/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15179095]

Why are people drawn to lowbrow pop-fiction and repulsed by objectively good literature?
Is it possible to get the masses interested in reading books that are actually good?
Has reading fine literature always been a more esoteric undertaking?
I just can’t understand why you wouldn’t want to experience books like Moby Dick or Don Quixote, or even worse...not like them.
How can someone read a classic that has survived and passed the test of time and think “wow, that sucked.”?

[Anonymous No.15179110]

>NOOOOOOO YOU MUST READ BORING CLASSICS NOT BOOKS YOU ENJOY!!!!!

[Anonymous No.15179128]

Is this your first day on earth? Have you ever spoken with a human before?

[Anonymous No.15179146]

>>15179095
Don Quixote is lowbrow. Of course, that doesn't stop it from being an amazing book, but it's lowbrow nonetheless.

[Anonymous No.15179149]

>>15179110
Yes

[Anonymous No.15179161]

>>15179095
>How can someone read a classic that has survived and passed the test of time and think “wow, that sucked.”?
actually its quite easy

[Anonymous No.15179176]

>it’s an anon, 12, discovers the western canon episode

[Anonymous No.15179180]

>>15179095
Moby Dick and Don Quixote are very digressive and unconventional, on top of that, they were written hundreds of years ago. It's easy to see why they are not really read by your average joe nowadays

[Anonymous No.15179197]

>>15179095
Anything that is adored by the rabble is, by association, trash as well

[Anonymous No.15179204]

have you stopped to consider that, /lit/ users if alive, at time of don quixote, would have said "no! this is too popular"

[Anonymous No.15179205]

>>15179095
Same thing with films too.

[Anonymous No.15179212]

>>15179204
don quixote was the ducks newburyport of its time

[Anonymous No.15179222]

>>15179095
both don quixote and moby dick were considered lowbrown in their time

[Anonymous No.15179247]

>>15179095
The classics of today were the lowbrows of their time. In 300 years people will be studying Harry Potter and feeling like they are true intellectuals because that version of english will be a bit arcaic by then.

[Anonymous No.15179253]

>>15179222
>Has multiple essays on the whaling industry
>Don Quixote is one of the greatest novels of all time

what fucking retard considers either of those lowbrown you fucking idiot

>>15179247
goddam you two are dense

[Anonymous No.15179268]

>>15179146
What makes it lowbrow? Isn't it satirizing what were considered lowbrow knight stories?

[Anonymous No.15179271]

>>15179247
Thinking this at any time in your life means you will always be a retard, there are no exceptions.

[Anonymous No.15179280]

>>15179247
>>15179222

[Anonymous No.15179281]

You should just be smug about what you read and disregard people who read YA shit. Complaining about the tastes of others makes you look insecure, who cares

[Anonymous No.15179313]

>>15179281
There is more complaining about YA here than discussion of literature. I like to vent against people who irritate me too but it is a bit much.

[Anonymous No.15179330]

>>15179110
>implying Don Quixote is boring

[Anonymous No.15179393]

>>15179253
https://opencommons.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=tqc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moby-Dick#Reception

[Anonymous No.15179427]

>>15179393
>The British reviewers, according to Parker, mostly regarded The Whale as "a phenomenal literary work, a philosophical, metaphysical, and poetic romance

>. The earliest American review, in the Boston Post for November 20, quoted the London Athenaeum's scornful review, not realizing that some of the criticism of The Whale did not pertain to Moby-Dick

Oh sick thanks for proving I was right. Ameri-mutts couldn't even write a proper critique

[Anonymous No.15179434]

>>15179427
Lmfao. Too based.

[Anonymous No.15179449]

Most people are low brow. I’m not sure what’s not to get.

[Anonymous No.15179455]

>>15179095
There are possibly other reasons for this, but I think it's basically a consequence of statistics. I am not going to attempt to say what makes a book 'objectively good' but I will assume any book you consider 'objectively good' is also one which 'passes the test of time,' meaning what makes a book 'objectively-good' is not a consequence of the culture or point in history in which it was written. However, what makes a book highly-accessible to a population IS a consequence of the culture and time period in which it was written; modern, culturally-familiar books are much easier to read and far more instantly-gratifying than are foreign or dated one. So, the set of books which have the potential to become popular is restricted by the requirement of being relatively contemporary and culturally-familiar to a large audience, while the set of potentially 'objectively-good' books is not restricted at all, and is consequently much the larger of the two (in fact, the latter set comprises the whole of the former, in addition to all other extant books humanity has produced). It's obvious then that if you select the highest quality members of each, those of the much larger set will almost always be better. But I bet you already knew this and were rather motivated to post this in order to feel superior to the plebs because you read half of the Iliad or something.

[Anonymous No.15179486]

>>15179146
It's lowbrow, middlebrow and highbrow simultaneously, not unlike the scribbles of his contemporary, that English bloke lived across the pond.

[Anonymous No.15179489]

>>15179455
5/10

average-at-best take

[Anonymous No.15179497]

>>15179449
The entire concpet of brows is a spook. That said, YA is still uninspired trash.

[Anonymous No.15179499]

>>15179489
Refute what I said.

[Anonymous No.15179526]

>>15179499
Goddam how do you get so many dubs? And it's not that there's things to refute, you just missed a ton things that exist in post-ww2 societies that inherently create the homogenization of media that has come to define our consumptive tendencies that have never existed before. And plenty of other things too. Everything you posted is so vague that it could apply today or 100 years ago. So again, average at best.

[Anonymous No.15179561]

>>15179526
I acknowledged there were possibly other reasons, specifically with the effects of modern capitalism/consumerism in mind, but I didn't want to give that the full treatment it deserves here, and everything I said could be applied to any literate society in history because it's generally true.

[Anonymous No.15179569]

>>15179095
Genuine question /lit/
I'm a new reader - are most of these books actually enjoyable? I started off reading some of what people consider the best novellas of all time and now I'm ready to move on to something a little meatier.

[Anonymous No.15179578]

>>15179569
Yes, the top 25 alone is filled with some of the greatest books ever.

[Anonymous No.15179595]

>>15179205
is that really his dad

[Anonymous No.15179596]

>>15179427
lol because they got a different fucking book. The book published in Europe had a couple extra chapters.

[Anonymous No.15179600]

>>15179578
>>15179578
okay. I want to keep going and make this a regular hobby but I'm worried I'll hit a roadblock with a book that's just too challenging for me atm. I guess I'll just start moving down the list

[Anonymous No.15179602]

>>15179561
>everything I said could be applied to any literate society in history because it's generally true

Which makes it fundamentally worthless and inapplicable to explaining the specificity of the OP's question. You're no longer average at best, you're now below average at best.

>>15179569
13, 20, 23, and 30 are shorter books. 12, 17, and 18 are long, 19 is insanely long.

>>15179595
Yeah his dad actually wrote poetry that was in his films.

>>15179596
>American reviewing was mostly delegated to "newspaper staffers" or else by "amateur contributors more noted for religious piety than critical acumen."

Really makes you think

[Anonymous No.15179620]

>>15179600
Don't start with books by Pynchon, or Infinite Jest or Joyce then, it'll confuse and roadblock you. Either start with the greeks or Lolita

[Anonymous No.15179649]

>>15179602
American culture really has been rigged from the start to be awful goddamn.

[Anonymous No.15179679]

>>15179649
Well, America was founded on hatred for the aristocracy so anything that is of high cultural value is naturally spit upon, reviled, disdained. Before the mass education of the factory workers' children in the 19th ce, literature was made for the few, extremely educated men and women.

[Anonymous No.15179736]

>>15179679
t. europoor

[Anonymous No.15179756]

>>15179110
imagine enjoying some shit like Harry Potter

[Anonymous No.15179759]

>>15179736
I'm American. Great job proving the stereotype.

[Anonymous No.15179798]

>>15179759
Dude how are you so uneducated on america? There's a ton of early american lit that was designed to be spread all over. Sinners in the hands of an angry god is still read today, hell even the phrase "A house on the hill" comes from early american lit you retard.

[Anonymous No.15179802]

>>15179569
they're enjoyable if you have the prerequisite IQ. otherwise you're gonna look at it like a monkey looking at shakepeare's collected works and go, 'huh?'

[Anonymous No.15179864]

>>15179569
Yes this list is very good but most of them are difficult for a new reader. On this list I'd start with
-Stoner
-The Sun Also Rises
-Picture of Dorian Grey
-Heart of Darkness
-Steinbeck
-Madame Bovary

they're the most narratively straightforward. Once you get good at reading straightforward prose and picking up on themes, metaphors, symbolism, motifs, etc you can start advancing into more difficult terriotry

[Anonymous No.15179887]

>>15179095
The majority of people are borderline illiterate, thus the proliferation of adults reading "young adult" fiction as though it were a perfectly normal thing to do.

[Anonymous No.15179899]

>>15179798
C'mon man, a sermon used as propaganda to make people religious through fear? Melville did it better anyway but was not even appreciated by his own American contemporaries, save his brothers from across the ocean, just like Poe.

[Anonymous No.15179910]

>>15179899
>rmon used as propaganda to make people religious through fear?

Yeah man that Puritan sermon read to Puritans was definitely about turning people religious. Had nothing to do with the failures that colony was facing, and overcoming them. You have probably the most dipshit contemporary take on religion in the colonies that I've seen. Religion in the early colonies as propaganda. Fuck me,

[Anonymous No.15179915]

>>15179600
read the Russian stuff, it is great and not too difficult. Blood Meridian would be a fun read too

[Anonymous No.15179920]

>>15179526
>you just missed a ton things that exist in post-ww2 societies that inherently create the homogenization of media that has come to define our consumptive tendencies that have never existed before
faggot

[Anonymous No.15179921]

>>15179910
>Edwards hoped that the imagery and language of his sermon would awaken audiences to the horrific reality of hell that awaits them should they continue living without calling on Christ to be saved

[Anonymous No.15179923]

>>15179569
also read at least some basic literary theory, you will get much, much more out of anything you read.in particular reading pomo without understanding the theory would suck

[Anonymous No.15179933]

>>15179921
Oh shit bro, a quote from the second paragraph of the wikipedia article on that, fuck man you totally showed me up with your superior knowledge of american lit.

[Anonymous No.15179942]

>>15179923
>>15179915
>>15179864
>>15179802
>>15179620
>>15179602
>>15179578
thanks bro

[Anonymous No.15179950]

>>15179923
What literary theory? Not the guy but I’m curious since I’ve also started that same list

[Anonymous No.15179951]

>>15179920
t. midwit mad he can't understand debord/adorno/mcluhan/baudrillard

>>15179942
No problem man reading great books like those is sick as fuck, I hope you enjoy yourself.

[Anonymous No.15179969]

>>15179942
of course man, everyone needs to get into the classics.

[Anonymous No.15179974]

>>15179933
>brooooo
>hell is real
>broooooooooooooooooooooooo

[Anonymous No.15179978]

>>15179950
Not him but quite a few authors also wrote either non-fiction or plays that go alongside specific works or their works in general. If you find an author you enjoy from that list, consider looking for articles/essays/journals written by them.

>>15179974
Who are you quoting?

[Anonymous No.15179989]

>>15179950
For post-modernism Lyotard and McHale went a long way for me. Also I think starting with Borges makes everything else much clearer.

I'll throw in McLuhan too. It isn't exactly on topic but it very much fits the vibe, which IMO getting the vibe is way more important than being able to rant about commodification or post-irony or some such shit

[Anonymous No.15179995]

>>15179978
yeah any non-fiction from authors is helpful (again to get the vibe), and they are really enjoyable to read because they are authors and not hack academics

[Anonymous No.15180013]

>>15179995
I always like when authors don't put their own personal views into a character, they're diffused across different books and characters. Reading their non-fiction really shows the separation between how the author thinks and how their fiction turns out. Imo it's a very underrated move. And you're right, they're much more readable. Camus in particular jumps to mind with the different speeches he gave in South America, they're very readable.

[Anonymous No.15180082]

>>15179110
Books on right are indescribably more boring than books on left. Anyone who thinks otherwise is just incapable of exerting effort--which makes them, not the book, boring.

[Anonymous No.15180861]

>>15179756
Harry Potter are classics

[Anonymous No.15180934]

>>15179569
>are most of these books actually enjoyable?
yes no no no yes yes no no yes no
yes yes yes yes yes yes no no no yes
yes yes no yes no yes yes no no yes
no no yes yes no yes yes yes no yes
no no no no no yes no no no no
yes yes yes yes yes yes no yes no yes
yes no yes no yes no no yes yes yes
no no yes yes no no no no no no
yes yes yes yes yes no no yes yes yes
yes no yes no yes yes yes yes no yes

[Anonymous No.15180960]

>>15180934
faggot

[Anonymous No.15180964]

>>15180960
idiot

[Anonymous No.15180966]

Classical literature requires a high IQ to appreciate.
Most people have a normal IQ level.

why do you keep making this thread

[Anonymous No.15181436]

>>15179110
Reddit-tier take.

[Anonymous No.15181482]

>>15179095
i told you anon teaching women to read was a bad idea

[Anonymous No.15181491]

>>15180934
And thats by far the most retarded "opinion" I read today. And it´s not that late where I live.
Can you tell me on this doll where the evil russians touched you?

[Anonymous No.15181499]

>>15179222
Idk about Moby Dick but that's absolutely not true for Don Quijote.

[Anonymous No.15181501]

>>15179095
moby dick sucked ass and was about a gay guy who liked indian pee pee interspersed with some autistic faggots screeching about whale species and what differentiates them

[Anonymous No.15181530]

I think it's most likely a direct result of the 5 Star review system. If you read a lot you somehow have to choose between your absolute favourites, which means you won't give 5 stars to everything you read. If you don't read a lot (only Harry Potter) you will rate it 5 stars, because you don't have any reference point. Remember that 3 stars on goodreads means "I liked it". There will always be unreasonable 1 star reviews on both sides.

[Anonymous No.15182436]

>>15181501
die

[Anonymous No.15182444]

>>15179756
Shut up nigger, HP was fun to read as a kid

[Anonymous No.15182461]

>>15182444
>he enjoyed harry potter
>As a Kid!

[Anonymous No.15182533]

I've noticed that a lot of popular books on Goodreads tend to have a relatively high average rating (4.x). On the other hand, it is extremely rate for a recent album (2000s onwards) to even get past 3.8 etc.
Is this mainly due to distinct algorithms and different make-ups of the respective user bases?

[Anonymous No.15182566]

>>15179095
I'm surprised that the hunger games is that much more popular than HP

HP was a huge phenomenon back in the day, I mean really HUGE.

[Anonymous No.15182622]

>>15182566
I realized there are legit zoomers on this board that don't know about it. To be fair Hunger Games was far better than hp. I regretfully enjoyed ya as a ya. I wish someone had told me about actual literature then

[Anonymous No.15182668]

>>15179095
Reading is like working out, you need to suffer through some bullshit before you see results

[Anonymous No.15182694]

>>15179095
its not that people like lowbrow. it's that they are over romanticism and all that antiquated nonsense

[Anonymous No.15182704]

>>15179095
4.29

[Anonymous No.15182717]

more popular than hunger games

[Anonymous No.15182720]

>>15182694
The relative obscurity of a work also means the swarth of reviews it receives will be vastly different. Everyone knows Moby-Dick. It has a reputation that's bigger than JR, so more people read and review it. You can look at the tallies for review amounts between it, Don Quixote and JR. Classics with higher amounts of reviews usually end up with lower scores as more readers who don't appreciate, understand or even just don't like the work throw their opinion into the mix.

[Anonymous No.15182723]

>>15179095
>>15182694
>>15182704
>>15182717
or maybe op is just a retard

[Anonymous No.15182728]

>>15182720
i'm sure you love moby dick. quite the perceptive reader

[Anonymous No.15182770]

>>15179222

Mboy Dick was barely considered at all in its time. its certainly wasn't commonly considered "low brow". You just made this up.

[Anonymous No.15182790]

Don Quixote was good at first but ends up being very repetitive. It didn’t need to be 1000+ pages. I can see why a lot of people wouldn’t find it enjoyable. Btw if you think “literature shouldn’t be enjoyable” you’re a coping bastard who hasn’t even read Don Quixote since Cervantes argues that it should in the book itself.

Moby Dick, while interesting for its prose-style, is also a poorly-structured, boring novel. The only reason to read it is if you think beautiful writing without substance is enough to make a book enjoyable for you. This is probably the case for most people in a short work or poem, but a 900+ page novel where the only value is how good the words sound in succession isn’t enough to hold most people. Again, I can see why people didn’t like it.

As for the YA shit. Everyone understands that it’s bad from an artistic perspective. Harry Potter is literally a children’s book, so of course it will be bad. It’s understood that such literature is meant to be a pastime, not a serious work of art. The people reading Harry Potter aren’t the same people reading Moby Dick, so it’s useless to compare the ratings.

[Anonymous No.15182832]

>>15182770
this is entirely wrong stupid received 4chan wisdom. moby dick was widely reviewed because it was a new work from a major popular author. it was not ignored, it just received mixed reviews.

[Anonymous No.15182910]

>>15179095
>Go onto goodreads
>Look at reviews for classics
>Look at the 1 stars
>Always women accusing the writer of being sexist or saying the book is boring

What did they mean by this?

[Anonymous No.15182984]

>>15182533
it's due to the fact that the majority of music reviewers are almost always older than book reviewers and also far prefer old music rather than modern music.

[Anonymous No.15183028]

>>15179095
Goodreads is an American site. So let's look at American literacy.
>4% illiterate, cannot read
>13% semi literate, can get by in day to day life but struggles with anything more difficult than a comic book
>34% somewhat literate, can read at approx a fifth grade level. Can handle simple reference texts, YA fiction, children's books. This third of the population is legitimately not able to read at a level high enough to appreciate anything more complicated than Potter.
>36% are fairly literate and can read at approx an 8th grade level.

Important thing here is that people like to read below their level by a margin, so for these people, while some works of literary merit (for example, Great Expectations) are within their reach, they will gravitate towards easier works when reading for pleasure, hence their preferred books tend to be genre fiction and YA, and thus Harry Potter and the like loom large

>10% are truly literate, reading at a tenth grade level. Able to approach a wide swathe of entry level literature, but gravitating primarily towards the more difficult (in relative terms) genre fiction, which matches their comprehension sweet spot. This is the group that deifies LotR and speculative fiction, the group that contains devotees of epic fantasy series. Most in this group are capable of attacking more stimulating writing, but few actually do.

>2% are highly literate, wherein entry level lit is their sweet spot.

Literacy in the USA has been dropping since 1993, so people born before 1975 are noticeably more literate than those born after. While I wasn't able to find the data by age, one way to look at it is that it is likely more than half of adults under 45 are simple incapable of reading Moby Dick or Don Quixote. More than a third would struggle immensely. 10% or less would handle it fine provided they put in the effort, and 2% or less could simply sit down and read them.

I'm gonna ballpark it and say half of the highly literate people read purely for pleasure as adults and aren't going to challenge themselves, which leaves a ballpark estimate of 7 percent of Americans able and or willing to put in the effort to read the great American novel.

The other 93% of Adults are either incapable or unwilling to put in the effort. It's not surprising that a book that is accessible to some 70% of the population is more popular and beloved than one that filters 93%.

It shouldn't be that way. Anyone with an average or better IQ that doesn't have severe dyslexia can be taught to read at a tenth grade level. But the state of education in the English speaking world is becoming dire, with America leading the way and Canada/Australia/UK following after.

[Anonymous No.15183105]

>>15179095
Books on the right are easy to digest, I'd assume it's young people first book usually because social/media pressure, you wouldn't expect someone new to the gym start with 100kg bench, There's people that quit after these though and that's the truly sad thing.
I started reading dumb shit like The Alchemist (yes, Coelho) because someone dropped it on the bus and I picked it up but as I enjoyed reading I went for larger/deeper books

[Anonymous No.15183178]

>>15179110
This take is on the same level as saying people who drink wine must secretly hate it and be doing it as a flex or a competition

[Anonymous No.15183183]

>>15182910
>>Always women accusing the writer of being sexist

This. Driving me insane. Can they not appreciate the writing despite the product of its time ethical faults?

[Anonymous No.15184033]

>>15179095
Your concern comes from living in a western society that puts an emphasis on democracy and equality for all. The truth is that your concern is invalid because the greater mass of people will always be predominated by plebians no matter what culture they're from. Just enjoy the books you like and let the plebians enjoy their garbage.

[Anonymous No.15184076]

>>15179095
>Go to library
>See popular book
>"Gee wiz the kids around are saying this is great and the movies too have this featured in them! Everyone reads this! Imagine what this book is like and how good I can feel to know this popular thing. I can then be like the rest of society and have a higher status among them and have something to talk about!"

[Anonymous No.15185136]

>>15182910

[Anonymous No.15185153]

>>15179110
You have to go back

[Anonymous No.15186100]

>>15179756
I unironically love Harry Potter.

[Anonymous No.15186500]

>>15183028
Quality answer. I onestly didn’t even consider the fact that most people *can’t* read something like Moby Dick. I wish they could. I want everyone to be able experience the awe I get from a book that is so beautiful it brings a tear to my eye

[Anonymous No.15186515]

>>15179161
Barely an inconvenience

[Anonymous No.15186533]

>>15183028
Source?

[Anonymous No.15186557]

>>15183028
This makes me wonder, which countries are actually increasing by a significant amount their literacy rates? China?

[Anonymous No.15186618]

>>15182910
this is what you deserve for simping for women all your life

[Anonymous No.15187154]

>>15179095
A large part of the masses are morons who like being told that they aren't morons. YA/Pop Fiction gives them the "I read a book!" high without realizing they essentially took in television through text.
>>15179204
Unlikely, as I don't believe /lit/ is contrarian to what's popular as much as Harry Potter is an example of a very temporary trend in pop culture. The comparison would fit DFW, McCarthy, or even Tolkien better than it would Potter.
>>15179247
Nobody will study Harry Potter because it's a lengthy yet thematically unambitious series in an area where it is inferior. I can't imagine any class where Lewis, Tolkien, or Le Guin wouldn't be better suited.

[Anonymous No.15187344]

>>15187154
television is intellectual

[Anonymous No.15187427]

>>15181499
[citation needed]

[Anonymous No.15187497]

>>15187344
An expected opinion from one who neglects capitalization and punctuation.

[Anonymous No.15187553]

>>15179095
I don't mind if people read shit books. It's better than not reading at all.

But what really gives me the shits is when they get snooty about it and act like they are sophisticated, highbrow intellectuals because they "read books" even though they only read children's fantasy novels. Those people should be shot.

[Anonymous No.15187880]

>>15187553
Harry Potter is particularly irritating for me just because they allude to those books as if it's something everybody should know, like how a Plato character would refer to Homer. But really, that's any pop culture thing that goes too far. I feel like "Iron Man, Walter White, Harry Potter" are probably the unholy trinity of "Burgerpunk Homer".

[Anonymous No.15187905]

>>15179095
I never read hunger games, but the other three books are good in their own way

[Anonymous No.15187920]

>>15179095
Pop books are meant to go down easy, while old books are from other times, and thus present a natural barrier.

[Anonymous No.15188062]

I don't even know what constitutes it as High Brow. Learning that Dickens wrote for the masses was an eye opener. Also Dumas. I read Haggard thinking he was supposed to be high brow lit.

[Anonymous No.15188097]

>>15179095
If you're reading the hunger games you're probably a child and it's probably one of the first books you've read of it's complexity. It's actually really good for young adult standards, it makes sense that it'd be rated high
Meanwhile, if you're into the classics, you've probably read a lot already and are more critical as a result. To the Lighthouse is and excellent novel but I'd probably only give it 3.5 stars

[Anonymous No.15188103]

>>15182910
Retards applying modern morals/ethics to books written over 100 years ago

[Anonymous No.15188111]

>>15188103
Nabokov did the same thing with Don Quixote, which he called torture porn, but, in Cervantes' time, violence was common and the people weren't pussies like him.

[Anonymous No.15188114]

>>15179271
This. No amount of sheer ignorance and naivety can cause such a statement

[Anonymous No.15188178]

>>15179095

Did you guys always dislike harry potter or did you realize it was shit when reading it? I was in 5th grade reading the Order of phoenix and I was bothered that she kept using ALL CAPS TO SHOW HARRY IS YELLING, and he sounded like a little faggot. She kept doing it. I put it down, thought about it, and never read HP again, I realized it was shit as a 10 year old. The best thing to come out of HP are the drive by spoiler videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-lU204jsiw

[Anonymous No.15188233]

>>15179095
>Why are people drawn to lowbrow pop-fiction and repulsed by objectively good literature?
They're women.

[Anonymous No.15188254]

>>15179110

[Anonymous No.15188270]

>>15179569
I'm reading The Iliad right now and its fucking great

[Anonymous No.15188286]

>>15180966
i enjoyed ulysses and im the epitome of midwit

[Anonymous No.15188321]

>>15179569
I recently finished American Psycho and found it to be kind of a comedy.
Is there something wrong with me?

[Anonymous No.15188504]

>>15186533
Search PIAAC literacy report for that statistics. A portion of this is my opinion, but the actual stats are there. Looking back at my post, it seems I missed that the report doesn't include 65+ who it turns out are more likely to be illiterate. So literacy actually peaked sometime before 1975 but after 1955.

[Anonymous No.15188513]

>>15186557
We can't actually know with China because they openly fudge their data by using biased sampling.

[Anonymous No.15188527]

>>15185136
>Sean Barrs
I hate that vegan nigger. Most of his review are shit.

[Anonymous No.15188553]

>>15179095
>Hur-durr I read older books than you, I read sumerian tablets, so i must be more intelligent

Have you seen Filthy Frank - I was born in the wrong generation anon?

[Anonymous No.15188576]

>>15188321
it is quite literally a comedy

[Anonymous No.15188716]

>>15188527
Also they are quite biased.

[Anonymous No.15188804]

>>15187553
This 100%. Hell, when I was younger, I read and enjoyed Harry Potter, and still think they're perfectly fine children's books. However, I think it's absolutely revolting to see people who read YA . . . and never read anything else. Of course, when these people try to enter literary circles and are rightly laughed out of the room, they feel so entitled to being "book-readers" that they demand everyone treat their children's books as actual, discussion-worthy literature. A perfect encapsulation of this is the current wave of politically-illiterate neoliberals that can't discuss politics without using Harry Potter and Star Wars as a sort of training wheels.

I saw a screencap a while back, although I never saved it, about a YA author who successfully protested her works being labelled un-academic. Basically, when she heard that her works weren't allowed to be used in class for literary analysis (because they were stupid fucking kids books) she launched a campaign against the class, demanding that they lower their standards to accommodate her garbage. I have a lot of tolerance for shit, but this just made my blood boil.

tldr; YA is fine, but demanding that everybody lower their literary standards to accommodate you is not.

[Anonymous No.15188817]

>>15179802
it isn't just iq though; you have to have familiarity with literature to actually read literature

[Anonymous No.15188842]

>>15188178
Absolutely based and chucklepilled. If you break down into hysterics after hearing a spoiler for a children's book, you probably need to be rudely awakened like this.

[Anonymous No.15188850]

>>15188178
I only realized it was shit longer after I'd read them as a kid, when I noticed that lots of the people around me hadn't read anything above it.

[Anonymous No.15188869]

>>15179095
The masses do read good books, both books on the left are clearly well read. You just pretend the average person with a higher education does not belong to the masses. They do.

[Anonymous No.15188921]

>>15188178
Based. Reminded of me of this absolute classic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c16wK-low4E

[Anonymous No.15189258]

>>15188178
I was a little edgelord who had been reading fantasy for years and was in middle school reading A Game of Thrones around the time the first Harry Potter book came out. I never read any of them because I was too busy feeling superior to all the Harry Potter fans because I was reading the "real" fantasy shit.

[Anonymous No.15189292]

>>15179110
>classics are boring
>classics cant be enjoyed
What point are you trying to make? Seriously, think about the shit you say before you say it.

[Anonymous No.15189522]

>>15188504
Cheers!