/lit/ - Literature

>>13030628
cuz we fricken own all of philosophy with empirical capitalism
stupod commie

Faulkner and Twain are good, rest are ok.

>>13030628
is steinbeck not highly regarded with you guys? was thinking of reading grapes of wrath sometime soon

>>13030629
trying to count the layers of irony like the layers of a pyramid scheme

>>13030628
What cunt r u from, bitc

>>13030657
steinbeck is great. this thread is bait

you forgot dfw

*ah-HERM*

>American's

>>13030628
>American's

>>13030628
>Emerson
>Steinbeck
>Douglass
>Thoreau
>Poe
>Hawthorne
>Whitman
>Dickinson
>Pynchon
>Alcott
>Du Bois
>Irving
>Eliot
>Updike

They're not all world class, but neither are any brits besides Milton, Shakespeare and Dickens, so don't try to pivot this into a dick measuring contest

>>13030628
No Hawthorne
No Whitman.
No Emerson.
No White.
No Gaddis.
No Barth.
No Barthelme.
No McCarthy.
No DeLillo.
No Saunders.
No Delicious Tacos.

Why are you so poorly educated? Were you raised in a barn?

>>13032696
>Emerson
>Whitman
>Thoreau
>Hawthorne (kinda)
Based transcendentalist

>>13032719
Leaves of Grass my ass

>>13032696
What about David Foster Wallace

>>13032725
What about him

>>13032725
I'm aware of his work

Melville is the fucking man - he's number one, and could wrestle any pretender to his throne. I will fight any shit-eating land-peasant who dares tarnish his name by putting him anywhere but at the top of any given list of americans.

>>13032730
>>13032737
Should have been added to the green text

>>13032746
He's at number 7 on the OP list

>>13032750
Hahahahaha alright but, "His novel Infinite Jest (1996) was listed by Time magazine as one of the 100 best English-language novels published between 1923 and 2005. His last novel, The Pale King (2011), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2012."
Each man to his own preference aye aye

>>13030628
it's only been a country for 250 years

>>13032753
Copy pasting wikipedia is not an argument
>Time magazine
lmao

>>13032743
twain is the greatest

>>13032773
I’m aware, I truely am, never wanted an argument, but have you read his work?

>>13032783
Twain can lick my salty sailor ass.

>>13030628
toni morrison

>>13032725
He's good too.

John Steinbeck, Kurt Vonnegut, Philip K. Dick, Robert E. Howard, Robert A. Heinlein, and William Gibson, and Gene Wolfe should also be on there.

at the moment its the toxic combination of self-aggrandisement and self-pity that has been exacerbated by the fallout of the 2008 global economic crash.

>>13032895
>Gene Wolfe
nah

>>13030628
Rent free, obsessed, have sex, the list goes on..

>ctrl+f Fitzgerald
>0/0

my lads...tf?

>>13032982
THE LIGHT IS GREEN
GREEEEEEEEEEN LIGHT LMOA
HAHAHAHAHAHA
WOW GREEEEEEEEN

>>13032982
he's in the op

>>13032990
he. is. fucking. in.

>place that isn't america "heh, america am I right"

Why is everyone else in the world like this. They can't stop obsessing over our existence as if the world revolved around us

>>13032958
Why not?

Salinger? I had think about who that was for a bit

>>13033414
What’s your list?

>>13033392
have sex.

>>13033121
>place that is America “heh, Europe am I right”
why are we like this?

>>13033419
I don’t keep a list. I don’t respect national boundaries either, but it’s probably because I haven’t read enough to judge properly.
I can barely assemble a favorites of film as it is.

Another for your consideration

>>13032958
You'd take Vonnegut, Dick, and Heinlein over Wolfe? That's not even genre purism, that's just shit taste.

>>13033499
oof

>people saying delillo should be on this list

>>13032895
This post is way too stupid and pathetic to reply to seriously.

>>13032895
gene isnt even the best wolfe
>>13032863
kek

I like the Americans and their authors even though they'd probably hate me.

>>13033532
They're in company with Harold Bloom, who is basically the tastemaker of the western canon

Who is the best American short story writer?

>>13033532
Id love to hear your critique of DeLillo in words, as opposed to memes.

>>13033556
No!

>>13033551
Nigger

>ctrl-f James
>no results

I fucking hate this board

>>13032982
>mfw this haircut would perfectly conceal my rapidly receding hairline
w2c?

>>13033675
william james was a philosopher, not a novelist

>>13033675
can't really blame people, he hasn't been currant for almost a century, I'd like a James revival, love one even, sure, but is it going to happen? I kindly doubt it

>>13033576
Elaborate!

>>13033567
>he LIKES DELILLO!!!!
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHDHDHAHAHAHAHHA

>>13030628
>Why do American's suck?
Pretty dang good for a country that only been around for only 243 years and you left a bunch out. If anything, burgers are making the rest of the West look stagnant.

>>13033724
true, american literature btfos everything from europe in quality and quantity after WWII. old world couldn't cope. however, this is probably starting to change

>>13033738
saramago himself is a better writer than anyone who has lived in the US post ww2

>>13033738
Not remotely true.

>>13033754
you're the type of eurotrash to vaunt kundera as serious literature
>>13033776
who could be behind this post?

>>13032710
Half of them are shite

>>13034122
>shite

>>13032696
Is Updike any good? I've been wanting to read him.

>>13034131
Yes but he's not first rate. But a first rate prose stylist definitely, imo better than Nabokov. Read Rabbit, Run and continue the tetralogy if you like it. Roger's Version and The Centaur are also bretty good.

>>13033711
>Bloom

>>13033551
Americans IRL like Euros
Most Euros IRL do not return the feeling

>>13030628
>>13030628
Jack London
please don't laugh

>>13034131
What’s Updike?

>>13035733
Bongs seem to like American tourists, but I mainly interacted with drunk ones (Bongs that is).

>>13035739
I'm not a dyke you fucking queer

>>13035733
I'm not Euro, though.

>>13033675
Reading pic related currently, in awe of how right the pragmatists were about everything

>>13034143
>>13034131
Updike is a first-rate prose stylist, but better than Nabokov? Not a chance. His Rabbit tetralogy is decent, but his stories are where he really shines. The Music School and "The Early Stories" are two of the best story collections I've read this year.

>>13033556
>taking anything harold bloom says seriously
you faggots only like bloom because he makes you feel important, when in reality no one but psueds actually listens to him

>>13032696
Add:
>Wallace Stevens
>Plath
>Eliot
>Pound
>Morrison
>McCarthy
Whitman is world-class. Dickinson isn't considered such but should be. Melville was the single greatest prose writer this country's ever produced.

Updated:

>>13035817
>no Pound
>but Kerouac
>no Eliot
>but London
>no Dickinson
>but Bukowski
>he's stupider than most Americans

>>13035828
TS Eliot is on there, Pound is second rate.. The Bukowski was a joke saying he's awful

>>13035817
>>13035828
>DAE not like bukowski

It's almost as if you haven't read him and are just parroting what you heard other people say

>>13035860
I fucked a whore
while drunk. she said
"chinaski, chinaski,
you spend your money on
television
booze
cigarettes
anything to keep you from
living
and here I am,
life itself,
in front of you!"
well,
I didn't know what to say to that.
sometimes
I go to the racetrack
and watch the horses go round
and round
and round
and round
and drink a beer
for them, those mad beasts,
who run without reason,
just because
some boss told them to.
what bullshit, to live in
this beautiful world
with cheap beer,
plentiful hookers,
and the races every saturday,
for someone to haul you
up from your bed
and force you to slave for minimum wage
when you could be drinking
good
cold
beer
and fucking whores

>>13035860
I've read Post Office and Ham on Rye. He's not terrible, was very enjoyable, but I thought it'd be funny to put that.

>>13030628
thanks for babby's first list of American lit
when do you turn 19?

At least we are talked about.

>>13034131
Greatest essayist of the 20th century.

>Herman Melville
>Mark Twain
>Ezra Pound
>Ernest Hemingway
>Robert E. Howard
>John Reed
>Blood Meridian (the only decent book he wrote, I won't name the writer because fuck him)
>Europe Central (the only book from William T. Vollmann I know)
It's really amazing how a rich country with a giant population contributed so little to literature.

>>13032725
He’s unironically a better pure writer than half these faggots listed. Legit genius

>>13030628
Because America is like 300 years old compared to the billions other countries are.

>>13030628
Why do Euros swallow?

>>13036154
Infinite Jest, This is water, Consider the Lobster, The Pale King, A supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again: Essay and Arguments, Girl With Curious Hair, The Broom of the System, all fucking brilliant, if he had no taken his own life, he would of written and gotten publish yet another magnificent piece of fucking work alongside Infinite Jest.

>>13038828
*had not, my apologies, typographical error

Melville, Faulkner, Whitman, Twain, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, James, Pynchon, Eliot, Crane, Stevens, Dickinson, Pound, Frost...
in less than 250 years too.

>>13030628
fuck off euro trash

>>13030628
>twain
>the ending of huckleberry fin

>>13037309
Look what the French wrote in the last 160 years, it beats everything the Americans wrote since ever.

Anglos don't do culture.

>>13036125
What is this meme with everyone posting robert e. Howard in the pantheon of great american writers ? Is new /lit/ really this dumb or are they just pretending to have read the guy who wrote fucking Conan

America and China are cultureless superpowers because they do not incentivise the arts. You have to go into STEM, finance, and other things with objective value to live. Meanwhile, Europe allows artists to live above the poverty line.

Absolutely fucking shameful how much this board underrates Willa Cather

>>13038988
>Look what the French wrote in the last 160 years
A bunch of self-wankery?

>>13030629
Close, but "empirical capitalism" doesn't sound quit the same as The World's Most Powerful Navy, with so much air power that it DWARFS several peer air forces.

>>13030657
Steinbeck is a cheap sensationalist with genre-tier prose style.

>>13030628
>he didn't include Dickinson
OP confirmed for American Anglophile b8ting like a faggot. 3/10.

*writes greatest novel in history*

>>13039121
I understand the problem with China because of the whole censorship thing, plus the genocides/mass starvation with Mao and the CCP. But the Americans have freedom of speech, money, have a lot of land and a big population. What is wrong with them?

>>13039931
Most Americans live a simple life and are proud of it. They just want to own their own house with their family and a dog. Everything else in life is a waste of time and distracts from what matters.
>Them arts guys just invent problems for themselves cause their lives are too easy

>>13030628
No Nabokov
No Poe
No Douglass

What a meme list anon

>>13039989
Nabokov is russian

>>13030628

We are circumcised (which stunts the brain with trauma, babies are also given sugar before the operation, no wonder so many American boys have ADHD, vaccinated, exposed to too much flouride (which has been objectively proven to lower IQ), and we no longer study Ancient Greek and Latin, which would have been unthinkable 50 years ago, given that the study of these languages has always been associated with a proper cultivation of the mind.

At least we have Hollywood, American Football, and the goodest goy military the world has ever known.

>>13030628
If you don't know John Dos Passos or even Henry fucking James your opinions on literature are worth nothing

>>13039989
HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHA
>American list, includes Russian

>>13040130
Ashkenazim Jews have the highest average IQ in the world and Koreans are up there with a near 100% circumcision rate
Admit that American culture is just a failure all around

So now that we all know that america has produced a vast number of outstanding writers, the real question is what the fuck went wrong with modern america? Where did all the talent go

>>13040232
All talented Americans move to Europe for a QoL increase, a reversal of the past

>>13040232
they didnt have talent in the first place, so it didnt go away

You need a strong connection to culture rooted in ancient esoteric myth to be a well rounded thinker. New worlders will never have. Post-communist nations are the same, as they killed their heritage. This is why Japan and western Europe remain unrivaled international thought powerhouses.

>>13040241
what country are you from anon

>>13040254
france

>>13040263
>france
>telling any other country they have bad literature

>>13040286
wow maximus cope

>>13040286
France is literally the face of literature. There has not been a single literary person of note within the past 500 years that did not know fluent French. French is the language of culture and Paris is the capital of real art.

>>13040240
>Europe
>QOL increase
huh?

>>13039983
>They just want to own their own house with their family and a dog
What's wrong with that?

>>13030628
>Not even Whitman
OP is a poorly read brainlet - the thread

>>13040299
>French is the language of culture and Paris is the capital of real art.
t. living in 1805

>>13040299
>Paris is the capital of real art.
We know Jean Phillipe. We know.....

>>13040398
Paul McCarthy is based

>>13032696
what's updike

>>13039989
>Poe

>>13030630
>Faulkner and Twain above Melville
Subhuman filth.

Nabakov? Pynchon?

>>13032696
Carver

>>13040226

I am half-Jewish (mother's side) and well aware that they are on average 1 standard deviation higher in IQ levels. However, you cannot deny that they have some of the highest rates of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in the world, which may be perhaps due to thousands of years of isolation, the general insanity of the Talmud, or thousands of years of mutilating and sucking bloody dicks.

Also, I do not care that Koreans have a 100% circumcision rate, it is more proof that most of them are souless drones who copy the worst elements of the west.

I will agree with you that American culture was doomed to fail, given that the founding fathers based much of their philosophy on imbecile enlightenment figures such as John Locke. Anyone who has seriously undertaken study of philosophy understands that English thinkers are notoriously dull-witted. That being said, America would possibly be a decent place to live if Jews hadn't brought all the blacks here via the Jewish slave trade. It also does not help that Babylonian Talmudists have complete control of the media, the banks, Hollywood, and the US military.

America is a beautiful country and has produced brilliant men such as Paul Morphy and Bobby Fischer. We can both agree that America culture is in a state of decadence, but however low America sinks, it will never be as filthy as a Zionist shill who can live with himself at the end of each day.

>>13041573
I'm half-Jewish (father's side so less Jewish than you) too and I thought the niggers gave the enslaved niggers to the french and Portuguese. I agree with the sentiments, but where is this Jewish conspiracy theory. I'm very interested in it.

>>13041573
tell me more if you could about these Babylonian Talmudists

>>13040398
>American artist desecrates the place Vendome
He's btfo. How will he ever recover?

>>13033698
>it hardly matters that very few people will read James. The ‘influence’ of James hardly matters: to be influenced by a writer is to have a chance inspiration from him; or to take what one wants; or to see things one has overlooked; there will always be a few intelligent people to understand James, and to be understood by a few intelligent people is all the influence a man requires.

>>13035855
your mom is second rate, shitheel

>>13030628
Americans tend to live life instead of writing about it. That's why we think euros are weak.

reminder whenever anyone is talking about “America”, they mean the United States. not your jungle country

>>13035855
>Pound is second rate
>taking your opinions directly from Nabokov's trash talk

>>13030628
Where's Lovecraft you uneducated swine?

>>13042503
no

>>13030657
Start with Of Mice and Men. Cant speak to the rest of his work but that book was enjoyable

>No Henry James
Into the trash it goes

>>13030657
Guys right. Start with Of Mice and Men. If you like it, read Cannery Row, then East of Eden/Grapes of Wrath. Travels with Charley, Tortilla Flats, To a God Unknown, The Pearl, they're all good, but not as good as the first ones I listed.

Grapes of Wrath is his best, I think, though East of Eden feels grander. There's something raw and wild about Grapes of Wrath, and it reads like a younger writer who's finally figured it out and is just going absolutely bonkers for a little bit throwing it all at the wall. Some sticks. Some doesn't, but it all feels very Steinbeckian if you'll allow me that. He's unarguably good. I'd put him with Cather, Hemingway, and Fitzgerald, and either on par or just below Faulkner. He also reads really easily, which is something I appreciate.