/lit/ - Literature

>>14036276
yup

>starting with late period James

>>14036276
Congrats, you chose the hardest Henry James novel. Start with Washington Square, The Bostonians or something from his earlier period.

Henry Jameszzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

>>14036558
I started with The Portrait of a Lady and thought it was great. Where do I go from here? And what is hard about his latet stuff?

the writer's writer

>>14036276
>This is harder than Pynchon.

Pynchon is meme difficulty. James is the real deal.

>>14036623
Try What Maisie Knew or The Bostonians.

Beware anons Henry James is easy reading don't buy his books. Wings of a dove is one of my biggest disappointments. I checked out an ambassadors sample it's easy and not worth literary acclaim.

>>14036276
>he actually believed one of the most famous writers of the last 200 years and considered by some to be one of the greatest in the language to be “easy” because some pseudretard on a forum who never actually read him said he was

>>14038296
But I read Pynchon....

I had the same experience with this book. Picked it up at a charity shop, hmm seems like a Victorian author, blah blah something Americans in Europe, its in Penguin classics probably be worth a read, I'll give it a go, holy fuck what in the shit am I reading and how long have I been this stupid?
Took me years before venturing into James again, but he's my fave now

/lit AUTISTS TRIGGERED BY HENRY JAMES YET AGAIN

OH BOY THIS NEVER GETS OLD

KILL YOURSELF OP YOU FAGGOT LMAO

>>14038638
tell me more
why does he wear the mask?

>>14038664
LIT AUTISTS ULTIMATE NIGHTMARE IS HENRY JAMES

THIS TRIGGERS LIT AUTISTS

GAZE UPON MY WORKS YE MIGHTY AND DISPAIR

>>14038664
Take, meanwhile, pray The Ambassadors very easily & gently: read five pages a day — be even as deliberate as that — but don’t break the thread. The thread is really stretched quite scientifically tight. Keep along with it step by step — & the full charm will come out.

"Hard" in what context?

>>14038296
>He actually believes “hard” means it’s “great”

>>14039114
Thick dull language? I’ve read academically thick books. Never poked around a novel considered hard though

is there a chart?

quick reminder not to respond to tripfags

>>14039444
>Never poked around a novel considered hard though
Unironically wondering: why do you browse this board? I'm here because I've gotten interested in "difficult" literature and shitty as this place is I know nowhere better. If you don't like to read, why are you here?

>>14039466
Why do you make things about me all the time?
So you seek out hard to read books, fine. Knock yourself out. I read fiction for pleasure, and the nonfiction for pleasure and knowledge.

Here. Read this.

>>14039505
>Why do you make things about me all the time?
I don't. I usually ignore you.
>I read fiction for pleasure
As do I:
>I've gotten interested in "difficult" literature
Your suggestion looks boring, I'm sorry. I'd much rather bruteforce through niche experimental fiction.

>>14039505
>make things UP about me

>>14039539
Enjoy

>>14039545
I read Herzen's Past & Thoughts since you mentioned liking him and it fit into the general schema of my autodidactic plans. As it turns out, I fucking despise Herzen, and I think less of you for recommending him.

>>14039654
Why do you not like him?

>>14039931
Not him but I long for the day that you finally join an anarchist commune and after a week of your inane waffle they democratically elect to stick your head on a spike.

Still don’t know why you wouldn’t like Herzen.
He was a great writer and lived an interesting life. Seemed like a solid friendly guy too.

>>14036276
It's not even worth the effort. An absurd homosexual American with delusions of grandeur.

Am I pleb or are Pynchon's novels only difficult because he's a self-indulgent bad writer?

>>14041111
>self-indulgent
pseud terminology, please rephrase.

>>14041099
For the same reason I would instinctively hate a socially-conscious billionaire out to reform society without relinquishing his position of power: I am the filthy homeless serf he pities. He makes excuses for the aristocracy... arrogant and self-congratulating. I've met too many men exactly like him, I'm afraid.

>>14041117
I don't have to rephrase because I got quads which means god is on my side, please feel free to kill yourself at your earliest convenience

>>14041135
cringe but also based

>>14038664
Because nobody cared until he put on the mask.

Bump

>>14036276
I'm reading The Wings of the Dove right now. It's definitely tough, I'm taking it in smaller and smaller increments just to stay on top of it. But there's such psychological depth, every character feels like they have a thousand subtle shades of conflicting, overlapping motivation, and all layered with James' refined, nudge-wink 'aristocratic' irony. How is it he manages to make the omnipresent market-logic pervading his character-relations seem simultaneously so vulgar and so charming?

>>14039505
This looks interesting, I got into anarchism (after being a Trotskyist for many years) and have been reading a lot of theory in the past 2 1/2 years but haven't heard of this, thanks. Indeed it's been more-or-less the only nonfiction I've read over that period of time. Thanks again

>>14041981
Why the switch? I used to be a Trotskyist as well.

I bought this book today because it seemed interesting. Whats so "hard" about it?

>>14041997
Uhm, good question. The more I learned about anarchism, the more I learned about the nature of authoritarianism and started to think about the evils of vanguardism etc...an anarchist society seems to me like the most desirable, "natural", unimpeded state mankind could aspire to.
Also the more I learned about anarchism and libertarian socialism the more I learned about the real horrors of some so-called communist states. The state has not "withered away and died" in any instance of a Marxist country...I still pull Marx out now and again; I mean Bakunin absolutely deferred to him as an economist...basically, anarchism just "felt right" to me. I can't articulate it beyond that. Funnily enough the first anarchists I knew were a Scots couple whom I used to go hunt-sabbing with, we had many arguments but they did get me to read some Chomsky. Also I got heavily involved with Anti-Fascist Action, Anti-Racist Alliance etc through comrades in the Socialist Worker's Party and went on many, many demonstrations and actions, this was at the height of the Stephen Lawrence trial in the UK, so it's not like no good came of it.
Proud to say I have attended four demonstrations this year as an anarchist! Met some lovely people too (there are no anarchist groups or meetings in my area so I attend Socialist Party meetings as a libertarian socialist).
What about you? Am I correct to assume that you're an anarchist now too? What made you switch?

>>14041997
Also learning about Nestor Makhno and what happened to him and the Ukrainian Free Territories was a BIG wake-up call for me. I think that was the moment I definitively abandoned Trotskyism/Marxism.

>>14041913
>thousand subtle shades of conflicting, overlapping motivation
He does this so well. You can always say, yes that's exactly what this person he's describing would have done in that particular situation, but you never have an easy answer to why they did it, there's always a complex concatenation of different push and pull factors. It feels so lifelike

>>14042035
No, I went the opposite way to you actually lol, I was just curious. Started out as a state-capitalist type Trotsykist. Hated the USSR etc. But reading Trotsky's defence of Kronstadt, and writings on terror made me question the narrative. As I kept reading more and more about the actual situations the USSR was facing - the wars, the siege, the isolation, and yet, the achievements as well as the problems, I decided to look more into things like Stalin, the Soviet electoral system, Third World communist movements. I was now more of a 'deformed workers state' type Trotskyist. But I was also struggling to reconcile the fact that Trotskyism, this supposedly superior ideology to 'Stalinism', had never had a revolution, not anywhere, not ever. I'd previously chalked this up to Stalinist betrayal etc, the usual stuff, but reading about what the ML states went through to survive, this excuse sounded increasingly plaintive. Having gave Kropotkin a go and finding it lacking, I realised I was basically a Marxist-Leninist now, so why not be honest with myself and drop the Trotskyism altogether?

>>14042114
I'm still very interested in Third-World communist movements, desu. Anti-imperialism/anti-colonialism will always be very interesting to me. Particularly the huge, positive changes achieved in Burkina Faso
by Thomas Sankara's regime. And the amount of disinformation surrounding Cuba is disgusting when it's obvious that Communism has lifted many, many people out of poverty...Kenyatta..Frantz Fanon is great, I assume you've read him?

>>14042139
For what it's worth, while I completely disagree with anarchism, I always knew that Catalonia, for all it's (in my opinion) mistakes was socialist and made great advances, something I occasionally see ML's denying to score cheap points. I simply feel that the ideology was not able to handle the onslaught. And I'm thoroughly convinced that any English socialism (a tradition I'm fascinated by, Winstanley, Spence, Morris, all that stuff - I'm convinced Englishness will be necessary for our own socialism whether we like it or not) will face its own onslaught, and that we'll have to be prepared. I also like historical materialism far too much to drop it.
I read Black Skin, White Masks and found it very good, his description of these black people so determined to escape their blackness by any means, their self-hatred, their deification of white people, I found very tragic. I've yet to read The Wretched of the Earth though, which appears to be his better regarded work.

I gave up on The Ambassadors halfway through. I’d hear it was difficult but want worried going in. I’d already read The Life of Johnson, The Brothers Karamazov, Demons (three times), War and Peace, Anna Karenina (three times) and I still wasn’t prepared for how painful it would be. Each page felt like 10.

>>14042086
It's amazing writing. My only issue with James is when he uses that same style in his more metafictional stories, commenting not on the psychologies of his characters, but about literature itself, as opposed to his 'character-based'/'realist' writing. The Figure in the Carpet felt so cliche I physically groaned at the end. Similarly, although I enjoyed The Aspern Papers a lot, it was definitely more owed to the setting and the central struggle of the protagonist, less to the papers (and their ultimate fate) themselves. It's not 'bad' really, just feels like such well-trod ground compared to stuff like this. In The Wings of the Dove and those type narratives though, it's great.

>>14042167
The Wretched Of The Earth is definitely the superior work.
I don't think Revolutionary Catalonia was destroyed by it's advances as much as superior military might and infighting between the militias. Orwell, as you know a member of POUM barely made it out of Spain alive due to Stalin's NKVD death squads and between COUM and the combined forces of Franco and the Falangists, the writing was on the wall.
Like I said, I found the "liquidation" of the UFT and The Black Army absolutely inexcusable. They fought bravely alongside the Red Army for years but were killed at the drop of a hat once they'd outlived their usefulness. Organising three million Ukrainian peasants under the banner of anarchism was no mean feat...I can't into Lenin at all. He espoused a form of libertarian socialism in The state And Revolution and then, once the Bolsheviks had consolidated their power base, liquidating the Soviets and Workers Councils to the All-Russian Soviet Congress (correct me if I'm wrong) and placing all power into the hands of a small intelligentsia which basically enabled them to mould the state into a mendacious paradigm that would only benefit them and their authoritarian vision of socialism.
I love Morris, News from Nowhere is great, if more than a little quixotic!

>>14042231
I won't drag us into political argument, particularly in this thread. Suffice to say, my respect for Catalonia does not extend to Makhnovshchina. To say they fought alongside the Red Army is to smooth over a lot of real conflict the two had, not to speak of the their inefficiency in actually halting the White advance. I'd recommend Colin Darch's work on the subject. Even Voline admitted the actual communalisation of the UFT was minute, apparently there were no more than a few hundred families involved in the Makhnovist communes. Thus, their repression, while regrettable, was far, far from 'inexcusable' in my opinion.
My understanding was that the Local Factory Committees (the basis of the electoral system you're speaking of) were dissolved. They were replaced with the more familiar Soviet electoral system, that was more geographical in nature. The reason? That it was partly for consolidation of power is something I'm entirely prepared to entertain. I might even consider that justified, to a certain extent, given the siege they faced. But more specifically the reason was that the LFC were just plainly disorganised. They squabbled with each other, withheld resources from each other, refused to deal with each other, and in general exhibited the tendency to fragment and infight. This would've been death for the country. The resultant system, while I acknowledge it favoured an increasingly influential managerial stratum (not class), was the best option available on the basis of the class forces of the day in my opinion, and was also not entirely cut off from the populace either. So it benefited many millions, though again I acknowledge, somewhat more for some than others.
My favourite Morris is A Dream of John Ball, definitely check it out if you haven't, so good.

>>14042194
I think he's definitely a writer who achieved greatness by chipping away at the marble over his life, through laborious trial and error, rather than being born great. He doesn't start in a blaze of glory, he slowly works his way up the mountaintop over decades.
Watch and Ward is hilarious in how amateurish and bad it is, yet is unmistakably James, every paragraph is obviously James. He must have been mortified by it later on.

>>14039444
You will never pass

>>14041128
Ah, thank you. Valid enough reason, but they're all like this. I can't go around angry with all of them. So many groups aid the ruling class. His kind at least speak up for change, and I judge Bernie Sanders more harshly only because of the time periods. I liked his recollection of Bakunin

>>14041981
He seems well versed in Hegel and writes a bit like Zizek, but you may like it anyway.
Good to see a comrade

>>14042035
>Also I got heavily involved with Anti-Fascist Action, Anti-Racist Alliance etc through comrades in the Socialist Worker's Party and went on many, many demonstrations and actions, this was at the height of the Stephen Lawrence trial in the UK, so it's not like no good came of it.
Read Sorel and realise all this neo-Dreyfusard nonsense just turns the left into the reserve guard of the establishment (initially enthusiastic to defend the cause of justice in the Dreyfus affair, Sorel later regretted the alliance that formed between the socialists and the bourgeoisie against the reactionaries).

>>14042632
Same here! This is my first time I've posted on here, have browsed a couple of times but never stuck around much...I'll try and get a copy of The Impossible Community, definitely.
>>14042330
I know there was conflict between the Bolsheviks and anarchists, of course. I find it admirable that the Makhnovists instituted freedom of the press, freedom to organise, freedom of speech etc when the Bolsheviks were doing the opposite...I agree, no point arguing; btw is the Colin Darch book specifically about the UFT? I think calling The Black Army "inefficient" doesn't give enough credit for what they accomplished WITHOUT the aid of the Reds. Anyway I'll check out Colin Darch, thanks for the rec!

>>14038167
Not that anon, but "What Maisie Knew" is just "divorce for a kid: the book"

>>14042330
You have the personality of an executioner

>>14042780
I'll finish here by saying that what Makhnovshchina did for freedom of the press, freedom to organise, freedom of speech was roughly analogous to the Bolsheviks (I phrase it that way so that you can make of it what you will), because they were, as were all, governed in extremely large part by the necessities of the situation. Again, even people like Voline admit this -
https://marxistleftreview.org/articles/nestor-makhno-the-failure-of-anarchism/#_edn24
Also here's the Darch book I had in mind, although he has other, shorter work as well, just google his name if you're interested:
http://www.colindarch.info/docs/19940000_makhnovshchina.pdf
Take care man.

>>14042817
Is that insult supposed to upset me lmao, pathetic. 3/10

What the fuck is his problem?

>>14042848
You too thanks for the info mate! Noted!

I found that text more difficult to parse than Proust, 2bh

>>14042587
He was always his own greatest critic I guess, yeah. Like you say, even his failings are so distinctively his that I have some admiration for them.

>>14042899
That's fucking hilarious, what a lad - what's it from?

Hard? How?

>>14042848
Holy shit that Darch book is fucking great, thanks!

>>14043139
Like my dick

>>14036623
I loved that book too and it was my first James. Tried a couple others and none of them clicked.

>>14043377
No worries mate, enjoy

>>14043615
I am! Some interesting stuff in The Marxist left Review, too! Cheers once again!

What would Henry James say about a couple of shitty commies including a tripfag cluttering the best James thread in weeks?

Please respond in either flash fiction experimental form or three point-five paragraph essay form.

>>14036276
His brother is a far better author.

>>14042632
I've seen you around /lit/ for ages, posting in almost every thread at least once. Do you even have time to read?

>>14036558
Thanks anon. Just bought washington square as my first book by le golden bowl man

>>14043833
I've been talking about James as well as my politics so do feel free to kys you cringe cunt

>>14043856
Washington Sq is amazing, also if you like Gothic stuff check out The Turn of the Screw as well, short but great depth. Very off-kilter, unsettling tone.

What exactly is so hard about late Henry James?

>>14043887
>I was thinking about tits while I slammed that pozhole, you homo.

Page 230. Henry James remembers the expression "to hang fire." He uses it for ten pages in a row and subsequently forgets it; the rest of the writing must have been completed by him on different days.

>>14044192
Your perverted analogy exposes only your own faggotry my friend.

>>14044174
Try it and see. At first you'll think you're reading a fairly normal fin de siecle English novel, and then the fuckery begins.

>>14036276
>A dedicated authorship thread regarding specific works
>Is immediately transformed into a Chapo/pol thread because "Ummm no, that's too hard!"
This place fucking sucks now.

>>14044240
Post a passage from him

>>14044275
>She had got up with these last words; she stood there before him with that particular suggestion in her aspect to which even the long habit of their life together had not closed his sense, kept sharp, year after year, by the collation of types and signs, the comparison of fine object with fine object, of one degree of finish, of one form of the exquisite with another–the appearance of some slight, slim draped “antique” of Vatican or Capitoline halls, late and refined, rare as a note and immortal as a link, set in motion by the miraculous infusion of a modern impulse and yet, for all the sudden freedom of folds and footsteps forsaken after centuries by their pedestal, keeping still the quality, the perfect felicity, of the statue; the blurred, absent eyes, the smoothed, elegant, nameless head, the impersonal flit of a creature lost in an alien age and passing as an image in worn relief round and round a precious vase

>>14042114
I really want to get into James. I read “The Turn of the Screw” and enjoyed it, but that one seems so entry-level. The other James I’ve tried just obliterated me. I can’t get into it, but I keep trying. Maybe I should give Maisie another shot or Portrait of a Lady. I really want to read Golden Bowl or Sacred Fount. I know he disavowed Fount, but it seems so cool. I just find the writing impenetrable.

Yeah yeah, I know. I’m a pleb.

>>14043887
>some kind of faggoty ancom calling anyone else cringe

>>14044320
Like someone itt else suggested, try his earlier stuff - The Europeans, The American, etc. Stuff like The Aspern papers is great as well. I haven't got round to Masie yet (my copy's at the top of the bedside table pile), but that's probably a good idea. Apart from that you just gotta get into the groove of his prose. Get used to finishing long sentences without making assumptions about what they'll say before they finish, which is something I used to have big trouble with, you'll only confuse yourself. No idea if that's a common problem though lol. Get used to thinking why characters are acting with only faint, subtle hints of their underlying thoughts or principles, and learn to enjoy that ambiguity. Don't worry about what's 'entry-level', if you're reading James, you're better than 99% of the population.

>>14044344
>ancom
Nice try, but no. Not even close. No one cares either. So fuck off.

>>14044401
>Get used to finishing long sentences without making assumptions about what they'll say before they finish
Good observation, I think that a great tip for James

>>14044297
Doesn't seem that bad. Meaty but comprehensible though I can understand it may get wearying if you try and plough through it 100mph

>>14044248
Blame Butters man

Bump

I made a thread about this a while ago that didn't get that many replies so I figure I'll ask again, maybe some of you are interested/have opinions: What does /lit/ think of James' famous exchange with H G Wells?
https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/03/09/henry-james-h-g-wells-art/

>>14045062
James is right

>>14044878
Butterfly is Butterfly. I blame the people who choose to humor her.

The portrait of a lady is shockingly difficult, it reminds me of a post modern novel at times in how it rambles on for 10-15 pages of subconscious dialogue the characters can have with themselves. I do love james though he's one of a kind.

Bump

Wow. How do conversations work?

>>14036276
Finnegans Wake

this was hard

>>14042174
The trouble is with everything except for Boswell you're reading translations which are almost never INTENDED to be difficult to read. Read more 18th century native English novels, and especially Melville, and you'll gradually get the hang of it, and eventually even start dreaming in compound sentences

>>14042899
what a fucking autist LMAO and I thought I was fucked

>>14043843
He would actually not have agreed with you. More influential thinker perhaps; more gifted at writing, certainly not

>>14044297
I was fine with it until
>rare as a note and immortal as a link
what the FUCK did he mean by this?

>>14046622
As ephemeral as a musical note, as permanent as a link in a chain

>>14045456
Care to elaborate?

>>14046295
Usually by replying to whoever you're talking to, you tedious retard you.

Bump

>>14046387
He was a gifted writer, though, even if more and essayist, and even if his mental muscle for qualifying statements wasn't hypertrophied like Henry's. I would easily put William over the likes of a Hemingway for example.

bump

>>14036276
Decided to check out the book on account of your thread and I love it. The way he writes is just satisfying as hell, the little metaphors for psychological/social phenomena he piles on top of each other. This type of literature very much clears my head to read, makes my thinking more ordered.

>>14042231
based COUMer in this thread

>>14049795
Nah man CNT all the fucking way

>>14049391
nice

>>14046376
I’ve read nearly all of Jane Austen, Moby Dick, Great Expectations, all of Conrad. I don’t think I’m the problem

>>14050963
Start with earlier James (Portrait, Bostonians, WS)

Bump

>>14039505
Mussolini went through this stage as well. As your thought matures and changes over the years I can see you becoming more fashy in your outlook... Some of your posts, like the one bashing Gavin M./Orange-Man-Good fans, sound like Murdoch Chan wrote them. You will see that the Black Flag leads to the Black Shirt. One of us... ;-)

>14052345
cringe

>>14052345
>Mussolini
He regressed to adolescences, anon. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I was a fan of Dr Doom when I was in my early teens. I’m not going to regress to that shit.

>>14042899
Why can’t all literature be written like this?