/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12566728]

Why does /lit/ hate this man so much?

[Anonymous No.12566745]

reddit books. The shittiest postmodernist unless you want to count zadie smith. I personally was yelling at the last 50 pages of the S5 ith the maternity ward couple who chooses not to have kids and he breaks the forth wall to point out what marvelous symbolism the reader should be getting, and the hamfisted doctor who told a plane crash survivor he was a bitch and to die versus the nurses who "just wanted everyone to live". Yeesh.

[Anonymous No.12566758]

>>12566728
discount Pynch

[Anonymous No.12566761]

>>12566745
I was going to explain it was simply because of the association with reddit, but it seems I was too late

[Anonymous No.12566767]

What do you mean? Vonnegut is great. Pseuds just love to hate him, for the same reasons they love to hate Hemingway; they can't boast their intelligence with popular books that have simple prose.

[Anonymous No.12566771]

Sirens of Titan is pretty popular here

[Anonymous No.12566776]

>>12566771
I won't get memed again after that fucking shit book S5 and all of the anime characters in cats cradle

[Anonymous No.12566796]

>>12566728
I liked the structure behind S5, but if that's the best he has to offer, I don't see how he's profound or worthy of attention. Roald Dahl is a better writer in a similar tone.

[Anonymous No.12566822]

>>12566728
Because everyone on here is a helpless drone of the hivemind, repeating whatever they've been told. Vonnegut is a fine writer

[Anonymous No.12566823]

>>12566728
what do you mean i love vonnegut

[Anonymous No.12566831]

>>12566728
He's the very definition of a writer that you love when you're a teenager, and then gradually sour on as the years go by.

[Anonymous No.12566836]

>>12566767
>>12566822
>>12566823
>what do you mean?

[Anonymous No.12566838]

>>12566776
It's his best work.

[Anonymous No.12566843]

>>12566776
>Not liking cat's cradle
This is a foot fetish board and I'll kindly ask you to leave.

[Anonymous No.12566847]

>>12566831
>t. Mrs Rosewater

[Anonymous No.12566851]

>>12566767
This %100

[Anonymous No.12566853]

>>12566843
>and then this guy shows up and like, oh man does he have some wild hair
>and his outfit! Lemme tell ya!
This happens like 20 times

[Anonymous No.12566868]

>>12566853
>Indexing yourself into a book
You can just tell your parents you're a faggot, it's 2019

[Anonymous No.12566887]

>>12566728
I like him, he has very solid books.
Galapagos, Bluebeard and mother night are books of his that are very good and occasionally overlooked

[Anonymous No.12566957]

>>12566796
Read Sirens of Titan, Slapstick, Breakfast of Champions and Cat's Cradle. Those with S5 are his top 5. The ranking is subjective though I'd put S5 as fourth.

[Anonymous No.12566965]

"Midwits to the back, please, the real writers are talking."

[Anonymous No.12567697]

>>12566836
Go fuck yourself. You're the epitome of the midwit lit poster who just wants to impress people with the books they claim to have read, but have never actually touched. You just rely on the common conception of each book and author as a shorthand for actually reading it so you can still feel smart when you agree with others about a book which they also haven't read

[Anonymous No.12567707]

>>12567697
Nice projection lmao >>12566745 Vonnegut fucking sucks

[Anonymous No.12567719]

>>12567707
What do you even mean by projection? I've read a few of Vonneguts books and know they're not trash like everyone claims they are. I also know that it's very unlikely everyone on this board has even touched any of his books, and probably just slaughter house 5 if any, which is an acclaimed book.

[Anonymous No.12567726]

>>12567719
>what do you even mean by projecting this very specific insecurity I just laid out?
Don't play coy now reddit, you're representing your faggy author and website. Be proud.

[Anonymous No.12567752]

>>12567726
I'm projecting insecurity? Onto myself? You don't know what that word means. What books of his have you read? Why is he bad?

[Anonymous No.12567771]

>>12566965
Huh, so Vonnegut hung with these guys and Gore Vidal. It must be nice to be welcome in camps that are against each other.

[Anonymous No.12567776]

They hate him because his words once crawled deep inside of them and became a part of themselves. They hate themselves and so violently reject anything that isn't their aspirations for what they would like to see themselves become.

[Anonymous No.12567778]

>>12567752
>t. victim of post-freudian psy-op

[Anonymous No.12567805]

>>12567778
You're just posting obscure concepts you don't seem to know the meaning of, while avoiding my question about the topic of this thread because I suspect you've never heard of Vonnegut outside of the /lit/ memes.
I'm not saying he's the best writer ever, just that he's ok, and people shouldn't buy into the meme, especially not from this board.

[Anonymous No.12567810]

>>12567805
I'm a different anon, my point remains.

[Anonymous No.12567835]

>>12567810
Care to explain your point?

[Anonymous No.12567855]

>>12566728
cause they read him in secondary school, and now feel embarrassed because they enjoyed it, so they overcompensate by hating him.

[Anonymous No.12567870]

>>12567778

>Please explain why you feel Kurt Vonnegut is an inaduquate author. Have you read his books?
>You are a stupid redditor!

Perhaps you should start reading literature, before posting on on this board. If you have any real criticism of Vonnegut, besides "Reddit!!!", I'd certainly love to hear it. If you're having trouble coming up with something, I would suggest you actually read something written by him.

[Anonymous No.12567887]

>>12567870
I'm a different anon, and you're psy-op'd.

[Anonymous No.12567904]

>>12567887
That was a different poster also, and it's not normal to expect everyone to know obscure psychology terms, so I asked you to explain what you mean.

[Anonymous No.12567921]

>>12567752
>you don't know what that word means!
>After being thoroughly BTFO with a common rebuttal
Typical Vonnegut fan.

[Anonymous No.12567945]

>>12567921

>Why do you think this book is bad? Why do you dislike this author?
>You use faggy Reddit!

I wouldn't call that rebuttal especially scathing.

[Anonymous No.12567946]

>>12567921
Dude I was just saying you used the word incorrectly. You've said nothing of substance, and still refuse to say whether or not you read any of the author you're autistically railing against.

[Anonymous No.12567949]

>>12567805
>>12567870
If you read the thread or even post I linked to you you would see that I hated S5 and cat's cradle. I read some of what is it called time warp or time rift or some later novel he wrote and it was a boring mess. He's the shittiest postmodernist. I'm not getting memed into another stinker by this groan factory after two and a half wet blankets. Especially when his faggot defenders who can't bare the thought of someone not liking what they like immediately have to resort to
>Nobody who has ever criticized him even reads books!
>Now, I'm not saying he's the best, but...
Fuck off

[Anonymous No.12567961]

>>12567946
>he doesn't even read threads before his replies
>he demands he be addressed specifically in spite of this
>he's still screaming about how this >>12567697 isn't the epitome of projection
Why are Vonnegut redditors like this?

[Anonymous No.12567985]

>>12567961
He's bad because he's bad! Reddit!!!!! Think for yourself jackass, and if you still don't like something, site some legitimate reasons.

[Anonymous No.12567996]

>>12567985
Read the thread you entitled faggot. Scroll up. Time quake is what it was called. Got what a shit book. Same kinda gimmick as S5 but sloppier and even more of a faggy author insert. I didn't stick around long enough in that one to see if he trotted out "the protagonist had a big dick too!" card

[Anonymous No.12568033]

>>12567949

Your arguments
>Reddit!
>Shitty!
>I yelled at his book!
Once we get past all that, we arrive at your core argument; his symbolism is too clear. This is the quintessential pseud argument against authors like Vonnegut, Steinbeck or Hemingway. Simplicity and clarity aren't bad things. It isn't bad if the author wants to get his point across coherently.

[Anonymous No.12568068]

>>12568033
That's nice reddit. Vonnegut is the worst post-modernist by a long shot unless you want to include the brown woman. He is hacky, gimmicky, and not a good enough writer to have characters being introduced by their anime power levels and detail his protagonists huge dong and horse fucking picture without drawing some criticism. Even pynchon seemed he would never live down
>man goes down toilet
Posting on this board years ago.

[Anonymous No.12568093]

>>12567904
Read a book

[Anonymous No.12568175]

>>12568068

How is he hacky or gimmicky?

Why is it bad for a character to have a big dick? Why is it bad, that an erotic picture appears in his book? I'm sorry if you're angry that a fictional character is better-endowed than you, but that doesn't make Vonnegut a bad author. Why are you so obsessed with Reddit?

[Anonymous No.12568197]

>>12568175
Because he's a hack who relies on gimmicks. Do you understand what I mean when I say "the shittiest postmodernist" or is he the extent of your dip in that pool? There are those who would and do disregard the entire phenomena on the basis of being hacky and gimmicky. Come on reddit. Convince me you're a better reader and have a better idea of what's being discussed than I'm beginning to suspect here.

[Anonymous No.12568221]

>>12566728
Who cares, I like him. It’s been 8 or so years since the last time I read him, but I think it’s time to reread some of his books.

[Anonymous No.12568236]

started slaughterhouse 5 last year and couldn't get into it... it wasn't hitting the spot for some reason. maybe it was the humour? i'll probably give him another go in the future

[Anonymous No.12568252]

>>12568236
Don't bother. He's dogshit
>>12568175
When your book is already a self-insert fictionalized auto-bio it's pretty cringe to specifically include yourself with a huge cock banging a pornstar or whatever she was

[Anonymous No.12568581]

>>12568068
Billy’s huge dong is not real. The whole “unstuck in time” thing and his abduction by aliens is all just his way of dealing with his PTSD. He spends so much time talking about how he was degraded in the military for his body. Yet when he gets abducted he makes a porn star fall in love with him and his big dick. It’s literally an escapist fantasy.

[Anonymous No.12568617]

>>12567949
Your hate seems pretty baseless and directed more at the readership than the books themselves. It's okay if they weren't to your taste anon, it's no reason to throw a temper tantrum. Timequake is a bad book though.

[Anonymous No.12568620]

>>12568581
Tyrone doesn't actually go down a toilet either, he is being MKULTRA'd, but that passage still cost him the Pulitzer and was strong shitpost got a while because of what it is

[Anonymous No.12568708]

>>12566965
Who all is in this other than Vonnegut? Most of them look familiar, but I am useless with faces.

[Anonymous No.12568730]

>>12568708
Looks like Gaddis and Gass up front. Guy with the beard on the left might be Barthelme.

[Anonymous No.12568752]

>>12568730
>>12568708
Yep it is Barthelme I was right. Vonnegut hater here btw

https://exhibits.lib.uh.edu/exhibits/show/storied/item/4385

[Anonymous No.12568861]

>>12566767
So it goes.

[Anonymous No.12568891]

>>12566767
>>12566822
>>12567697
>>12567776
>>12567855
>>12568617
>>12568861
Yaaasss! So much this lol.

[Anonymous No.12568984]

>>12566728
bluebeard is really good

[Anonymous No.12569036]

>>12568252
>fictionalized auto-bio it's pretty cringe to specifically include yourself with a huge cock banging a pornstar or whatever she was
Anon, you're missing a gimmick he does. He also has a self insert where he becomes the smartest man in the world when he sniffs his sister's cunt. And another where he fails his gay schizophrenic son because he has syphilis or schizophrenia himself. As another anon explains, it's PTSD laden fantasy: the book about his sister is because she loved Laurel and Hardy too and would get the joke, not because he was deep into incest. The unreliable in SL5 is pretty obvious in comparison to that one. Like the guy who laughed like hell but nobody else saw or heard laughing ever, the porn star wife is lies. What happens if you stop believing the lies and how fucked you will get is a major thread through most his work. Imagine for a second he lied to you about his dick while in an army barracks surrounded by Nazis, and rethink how self satisfied he will be in five minutes time from that.

[Anonymous No.12569067]

>>12569036
Wow you're right man we really do live in a society

[Anonymous No.12569111]

>>12569067
If the accident will.

[Anonymous No.12569181]

>>12566728
is that einstein lol

[Anonymous No.12569196]

>>12569181
>is that einstein?
Yeah, that's a pic from his earlier days when he was hitting the gay club scene a lot.

[Anonymous No.12569694]

>>12568984
ayy

[Anonymous No.12569736]

>>12566728
He was one of the handful few of postmodernist who were permitted and even endorsed in the USSR (for wrong reasons, funnily enough), so I developed a great appreciation of him

[Anonymous No.12569737]

>>12566796
My favorite is definitely Mother Night. Super underrated IMHO.

[Anonymous No.12570022]

>>12566887
based

[Anonymous No.12570030]

>>12566965
Manlets in the front. We need to get everyone in the picture.

[Anonymous No.12571005]

>>12570030
Gaddis is clearly the tallest person in that pic if he stood up

[Anonymous No.12571024]

>>12568197
Why would you think that using meme phrases makes you a good reader?

[Anonymous No.12571057]

>>12571024
Lol that's what you took from that post eh? You had to lash out at me daring to say anything about myself because you're an insecure redditor? When in fact I'm asking that anon who promptly fucked off never to return if he even had any idea what I was talking about in relation to vonnegut's peers? Why are redditors like this bros

[Anonymous No.12571062]

>>12566745
>>12566836
>>12567707
>>12567726
>>12567949
>>12568068
>>12568197
>>12569067
>>12571057
>shittiest postmodernist
>npc.jpg
>rayddit.jpg
>le projection
>le reddit
>shittiest postmodernist
>le reddit
>worst postmodernist
>hacky
>gimmicky
>hack who relies on gimmicks
>the shittiest postmodernist
>we really do live in a society
>you're an insecure redditor
poledditors are truly indistinguishable from LSTM chatbots trained on a dataset of buzzwords

[Anonymous No.12571067]

>>12571062
>please don't insult my favorite writer from highschool he is really cool and epic and he has 15 shitty 200 page books that are really super easy
>my friends like him too ;_;
>>>/r/eddit

[Anonymous No.12571078]

>>12571067
I don't even like Vonnegut, but thanks for further demonstration of your intellectual prowess
>le reddit!
simply epic, my good man, hope you grace this board with more great posts like this ASAP

[Anonymous No.12571089]

>>12571078
Well apparently I am not allowed to think that S5 and cats cradle are shitty books that I didn't like because if that's the case I am compensating for something or whatever bitchy reddit shit people say when someone trashes their equivlient of harry potter. So yes samefag, this is what they can expect from here on since I'm not going to repeat what was said in the beginning of the thread. Thank God I have reddit's permission to think time quake was shitty though! At least the committee has mercy.

[Anonymous No.12571097]

>>12571067
Who are you quoting?

[Anonymous No.12571108]

>>12571062
>noU are reddit
>>12571078
>noU are epic
why are NPCdditors like this

[Anonymous No.12571109]

>>12571089
You are allowed to like or dislike whatever you want. You are also allowed to be a retard, but in this case it would be unreasonable to expect not to be treated like one.

[Anonymous No.12571114]

>>12571089
>apparently I am not allowed to think that S5 and cats cradle are shitty books
nobody said that itt, you're fighting windmills in your head again
>reddit shit
>samefag
>reddit's permission
>committee
this is borderline mental illness by that point

[Anonymous No.12571115]

>>12571109
>if you don't like these gimmicky unpolished imitations of half the authors writing from that time then you are retarded
Is Vonnegut truly reddits sacred cow?

[Anonymous No.12571118]

>>12571115
>>if you don't like these gimmicky unpolished imitations of half the authors writing from that time then you are retarded
This is not what I said.

[Anonymous No.12571121]

>>12571118
It has been the consensus throughout this entire thread

[Anonymous No.12571123]

>>12571121
This is not my observation but if it is true it still doesn't concern me.

[Anonymous No.12571131]

I find I have no time for him at all. He's a very world-weary, reductive kind of writer - when I was younger, I liked the way how he could simplify things and seemingly distill them down to their essentials, but now that I'm older, I find a lot of what he has to say trite and a bit, well, childish.

Some things are just really complicated. His characters, and his stories, are cartoonish. They're supposed to be passing on these profound truths about the inherent ugliness and cruelness of humanity, but they're all so palatable, so easily digested that they have almost no power at all. In the stories he creates, he always makes himself present as the puppetmaster behind the scenes - you're always aware, either explicitly or implicitly, just through his style, that this is a fabricated universe, that's it's just a story, and yet he's presenting these contrived events and narratives as if they reveal a deep truth about humanity. They don't. He set all these things up himself, to prove a point that life is ultimately just a series of chemical reactions and so on, and they do illustrate that point - but only because he chose to tell things that way. His works say far more about him than they do about life.

I think what started to really irk me about his writing (and I get this with Douglas Adams as well - another Reddit darling and another writer who I loved when I was young but who I can't stand now) is that, reading them now years later, there's a kind of smugness about it that I just can't stand. It's as if he's holding himself above humanity and looking down on it, as if people are contemptible little ants with all these unrational emotions and drives and desires. I really related to that when I was younger - no-one can be world-weary like the young - but now that I'm a bit older and have more of a stake in the world, in terms of the time and affections that I've developed with people and things that I love, his voice rings ever more hollow to me.”

[Anonymous No.12571154]

>>12571123
okay

[Anonymous No.12571192]

>>12571121
Disliking Vonnegut is a default position on /lit/, brainlet. You're not some lonely knight of towering intellect among the hordes of evil rebbitors here or whatever it is your schizophrenia makes you imagine. You got called a retard for posting "I don't like it therefore it's like the worst and shit and poop and anime power dick wtf", which is, ironically, the epitome of reddit/pol mode of thinking. And then proceeded to elaborate upon this deeply thought out position by posting another two dozen of "haha if u disagree ur an rebbitor lmao" posts. Contribute actually substantiated opinions and thoughts like >>12571131 or go back to your nazi frog board and ebin btfo other double digit IQ gentlemen with tactical NPC pictures there. Or keep on and get used to being called an cretin.

[Anonymous No.12571199]

>>12571192
>I'm standing up to the contrarians on /lit/!!!1
>no YOU go back
Vonnegut is a hack dude. Grow up.

[Anonymous No.12571225]

>>12571192
>is the default position on /lit/
>is the epitome of poleddit
>go back to your nazi frog board
this poor redditor couldn't keep his stream of thought together for a whole paragraph. average vonnegut reader, folks

[Anonymous No.12571229]

>>12566728
/lit/ hates every author who isn't from acient Greece as a manner of showing their pretentiousness as far as im concerned.

[Anonymous No.12571230]

>>12571199
Epic trolle. Don't forget to tell mommy about all these (you)s and have another one on the house.

[Anonymous No.12571238]

>>12571225
>gets confused by sentences longer than 5 words
Average Vonnegut "hater".

[Anonymous No.12571251]

>>12571238
Uh huh that's nice sweetie now tell me again are you taking a stand against the storied bitter contrarianist /lit/ position on St. Kurt or should I take my criticisms of your master symboligist back to the ocasio cortez fan board?

[Anonymous No.12571260]

>>12566728
What's wrong with him is that he tries to be a Maximalist in a very condensed space. This leads to an ADHD style wherein none of the ideas end up being developed to a satisfactory degree. Also his style of writing just feels like casual speaking and that feels very awkward to me. His books lack any salient point.

[Anonymous No.12571261]

Uh huh that's nice sweetie now tell me again are you taking a stand against the storied bitter contrarianist /lit/ position on St. Kurt, or should I take my criticisms of your master symbologist back to the ocasio cortez fan board?

[Anonymous No.12571268]

>>12571251
>no u love Vonnegut and are rebbit! xD
Literal mental illness.
>my criticisms
Point is you haven't provided any.

[Anonymous No.12571279]

>OMG LITERALLY MENTALLY ILL
reddit, please. control yourself.

[Anonymous No.12571325]

Criticisms ITT
>reddit author
>because
>hamfisted symbolism
>trite
>unpolished
>relies on gimmicks
>in the shadow of all of his peers
>self inserts
Response:
>don't call me reddit
>you are just taking the default /lit/ position
>so go back to /pol/
game set match

[Anonymous No.12571380]

>>12571325
>calling things reddit and trite is a valid criticism
based retard

[Anonymous No.12571431]

>>12571325
What peers?

[Anonymous No.12571460]

>>12571260
i guess Vonnegut fags just avoid any actual critique of his writing.

[Anonymous No.12571703]

>>12571380
why even respond reddit jesus christ
>>12571431
Everyone on this image >>12566965, tommy P and maybe even DFW if you want to bring him in. Like I said many posts ago if we include zadie smith, and perhaps if Robert Anton Wilson is included in that image and I don't recognize him, then Kurt is not the absolute bottom of the pomo barrel. Still nothing great.

[Anonymous No.12571742]

>>12571703
Why is Vonnegut a postmodernist? How does any of his works deal with postmodern themes? Or is this supposed to be a mere stylistic qualifier?

[Anonymous No.12571788]

>>12571742
really?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodern_literature
>Common Techniques
>Irony, playfulness, black humor
>Intertextuality
>Pastiche
>Historiographic Metafiction
>Temporal Distortion
>Fabulation
>Fragmentation of narrative characters and themes
>Poioumena (plural: poioumena; from Ancient Greek: ποιούμενον, "product") is a term coined by Alastair Fowler to refer to a specific type of metafiction in which the story is about the process of creation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_postmodern_writers
>Kurt Vonnegut

[Anonymous No.12571899]

>>12571788
All of those things apply to TSatF anon. Literature is about more than just listing wikipedia articles on narrative devices and engaging with your feelings in such a base way. All your "arguments" are just things other people have surmised fairly, and you have nothing to say other than "he shitty pomo" over and over like a child with a new toy he or she isn't enjoying. There's no point engaging with your hatred of an author that you refuse to actually speak on.

[Anonymous No.12571935]

>>12571899
>Kurt Vonnegut isn't a postmodernist because I'm a fucking retard and made a post that was equally retarded
okay kid now it's time to go back at least you can tell everyone you learned something today

[Anonymous No.12571943]

>>12571788
So basically it is about style?

[Anonymous No.12571948]

>>12571899
See
>>12566965
>pic related
>PHOTOGRAPH FROM "POSTMODERNISTS DINNER," PHOTOGRAPHED BY JILL KREMENTZ
>In 1983, Barthelme arranged a "Postmodernists Dinner"
>for the group of writers who were often lumped together under the "postmodernist" label.
>The reclusive Thomas Pynchon declined the invitation.

[Anonymous No.12571957]

Bible - Bi + Able

That which at its core is able to be bisexual.

Father, Son & the Holy ghost.

The Holy ghost in Mary and the Father a part of the Holy ghost.

Mary getting DPed by Father & the ghost.

Father & ghost indulging in their own consummation.

Bisexuality is at the core of the biblical theology.....

[Anonymous No.12572067]

>>12571943
>teach me what pomo is
>Vonnegut fans are this ignorant
Please educate yourself on what the fuck your talking about before you start disputing it thanks reddit

[Anonymous No.12572075]

>>12571935
You type like an uppity nigger. Neck yourself.

[Anonymous No.12572084]

>>12572067
Thank God that there is Wikipedia for people that are incapable of thinking on their own.

[Anonymous No.12572181]

>>12572075
>>12572084
Okay guys postmodernism doesn't even exist, and whatever it is, it's unfair to label vonnegut under the term despite him being one of the exemplary authors and having attended a postmodernist dinner put on by a fellow author, because you guys don't know what it is. So I was correct last night then your experience begins and ends with vonnegut? This is becoming a really pathetic display guys. You're denying reality at this point.

[Anonymous No.12572208]

>>12572181
Oh, well if he has attended a postmodernist dinner he must be a postmodernist. Who am I to say? Obviously I am incapable of making my own conclusions.

[Anonymous No.12572243]

>>12572208
dude come on. You're better than this. This is tantamount to disputing that milton was an epic poet or Virginia Woolf is a modernist. You're being a sarcastic retard because you made an assfucking stupid post and are continuing to defend it in the face of all literary concensus and evidence to try and invalidate any comparative criticism to your faggot hack author. This is why people call you reddit.

[Anonymous No.12572260]

Doesn't post-Modernism suggest that there is little truth & that each approach is reasonable? If so, shouldn't the question be why /lit/ should hate post-Modernism? & the answer would probably be that if you do not have an objective answer to a question, that you should not pretend to have one.

[Anonymous No.12572269]

>>12572243
>people
You do. People don't.

In any case it seems to be incorrect to call anyone that uses a gimmicky narrative structure a postmodernist. If that definition for postmodernism satisfies you feel free to call Vonnegut one. For me it's just a confirmation of what a shallow and stupid person you are.

[Anonymous No.12572287]

>>12572269
>you're a shallow and stupid person because I have no idea what postmodernism is and refuse to accept the reality that he is squarely in the middle of the movement and a standard example of it and will be lumped in and and described as such regardless of this thread as he has been for 40 years
jesus fucking christ reddit. jesus fucking christ.

[Anonymous No.12572292]

>>12566831

I think he got better as I got older
his prose is pure American
his imagination is delicious

[Anonymous No.12572304]

>>12572287
As I said whatever you want. Good job at sticking to your appeal to authority arguments.

[Anonymous No.12572326]

>>12571131
>His works say far more about him than they do about life.

what the fuck do think literature is?
please kill yourself

[Anonymous No.12572329]

>>12572260
/lit/ loves postmodernism. It's why autists here are still, years later, starting every Peterson argument with proof he's misunderstood the term in three disciplines at least. People who say postmodernism and don't mean Eco or Calvino et al get treated like they just said they love to read Harry Potter especially now they know Hermione is black.

[Anonymous No.12572334]

>>12572304
AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. How can you even live with yourself being this much of a literally proud, ignorant retard? Vonnegurt redditors are such wimpy little faggots. I hope after licking your wounds you'll look into some authors who are similar and surpass Vonnegut, learn what literary movements are, and eventually graduate highschool.

[Anonymous No.12572374]

>>12572334
Why are you so obsessed? Do you have delusions of persecution of something? If anyone's world revolves around Vonnegut it's yours. I don't even want to talk about him but seeing you use the word postmodernism without apparently even knowing what it means was a huge red flag for me that you are a retard.

[Anonymous No.12572397]

>>12572329

Is Peterson even a Modernist, tho? Honestly, I don't want to talk about him. I don't buy post-Modernism, but I have no interest in that chap.

[Anonymous No.12572410]

>>12572374
>you like don't even know what postmodernism is dude because you quoted what it is and are pointing out it always includes this guy as an example because he is
Please stop embarrassing yourself anon. This is really pathetic.
>tfw despite shitposting this thread to death I actually recommend vonnegut to younger readers looking to branch out

[Anonymous No.12572426]

>>12566771
I love Vonnegut but god damn that book was shit.

[Anonymous No.12572430]

>>12572410

What is even the point of reading him? Literature is supposed to teach Ethics id est is a revelation of an Ethical science. PoMo seems to be in the same camp as Romanticism, in that it doesn't seem to be anything at all except the fact itself that it is impossible for a story to be about anything, which is wrong, considering Modernism & pre-Romantic literature exist, which culminates in the "movement" being about the inability to say anything because of how society has degraded, which is slightly more interesting, but still not worth anyone's time.

[Anonymous No.12572434]

>>12566887
Haven't read the other two but Mother Night was great. I'd call Player Piano overlooked too.

[Anonymous No.12572450]

>>12572397
He has elements of modernism, but he shares them with the people he calls postmodernists. SJWs are modernist fascists, but that doesn't preclude JBP from being one either. What's bizarre about Peterson is that he badly cites Heidegger to support his anti-postmodernists stance along with conforming to a lot of what postmodernism says in terms of meaning. His most modernist stance is about gender, but SJWs also use modernist definitions of gender. Postmodern views of gender are antisjw and feminist because they say you have to perform gender well to have one. Neither SJWs nor Peterson want that, all their followers are performative failures.

[Anonymous No.12572457]

>>12572430
>What is even the point of reading him?
For me nothing because I encountered him when I was like 24 and don't like him. I recommend him to highschoolers on this board
>PoMo seems to be in the same camp as Romanticism, in that it doesn't seem to be anything at all except the fact itself that it is impossible for a story to be about anything, which is wrong, considering Modernism & pre-Romantic literature exist, which culminates in the "movement" being about the inability to say anything because of how society has degraded
This is false to a degree. Stories like S5, The Recognitions, JR, White Noise, have something to say and have fairly clear stories. A lot of Pynchon and Barthelme's work would maybe fall closer to what you're getting at but they are very thematic.

[Anonymous No.12572481]

>>12572450
That’s a lot of words to say absolutely nothing

[Anonymous No.12572487]

>>12572481
Some of the words said of, is, and, are.

[Anonymous No.12572505]

>>12572410
>shitposting this thread to death
Have an upvote and a 9gag silver.

[Anonymous No.12572511]

>>12571260
I really like the way he writes like he's having a conversation. I get the sense he writes exactly the way he spoke and it puts a lot of his personality into his writing. I think a big part of what people dislike about that is that it makes him seem at times more interested in being known and developing himself as some kind of icon than actually writing a good story, which I think is pretty fair and probably true to a some extent. He also kind of tended to repeat ideas and gimmicks more than was good for him, when I read Deadeye Dick I was sure I'd already read the same Vonnegut book two or three times before.

[Anonymous No.12572514]

>>12572457

But would you agree that PoMo is essentially a demarcation of public responsibility from art? What Pound would refer to as "the stupid" & put in his Dantean hell id est many of the Romantics.

[Anonymous No.12572525]

>>12566758
But Harlan Ellison is discount Vonnegut. I say this because he's dead and can't sue me.

[Anonymous No.12572536]

>>12572410
Wow, your Wikipedia skills sure prove that you know what you are talking about. See, I didn't even mean to argue with you. I gave you the chance to explain why you think he is a postmodernist but I guess I have overestimated you in expecting that you can think at all.

[Anonymous No.12572549]

>>12572505
You have to go back
>>12572514
I don't know what you mean by public responsibility in art, and I don't want to put effort into a post about an assumption

[Anonymous No.12572562]

>>12572536
I'm not going to do a fucking thing for you you entitled faggot. If you want to figure out whether the non-controversial information I've laid out is true feel free to go and verify it for yourself, which you will. I'm not playing some retarded game for you where I write an MLA essay proving in my own words why a run of the mill postmodernist is just that.

[Anonymous No.12572566]

>>12572549
>You have to go back
More upvotes for this epic btfo.

[Anonymous No.12572573]

>>12572549

In Modernism there is a sense of political responsibility or a clearly defined system of Ethics, as a reaction to the subjectivity of the Romantic movement in the arts. This is why so many of them were Catholic or Hermetic Fascists.

Pound wanted to revert all demarcations in the arts so that all fields were subsumed in all-encompassing verse. He recognised this, for instance, in economics, which is actually present in many older poets, such as economic or financial conspiracies of usury.

Is any of this present in PoMo in any meaningful manner? Why has Modernist verse been virtually extinguished?

[Anonymous No.12572579]

>>12572562
>which you will (verify (if you choose to do so))*[1]
;^)
>[1]It's implicitly understood anon isn't going to do "a fucking thing" either

[Anonymous No.12572582]

>>12572562
I don't want you to do a thing for me. Just don't act like a bitch when I call you out for the retard that you are.

[Anonymous No.12572616]

>>12572566
There is no upvote system here reddit and I'm not OP so I could give a fuck if you bump.
>>12572573
I think a lot of what you're describing had already begun with stories like Ulysses and The Waves, and it's been argued that really modernism never ended and pomo is a meaningless term. If you asked me why the change in tone between one or the other I would probably say the rise of mass media and transit, nevermind the horrors of the end of the great war and uncertainty of the decades following, combined with untold and questionably begotten economic growth. A lot of pomo writers came into their own during the heights and immediately following the civil rights movement and rise of student activists so a lot more perspectives were being forced to the forefront of society.

[Anonymous No.12572638]

>>12572582
Okay faggot why don't you define what postmodernism is and present an argument for why kurt vonnegut isn't one? You're the one who wants to rock the established facts and my burden of proof is over with so let's hear your thesis Mr. Tryhard. Responding with my own line about owing me nothing will be taken as a concession that I am correct, which I am, because all of the facts you will find support what I have said.

[Anonymous No.12572641]

>>12572616

But it is all a waste of time unless it is solidified in an objective system of ethics & aesthetics. If Modernism never ended, then someone needs to. They need to crack the code.

[Anonymous No.12572665]

>>12572616
>There is no upvote system here reddit
Based and redditpilled.

[Anonymous No.12572687]

>>12572511
Writing is not speaking. Any idiot could write in the manner he speaks. The written word is meant to be more considered and lyrical than that.

[Anonymous No.12572696]

>>12572687
>meant to be
Impersonal verb doesn't make your shit opinion into an argument.

[Anonymous No.12572721]

>>12572696
What if I just post caricatures of you?

[Anonymous No.12572739]

>>12568708
Donald Barthelme, John Barth, Robert Coover, John Hawkes, Kurt Vonnegut, Walter Abish, William Gaddis, William Gass

[Anonymous No.12572751]

>>12572739
>literally whos and /lit/ maymays

[Anonymous No.12572841]

>>12572641
>But it is all a waste of time unless it is solidified in an objective system of ethics & aesthetics
I think a rejection of that solidification is more or less "the point", as modernism began and postmodernism took much farther. To me it seems we currently live in a zombie era of literature where the spectre of irony and arguably contrived techniques will destroy any further development. I think is is the kind of thing that DFW was getting at with "new sincerity" and I think that Infinite Jest was an attempt at rejection of the cynicism and miasmal soup of postmodernism. I don't know that I would call it successful nor that he would either.

[Anonymous No.12572859]

>>12572751
>50 year old influential iterary figures are le epic memes xP
Back to >>>/v/eddit

[Anonymous No.12572870]

>>12572751
the only 'literally who' is Abish and yet
>MacArthur fellow

[Anonymous No.12572880]

>>12572841

Might give IJ a gander, unless you are joking.

[Anonymous No.12572915]

>>12572880
>unless you are joking
I am not. The book is very contentious for the first 250 or so pages with only a few decent parts so you might feel like you are getting memed on. After the eschaton tennis match or somewhere abouts it really takes off and prior events become more meaningful.

[Eurofriend No.12572930]

>>12566728
hes fun but its like going to book McDonalds.
not very healty in the long run

[Anonymous No.12572948]

>>12572638
Postmodernism is bound to certain more or less broad ideas or attitudes about how reality/meaning is perceived that are a development/response to previous ideas concerning that.
In as much as postmodern perception is unconventional an artist might choose to use unconventional narrative structures to represent it but unconventional narrative structures in themselves don't make for postmodernism. Take away Vonnegut's narrative gimmicks and thematically his stories are don't significantly differ from typical modernism.

[Anonymous No.12572953]

>>12572859
>irrelevant american pomo trash
>hurr they're great because they ""influenced"" a new wave of overmarketed meme mediocrities like DFW
Gaddis is the only good writer in this pic.

[Anonymous No.12573037]

>>12572948
>Take away Vonnegut's narrative gimmicks and thematically his stories are don't significantly differ from typical modernism.
>take away this thing and it's something else
Consider my mind blown anon.
>
Postmodernism is bound to certain more or less broad ideas or attitudes about how reality/meaning is perceived that are a development/response to previous ideas concerning that.
Which is what happens in S5 and as his defenders put it ITT "much of his work concerns "the lies"(that make up our percieved reality) and what happens when you stop believing in those lies"
>thematically his stories are don't significantly differ from typical modernism.
Well as I said to the other anon there is a contingent of people who apply that to postmodern fiction as a whole but the label still has distinction because you would be hard pressed to find someone who would peg Virginia Woolf or most of Joyce as "postmodern" whether or not we want to agree the label should exist for the more experimental/gimmicky/whatever authors who would follow a few decades later

[Anonymous No.12573045]

>>12572953
>Gaddis is the only writer in this pic I've read
Huh, well that's okay anon.

[Anonymous No.12573048]

>>12572739
What about the ladies?

[Anonymous No.12573090]

>>12573045
>it is impossible to have an opinion differing to my pre-programmed academic rightthink [ERROR]: Unexpected exception thrown at...

[Anonymous No.12573108]

>>12573090
>NPC memes
YIKES back to the >>>/b/olceldditor containment board sweaty ;^)

[Anonymous No.12573109]

>>12572915

I sort of followed it until he talks about infantophilia & cannot understand the point of it. The same reason I found Ulysses annoying with its references to things like fish-gods of Dundrum & Roman toilets.

Care to explain?

[Anonymous No.12573110]

>>12573037
That's what I'm trying to say. Postmodernism is not about being experimental or gimmicky, it's about the ideas. The narrative structure Vonnegut uses doesn't make him a postmodernist but many people would be deceived to think he because of something as superficial as that.
While modernism and postmodernism may not be clearly delineated in any individual writer as cultural movements they are distinct.
>"much of his work concerns "the lies"(that make up our perceived reality) and what happens when you stop believing in those lies"
Big if true.

[Anonymous No.12573124]

>>12572696
You probably think Hemingway has a great prose style as well.

[Anonymous No.12573127]

>>12573108
Very yikes post, big time ew

[Anonymous No.12573167]

>>12573109
I'm not sure exactly where you're talking about but it sounds like one of the backstories to one of the side characters, I think at the tennis academy? A lot of the book does still trend towards "black humor" but at the same time its more kind of just bleak representation without much humor (excepting the family who all dies resuscitating each other after the initial one drinks cyanide laced nes-quick). Like for instance the father who developed schizophrenia concerning elaborate details surrounding the events and production of the television show MASH and The Book of Revelation. Its sort of funny but at the same time not really because it's a real thing that actually happens and it destroys this guys family. A lot of the book is about what media does to us. James Incandenza "Himself" and The Entertainment could arguably be seen as the postmodern spectre I described earlier, or maybe baudrillard's (who I despise but whatever) simulacra

[Anonymous No.12573169]

>>12572948
>In as much as postmodern perception is unconventional an artist might choose to use unconventional narrative structures to represent it but unconventional narrative structures in themselves don't make for postmodernism
Do you think that modernism is likewise undefined by narrative structure?

[Anonymous No.12573177]

>>12573167

'kay. P sure I am getting memed, but I will read it, either way.

[Anonymous No.12573178]

>>12566728
Because he is a leftist. That makes our penises go soft which is a biological sign that it is wrong.

[Anonymous No.12573184]

>>12573110
>big if true
It's Billy's main plot of S5. I just don't like the book.

[Anonymous No.12573214]

>>12573169
As I said the narrative structure can be used to convey postmodern/modern/whatever ideas but it can also convey nothing other than a desire to be quirky and "original" that is not bound to the ideas of the work.

[Anonymous No.12573226]

>>12573177
Watch for the part where he predicts instagram filters. The central point of the whole book and a lot of the vignettes concern media's effects

[Anonymous No.12573318]

>>12573214
So basically you're not making an argument about postmodern or modern narrative structures at all and just mention them for no reason?

[Anonymous No.12574024]

>>12573048
wives.

[Anonymous No.12574142]

>>12566728
Is this Curtis Von "Lemme Get Up In Those Guts And" Nut?

[Anonymous No.12575403]

Page 10 bump
>t. Vonnegut hater

[Anonymous No.12575420]

>>12566728
His ideas sound more interesting than they end up being. If you've read 2-3 of his books, you've pretty much read them all. I don't hate him but he's ultimately a mediocre and repetitive writer.

[Anonymous No.12575521]

>>12572434
Yeah I’d probably agree with you on that, player piano is tight. I feel like Vonnegut gets poopoo’d a lot on this board because ur average /lit/ poster reads either s5/ cats cradle/ sirens of titan, and is throughly underwhelmed by them because they’re simple postmodern lit, not sprawling pynchonesque books that have many things going on. Also many of his books have usually one theme that dominates, which is admittedly not “higher literature”. Nevertheless, because of reading one or two of his books that end up being less than impressive, they never explore more of his catalogue and miss out on some of his really great overlooked works, like player piano, mother night or Bluebeard.

[Anonymous No.12575542]

>vonnegut defenders say bluebeard is good
>look it up
>novel is about a neurotic "painter"
Holy fuck Joyce and Gaddis are guilty of this as well

[Anonymous No.12575551]

>>12575542
>look it up
Lol god forbid you read it

[Anonymous No.12575581]

>>12575521
I've read Slaughterhouse Five, Sirens of Titan, Player Piano, and Mother Night. Personally, Mother Night was the most underwhelming one of those to me. I could see what he was going for but the end result just came off as banal and clumsy. The premise of Player Piano seemed promising but the mindset behind it seemed parochial. To me Sirens of Titan was the only one of those four where his style fully worked.

[Anonymous No.12575586]

>>12575551
Yeah I'm going to read it in 5 minutes. If I see bluebeard or player piano or galapagos I guess at the used book shack I will check them out but I swear to god if it sucks and I got memed on for a 4th time I will come back to this board and force a meme worse than sneedposting

[Anonymous No.12575595]

>>12575542
Shut up you idiot. Never even read a Vonnegut book. But just shut the fuck up and learn to appreciate something on its own terms rather than on those of your pedestrian prejudices.

[Anonymous No.12575601]

Slaughterhouse 5 is a massive piece of shit. I can't believe people have been duped into thinking it's good. Lmao

[Anonymous No.12575633]

>>12575595
You don't even understand the point of the post you just replied to, do you? Lets try that meme again for you
>novel is about a struggling "painter"

[Anonymous No.12575668]

>>12575633
Yeah and I’m telling you to shut the fuck up. When your writing is as profound and expansive as Joyce, the choice to represent an autobiographical tortured artist figure is entirely irrelevant. This aversion of yours is as thoughtless and automatic as any so-called cliché you may find in writing from before our current era.

[Anonymous No.12575685]

>>12575668
You're a fucking retard dude lmao. The Recognitions is one of the best books ever written imo. Poor vonnegut redditor can't take a joke ;_;

[Anonymous No.12575699]

>>12575586
Mother night too anon

[Anonymous No.12575701]

>>12568620
THAT was the passage that cost him the pulitzer?

[Anonymous No.12575707]

>>12575701
I'm pretty sure it was the one why Brigadier Pudding eats Kajte's shit and thinks of it as a nig nog knob.

[Anonymous No.12575806]

>>12575707
I think it was probably both of those, the man goes down toilet scene is to escape being raped by a pack of N-words and then the sewage descriptions and iirc civil rights figures literally made of shit/living in the toilet. Also the line about black skin being equivalent to shit and death in peoples mind. Oh pynchon.