/lit/ - Literature

Because that's the way people wished they talked, not the way people actually talk. Also because it's cliche and trite

>>8357792
because mistaking analogy for metaphor is something any toadstool huffing vagrant can do.

Why does John hate our youth? Why does he want them to fail at math?

>>8357792
>Of course, there is a bigger infinite set of numbers between 0 and 2, or between 0 and a million. Some infinities are bigger than other infinities.
This is not true.

>>8357792
There aren't more numbers between 0 and 2 than there are between 0 and 1 you fucking imbecile, this is not how mathematics works

>>8357792
That paragraph is a perfect example. He takes all the pseudo-profound shit that most everyone above the age of 15 has already thought about before and twists it around so that it will fit in the context of a shitty love story. If you're in his target demographic, you might just be naive enough to fall for it. If you're older than that, it's just obnoxious. Beyond that, he's just clearly trying to inflate a statement that isn't profound or interesting at all with a bunch of excess shit. There are ten or so sentences in this paragraph when all it needs are two. One could do the trick: "I wish that Augustus Waters had more time". But if you really wanna keep the pretentious "I know what infinite sets are" bullshit I suppose you could slip that in another sentence.

He's also quite prone to the "every character in my book sounds just like me" virus, and John Green just sounds like a pretentious asshole. Suffice it to say that a book about a bunch of pretentious assholes having pretentious asshole problems in their pretentious asshole world viewed through the lens of a pretentious asshole doesn't sound like good reading material to me.

>>8357977
Bro, have you ever even studied set theory? Some infinities are bigger than others, numbnuts.

AAAAAAAAAAH!!!

Every FUCKING day with these STUPID fucking MEMES! I've had it up to HERE with stupid fucking memes! You guys make me want to KILL MYSELF! Is that what you fucking want? For me to fucking KILL MYSELF and write on my suicide note "Cause of suicide: Couldn't handle all of the stupid fucking memes, killed myself"? Because that's what it might as well fucking say!

You guys are literally, L I T E R A L L Y incapable of having even the SIMPLEST of fucking discussion without "MEME THIS, MEME THAT, PROBABLY PINECONE BE CHILLIN, HERE'S A PIC OF INFINITE JEST BY DAVID FOSTER WALLACE, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA EBIN AMIRITE?" Fucking STOP IT you pathetic fucking FAGGOTS, you are such fucking cancer that I cannot even fathom how you fucking scumbags live your dumb gay lives. Don't you have a job to get to, schoolwork to finish or a family to attend to? Do you literally do ANYTHING productive with your lives other than post stupid fucking memes on the literature section of a god damn anime imageboard? You fucking people make me sick and you're damn lucky I don't have any of your fucking addresses you fucking pieces of shits. I'd spit in your faces.

>>8358021
I never claimed anything to the contrary. For instance, the infinite set of natural numbers is smaller than the real numbers between 0 and 1. However, the set of real numbers between 0 and 1 is equal in size to the set of real numbers between 0 and 2. This is common knowledge, even for undergraduates.

>>8358029
dubs and i read this aloud

>>8358035
Do it anyway

>>8358037
only when the dubs demand it

>>8358048
Rollin'

>>8357846
>>8357976

remember this is a little cancerous teen talking, not a mathematician.

>>8358048
They are demanding it

>>8358048
Post it

He writes like as if every teenager is some profound philosopher, it's fucking garbage.
He's obviously trying way too hard to have tumblr teens make pictures of quotes from his book floating in space or some shit with all the teens going OMG GOALS!!! THIS IS SO DEEEEEP!!!

>>8358035
i'm waiting

>>8358048
rolling

>>8358105
No he doesn't.

His characters make interesting analogies and knowledge. He doesn't pretend to have the meaning of life, he juts has s story to tell.

A number of reasons: he writes young adult fiction (which isn't taken seriously by internet intellectuals, consummate cognoscenti, international intelligentsia, and literal literati (un)like /lit/izens); he's popular, successful, a prototypical nu-male, antithetically meta-post-quasi-ironic-modern-anything; he's arguably not that good of a writer; and also because he's an overly sentimental little bitch.

Combine all this with the echo-chambered mob-mental meme-masturbatory peculiarly-pretentious sciatically-cynical diabolical-doghouse that is 4chan, and you get petty and pervasive loathing.

Also this: >>8357801

>>8357801
i've never read a book with realistic dialogue. even tao lin is idealized a bit. thought that sorta thing's besides the point a little???

This >>8358124, also

Many on /lit/ have a kneejerk emotional aversion because they see the worst parts of themselves in him

i.e. numale cuck who is a hollow shell attempting to be substantive through the bourgeoise connotations of referencing Western literature

>>8358134
Okay but I'm sure that you can concede that there exist books with realistic dialogue and that having realistic dialogue is an important component to creating an immersive narrative which is arguably an important component to a good book?

>>8358147
But how can one not resist the discreet charm of the bourgeoisie?

>>8358032
anyone know a good source for learning about stuff like this?

>>8358168
The web?

Seriously man, you have an incredibly immense repository of knowledge at your fingertips. Curiosity's your compass.

And the first anon is right: the whole infinity infinities thing is relatively common knowledge (among educated people). I remember learning about (or deducing, I believe) this in 7th grade.

>>8357846
He's not exactly wrong though.

>>8357792
>There's a bigger infinite set between 0 and 2 than between 0 and 1
No there's not. And anyway, why would pretentious pseudomath help anyone grieve? Especially the teenagers he pretends to write about.

>>8357792
every single one of his books' themes are literally pulled from infinite jest

>>8358168
I'm the first anon, I learned this shit from linear algebra and differential equations in university. Look up Cantor's diagonal proof if you are interested in seeing a really easy to understand proof of different-sized infinities. If you are truly curious in mathematics but you don't wish to go to university for it I recommend just buying a first year uni textbook (make sure you find something good, go to /sci/ or just read reviews) and then go from there. This is assuming you have your high school maths of course, otherwise I guess start from there

>>8358168
Numberphile

Guys, John Green knows that's not how infinity works, this is from an interview he gave somewhere, I think it might be in an FAQ on the website.

Q. You once mentioned that Hazel’s views on infinity was incorrect. Can you elaborate?

A. Well, Hazel is just flat wrong about infinity.

The infinite set between 0 and 1 is actually the same size as the infinite set between 0 and 2, so Hazel is technically incorrect.

(It is not easy to succinctly explain why this is, although this site does a reasonably good job—there, the example used is the set of positive integers being the same size as the set of all integers, but it’s the same principle.)

However, Van Houten is right* when he says that some infinities are bigger than other infinities. For instance, as proven by Cantor’s diagonal argument, the infinite set of real numbers is bigger than the infinite set of natural numbers.

So Hazel takes Van Houten’s correct observation and makes an intuitive but incorrect conclusion from it, albeit one that provides her with real and lasting comfort.

>>8358236
sure sounds like he got BTFO and is covering his ass after the fact

>>8358241
I think it's funny that you all complain about the character being pretentious, and then shit on the writer when he makes her say something factually incorrect, which pretentious teenagers do all the time.

I mean your comment was a perfect example of that.

>>8357801
Yep.

Here's realistic dialog OP.

I have committed to crossing my legs I hope carefully, ankle on knee, hands together in the lap of my slacks. My fingers are mated into a mirrored series of what manifests, to me, as the letter X. The interview room's other personnel include: the University's Director of Composition, its varsity tennis coach, and Academy prorector Mr. A. deLint. C.T. is beside me; the others sit, stand and stand, respectively, at the periphery of my focus. The tennis coach jingles pocket-change. There is something vaguely digestive about the room's odor. The high-traction sole of my complimentary Nike sneaker runs parallel to the wobbling loafer of my mother's half-brother, here in his capacity as Headmaster, sitting in the chair to what I hope is my immediate right, also facing Deans.

>>8358264
I never said anything about the character being pretentious, I just think John Green is pretentious. And the statement he made is something that I'm sure 95% of Americans believe, and like 85-90% of the rest of the world would as well. It's not as if a fucking teenager would get the reference that the mathematics in the book was off. It seems way more likely to me that John Green made a mistake. It's not really a big deal, authors do it all the time. There are few authors who have a comprehensive understanding of mathematics and the sciences and reference them without making any mistakes. Hell, DFW made all sorts of blunders regarding chemistry in IJ, but it's not as if anyone really cared all that much.

Post more rare John's

>>8358271
>dialog

>>8358048
Rolling

Not that guy but tried to add a lot edge. Hope y'all like.


http://vocaroo.com/i/s14lTd7lmpdi

>>8357801

i dont like any of john green's hack shit but seriously, what the fuck does "that's not how people talk" even mean? how the fuck would you know how a pretentious literary teenager might talk? do you think the dialogue in any of your favourite meme novels is "authentic" or does the bulletproof irony shield protect them from that criticism?

>>8358231
This if you're just generally curious.

>>8357792
because the notion that any feelings within a single mind is infinite is a farce

"This baby toy was not for me." - /lit/ on john gree

>>8357823
>the fucking filename
way underrated

Would we be in agreement on that John is a Reddit tier author?

There could be infinite dicks in your cheerios every morning.

>>8358481
Or one dick of infinite length.

>>8357801
Nobody talks like a character in a Dostoyevsky novel does, does that makes his books bad?

>>8357832
http://www.bustle.com/articles/31774-guss-metaphor-in-the-fault-in-our-stars-is-wrong-but-we-should-be-okay-with

Look at how he blames his own intellectual shortcomings on so called "character flaws". What an absolute hack.

>>8358499
How would you know? Have you ever read dialogue Dostoevsky has written, or just a translation?

>>8358271
All the commas in that narrative make my head hurt.

>>8358029
This is fucking great

>>8358029
http://vocaroo.com/i/s0Zrti8f53bh

>>8358719
nice voice senpai

>>8358728
Thanks. It's my "I haven't slept in 2 days" aesthetic

>>8357792
Because he has people talk in a way that's dumb and overly peculiar while framing them as geniuses, when he should have framed them as idiots. See: Seinfeld.

>>8357792
Why did John Green have to ruin the Mountain Goats for me?

>>8358345
>how the fuck would you know how a pretentious literary teenager might talk?
Because I used to be one and they don't love themselves this much. This is how hippies who hang out at the all night bowling alley talk to each other. Pretentious literary teenagers aren't cheerful.

>>8358719
Gold.

>>8357976
There are larger and smaller infinite sets. The set of all natural numbers is twice as large as all odd natural numbers but they are both infinite.

>>8358719
>Crime And Punishment audiobook in the background

>>8358751
noo

>>8358192
he is mostly wrong, it's correct that there are infinitely many numbers between 0 and 1, but one set of uncountably infinite numbers cannot be said to be bigger than another set of uncountably infinite numbers. math+philosophy major here

>>8358719
Kek

>Some infinities are bigger than other infinities

That's retarded

>>8357792
jesus fuck i couldn't even read that paragraph.

it's so bad, especially if you're used to classic lit

>>8358499
do you speak russian and if so, did you live in dostoyevski's era to know how people talked?

>>8358105
>He writes like as if every teenager is some profound philosopher,
you've been reading some bad phylosophy

>>8359420

Take a >(you).

>>8359462

You disagree?

>>8359420
Not actually retarded, there are countable and uncountable infinities with the latter being much "larger", although the idea that some uncountable infinities are bigger than other uncountable infinities is retarded.

>>8358742
>Because I used to be one and they don't love themselves this much.
quit fooling yourself, they love themselves more than anyone

He writes books for teenagers. He's not trying to be good, he's trying to make dosh. Why do you think he has the youtube channel as well? Free advertising. Less than free actually, since now he has a bunch of other channels that are even more popular.
Gotta give it up, you know, it's hard being a white male these days, glad he got his hussle on

>>8358751
no. Odd numbers are a subset of the natural numbers, true. But they have same size/cardinality since you can define a bijective mapping between them (x goes to 2x+1 / 2x+1 goes to x).

>talking deep is unrealistic

>tfw I can still remember how my mother would start going on about Nietzsche if I was being a little pussy as a teen

>>8358236
>infinite set
>size

wtf

>>8358719
>http://vocaroo.com/i/s0Zrti8f53bh
dissappointed with that >L I T E R A L L Y

>>8358719
You have the voice of an English major.

>>8358048
Roll

>>8360850
I don't know if I should take that as a compliment or not.

>>8359845
are u claiming you can create a bijective mapping between different aleph sets?

>>8358029
Congrats guy you just posted the best meme in this thread.

Someone please post the bit about the eggs and the anon who rewrote it to sound like James Joyce

>>8357823
>Sometimes I do things like get in a taxi and say, Take me to the cheerios, and step on it.'

>>8358719

Who let Quentin Tarantino into the thread?

>>8358048
Lets see that vocaroo brah

>>8358337
lol

>>8359420
cantor

>>8361379
Not loud/spergish enough though

>>8359420
>>8359462
>>8359496

Some infinities are bigger than others but the "infinity" between 1 and 2 is the same as the "infinity" between 1 and 3. This guy is a fucking retard, I can't believe that's published. A correct statement would be saying the cordiality (or "infinity) of the real numbers between 1 and 2 is larger than that of the rationals between 1 and 2.

>>8361416
cardinality*. Spell check fucked me.

>>8358719
>>8361366
>When you came posting here, did you notice a sign on the banner that said Dead Meme Storage?

>>8361322
bump

>>8357792
I dont hate him but I hate the way he delivers shit. Also his books are lonely middle school girl/10

>>8358048
Rolls Royce

>>8357792
there is an infinite amount of time between each second. human beings regularly analyze and move through infinity creating an infinity of perception.

>>8357792
>There are infinite numbers between 0 and 1.
No there's not. *Potentially*, yes. Actually existing numbers, no.

>>8361674
*Potentially* you don't understand how a priori sciences work

I just fucking hate him so much
If he died tomorrow I would go to his fan sites and gloat

Does that make me a bad person?

>>8361848
it definitely makes you a faggot, anyway.

>>8358054
I think I hate this aspect of his work more than the shit in the OP. The old "I don't have to write anything clever because my characters are retarded" play.

Fact is John "Chester drawers" Green is himself fucking stupid.

>>8361674
>Actually existing numbers
Think about that statement for a sec

>>8358600
It's just bad writing.

>>8357792

Guys, i say this without any irony or sarcasm,

can we please stop the John Green threads

the smug tut-tutting at his cuck face is fun, but this is not the thing /lit/ discourse should revolve around EVERY FUCKING DAY

>sage

>>8358719
Are you saucy postal?

>>8358751
>i have never taken real analysis, the post
you couldn't further from...
>>8359420
Damn.
I'm not sure which is worse

>>8357792
He is a boorish individual. His writing is acrid, but not cynical. It's not very poignant or terse, and I find myself needing a respite from reading every time I pick up his books. I wish someone would throw a lance at him.

>>8359441
>>8358577
Have you ever read other Russian literature from the same era?

>>8358048
rollin

>>8357792
a thread died for this

>>8363177
here you go

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0XOkUDps1OX

>>8362143
yes, several books in fact. it doesn't differ by much.

>>8358264
>then shit on the writer when he makes her say something factually incorrect
No, she was "technically" incorrect according to Green. Which is ass covering language. He's p much saying "I think it was correct but I get so many damn emails about it I'm just going to concede the point".

>>8358553
I like the
> it's not a metaphor, Gus is wrong
> Gus is a stupid teen with cancer, don't judge him
> but actually it is a metaphor, and it's quite a complicated one that's different for the audience ;^)
Classic "People are telling me all metaphorical devices can be metaphor but I vaguely remember that metaphor v simile lesson and I just don't know what to believe anymore" Green

>>8357792
He fucks his cereal

http://vocaroo.com/i/s0mu3Mx3Q2AD

>>8357792
>Half of the thread is spergs sperging about maths and the other half is bitches bitching about Green.
Beautiful. Well done, /lit/.

>>8358719
>Crime and Punishment audiobook in the background

It's the little things.

>>8358134
A novel cannot but mimetic, although it's generally with this expectation they're both written and read, as opposed to poetry, so it's more like a mimicry of mimesis when we talk about 'realistic dialogue', but I believe what anon pointed out is Green using free indirect discourse without being able to hit the expected linguistic register of a moody American teenage girl and so he resorts to cliches that'd only make sense if the piece quoted in the OP were ironic (I wouldn't know), and this is one of the reasons why Green is a not a great writer.
Austen was a great writer and said at one point that she'd never seen two gentlemen talking alone without them being aware a female presence, which is why she rarely if ever tried to imagine a scene like that in her novels, and Conrad was another great writer who said something on the absence of females in his books as well in his life with men of the sea.

Tl;dr: firs post is always right.

I have never read his work before but the example you quoted made me picture all kinds of The Oatmeal-esque SCIENCE IS FUCKING MIND BLOWING DUDE comics that old high school classmates tend to share on facebook or teachers use when they are desperate to get their students to engage with the lesson.

It is a cool fact with some average writing crudely attached to it. I don't begrudge young teen girls finding it moving but there is no reason to pretend it is anything else.

>>8361322
This? Not Joyce, McCarthy

>>8363355
how can you hear it?

>>8358119
>this cuck

>>8363494
Can't really understand most of it, but he pauses at just the right moment so you can hear "Crime And Punishment by Fyodor--"

>>8357792
cuz he's fucking gay