?

>>10877623
>his writing is boring. That's the main thing, but maybe I'm just over reading post-modern nonsense war books. The satire in Slaughterhouse-Five is so obvious and in-your-face, but it lacks any depth

I just read it as some black comedy about the realities of war. i was laughing quite a bit reading it

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ePv7ZdWVjY4

>>10880000

wut wuz get

>>10877077
Fight me irl faget

>>10879272
*prophesies reality tv, talking head news and wireless headphone/people walking around living in their smartphone while walking around*

nothin personnel...fireman

Moby Dick
>50 pages of decent storytelling
>550 pages of whaling description
Also I can't stand Melville's prose; he's overly wordy and pedantic without being witty like Dickens or Wilde

>>10878312
Kek

Margeret Atwood

Couldn't find a thread for questions so I will ask here. Did you guys actually enjoy A portrait of the Artist as Young Man? I'm halfway through and it's extremely boring, but English is not my native language so perhaps that's why.

>>10880049
Salinger is original young and edgy adult.

>>10879329
The really good thing about this book is how he describes the city and all the populations within. Really well made, he clearly benefitted a lot from his economics background. But yeah I agree about the plot being a mess.

>>10880068
I want to like Melville so much, but I agree. I just can't get over how pointless most of the book is. It feels like he's just masturbating the entire time

Lord of the Rings

>>10877562
Frolic is also excellent and infinitely more digestible if you can handle legal writing

>>10879934
Is that the same Xenophon who wrote Cyropaedia, or the other one?

>>10880802
Do you have a soul?

>>10878473
>>10878726
Honest question: why is Salinger so well-regarded? What is it about his work that makes it so compelling?
He was required reading for my high school English courses, and it seemed like it was being assigned exclusively because the administration assumed it would be "relatable" for a bunch of teenagers and hopefully encourage us to read more books. I didn't take to the Catcher in the Rye and kind of gave up there. I'm wondering if I should be giving him a second shot if I'm not understanding his work.

>>10877066
Anything written by any sort of "realist." Yes, even Tolstoy. Especially Tolstoy. He is the Azathoth to Gorky's Nyarlathotep.

>>10879977
>>10879243
Thanks. I feel that I'm really bad at organizing my thoughts though.

>>10881333
time-and-place author, was the pinnacle of post-WWII lit

read his short stories, they're pretty transparent in theme

>>10878790
The Jew Ayn Rosenbaum is a propagandist hack.

>>10878232
makes cents

>>10882319
>The Jew
thank you for reminding us Hans, we forgot she was a Russian Jew

>>10879008

Please, explain to me what makes AILD good in any way. I'm always hoping someone will be able to do this, but nobody ever takes me up on it.

>>10879934
I enjoyed his Anabasis

>>10879934
Hellenika suffers because it has no clear beginning (towards the end of the Peloponnesian War) and no clear end (ends with an indecisive battle). It's also a very unfocused work in a way, because it's not about a specific conflict or something but just about whatever the hell happened in Hellas during that time. The rise of Thebes is and interesting topic in theory, but most of the book isn't even about that.
Oh, and he is a bit biased and outright neglects to mention certain things like the liberation of Messenia for example.

Anabasis on the other hand is about a very specific story that involves Xenophon himself, not so much about politics between city-states. It's about a group of soldiers making their way through enemy territory. I would recommend you give it at least a try.

>>10877066
Ulysses
Gravity’s Rainbow
Infinite Jest

>>10879278
Because they're among the only books most people have read the Wikipedia
summary of

>>10882903
Thanks for this heartfelt reply, appreciate it. I was actually considering giving Xenophon another chance and you've convinced me to do so, thanks, anon.

>>10883248
I hate how their used as signposts for society now. When Trump was elected I saw a ton of shit like "which was more right about the future, 1984 or
BNW" and it triggered my autism. They're both pleb books but neither are like >le current year with Drumpf xD. BNW is the better book if I had to pick

The title of this thread could be "itt books /lit/ thinks are shit but are actually great" and it would be equally true.

>>10883349
finally an answer i can get behind. kerouac can suck my dick

>>10883349
>>10883457
Agreed, but I also hate Salinger, so...

>>10877444
Please kill yourself

>>10883854
no. kys yourself idiot

>>10878409
This honestly. I read it in my Freshman year of HS and hated it. Although, that was probably a product of being a 13 y/o with a shit attention span.

>>10877505
>>10880488
Biggest brainlets in the thread

>>10880068
Cannot agree more. Most overrated thing I've ever read

>>10880376
Joyce is employing heavy irony especially in the early chapters, and there's a lot going on that maybe didn't jump out at you - it's a deceptively simple book. Stick with it though, I think you'll like the last two sections much more

>>10877066
I finished this yesterday and fucking hated it. Why do people like this? What's the point?

>>10878413
That's true, but some authors feel that it's necessary to reach the lowest common denominator. Dystopias are great for teaching high school students how to identify theme and unpack ideas from novels, which makes dystopian lit. very useful.

>>10885324
>What's the point?
the big retard statement

>>10878232
yep

>>10883349
best itt

>>10879329
Awesome book that changed my entire perception of fiction.
Long as fuck though.

I don't even dislike feminism this novel is just trite shit.

>>10882920
truth

>>10885324
Weirdly I wasn’t a huge fan of this book when I was reading it. It grew on me after I read it. Something about it just stuck with me.

I’m reading underworld right now and it’s pretty great also. A lot of it doesn’t make much sense at all to me but I’m following it mostly pretty well.

>>10877077
fpbp

Salinger is Tao Lin tier

>>10877077
this. I read 10 pages of his shit-tier book and threw in it the trash.

I would say 1984 but Orwell also wrote Animal Farm which is so much worse. His non-fiction stuff deserves more praise, absolutely fantastic accounts of the Spanish civil war though.

i would say lovecraft but if you analize most of the """"love"""" for lovecraft comes from people who think it's all about tentacles and slimy eyes.
If anything, i would say any modern lovecraftian work or anything that tries to emulate it is either overrated or shadowed by the overrated ones.

Also fuck derleth, that guy is responsible of the "cthulu" idiocy

lol

>>10888604

I absolutely despise how pop culture has pretty much ruined the idea of Lovecraf.

>>10877505
It does have a moral/meaning/message. I'm not kidding. And it's not "RETURN TO THE GREATS THE CLASSICS ARE COOL".

>>10888613
"lovecraftian" and "cosmic horror" is the equivalent of "the dark souls of" and "dark souls-like" of videogames in literature.

each time i see people say "it's lovecraftian" to any monster that has more than 1 limb i regret accepting i read lovecraft works

>>10885324
I know right? The book just seems like a bunch of white noise

>>10877505
Wrong

>>10877506
It's really not, it's just kinda boring. So is The Birds. I swear. if it wasn't for Hitchcock nobody would remember either book.

>>10879929
Tits and dicks can also be funny

>>10882920
>>10886750
Comparing those trash novels to Ulysses is a joke. You guys are jokes. If you can't appreciate Ulysses at all, you might as well just stop fucking reading and quit /lit/.

>>10877077
I can't believe how much shit taste is on this board. "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" is a godtier shortstory.