/lit/ - Literature

Capitalism

>>17340867
When was the last time you picked up a book released in the last 10 years?

>>17340867
It takes a master to write a masterpiece and all the masters died.

>>17340867
you know how yoh never really “feel” like a decade is all that distinct until 5 years after?

yah, thats why. Hindsight is 2020.

>>17340867
The answer to this question is so simple that it baffles me there are people retarded enough to not know it by default. Therefore I shall let you dwell in your retardation OP. Take this as an encouragement to work on your intelligence.

>>17340867
the masterpieces never were masterpieces. they were just books that managed to get published when books were relatively hard to publish. that situation has ended. now there are countless books just as good, but the delusional classicist fetishists can't see that. if it's not old, it cannot be great. you are fools with no actual opinions of your own. I've read blogposts and tweets with more value and cleverness than done of the philosophical so-called masterpieces. let it all rot. the lies are coming to an end

>>17340935
Are you literally 15? This is the most braindead shit I've ever read.
Grow up.

>>17340867
Pretty sure some of my lit posts are literary masterpieces.

>>17340935
Can you name any contemporary books that you’d rank anong the classics that get posted here? Not trying to be argumentative, would genuinely like to know if you have any recommendations

>>17340935
this >>17340955

>>17340955
He doesn't have any. He's just some pseudo-contumacious white boy who LARPs as a socialist who wants to "bring down the system, man!"
Guy probably asked his parents for money numerous times this month.

>>17340867
because they don't sell

>>17340935
You're very close but not there yet, this will make /lit/ seethe still so its based regardless

>>17340935
>you are fools with no actual opinions of your own.
Peak fucking Reddit, holy shit. Tip your fedora lately, you fucking lame-ass?

>>17340942
braindead? how so? I'm the father of a 15 year old, by the way

>>17340955
siddartha by hesse
blood meridian
American Psycho
the crying of lot 49
The Electric Koolaid Acid Test
Ubik
Infinite Jest
Battle Royale
Warhammer novelizations
The Thrawn Trilogy
The Commonwealth Saga
Eat,Pray, Love
Industrial Civilization and It's Future
The Bell Curve

I’m the type of guy who’d write a literary masterpiece. Most of my day consists of going on the Internet, playing video games, and eating. Does this answer your question

>>17340984
Kek, ok, you fucking got me, you motherfucker you

>>17340984

>>17340955
Not him, but Ishiguro's "The Unconsoled" is amazing.

>>17340867
The mixing of the European races unfortunately caused the destruction of extremely specific mental capacities evolved in isolation. The Anglo, the Saxon, the Nord, the Irish, the Mediterranean. All of these races evolved very particular modes of thought, like one of Darwin's finches.
Unfortunately, once they began to mix, their beautiful traits were homogenized and essentially erased. A vast and ever-expanding shallowness has grown since then. Now we are mixing then entire globe. Our minds are becoming averaged and shallow, or otherwise dysfunctional. Truth cannot come from the mind of a hybrid, and few pure breeds are left to carry the mantle

>>17340867
they're being kind enough to wait for me to open the floodgates

>>17340881
You people are so tiresome. There's never any analysis, any attempt to distinguish various methods of capitalism, how they differ, interact, and what they do to culture at different stages. Its all just monolithic evil capitalism, vs monolithic utopian socialism. Capitalism killed art may be true, but its a vague statement to the point of meaninglessness. Different forms of capitalism created it too.

There are Marxists out there who actually attempt to analyze all of this. I've met some and still correspond with one of my old professors from uni. I've met ML's with a very intelligent conception of national identity. That being said, I'm gradually coming to hate you people. The overwhelming majority of "socialists" (really just edgy liberals) I've met are essentially religious in their convictions.There is no attempt to analyze or reinterpret anything. They somehow manage to be dogmatic without any coherent understanding of the dogma.

>>17341028
supremely based and effortlessly redpilled

>>17340995
you people who keep saying "you got me" on this board when confronted with a reply they disagree with are obnoxious. it's passive aggressive and honestly not even funny

There are no new ideas anymore.
Everything has been deconstructed so nothing feels new and fresh.
The last controversial book was dan browns criticism of the catholic church, but to me thats hardly new.

>>17340935
You're kind of right in that the knowledge of writing and the ability to get published is much easier than ever, but the classics are classics because they fit archetypes and because they display exceptional qualities. It's like paintings. You have to view them relative to the time.

>>17341069
The Denial of Death and The Moral Animal are relatively new and groundbreaking. In fact in many ways they render the"classics" transparent and borish, irrelevant even

>>17341013
Wrote it down, thanks

>>17340867
Language isn't valued anymore except for its utilitarian function. People will look at you strange if you say you are learning Greek to read Homer and wonder why you don't just learn Mandarin instead. Language as divine instrument from God is dead.

>>17340867
They will pop up, they always do eventually. Somebody finds a gem and parades it and it becomes a classic. Many classics were not celebrated at all in their time, though many also were and it is strange that there are none of the celebrated category.

>>17340867
they are, you just have to wait for the authors to die to find out about them.

>>17341028
I diagnose that it’s the whole concept of accumulative currency. Modern capitalism is worse for a number of reasons, but I do not advocate a return to the older models, nor whatever it is the bitcoiners think their going to do.
I also know the state and capital are part of the same beast. There’s nothing meaningless about my simple answer/solution. The mere existence of this system IS causing 99% of the problems we face today. Remove this unnatural shit and we can heal. I’m not an Ivy League collegiate. *that would leave me a liberal*. I am a simple working class nobody.
The diagnosis is correct. Do the work and think it over yourself

>>17341153
>their going to do.
They’re

>>17341037
And what a fucking weak willed bootlicker post this is. Please be kidding

>>17341028
it's a waste of time for them to understand what they preach they are but delusional mouthpieces of charismatic snake oil salesmen, what else can you expect from them but "muh capitalism" or "read theory" they don't realize that by their answers by being so simple to the point of idiocy they hurt their holy crusade by way of making people hate them and their banal stupidity

>>17341156
Butterfly my love, why are you not using your tripcode?

>>17341153
>I am a simple working class nobody
finally something we agree on, you retarded bitch

>>17340881
The only reason the novel rose as an art form in the first place was capitalism. what an idiotic take.

>>17340881
when you ask a zoomer a question

>>17341153
I feel that your initial diagnoses was overly simplistic to the point of being next to useless. Lets walk through your expanded theory since I didn't quite get everything. Are you arguing that the present concentration of capital among a few wealthy individuals has produced a dearth of artistic masterworks? How would you respond to the works of artistic quality produced during prior periods of great accumulation?

>>17341197
>we would’ve never have invented the cotton gin, automobile, space flight, if it wasn’t for capitalism

>>17340867
It's also why people don't actually communicate anymore except in memes, buzzwords, half thoughts, half utterances. Children aren't imbued with a wonder and appreciation for language as mysterious godlike engine of thought and expression like they once were during the time of Shakespeare, when children could write hexameters and would have memorized Virgilian bucolics before learning to tie their shoes. The school curriculum diversified to meet the demands of modernity and that taste for high language died along with it. The word cope is an interesting example. It takes absolutely no intelligence or wit or imagination to respond with cope, but the word itself means quite a lot, just as much as what someone 200 years ago would have said in much fuller language to express the same idea. The point is that the word is short, blunt, soulless, one-dimensional, efficient, in a word, modern. Moderns are like musicians who are completely incapable of writing variations on a theme and can only repeat the theme over and over again ad nauseum. No inventio, no substance, no thought, just the same mind numbding sound bites over and over. In 50 years I don't doubt that we will probably have dispensed with language entirely and will communicate exclusively in grunts. Everything comes full circle. We are turning back into cavemen in our sexual ethics, in our mores, and above all in our language.

>>17341251
meant for >>17341096

>>17341239
Butters, please stay focused. That's a whole other subject and I'd like to flesh out your theory on art.
>>17341201

>>17341239
The automobile and rocket are mere products of the military industrial complex seizing the means of production in war time control. Capitalism built those means of production, the government merely co-opted them for the sole use of destroying human life.
The computer you're posing on? Started out as the ENIAC, the first computer ever made to calculate artillery strikes.
From artillery we get our lovely internet age... and you're telling me you want the government to have MORE control over it?
Sheeeeeesh, get a load of this brainwashed woman. I get it, your heart is in the right place, but it's pure ignorance meant to keep people docile.

>>17341251
You just reminded me how I keep seeing lately people shortening certain words, "suspicious" is now just "sus". Actually left me wondering for few moments as to what the hell they meant.

>>17341251
This post is double-plus ungood.

>>17341028
>>17341201
>>17341270
You are wasting your time bro.
Butterfly has nothing of substance to say. She can't actually expound on the theories she holds and defend them. All he can do is recommend the books she's read (been brainwashed by) and spit out one word to two sentence ironic takes at people who aren't commies. She's retarded bro. And you're a faggot for thinking otherwise.

>>17341332
ugg ugg

>>17340867
Don't worry bro, I am coming. That said, it will take me a little time to finish :)

>>17340867
The bar is set too high and the conditions that would create the necessary writer are nonexistent.

>>17341321
human language will eventually just reduce down to one basic sound that roughly means, "let me consume that". this is how it will turn out

>>17341333
We shall see

>>17340867
They still are. A bit hard to find them if you are monolingual and waiting years for a translation.

>>17341239
>>17341270
Ok Butters, I'm going to watch Man with a Movie Camera. I will be back in an hour if there's anything to respond to.

>>17341201
>your initial diagnoses was overly simplistic
Single words are usually simplistic. It is a prompt for one to think over. But you have questions.

Art is alive and well, in the hands of artists of various sorts, but also in the hands of hacks, the simple stenographer kinds of artists. They do thrive in prosperous times and places. Venice was the hub of early capitalism and a lot of their art is mostly forgotten, only the best survive the centuries. Today we see art in even greater complexity and depth. The inventiveness bothers a lot of the trads around here, but I don’t deny that there’s tons of commercial garbage made by those same stenographer types, just trying to make a buck.
We notice the theme of distress in some contemporary art don’t we?

>>17340881
>what do squishy vags smell like?

>>17341368
Nice, enjoy

>>17341386
Why is this person using my name? Stop pretending to be me, tranny. Capitalism is the best system we have. Read Milton Friedman.

>>17340867
They are, but you can only find them in LNs.

>>17340955
Monogatari

>>17340984
>>17340935
listen, you have a good point about publishing, but the fact to the matter is masterpieces have to be old so we know that they are masterpieces. There are many masterpieces from this decade being written right now, that will only be called that in a hundred years. We could only really see them if we were truly visionaries, which very few people are. We can point to a book and say that it's good or great, but to call it a masterpiece is to predict it's literary, artistic, social influence and also predict that it will stay relevant for many years from now. We just don't have that visionary power, so we might as well read the classics that have already proven their quality throughout the ages.

>>17340984
>Eat,Pray, Love
>Industrial Society and It's Future
>The Bell Curve
Laughed my ass off, thank you anon

>>17340867
we've covered every archetype it seems, right?

>>17341239
God i want to bone Fairuza so bad. But I'll take butters too

>>17341403
based

>>17341390
Kek.

>>17341028
The thing is that "capitalism" is a valid response to a lot of the big picture problems developed nations currently face. However, Gen Z and Millennials, being the lazy generations they are, hear the arguments in support of capitalism as the boogeyman, connect the very few dots laid out, and call it good. They're not wrong, but they're also not sure why they're correct either.

>>17340867
Barzun explains this.

>>17340919
Its 2021 bro why are you talking about 2020 lmao cmon boomer its time too catch up

>>17341573
Would you direct me to the text he explains this in, kind anon?

>>17340935
>if it's not old, it cannot be great
Ehh, I just seek a certain aesthetic. I can read modern novels, but not books in modern settings. For example McCarthy, Williams, and Pynch are more-or-less (Williams being dead) contemporary authors, and I fully enjoy The Border, Augustus, and Mason & Dixon respectively, but as soon as you begin introducing modern technology and brand names and (our) social milieu horseshit it goes straight into the fucking trash. I read to explore different things, not the things I already experience and have a determined and cultivated distaste of, or more: revulsion towards.

>>17341200
Except butterfly is a lesbian eggcel-an evolutionary dead end

>>17340911
today.

Clearly, someone has not read Chabon.

>>17340867
Read more

>>17341773
name it

>>17341251
Absolutely based.

>>17341347
>human language will eventually just reduce down to one basic sound that roughly means, "let me consume that"
GIBSMEDAT

>>17341251
I wish somebody would record himself reading this and then turn it into a jazzy, repetitive, highly modern spoken word ambience muzak

>>17341156
It's fun to watch narcissistic tripfags seethe

>>17340867
Lobo Antunes, Krasznahorkai, Vargas Llosa, Cartarescu and Jon Fosse are way better than Dickens, Austen, Balzac and other 19th century "writers".

>>17342122
>Fosse, Cartarescu
>better than Dickens
HHAHAHAHHAHAHAA

>>17342134
Dickens is kitsch crap.

>>17340984
>The Bell Curve
I think it's mostly correct but come on anon, that's not a fucking masterpiece.

>>17340867

>>17340867
>why isn't the filter of time instantaneous

We've lost epistemic familiarity.
That and if everybody is shit then masterpieces are just something lightly less shit.
All masterpieces are essentially canned shit, it's just in the past the toilet had a nicer seat.

>>17340867
Because you can only recognize masterpieces in hindsight

>>17340881
Capitalism has existed for approximately 300-400 years, and many masterpieces have come into existence, and many masterpieces were created during that time. The last forty or so years have been the exception in that regard. I think the real problem derives from the economic crises that occurred in America during the 1970s and the policies that were put in place to address them, particularly those of Reagan.

>>17340935
You're partially right for the wrong reason. Books being hard to publish means only very talented, rich or intelligent men and women could write them, which naturally creates more fertile ground for classics. Now, even if some genius does manage to write a classic, it will almost certainly be drowned out by all the tripe.

>>17340867
Dunno, anon. Why aren't you considering the best works of the living writers? And desu it is not like Anglos are in a 'literary crisis,' there are plenty of good contemporary writers.

>>17341404
People like Goethe were already famous during their life time, Nietzsche got famous barely a decade or two after his death, Shakespeare wrote for the Royals...
The unknown, starving artist only discovered after his death is more of an exception than rule. Most famous writers regarded as Great could write because they had enough money to sit at home all day doing nothing and because they had contacts to other writers/noblemen.

>>17340867
Because masterpieces are usually determined long after a work is published

>Why aren't literary masterpieces written anymore?

They are.

>>17345599
dead meme

>>17345608
I know. But I'm not referring to the memes. Books are surprisingly kino.

>>17340867
There are plenty written by him

>>17345599
>>17345645
keyed

>>17345599
The fuck is up with these books? I keep seeing them posted.

>>17341024
Maybe you all are just retards have you thought about that?

>>17341090
>Denial of Death is groundbreaking
Rehashing ideas directly from Freud, Kierkegaard, and Zapffe isn't what I'd call groundbreaking.

>>17340881
late capitalism*

>>17344099
Good Take

>>17341504
Perhaps, however a large part of the problem is that the definition of "Capitalism" varies wildly even when talking to the same person. Sometimes it is used to mean the laissez-faire neoliberal free market economics, and sometimes it refers to literally any social system outside a few narrow interpretations of Karl Marx. Hell even among socialist circles there is tremendous disagreement about what "workers control" and "means of production" actually mean. It seems to me that discussing specific policies and trends is far more productive then attempting to construct all encompassing social systems. This is not to say that class analysis is pointless, but the discussions which arise around it are often far too abstract.

Furthermore the vast majority of socialists I've spoken with cannot articulate why socialism is necessary when social democracy exists. There are some decent arguments from Maoists and Wallerstein on this subject, but they're almost never employed.

>>17341386
Having seen it:
1. If there is a movie that will convince you of the existence of progress, it is Vertov's film.
2. I need to do more calisthenics

>>17341378
So you don't feel that art is declining? That in 100 years the cream will rise to the top and the true masterpieces of this generation will be picked out?

Apparently Adorno has written something on this subject, if anyone has read him feel free to explicate for those of us who haven't.

>>17341153
>I also know the state and capital are part of the same beast.
Baseless afirmation to the point of retardation

>>17345774
Some anon on here wrote them. I read the arcade one back when he was giving them out for free. It's pretty good, but has a lot of grammar issues.

>>17340867
We are no longer a culture capable of writing them.

Bump

>>17340867

Because all of the intelligent, creative, energetic, and capable people have moved on to become scientists, mathematicians, programmers, internet and technology entrepreneurs, vloggers, bankers, video game designers, management consultants, sportspeople, politicians, rappers, pop stars, and executives.

Novels, as a dead art form, are left as a low stakes, non-rigorous, zero standards attention whoring medium for low midwit white women, and for midwit and unintelligent ethnic minorities who want to larp as the ruling class and aren't good enough for the fields in the above paragraph.

Mediums rise and fall, get over it.

>>17340867
Life has become post modern nihilism where nothing matters. What could there possibly be to write about?

>>17341251
nice

>>17348405
>Because all of the intelligent, creative, energetic, and capable people have moved on to become scientists, mathematicians, programmers, internet and technology entrepreneurs, vloggers, bankers, video game designers, management consultants, sportspeople, politicians, rappers, pop stars, and executives.
This. Capitalism swallows creative energy and forces people who could be artists to work soulless jobs while pretending to express their creativity

>>17340867
Look up the lindy effect. Thanks me later

>>17348607
This

>>17344099
The invention of currency and markets come on the heels of written laws and warrior states. Primitive capitalism, yes, but that is what I always refer to. The more commercial era is when you start to see a real drop in quality. Someone has already modified my statement with “late capitalism”, and I agree. (Though the term is controversial amongst certain posters).
A lot happened in the 70s, fiat dollar was born, labor surplus, oil crisis, “stagflation”, but I don’t see what effect any of that had on the arts. I do bring up the poisonous foods Monsanto is feeding us and how that’s probably what’s behind the spike in mental and emotional problems. That’s a likely component, I think.

>>17346242
I do think there’s something wrong with literature, but it seems to be Bloom’s complaint paired with commercialism. Which was all I was thinking when I made my first post. But there’s many artists still turning out wonderful work. The volume of the hacky and the hokey drowns us

>>17348602
This is a dumb criticism because modern civilization literally needs people to devote their creative energy to jobs because civilizations wouldnt run otherwise.
Either return to tradition and disband the modern world or just accept this as a fact of life.

>>17340867
Creative energies are being used to make tv shows, movies and vidya gaems.

>>17340881
That's the consequence, not the cause per se.

>>17340935
>start with "bold" unsubstantiated claim
>end with "edgy" faggy nihilism
kys

>>17340943
Same desu

>>17340911
last month

>>17340984
>siddartha by hesse
not contemporary, rest of the list is great though

>>17340867
The death of introspection killed them.

>>17340955
Way of Florida by far

>>17341251
Most people are poor and talk to communicate logistically as an overwhelming historical constant

>>17349846
most people are complete fucking plebs

>>17348678
Where does it /need/ creative people?

>>17340867
Because you haven't published your work yet

>>17340984
>Infinite Jest
>Blood Meridian
Already classics
>The Bell Curve
What?

>>17341251
I shouldn’t be laughing at this but it’s true

>blocks your path

>>17341024
interesting take

>>17349822
Thanks anon

>>17341166
Not in this case with this OP, but most of the time when someone simply says "read theory" it's because it's extremely obvious the person posing the question hasn't done so much as skim wikipedia let alone read the actual theory they're typically badgering on about. Why would I bother dignifying their question by wasting my time effort posting on their dogshit post on a dogshit forum when they haven't put in the slightest effort in to begin with?

>>17346259
Because the benumbed (by capital) voting public's main window into the world is their television, elections are decided primarily by costly tv ads—capital. Senators and congressmen have to kowtow to donors. Most of them allow themselves to be even further bought by lobbyists. The political parties become in effect PR for the dictates of capital. It is obvious to most Americans that every politician save Bernie Sanders is bought and paid for by corporate interests. This is why corporations get bailed out and not the people. The state constantly uses public funds to prevent corporate
profit loss.

>>17340867
Jews and Leftists can only advance their ideas by destroying beauty and reducing the level of discourse in the culture at large. The result is that things that predate their poisonous ideas are disproportionally beautiful compared to things produced now, despite inferior technology.

Deep in his heart, every Leftist wants to see beautiful things destroyed and replaced with ugly things. Beautiful statues, beautiful people, beautiful religions, beautiful traditions, beautiful music--these are all inherently Right-Wing, and thus the enemy of progress, and therefore they must be destroyed.

>>17350058
Sanders is also bought and paid for. He was a lockstep Democrat right up until he developed presidential ambitions. His rebellion is fake.

>>17350128
Zzzzzzzzzzz <— me sleeping

>>17340867
berserk

>>17340881
Almost everything written 1800-present was written under capitalism, including things like Ulysses, Moby Dick, Blood Meridian, Infinite Jest, and so on. I unironically think you have an unimpressive IQ, around the 90-105 range.

>>17340867
I'm working on it, give me a little bit

>>17340867
You guys don't read so of course you can't name good books written in the last 20 years.
While you may not like all of them (even I don't like all of them) here are a few innovative books I think will be remembered that were written post 2000:
House of Leaves (2000)
Laura Warholic (2007)
The Road (2006)
2666 (if we include YA fiction)
You just have to read them and you will find them.

>>17350201
It's trash

>>17350241
>2666 (if we include YA fiction)
kek

>>17350241
Nice to see some love for Laura Warholic.

>>17340867
I read this book H is for Hawk (2014) two years ago and it’s one of my favorite I’ve ever read. That might be biased though the subject matter ended up hitting close to home for me.

>>17340968
It's 'based' because it's vacuous. It never risks a thing.

>>17341066
Maybe if it was a sincere post.

>>17340881
I hope to meet you in the afterlife, if we have one.

2666 is a masterpiece

>>17350135
Sanders has always been grassroots funded. He plays nice with Democrats because it gets him power. Yes, registered lobbyists have donated small amounts to his campaigns before, but they represent a tiny percentage of his funding.

>>17340984
>Eat,Pray, Love
>Industrial Civilization and It's Future
>The Bell Curve
This is the most chad reading selection I have ever seen

>>17350500
Sanders is like the one decent politician in the federal government. How the fuck did he manage to stay in office in corporate America?

>>17350210
So it can’t be all the mindless commercialism. ‘Kay.
Must be skin color or church attendance or something. Chakras maybe

>>17350346
That's cool. I also like the original, the Goshawk, but there's a case for H is for Hawk as a representative of writing meta-texts that are meaningful in themself. Also, the bird playing catch was so cool

>>17350241
Based Alexander Theroux chad

>>17340867
we were born in le wrong generation

The obvious answer is masterpieces are a function of time. Moby Dick was hated when it came out. I imagine the future masterpieces of this generation are relatively unknown today.

>>17340881
Fpbp

>>17340919
So where are the masterpieces from the 00s/early 10s

*QUESTION*

Who here is consciously trying to write a great literary masterpiece? Let's get a show of hands.

>>17340881
Guys look a retard

>>17346211
>>17348676
>late capitalism
I have to take issue with the term. As a species we've barely even left proto-capitalism. No global revolution can succeed while the north and south remain economically distinct. Honestly, the whole idea gives Marxism an almost christian eschatology. Like the rapture you've been in late capitalism for more then a century yet the revolution is continuously postponed.

>>17348676
I might agree with you on much good art being drowned out by those with bigger advertising budgets; what exactly is Blooms critique of modern lit?

>>17340984
>thrawn
my nigga

>>17352192
Moby dick was really appreciated in Britain right from its publication. It took America 70 years to catch up.

>>17340867
Cause you haven’t written one, OP.

>>17352436
it really wasn't. it sold better sure but it wasn't any better received critically. and it certainly wasn't hailed as masterpiece. why are you making things up you know nothing about?

>>17340911
Bleeding Edge a few years ago

>>17352209
The Road
2666
Austerlitz
Easy Chain

>>17352468
>Easy Chain
haven't read this
is it as good as the others?

>>17352456
Things don't get hailed as a masterpiece when they come out, you retard. That's how it has always been. And it is you who knows nothing, Moby dick's critical reception in Britain was way better than it was in the US.

>>17352475
It's his best, yet.

>>17352456
>The reception of The Whale in Britain and of Moby-Dick in the United States differed in two ways, according to Parker. First, British literary criticism was more sophisticated and developed than in the still-young republic, with British reviewing done by "cadres of brilliant literary people"[131] who were "experienced critics and trenchant prose stylists",[132] while the United States had only "a handful of reviewers" capable enough to be called critics, and American editors and reviewers habitually echoed British opinion.[131] American reviewing was mostly delegated to "newspaper staffers" or else by "amateur contributors more noted for religious piety than critical acumen."[132] Second, the differences between the two editions caused "two distinct critical receptions."

>Britain: Twenty-one reviews appeared in London, and later one in Dublin.[132] The British reviewers, according to Parker, mostly regarded The Whale as "a phenomenal literary work, a philosophical, metaphysical, and poetic romance".[134] The Morning Advertiser for October 24 was in awe of Melville's learning, of his "dramatic ability for producing a prose poem", and of the whale adventures which were "powerful in their cumulated horrors."[135] To its surprise, John Bull found "philosophy in whales" and "poetry in blubber", and concluded that few books that claimed to be either philosophical or literary works "contain as much true philosophy and as much genuine poetry as the tale of the Pequod's whaling expedition", making it a work "far beyond the level of an ordinary work of fiction".[136] The Morning Post found it "one of the cleverest, wittiest, and most amusing of modern books", and predicted that it was a book "which will do great things for the literary reputation of its author".

>Even critics who did not like the book as a whole praised Melville's originality of imagination and expression

Try to look up before spouting bullshit, retarded zoomer.

>>17352522
>>17352482
cherry picking positive reviews lol. you anglos are braindead. none of you appreciated moby dick.

>>17352547
>"Haha ofc the facts are wrong and i am correct"
So you are clinically retarded as well, on top of being ignorant.

>>17341403
Unironically, NisiOisiN is def one of the best Japanese writers of the 21st century.

>>17352488
danke
i'll buy it then

>>17348405
This is the correct answer

>>17345608
That which is dead can never die.

>>17341333
>she
Is butterfly trans?

>>17353376
no, just a middle-aged woman

>>17353376
nah, shes a lesbian

because works published in the modern day haven't had the time to be critiqued and reconsidered outside of their contemporary setting. very few of the books in the past 200 years are considered "classics" out of thousands more. wait 200 years and certain works might live on

>>17340867
How is a stagnating population consisting mostly of third world retards and old White people supposed to compete with an expanding population consisting mostly of young White people

>>17340867
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There are some being written you just don't know about them.

>>17352354
Maybe “late capitalism” is as misleading as “new wave” in music, but it really should be pronounced dead before it kills us all. At every stage of recorded history we can see the failure of state-capital, and we’re mature enough as a species to reason an alternative. I don’t see anything christian about it. Tankies follow scientific socialism as their faith, but there’s plenty of us relying on just the science at its face.

Bloom, and lit generally, decry the weakened curriculum of universities literature programs.
This is a huge reason why there’s so little “great works” in literature while other mediums have some good stuff. Literature is as hard as cinema, but all rests on a single individual to bring the best out

>>17340867
Here's me hot take: there's still loads of good literature being produced all the time except now we need to sift through a torrent of horrible literature to find it. The relative death of reading (thanks to things like television, social media, vidya, etc) has shifted the demand towards watered down drivel well suited to the masses of intellectually weak subhumans. What few people still read aren't looking to be overly stimulated and challenged. There's still great /lit/ coming out, it's just very very difficult to find.

>>17340935
Based

>>17352468
based Austerlitz poster

masterpieces are always shit to contemporary readers and only appreciated by later generations.

My work disproves your assumption

>>17340867
What do contented cattle need with "literary masterpieces"? And who among them could scratch one out in the dirt with their hooves?
Go watch Netflix and have an impossible burger, you silly fellow.

>>17340984
American Psycho
Infinite Jest
Eat Pray Love
The Electric Koolaid Acid Test
Warhammer novelizations

Nice bait, friend.

>>17341251
irony here is this serves purely as a self-critique of a failed artist rather than any meaningful social commentary or deep insight. the double irony is that this is why the artist failed, crippled by anxious self-obsession lacking any talent or ability to mask this in their work, oozing self-loathing both persons are repulsive and indicative of an age of decadent over-education and under-experience.

the triple irony is that in attempting to showcase their art, the artist is true to themselves - an unreliable narrator thoroughly engrossed in their own false narration. and so achieves greatness for this age, their words filled with a reflexive mocking pity for their utterer and utterance are a harmless summer rain drying the cement of progress.

>>17341153
>I also know the state and capital are part of the same beast
You're like a 100 IQ person who thinks he's a genius.

>>17341066
My sides.

>>17341251
BASED

>>17341251
based

Read Lincoln in the Bardo and listen to Joanna Newsom

>>17342122
No one alive today is "better" than Austen except to the plebeians who have not read her

Every person who would have become a great poet or novelist has become a screenwriter instead.

Michael Crichton has written a number of masterpieces. There's a reason they are consistently made into blockbuster movies. You just need to be informed, my friend.

>>17340881
based and correct.

>>17350500
So nice of Sanders to take boatloads of grassroots funding and pass it to the political center two elections in a row

im here because containercore linked this in our discord server.

>>17355051
wow, you just showed me a whole new rabbit hole.

bump!

>>17340984
IMAO thanks anon I needed a laugh today.

>>17340867
could ask the same about paintings. but the truth is they are being written they're just not being read.

>>17340935
are you serious? if you're serious then damn bro this is very wrong. I don't know how to react I can't imagine an adult saying this. this is very very wrong dude.

>>17340984
> Industrial Civilization and It's Future

only based pick

>>17354666
>he’s
I don’t, actually. If some of what I say sounds too haughty or full of —it, it’s strictly by accident. I just read academics and stand behind what I say is all. Convince me of something, show me you know better, and I’m humble enough about it. I’m still learning stuff.

>>17341404
this is a pretty good point

>>17341251
children didn't have more passion in the past your parents just raised you wrong. there are plenty of people who do raise their children the right way and do read 'high-class' poetry before their 8.

>>17341028

>>17341390
You were always a really shitty impostor

>>17341024

Latin American masterpieces block your path, onions boy.

>>17356228
Rude

>>17353654
Specifically I'm referring to the idea that a revolution is inevitable and imminent which many if not most socialists hold to be true. I've seen anarchists buy into it as well with the whole "what will you do on the commune?" fantasizing. Its a religious conception of impending end times which functions similarly to the way the rapture or apocalypse does in many christian sects. Obviously Pagans, Muslims, and others have similar analogues. While belief in imminent collapse may help people bear their burdens I feel it also leads to complacency and inaction.

Regardless of how true you hold Marx's doctrines to be, you have to admit that socialist dogma functions similarly to religion for many people. It provides an all self justifying worldview, and a method of collective salvation. The Soviet Union explicitly re-appropriated religious symbols and rituals for socialist causes. This was a deliberate tactic similar to how the early Christians claimed pagan holy sites and festivals for Jesus. And yes while you probably consider the USSR to be state capitalism, I could dig up similar examples from Catalonia. None of this is necessarily meant as a criticism. I believe these patterns are built into the human psyche.

While I do believe there may be such a thing as "late capitalism" we certainly are very far from it. Our present system has a knack for destabilizing and destabilizing itself in multi generational cycles, and I doubt these will abet anytime soon. The 1914-1945 upheaval was far closer to collapse the American hegemony of today.

Regarding Bloom and commercialism I mostly agree, although I'd love if another anon could provide further analysis.

>>17356706
I don’t think it’s inevitable, but all is reaching a boiling point. The frog either jumps out or boils to death. We try to remain positive. If to a point of theistic dreams of utopia, so what what? As long as one is preparing for it instead of being lazy. Complacency and inaction are a big problem, you’re right. But I think the heat turning up is waking more up now.

I think there’s a problem with the “scientism” belief in hard determinism. Like it feels to them to be inevitable (scientific liberal paradise or communism etc.) and they can just slack off and wait for that invisible hand to make everyone rich or whither and die. We need to take the initiative, organize and kill it, like a badass Mythic hero.

>>17356861
>>17353654
*Addendum regarding the curriculum. As someone who briefly studied English before transferring to History, the biggest problem with the curriculum is not the works studied, but rather the lens through which they are viewed. Every work needs to be deconstructed and fitted within some grand narrative. Criticism, whether Marxist, feminist, psychoanalytic, post-structuralist, or otherwise seems intent on dissecting the great works and laying them out on a sterile table for an autopsy. No one appreciates the books on their own terms. Great literature should teach universal lessons on how to live, all of which are pointedly ignored by the university programs.

Honestly studying a great poem in university was like killing a beautiful bird to examine its entrails. The whole exercise was not only off putting, at times it felt downright sacrilegious.

>>17340881
Everyone here hates that this is the correct answer, there is no desire for good in a world whose greatest aspiration is profit.

>>17340962
nice strawman, very cool
the foundation of every intellectual opinion

>>17340867
Because my book isn't out yet

Oh shit sorry I'll write my first book now

>>17352468
The Road is a great book but a masterpiece?

>>17340867
Because most modern authors tend to type their works rather than write them. Hyuck.

>>17341403
VERY based

>>17340867
Literature as a medium is obsolete and will likely die out completely over the course of this century. The next great masterpieces will be video games.

>>17359658
shut the fuck up

>>17340881
This. Profit motive have destroyed the pursuit of excellence that cannot be immediately exchanged for currency and since everything must be applicable to mass consumption, intellectual products are simply not rentable.

>>17359192
I personally don't think so, and there are 3 other McCarthy works that deserve the recognition that it got, but it's place in the canon is undeniable. It's reception is hard to ignore, I can see people picking it up 60 years from now with the same reverence that they did any other classic from 20th century. This goes unsaid, but a lot of what we regard as masterpieces today, were perhaps not looked as fondly upon from the contemporary lit enthusiasts back then (or /lit/ equivalent in, say, 30s first world). Just imagine a similar discussion on how the 20s have stagnated in terms of literature and all masterpieces belong to the 19th century, we are doing something similar.

>>17359658
it's because of niggers like you video games have a bad reputation

>>17359658
Thats nice, do you have an argument to back that up.

disco elysium is a literary masterpiece.
but mostly literary masterpieces are only decided long after relevancy

>>17340867
Because anon the third eye is time and the time is yet

>>17359936

>>17360652
>disco elysium is a literary masterpiece.
read more books, retard

>>17341069
we have to go back morty, we have to go back to sincerity

>>17341251
>word itself means quite a lot
>one-dimensional

>>17356085
You're a tripfag, haughtiness and narcissism come with the territory. We understand you can't help it.

>>17340955
Schizoposting/schizobooks are a gift of the modern age,

>>17361271
It’s your preconceived notion that’s coming with the territory. And you can help it.

>>17340867
porn

>>17340984
Thanks anon, will be checking these out FS

>>17356085
is it possible to make 3 sentences boring and unreadable? watch this guy try.

>>17341251
Godlike post

>>17348602
But how can you conflate his claim with just base "Capitalism". What other societal framework might host and bolster, or even allow, an outspoken, eclectic, controversial and truly genius author? Genuinely asking, not attempting to be combative.

>>17340984
>Warhammer novelizations
>Industrial Civilization and It's Future
>The Bell Curve

>>17341251
stop smoking weed and typing nonsense you moron

>>17341024
Vonnegut was an amerimutt you fucking retard

>>17363162
yes,that is the dialectic of capitalism. while one can honestly say that in early free market capitalism, creativity was rewarded by the market(in terms of inventions and entrepreneurship, creation of new tools,tables,stools and cool gadgets,etc...), and at the same time a vivid and eclectic culture of art existed(just consider the second half of the 19th century paris), under late capitalism(mid 20th), and whatever hellscape we live under now(do we even have a term? i think hell is the most appropriate), creativity has never been more repressed and strangled because the survival of the system depends on its destruction.
now, society has always limited and forced creative energies to be channeled towards socially useful work. However, the experience of this was quite straightforward, i.e. people actively experienced their creativity and artistic drives, their desire to do "socially useless" things as being attacked. People who liked science or mechanics were forced to channel their energies into something useful like(a certain craft), and authors and artists directly experienced the suffering of being an artist by their shitty lives, or their being forced to work a shitty job(Mallarme taught english for example) to live. However, now, the "creative types" have totally lost their experience of having their urges repressed. the "creative type" is a prototype, a molded social emblem that certain people aspire to be because they think that's how they'll express their creativity when in reality that very mold is pre-built so that all genuine creative energy will be banished and transferred to profit "the system", while also convincing the participant, this creative type, that he is in fact using his faculties in a satisfactory manner, expending his creative urges.
this is almost the BEST case scenario, because at least this person was human enough to have the urge to be creative. most of the time though, creativity isn't even desired anymore, people are totally alienated from art and culture and find it to be a waste of time, they don't even want to *pretend* to be creative and enjoy living in sameness and standardization.
none of these aspects are unique to our era, the difference is the amount of things industry does to pretend like this repression doesn't happen, the amount of..."ideology".

>>17340881
How do you cope with the fact that The Jungle and The Grapes of Wrath are masterpieces precisely because of captialism?

>>17364653
I pretty much agree with you here (Pre-Modern free market Capitalism could allow the creative and genius individual to succeed in general populous-eye view) but regardless my question still stands. What other societal framework could allow a masterpiece to make it to the top or even be read by the general public?

>>17364821
Masterpieces aren't for the general public, they're for people who have refined their tastes through experience and study. The general public has no need for masterpieces, they remain delighted with each new YA release, or more likely tv procedural. A masterpiece may well still please the public, but it has no need for public approval, just as the public don't need it. The scholar who's seen everything, understands everything, is bored by anything derivative—he needs the masterpiece, the singular, the sublime. Nothing else does it for him. This state, though it must endure much dissatisfaction, is not wretched; it is the sign that one is current with an art. It is the point of true judgement and comprehension, of enlightenment.

The society that produces masterpieces and audiences adequate to them needs institutions organized by an unadulterated love of art and a spirit of respect. The universities used to be this, because they were mostly divorced from any expectation of use value. They were vanity projects of clergy and nobility, and only included those who didn't need to work, secure in life by their titles alone. These lucky few were free to pursue the love and mastery of things that transcend bare utility—and freely did so.

(Now people go to university as customers looking for a diploma to increase their value in the job market. They have commodified themselves as capital demands. Consequently the universities operate under the great American maxim: the customer is always right.)

With our level of technology, both machinery and digital organization, if people could be forced to make do with less—vegetarian diets, basic clothes and furnishings, public transportation and housing, 5g open internet and a laptop for everyone, etc.—we could easily sustain basic material security for everyone. (I believe people in such a condition would be just as satisfied as capitalist subjects constantly striving for better). We could provide for everyone's food, housing, healthcare, and education—and what more do people need? People could perhaps work the tractors and factories, supply lines and distribution centers for, say, age 40-50. Maybe a population cap would be needed, maybe greater education and reproductive choice would have most couples stop at two children.

Freedom from commodities would grant people freedom from having to commodify themselves. They would have the security to devote themselves to art, to enter and participate in institutions where the draw would be mastery and appreciation of art—to do what the nobility of old already did when freed from the constraints of work.

>>17348602
There are plenty of masterful authors from history who had day jobs.

>>17365554
Everything you said was correct except your optimism at the end is sort of surprising. Do you think it's likely to go towards this direction where an emancipated proletariat would form out of the abundance of technology we've developed? I've always seen it as veering towards a new serfdom where we'd all work from home and socialize from home(basically corona but without the, possibly false apprehension that it'll end soon).

>>17361249
cope
>>17364048
seethe
>>17365554
bruh

I'll admit, that I stopped reading for a long time. Just because I got "too busy" with life. I used to love to read. I bought 18 books last week, and I made a promise to myself that I was going to start actively reading again. I'm currently in this book called The Only Good Indians, and it's fucking great so far. But, to answer your question, I think it's because people don't read like they used to. I'm sure there's plenty of "masterpieces" out there waiting to be discovered, but we would just rather watch TV as a whole.

>>17365983
I think technofeudalism for an increasingly lobotomized public is where things are headed. We see more and more the turn from sales back to rents, and the algorithmic optimization of attention traps is near impossible to resist. I think the future looks utterly hopeless for the higher human pursuits. But there’s a certain courage in hopelessness.

I have a few friends on board for an income-shared commune. Living simply, doing web-design for income (we have a graphic designer, a programmer, a copywriter, and a normie for meetings) investing what we make into subsistence farming and other sustainable, low-maintenance endeavors, cooking and eating together, avoiding social pressure to consume and atomization, doing political education and organization in our community,performing hyperpagan rituals for tiktok spectacle in the hopes that the lifestyle goes viral

bump

>>17361158
I have read a ton of books, it's one of the best I've read

Only niggers and women are allowed to be published, and all of the publishing companies are run by disgusting kikes. When white men are allowed full creative freedom again, you will start seeing classics being written left and right.