Literally the most awesome books I've ever read. What else compares?

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Anonymous Wed Jan 14 04:02:31 2015 No.5996724 [Reply] [Original]

Literally the most awesome books I've ever read. What else compares?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 04:12:23 2015 No.5996731 >>5996724 It's one of a kind unless you want to read more Wolfe. But you may want to check out Vance, Nabokov, Chesterton and Borges as they influenced his writing.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 04:53:10 2015 No.5996805 A Canticle for Leibowitz if you want similar style. Elric of Melnibone if you want similar pulp.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 04:57:12 2015 No.5996811 >>5996805 >Wolfe >pulp Wolfe is acknowledged as the greatest literary writer alive, m8

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:00:29 2015 No.5996815 >>5996811 By who? A handful of neckbeards with wish fulfillment issues?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:03:30 2015 No.5996819 >>5996811 Book of the New Sun is filled with pulp elements. That's not a bad thing though since it's not the main focus and not pulp for the sake of it being pulp.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:04:03 2015 No.5996820 >>5996819 At this point I'm gonna ask you to define pulp.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:13:52 2015 No.5996835 >>5996820 I don't see what your problem is. You are aware that Edgar Rice Burroughs and Lovecraft wrote pulp too, right? Are you one of those who think literature > genre?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:15:19 2015 No.5996842 >>5996835 Gene Wolfe is far better than them. I mean, they're great, but Wolfe is the foremost writer of our time. Bug difference.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:15:42 2015 No.5996843 >>5996835 This guy apparently is: >>5996819

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:15:47 2015 No.5996844

>>5996835
>Are you one of those who think literature > genre?

Far from it. I like genre. Also I'm not the anon you were arguing with, I only wrote this one post in this thread >>5996820

And it was a genuine question since I'm not a native english speaker, what is "pulp" and what elements in BOTNS could be called that?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:16:22 2015 No.5996847 >>5996842 >Wolfe is the foremost writer of our time stop forcing this meme

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:17:39 2015 No.5996850 File: 13 KB, 300x298, 1385514261864.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5996842 >Wolfe is the foremost writer of our time No way you believe that even yourself.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:20:27 2015 No.5996857 >>5996805 Canticle is not a similar style lolwut

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:20:30 2015 No.5996858 >>5996847 >>5996850 With regards to SF, I believe he is the greatest among those still living.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:20:32 2015 No.5996859

>>5996850
Reception[edit]
Although not a best-selling author, Wolfe is highly regarded by critics[16] and fellow writers, and considered by many to be one of the best living science fiction authors. Indeed, he has sometimes been called the best living American writer regardless of genre. Award-winning science fiction author Michael Swanwick has said: "Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today. Let me repeat that: Gene Wolfe is the greatest writer in the English language alive today! I mean it. Shakespeare was a better stylist, Melville was more important to American letters, and Charles Dickens had a defter hand at creating characters. But among living writers, there is nobody who can even approach Gene Wolfe for brilliance of prose, clarity of thought, and depth in meaning."[17]
Among others, writers Neil Gaiman and Patrick O'Leary have credited Wolfe for inspiration. O'Leary has said: "Forget 'Speculative Fiction'. Gene Wolfe is the best writer alive. Period. And as Wolfe once said (in reference to Gaiman), 'All novels are fantasies. Some are more honest about it.' No comparison. Nobody – I mean nobody – comes close to what this artist does."[18] O'Leary also wrote an extensive essay concerning the nature of Wolfe's artistry, entitled "If Ever A Wiz There Was" at the Wayback Machine (archived June 16, 2010), originally published in his collection Other Voices, Other Doors. Ursula K. Le Guin is frequently quoted on the jackets of Wolfe's books as having said "Wolfe is our Melville."

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:22:40 2015 No.5996863 >>5996859 It should be illegal for fanboys to edit wikipedia

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:22:52 2015 No.5996865

>It is possible I already had some presentiment of my future. The locked and rusted gate that stood before us, with wisps of river fog threading its spikes like the mountain paths, remains in my mind now as the symbol of my exile. That is why I have begun to answer this account of it with the aftermath of our swim, in which I, the torturer's apprentice Severian, had so nearly drowned.

>'The guard has gone.' Thus my friend Roche spoke to Drotte, who had already seen it for himself.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:24:42 2015 No.5996867 >>5996859 WHAT? Writers of a particular kind of genre fiction unanimously praise the literary value of this genre they write in??!? WHAT IS THIS MAGIC?

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:25:16 2015 No.5996869 [DELETED]

>>5996815
various authors and critics compare him to the likes of Dickens and Melville
>>5996835
ERB wrote in the turn of the century to the 20s, his material predates the pulp fiction magazines and it was published in the high quality magazines known as 'slicks'

pulp refers to the pulp fiction magazines of the 30s-50s
they covered just about every genre, science fiction, fantasy, adventure, historical, travel, sports, romance, crime
they were the low brow mass entertainment of their time
despite which many well known quality authors were published in them

your description of New Sun as pulp, and failure to explain what you think it means puts you in the same category as the steampunk fangirls.
You're putting on an affectation with no clue what you're on about.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:26:51 2015 No.5996872 Gene Wolfe is to fantasy as Alan Moore is to graphic novels, he is the literary representation of his medium, and not just that, but of the very best literary writers of the English language.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:27:52 2015 No.5996873 >>5996872 >graphic novels They're just comics.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:28:33 2015 No.5996875

>>5996844
Today you would probabably call airport novels pulp.
Cheap books you read for entertainment and he throw into the next garbage bin.

That the definition but pulp is more like what sci-fi and fantasy are today in general.

Quickly written adventure novels with a whole bunch of fantastic and implausable elements.

Stuff like John Carter of Mars, FlashGordon or Star Wars are pulp.

Now for your information, I never said Wolfe writes pulp.
I just said he uses pulp elements or rather his book is set in a pulp world.
At least on the surface.

It's earth a bazillion years in the future where humans and animals have or were evolved or mutated into apemen, catpeople, giants etc, can merge minds with dead people by eating their flesh on drugs and so on.

At first glance this feels very pulp-ish.
It has the depth to back it all up, but it's still got the feel.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:28:55 2015 No.5996876 >>5996865 >people unironically compare this to Melville Even when Melville is droning on about the most boring shit, his prose is incredible.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:29:37 2015 No.5996877

>>5996815
various authors and critics compare him to the likes of Dickens and Melville
>>5996835
ERB wrote in the turn of the century to the 20s, his material predates the pulp fiction magazines and it was published in the high quality magazines known as 'slicks' such as Argosy (which did later become a pulp magazine)

pulp refers to the pulp fiction anthology magazines of the 30s-50s, called so because of the cheap wood pulp paper they were printed on
they covered just about every genre
science fiction, fantasy, adventure, historical, travel, sports, romance, crime, western, and character-specific hero magazines
they were the low brow mass entertainment of their time
despite which many well known quality authors were published in them

your description of New Sun as pulp, and failure to explain what you think it means puts you in the same category as the steampunk fangirls.
You're putting on an affectation with no clue what you're on about.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:32:11 2015 No.5996883

>>5996873
No, they aren't. A comic book is like a comic strip but long enough to make a small book, it is supposed to be "comical". A graphic novel deals with serious topics in a sophisticated fashion. It's widely acknowledged that Alan Moore is one of the greatest talents in literature, period, Watchmen was on Time's best 100 Books of the 20th Century.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:34:07 2015 No.5996885
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>>5996875
No you would not. Airport novels or licensed media novels are deliberately aimed at being easily disposable.
The writers who were published in the magazines in the 30s-50s were legitimate authors producing legitimate work, much of which still stands today

He lurks in the rivers of time
Waiting for those who disparage SF
And he will awaken and come for those who tempt his wraith

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:34:48 2015 No.5996886 >>5996867 How does genre by itself affect quality? Also are you saying that you can't be a great writer because you have science fiction in your story? But one thing is for certain, you haven't read Wolfe and I doubt you read at all.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:34:55 2015 No.5996888 >>5996877 I gave an explanation already. If you are too dense to understand what I wrote or if you choose not to understand that's not my problem. I like Wolfe, but I don't put him on a pedestal.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:35:08 2015 No.5996889
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>>5996875
>It's earth a bazillion years in the future where humans and animals have or were evolved or mutated into apemen, catpeople, giants etc, can merge minds with dead people by eating their flesh on drugs and so on.
>At first glance this feels very pulp-ish.

Son, its called science fiction

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:36:47 2015 No.5996894

>>5996883

>A graphic novel deals with serious topics in a sophisticated fashion. It's widely acknowledged that Alan Moore is one of the greatest talents in literature, period, Watchmen was on Time's best 100 Books of the 20th Century.

Haven't had this good of a laugh in a while. I love plebs

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:37:21 2015 No.5996896 >>5996889 I don't care what stupid little label you want to attach to it. For me it's just a good book.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:37:31 2015 No.5996897 >>5996865 Is it possible to quote something other than the first page?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:38:00 2015 No.5996900 >>5996877 >called so because of the cheap wood pulp paper they were printed on making them a medium not a genre or style

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:38:58 2015 No.5996903 >>5996897 I don't know, is it? It's not my job to provide textual examples of how Gene Woole is great, it's yours if you're saying he's hot shit.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:43:19 2015 No.5996912

>>5996886
It does when you write genre for the sake of it being genre.
When you write fantasy because you want to have dragons and wizards and then have to think of a reason for why they're there.

The best fantasy writers don't do this.
They write fantasy because it serves their purpose of expressing a certain idea.

Most good fantasy works are about the concepts of power, death, immortality, language, needs or fate.

Most bad fantasy works are about magic just cause, dragons just cause or rape and power fantasies.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:45:21 2015 No.5996916 >>5996900 That's dumb. You also call newspaper newspaper because they're made of paper.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:52:59 2015 No.5996933 >>5996903 Your job is to read him, give a proper critique or shut the fuck up. >>5996912 Well isn't this given?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:54:47 2015 No.5996937 >>5996894 Enjoy being a snob on 4chan when you probably haven't read enough to realize that Alan Moore wrote the most patrician recent stuff next to Wolfe.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:56:28 2015 No.5996941 >>5996933 >y-you can't say anything bad about Twilight unless you read it all >y-you can't say anything bad about Fifty Shades until you've read it all >y-you can't say any prose is mediocre unless you read it all

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:56:40 2015 No.5996942 >>5996912 >It does when you write genre for the sake of it being genre. thats a modern development, which brings us back to the steampunk fangirls

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:59:14 2015 No.5996946

>>5996886
Professionals in a small field (and the most successful fantasy writers can be considered a small social group) will always give acclaim to each other's work, because every time they praise something from their milieu, a fraction of that praise adds to the stature of the milieu itself, and thus to their own.

It's the same for professors sharing a specific specialization in their field. No, I haven't read any Gene Wolfe, I've read some le Guin, Tad Williams and Terry Pratchett, I don't read a lot of genre fiction and nowadays more SF than Fantasy. Otherwise I read Borges, DFW, Vonnegut, and non-fiction, mostly.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 05:59:42 2015 No.5996947 If Shakespeare lived today, he'd write a high fantasy series

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:01:49 2015 No.5996954 >>5996941 I just read the first paragraph of Moby Dick. The prose is mediocre and the book is shit because whales can't be that big.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:03:46 2015 No.5996958 >>5996946 Give him a shot, it's closer to Borges and Nabokov thab it is to science fiction.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:05:11 2015 No.5996961 File: 674 KB, 1284x722, Damien Sandow winning smile.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5996941 >tfw I read both Twilight and 50 Shades just so I could criticize them whilst being immune to this counter.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:05:21 2015 No.5996962

>>5996954
>Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
Blows Gene Wolf the Fuck Out. You can quote ANY paragraph of Melville's and pit it against ANY paragraph of Wolfe's, and Melville will be superior.

>>	kitty !kitty/EnNg Wed Jan 14 06:06:02 2015 No.5996964 >>5996946 >I've read some le Guin some of her books are nice >Tad Williams literally who >and Terry Pratchett not funny clown with a poor prose

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:16:57 2015 No.5996989 >>5996942 Do you want me to take you seriously? Because jdging by what youu wrote so far there's no reason for me to do so. inb4 no u

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:17:57 2015 No.5996993 >>5996933 >Well isn't this given? Sadly not at all.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:20:16 2015 No.5996997

>>5996962
>“Somewhere she is singing for me at this moment, singing as she used to before Krait came. I hear her, as I do almost every day, although she must surely be many hundreds of leagues away. I hear her — and when I do not I dream of my home beside the sea. Of it and of you, Nettle my darling, my only dearest, the sweetheart of my youth. But if ever I find my way back to it (as Seawrack has beyond any question found her way back to the waves and the spume, the secret currents, and her black, wave-washed rocks) there will come a stormy midnight when I throw off the blankets, although you and the twins are soundly sleeping. I will put out then in whatever boat I can find, and you will not see me more. Do not mourn me, Nettle. Every man must die, and I know what death I long for.”

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:21:16 2015 No.5997002 >>5996989 >he said after describing everything as pulp

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:24:33 2015 No.5997008 >>5997002 >no u

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:27:31 2015 No.5997015

>>5996997
>Death seems the only desirable sequel for a career like this; but Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored; therefore, to the death-longing eyes of such men, who still have left in them some interior compunctions against suicide, does the all-contributed and all-receptive ocean alluringly spread forth his whole plain of unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures; and from the hearts of infinite Pacifics, the thousand mermaids sing to them—"Come hither, broken-hearted; here is another life without the guilt of intermediate death; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them. Come hither! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred and abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death. Come hither! put up thy gravestone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till we marry thee!
or

>It needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a Nantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who had gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But somehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine chance for promotion, it seems—aye, a stove boat will make me an immortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling—a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what then? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:30:57 2015 No.5997027 >>5996962 My point wasn't that Wolfe has better prose. My point is that your criticism is worth for shit.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:31:43 2015 No.5997029

>>5997015
>I turn my body from the sun. What ho, Tashtego! let me hear thy hammer. Oh! ye three unsurrendered spires of mine; thou uncracked keel; and only god-bullied hull; thou firm deck, and haughty helm, and Pole-pointed prow,—death-glorious ship! must ye then perish, and without me? Am I cut off from the last fond pride of meanest shipwrecked captains? Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds, pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! and since neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!

or

>Oh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely? Hadst thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came upon him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after years; and all of them a care-killing competency. But Death plucked down some virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely hung the responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than useless old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him easier to harvest.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 06:32:15 2015 No.5997030 >>5996964 Kitty have you finished the New Sun? How are you liking it so far?

kitty !kitty/EnNg Wed Jan 14 08:11:25 2015 No.5997264

>>5997030
i read 2 first books and several chapters of the third. a very nice world building (some moments are lolwhat though, like predators tied alive to every tree on a plain to scare other predators, possibly it was overcolored by severian's imagination), nice prose (but definitely not nabokov's or melville's level), neat usage of a unreliable narrator too. not sure if multiple allusions to other books are good in the way how they were done

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 08:26:16 2015 No.5997298

I'm reading through the first book now. I've found some passages hard to understand (the scene where a young girl is with a priest watching a fish materialise between mirrors, for instance), sometimes due to the language he uses. I've also noticed he's pretty bawdy, the amount of torn dresses and breasts is interesting.

kitty !kitty/EnNg Wed Jan 14 08:48:20 2015 No.5997359

>>5997298
>the scene where a young girl is with a priest watching a fish materialise between mirrors, for instance

that's an allusion to borges' 'book of imaginary beings', i think i can quote the whole chapter

>Fauna of Mirrors
>In one of the volumes of the Lettres edifiantes et curieuses that appeared in Paris during the first half of the eighteenth century, Father Fontecchio of the Society of Jesus planned a study of the superstitions and misinformation of the common people of Canton; in the preliminary outline he noted that the Fish was a shifting and shining creature that nobody had ever caught but that many said they had glimpsed in the depths of mirrors. Father Fontecchio died in 1736, and the work begun by his pen remained unfinished; some 150 years later Herbert Allen Giles took up the interrupted task. According to Giles, belief in the Fish is part of a larger myth that goes back to the legendary times of the Yellow Emperor.
>In those days the world of mirrors and the world of men were not, as they are now, cut off from each other. They were, besides, quite different; neither beings nor colours nor shapes were the same. Both kingdoms, the specular and the human, lived in harmony; you could come and go through mirrors. One night the mirror people invaded the earth. Their power was great, but at the end of bloody warfare the magic arts of the Yellow Emperor prevailed. He repulsed the invaders, imprisoned them in their mirrors, and forced on them the task of repeating, as though in a kind of dream, all the actions of men. He stripped them of their power and of their forms and reduced them to mere slavish reflections. Nonetheless, a day will come when the magic spell will be shaken off.
>The first to awaken will be the Fish. Deep in the mirror we will perceive a very faint line and the colour of this line will be like no other colour. Later on, other shapes will begin to stir. Little by little they will differ from us; little by little they will not imitate us. They will break through the barriers of glass or metal and this time will not be defeated. Side by side with these mirror creatures, the creatures of water will join the battle.
>In Yunnan they do not speak of the Fish but of the Tiger of the Mirror. Others believe that in advance of the invasion we will hear from the depths of mirrors the clatter of weapons.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 09:04:43 2015 No.5997399 >>5996964 >not funny clown with a poor prose I'll cuntpunch you kitty, swear on me mum.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 11:01:16 2015 No.5997784 >>5997359 That's very interesting, thank you.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 13:45:12 2015 No.5998510 >>5997359 >Side by side with these mirror creatures, the creatures of water will join the battle. Any link to Abaia and the undines?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 13:55:24 2015 No.5998555 I like how the great ship has sails made of those mirrors and weird mirror creatures occasionally fall out of them.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 13:59:00 2015 No.5998578 heavy metal ----> music science fiction ---> literature which doesn't mean, there isn't any good metal or sci-fi. there is

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:04:56 2015 No.5998609 >>5998578 >heavy metal ----> music >science fiction ---> literature No. Realism is a narrow genre, and only very recently invented. Almost everything written pre-1850 or so is some sort of fantasy or sci-fi.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:05:24 2015 No.5998611

>>5998578
Heavy metal musicians are elaborating current musical trends to imagine what music will be in the future? Science fiction focuses on pounding the reader with a wall of text and taking it in is the appeal?

Could you elaborate what you're trying to say?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:06:25 2015 No.5998620 >>5998611 >elaborating extrapolating, I was to say

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:07:46 2015 No.5998629 >>5998578 Heavy metal isn't art music. To say it's not music is like saying sci-fi isn't books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_music

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:12:12 2015 No.5998653

>>5998629
That's pretty spot on, actually, though I'd word it in a broader way. It's apex bullshit when "literary fiction" readers like a "genre" novel and instantly decide it can't be genre because they like it and proceed to spout shit like "it transcends genre".

As if there's anything fundamentally different about any fiction ever.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:13:29 2015 No.5998660

>>5998609
That's not true at all, Tristram Shandy and Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe are hardly fantasy.

The words that you might consider fantastical in element really don't follow fantasy genre conventions, that's why you won't find Gulliver's Travels in the fantasy section of the library.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:17:34 2015 No.5998689
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>>5996912

>Tfw you want to use fantasy as a backdrop for the concept of human beings turning to their vices in the absence of struggle on a societal level while illustrating that those who are aware of this fact still struggle with shortcomings on an individual level
>Tfw not sure if this is even appropriate for fantasy or literature at all

Why live?

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:20:14 2015 No.5998705

>>5996954

My two favorite writers are Wolfe and Melville.

I think you're getting the comparison of Wolfe to Melville wrong. You'd be hard pressed to find any writer outside of Shakespeare, Conrad, and maybe Faulkner who wrote English prose on the level of Melville. While I think Wolfe has outstanding prose, I wouldn't put it on par with Melville by any stretch.

The Melville comparisons have more to do with the literary techniques both Wolfe and Melville employ (heavy symbolism, ambiguity, misdirection of readers focus, meta-narratives, experimental techniques, etc.) rather than any comparison of prose.

Also, anyone who thinks it's laughable that Wolfe could be considered the greatest living writer, I ask who you propose would be better? I'm not trolling, I'm legitimately interested because I'm looking for new stuff to read.

>inb4 Pynchon

Sorry dudes, Pynchon's great but Wolfe is superior IMO.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:21:41 2015 No.5998713 >>5998689 Literature is literature dude. Who gives a fuck what it's labeled as. Do it faggot.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:21:51 2015 No.5998715 >>5998611 everyone outside of it thinks its for pleps, everyone inside thinks its the best thing ever made

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:24:38 2015 No.5998726

>>5998705
>Also, anyone who thinks it's laughable that Wolfe could be considered the greatest living writer, I ask who you propose would be better? I'm not trolling, I'm legitimately interested because I'm looking for new stuff to read.
Krasznahorkai, maybe. Or someone we won't know about for a while.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:26:36 2015 No.5998737 >>5998726 Thanks, anon. I'll take a look.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:27:18 2015 No.5998741 >>5998715 also neckbeards tend to like it

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:30:05 2015 No.5998755 >>5998705 >>5998726 >also... Bruno Schulz and C.E.Gadda

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:30:21 2015 No.5998757 >>5998713 O-ok

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:33:42 2015 No.5998776 >>5998737 Also Mo Yan is pretty damn top tier, and Alexander Theroux and J. Robert Lennon are some of the best in comedic prose.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:38:18 2015 No.5998798 >>5998705 >Dat Baldanders Inn scene >Blatant allusion to the great Queequeg <3 Ishmael gay out of 1851

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:38:33 2015 No.5998800

>>5998705
He's not even the best living SF/F writer, Ursula Le Guin is. I love Wolfe too though.

Other better living writers: Don DeLillo, Salman Rushdie, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jose Saramago, John le Carre, and Thomas Pynchon.

None of which takes away from the fact that Wolfe is great. I'd probably put him in my top 20 living writers.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:41:26 2015 No.5998815 >>5998800 oops, Saramago's dead. I'll defend the rest of those choices though

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:41:40 2015 No.5998819 The original Conan the Barbarian short stories published in weird tales are generally considered the only fantasy writing that has any literary merit.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:42:42 2015 No.5998822

>>5998800

Sorry dude, I love me some LeGuin but she's nowhere near Wolfe IMO.

>DeLillo
Underworld was OK.

>Rushdie
Top Kek

>Ishiguro
He's top-tier

>Saramago
Another writer I'd put on Wolfe's level. He has some amazing stuff

>John le Carre
Haven't read

>Pynchon
Will go down as one of the great American wrtiers. GR is an achievement. Everything else is above good but not great.

Maybe it's just my pesonal tastes but the only writer you mentioned that's on Wolfe's level is Saramago. Thanks for the help though.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:43:15 2015 No.5998828 >Literally

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 14:55:26 2015 No.5998888

>>5996724

What did you like about the series?

I would recommend Gormenghast but if you liked the pulpy elements of BotNS you'll be disappointed.

If you liked the series for it's literary merits, read more Wolfe. Fifth Head of Cerberus, The Wizard Knight, Peace, and Latro are all top-tier.

Or you could read Urth of the New Sun, Book of the Long Sun, and Book of the Short Sun if you really like Severian's world.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 15:06:46 2015 No.5998943

>>5998705
>Also, anyone who thinks it's laughable that Wolfe could be considered the greatest living writer, I ask who you propose would be better? I'm not trolling, I'm legitimately interested because I'm looking for new stuff to read.

Have you read John Crowley? Read Little, Big.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 15:11:54 2015 No.5998980 >>5998822 Le Guin is on Bloom's canon. He also said, "Le Guin, more than Tolkien, has raised fantasy into high literature, for our time." Gene Wolfe sure as shit ain't on the Western canon.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 15:45:37 2015 No.5999145 File: 72 KB, 850x400, quote-i-have-read-only-the-first-harry-potter-book-i-thought-it-excellent-perhaps-the-best-thing-gene-wolfe-201019.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] Pic related warms my heart.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 15:56:29 2015 No.5999202 >>5998980 >implying bloom personally chooses what is and isn't cannon What makes it into cannon is time, if Wolfe will be a thing a 100 years from now he is cannon, if he isn't well I was wrong

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 15:57:37 2015 No.5999205 >>5999202 wolfe is reddit garbage. just let it go

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 15:59:28 2015 No.5999209 >>5999202 Well, the book of Le Guin's on the canon is only ten years older than the Shadow of the Torturer.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 16:15:27 2015 No.5999303

>>5998980

Sorry for not bowing to the almighty Harold Bloom, that rickety old fat fucker.

Just because he includes LeGuin but excludes Wolfe doesn't make her the better writer.

One man's shit opinion doesn't make one writer better than another. I love Wolfe and LeGuin. Both are great. Wolfe is better. Even LeGuin admits as such.

Also, I have read John Crowley and I enjoyed Little, Big and The Aegypt Cycle. He's another top-tier writer.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 16:16:29 2015 No.5999308 >>5999205 WTF are you talking about? Le Rebbitors are always going on about how they don't 'get' Wolfe and how he's overrated and too 'difficult'. Nice try though.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 16:19:14 2015 No.5999322

>>5999205
Why would I let go one of the most magnificent books I've ever read and one of the books you haven't read?
>>5999209
Doesn't matter really. It's too early to tell which will be cannon. The only thing we can do now is discuss if we feel it has the quality to be a classic one day.
As for Le Guin she was way more popular and that means her reach was wider. Nobody cared for Dick until Blade Runner, since than he has become one of the most recognized American authors of the latter part of 20th century.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 16:19:29 2015 No.5999323 >>5999303 >One man's shit opinion Care to name a living professional literary critic who is better read or knows what makes a work literary more than Bloom does?

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 16:20:29 2015 No.5999329

>>5999322
>As for Le Guin she was way more popular and that means her reach was wider. Nobody cared for Dick until Blade Runner, since than he has become one of the most recognized American authors of the latter part of 20th century.
He's no canon, though, anymore than Dumas is.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 16:32:15 2015 No.5999388 >>5999329 Cannon isn't decided by critics, it's decided by time. And Dick is very much alive, we are a few generations after his death and most of us have read at least one of his works.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 16:36:41 2015 No.5999411

>>5999323

>Claims any author who he likes but doesn't ascribe to his worldview is a 'natural gnostic' including such hardcore Orthodox thinkers like Dostoyevsky, Flannery O'Connor, and Augustine.

He's shit. What he does is basically the snobbish equivalent of a goodreads "OMG MY FAVORITE BOOKS x-)" list. Just because he's a longtime tenured professor doesn't make him the holy keeper of the sacred western canon. It was well-established before he came along and it will be well-established long after he's dead.

Fucking Northrup Frye accomplished what he did in a much better fashion in "The Secular Scripture"

Outside of his Shakespeare criticism, he's a joke.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 16:45:45 2015 No.5999466

>>5998980
I love LeGuin's works, but raising her above Tolkien in terms of defining the fantasy genre and lifting it out of it's reputation as children's fairy tales is just objectively wrong.

It's almost as stupid as Moorcock comparing Tolkien's prose to Winnie the Poo rather than to Beowulf or the greek epics.

Harold Bloom seems to be the watchmojo.com of the litarary world.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 16:48:23 2015 No.5999479 >>5999466 Watchmojo hurts my brain. Best anime and half are ongoing shounen and Myazaki. How would they massacre literature?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 16:57:06 2015 No.5999519 >>5998800 >Le Guin is lel Its Kim Stanley Robinson

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 16:59:16 2015 No.5999527 >>5998980 1) bloom recanted that canon saying he made it up in an afternoon under publisher pressure 2) he wouldn't know who wolfe is, he is too literate for SF and too SF for literature and thus many have never heard of him

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:00:28 2015 No.5999536

>>5999479
Game of Thrones on 1st place probably.

Best lists are terrible in general.
They only remind you of how shit most people's taste is
and that these people are what defines mainstream.

I went to a bookstore today to get a copy of Canterbury Tales, which they didn't have, of course and thought I'd pay a quick visit to the fantasy and sci-fi shelves.
I left with an unpleasant feeling in my stomache.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:02:30 2015 No.5999550 >>5999536 Try visiting Catholic bookshops. I've had luck with their editions and selection of books, especially for philosophy.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:03:33 2015 No.5999556 >>5999479 Watch MrBTounge instead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhWeBvgNnIE

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:03:53 2015 No.5999557

>>5999303
She's better than Tolkien because Tolkien was a hack, so maybe that's not saying much.
Are there works equal to or better than her earth sea? Broken Sword, Fafhrd and the Gray mouser, viriconium, pavane, Mabinogion, little big, and on.
Moorcocks essay epic pooh is spot on

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:05:06 2015 No.5999566 >>5999557 Tolkien was a great writer. Also saying that someone is a hack is meaningless.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:07:42 2015 No.5999579 >>5999322 PKD is overrated, most of his work was poorly and quickly written hackwork

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:07:52 2015 No.5999580 >>5998822 >Rushdie >Top Kek this is where your trolling became transparent

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:08:24 2015 No.5999583 >>5999556 Saw that and am actually subscribed to him. Have you seen. Marc Armini on Gene Wolfe?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:09:40 2015 No.5999589 >>5999579 He certainly wasn't polished, but his experience of drugs and general insanity alongside crazy ideas have earned him a place in literature history.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:10:36 2015 No.5999593 >>5999566 No he wasn't, reading the interactions of the fellowship is like reading the secret 7 or some other Enid Blyton tripe

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:11:06 2015 No.5999600

>>5999557
Are you serious?
I can understand if people don't like Tolkien. That's one thing.
But you can't deny that he revolutionized fantasy as a genre and is a great writer.

As for Moorcock. I wouldn't take someone who mainly writes lyrics for shitty metal bands too seriously when he criticises an oxford professor of fucking philology.
I like his books but he is clearly just jelly.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:11:48 2015 No.5999602 >>5999589 No the drugs further degenerated his work http://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/mar/15/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.philipkdick

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:11:54 2015 No.5999603 >>5999593 Yeah his best works are Silmarillion and Children of Hurin and saying that those don't have quality is truly pleb.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:13:05 2015 No.5999612 >>5999602 His best works are Valis and A Scaner Darkly so that is just wrong.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:13:45 2015 No.5999615

>>5999557

Tolkien wasn't a hack. Far from it. Also, Earthsea, while far superior to Harry Potter, was essentially the Harry Potter of it's day. It's great fun and a great read but to act like it somehow trumps what Tolkien accomplished is far-fetched.

You're one of those edgy faggots who think 'gritty' and 'realistic' fantasy is better than high fantasy aren't you?

Also, you list a bunch of S&S titles but don't mention R.E. Howard. What gives?

Tolkien was also a far superior poet than any fantasy writer who came after him. Children of Hurin and the Lays of Beleriand are beautifully written.

Keep trying dude. Hating on Tolkien doesn't make you look any smarter, it just makes you seem like an edgy fedora tipping faggot.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:14:16 2015 No.5999620 >>5999612 >that is just wrong. top tier argumentation, why has this b8 thread 100+ replies again?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:15:46 2015 No.5999630 >>5999620 Because faggots like you argue on books they haven't read to get a false sense of superiority.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:17:17 2015 No.5999636

>>5999600
>But you can't deny that he revolutionized fantasy as a genre and is a great writer.
No he didn't, LotR didn't become a phenomena until the 1960s paperback reprints were picked up by the hippies
By which time were already published The King of Elflands Daughter, The Worm Oborous, Gormenghast, the first book of the Mabinogion, Conan, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Jirel of Joiry, The Iron Ring, The Broken Sword, Three Hearts and Three Lions
Tolkiens revolutionized fantasy has been to give us a generation of shitty cookie cutter standardized LotR knockoffs

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:17:40 2015 No.5999639 >>5999630 nice projecting m8, but seriously, what made you leave reddit in favour of this place?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:18:19 2015 No.5999645 >>5999600 >if you disagree with me then you're jealous Well that clears that up

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:18:46 2015 No.5999647 >>5999639 Nice projection m8, what made you leave reddit?

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:22:11 2015 No.5999666

>>5999612
>his best works are his drug addled mental breakdown ramblings
Lel so edgy
His best work is the one novel he took his time writing and spent time revising
The Man in the High Castle

PKDs problem was be never made much money, a combination of a bad agent and his own poor choices
So he had to write at a high rate of production just to get enough money from the low paying rates
This meant he couldn't take time to consider the work, he couldn't take time to revise
He just had to bang it out, mail it, and move on to the next
And when you add drugs in to fuel this, and a fragile mental state
You have potential for trouble
Same thing happened to Hubbard

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:23:33 2015 No.5999677 >>5999615 >Also, you list a bunch of S&S titles but don't mention R.E. Howard. What gives? Viriconium, Mabinogion, Pavane, little big are not sword and sorcery

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:24:04 2015 No.5999680

>>5999645
Reading comprehension, pal.

Moorcock is jelous of Tolkien because he's seen as a spearhead for the fantasy genre which is exactly what Moorcock always wanted to be but he never made it out of the pulp ghetto and now he writes lyrics for metal bands.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:25:47 2015 No.5999686

>>5999666
I know all this and MitHC is the most polished and I'd agree with you among his best, but what made him special wasn't his ability to write, it was his fragile sanity and experience with drugs. A Scaner Darkly is to drug addiction what the Gambler is to gambling. It's an amazing representation of what its like to live in the hell of drugs m

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:27:11 2015 No.5999689 >>5999388 >Cannon isn't decided by critics, it's decided by time No, it's actually decided by critics. That's why Dumas isn't canon, despite enduring popularity, and that is why Ian Fleming will never be canon.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:27:59 2015 No.5999692 File: 66 KB, 750x751, pipe-fedora.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5999686 >his fragile sanity and experience with drugs

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:28:11 2015 No.5999694 >>5999411 Show me a canon list better than his, then.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:30:14 2015 No.5999700

>>5999466
Beowulf and the Greek epics are verse...no doubt they inspired Tolkien (and Tolkien does use a lot of poetry), but The Hobbit and the Fellowship of the Ring are written nothing like either work, and non-warrior Hobbits as center focus is certainly not in the vein of traditional epics.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:33:44 2015 No.5999715

>>5999636
I don't know why people are so fixated on LotR.
Tolkien has written several better works.
Children of Hurin was really good for example.
Also his essays on literature and language are what make him really important.

It's a shame he never got around to finish the Silmarillion.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:38:12 2015 No.5999737

>>5999636
And just a few years later would be coming works with nothing to do with Tolkien: viriconium, little big, the mists of Avalon, the drawing of the dark, and book of the new sun

What Tolkien has inspired is the sword of shanara and legions of shit knockoffs

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:39:09 2015 No.5999741 >>5999689 He is a classic already.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:39:19 2015 No.5999743 >>5999686 >what made him special was his ability to write Lolwut

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:39:26 2015 No.5999744

>>5999700
The hobbits are there as a link between the reader and the fantasy world.
You experience the unknown through them so the fantasy world doesn't need to be explained in detail and can remain mysterious.

That's what the people who made the movie adaptations didn't understand when they actively made the movies more accessible.

In the movies there is actually no point for the shire and elrond's court scenes to be so long since they established everything in the intro already.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:40:10 2015 No.5999745 >>5999743 To write good prose*

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:40:51 2015 No.5999747 >>5999519 hmmm, I've had 2312 sitting on my desk unread for about a year. maybe this post makes me finally crack it open

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:41:20 2015 No.5999749 >>5999737 Yes, but Tolkien is despite being unlucky in what he inspired a good writer who shines in the Silmarillion.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:43:21 2015 No.5999760 >>5999745 Except he didn't

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:44:21 2015 No.5999762 >>5999749 The silmarillion is a fucking encyclopedia it is not a book Stop being an anorak

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:44:30 2015 No.5999764 >>5999760 Write good prose? Yeah it's sufficient so to say. I said prose isn't his strong point.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:44:44 2015 No.5999766

There are people on /lit/ who call Tolkien a hack without having read more than The Hobbit and LotR, if they read them at all and didn't quit at Rivendell.
People who didn't read his essays, his translations or attended lectures on his works.
This is just sad.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:45:01 2015 No.5999767 >>5999744 I'm not CRITICIZING Hobbits in the books, I'm saying is not like Beowulf or Homer at all, and I'm saying the style of his prose is not Homeric at all. That' snot saying it's bad, you don't have to write Homeric or like Beowulf to be good.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:46:17 2015 No.5999774 >>5999762 Why didn't you just say that you haven't actually read it?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:46:50 2015 No.5999777 >>5999762 >>5999762 Encyclopedias aren't books? Also the comparison isn't true, it's pretty much the old testament of a world that doesn't exist.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:48:04 2015 No.5999783 >>5999767 I recently read Metamorphosis by Ovid and found the writing to be similar.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:48:29 2015 No.5999785 >>5999737 >And just a few years later would be coming works with nothing to do with English motherfucker, do you speak it?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:51:49 2015 No.5999802 Damn there are a lot of plebs in this thread.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:53:47 2015 No.5999812 >>5999802 Wolfe threads attract a lot of local patrician pretenders who haven't read almost any of the books mentioned in the thread.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:55:53 2015 No.5999829 This is worse meme than Katiegate.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:57:01 2015 No.5999834 >>5999812 It certainly seems so. Almost the whole of /lit/ is like this, full of posturing angry teens.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:58:04 2015 No.5999839 >>5999783 Egads, Ovid is not Homeric (aside from meter), and certainly not in the vein of Norse Epics.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:59:12 2015 No.5999844 >>5999812 These are words of truth you are speaking, my fellow gentleman.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 17:59:14 2015 No.5999845 >>5999834 Nah, there was some decent discussion here. But how many shitposters do you need to fuck up a thread?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 18:00:31 2015 No.5999852 >>5999839 Didn't claim it was, I just stated an observation.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 18:03:32 2015 No.5999870 >>5996724 >most awesome you have to be 18+ to post here

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 18:15:32 2015 No.5999973 >praising Wolfe >hating on Tolkien I can't find the full essay, sadly, so this will have to do (unless someone digs up the full one). http://www.scifiwright.com/2011/05/gene-wolfe-on-jrr-tolkien-the-best-introduction-to-the-mountains/

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 18:31:37 2015 No.6000107 >>5998715 I see this false dichotomy posted a lot. Its utter nonsense, plenty of people listen to metal as just one genre among many they appreciate.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 18:34:15 2015 No.6000125 >>5996962 >muh prose /lit/ summed up in a post.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 18:36:29 2015 No.6000144 >>6000125 >a board specifically about the mediums of prose (and verse) cares about prose, who would have guessed

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 18:40:16 2015 No.6000169 >>5998819 Have you... never heard of Lord of the Rings?

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 18:47:11 2015 No.6000211 File: 107 KB, 184x375, the grestest writer in existence.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>5996724 gnee wofel

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 18:57:32 2015 No.6000273 File: 13 KB, 236x331, Gene Wolfe.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >Gene Wolfe loves Tolkien. >Tolkien wrote the oxford dictionary's entry of "walrus". >Gene Wolfe looks like a Walrus. There must be more to this. We must go deeper.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 19:05:07 2015 No.6000309 >>5999694 He's the only critic who actually took the time to develop a list. Kek.

Anonymous Wed Jan 14 19:14:32 2015 No.6000360

I made it to book three and lost interest. Should I give it another shot, anons? I did like the world-building... Severian is not quite the same level of Marty Stu that Kvothe is in the Kingkiller Chronicles, but reading about how great he was at all of the things (and hey I boned this totally unimportant lady character too) got a little tiresome.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 19:17:26 2015 No.6000380 >>6000360 >hey I boned this totally unimportant lady character >Implying they aren't all important Read again anon, and finish the series.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 19:37:35 2015 No.6000497 >>6000380 OK I will trundle forth back into the land of Severian and his broken oaths once more.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 22:18:07 2015 No.6001374 >>5996937 >Alan Moore >writer of funnybooks >most patrician I refuse to believe you are an adult.

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 23:44:24 2015 No.6001804 >>5998800 >Salman Rushdie he is a fantasy writer too btw

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 23:51:32 2015 No.6001845 >>5999466 le guine created the, ugh, trope a wizard as the main hero, that's a serious achievement, but not that defining for the fantasy as tolkien's works bloom's canon it's a list of authors whom bloom likes

>>	Anonymous Wed Jan 14 23:53:26 2015 No.6001860 >Alan Moore and Gene Wolfe are the foremost patrician authors of our era Holy shit we need a new containment board

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 00:38:39 2015 No.6002068 >>6001374 Being a snob doesn't make you smart, anon, it makes you an epic faggot. Stop being so fucking pretentious

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 01:10:20 2015 No.6002220 >>6001804 I agree with you anon but he isn't usually classified that way

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 01:16:32 2015 No.6002244 >>5996835 Lovecraft is tied with Tolkien as the most overrated writer of the 20th century

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 01:17:32 2015 No.6002249 >>5996877 >various authors and critics compare him to the likes of Dickens and Melville I haven't seen anyone other than people who mainly read and write fantasy/sci-fi say this

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 01:26:23 2015 No.6002278 >>5999802 >>5999812 >>5999834 >>5999844 Lmao it's incredible how perfefclty you guys manage to describe yourselves when you think you're describing others

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 01:27:35 2015 No.6002282 >>6001845 That's not what the word "trope" means

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 01:29:44 2015 No.6002288 >>5998943 He is too good for this board.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 01:34:12 2015 No.6002313 >>5999527 Bloom has written hundreds of critical essays on various books included in his canon, including some of the more obscure books, and if you had ever bothered to read those essays you would know how selective he was in choosing them

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 02:35:53 2015 No.6002548 >>5999322 >Nobody cared for Dick until Blade Runner idiot >>5999783 Because that's the style Tolkien imitated >that faggot who thinks Wolfe is a better writer than the pinecones laughingwelles.jpg, abandon thread

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 03:15:39 2015 No.6002707 >>6002244 No, he is tied with Nabokov

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 03:17:08 2015 No.6002711 >>6002548 The most useless post of this thread.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 03:29:07 2015 No.6002753 >>6002707 No, Nabokov actually deserves his enormous popularity.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 03:40:06 2015 No.6002798 >>6002753 He wrote great prose. The praise ends there.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 03:49:35 2015 No.6002851 >>6002798 It doesn't, but even if it did, it may be enough, as his best novels could feasibly be read purely as celebrations of language

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 04:10:14 2015 No.6002926

>>6002798
>>6002707
People who say this haven't actually read Nabokov, right? He's one of the most meticulous plotters in all of literary fiction. He's just as much of an aesthete about structure as he is about prose.

I agree with the poster who said that Lovecraft is pretty bad. Tolkein's overrated but I don't think he deserves "most overrated writer of the 20th century" the way Lovecraft deserves it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 04:52:58 2015 No.6003052 >>6002926 I've read him, but found his works very soulless and reliant on artificial aesthetics.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 05:48:25 2015 No.6003206 >>5999973 >I can't find the full essay, sadly Neither can I. It's really frustrating.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 05:52:06 2015 No.6003213 >>5996912 Homo t. Nike .2

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 07:13:53 2015 No.6003389 >>599872 I second Krasznahorkai. And like someone else said, Mo Yan is also really good. But since theyre not western europeans, people here dont read them.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 08:27:00 2015 No.6003569

>>5998705
>Also, anyone who thinks it's laughable that Wolfe could be considered the greatest living writer, I ask who you propose would be better? I'm not trolling, I'm legitimately interested because I'm looking for new stuff to read.

William H. Gass is the greatest living Anglophone author of prose.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 08:37:05 2015 No.6003588 >>5996811 by second rate fantasy and scifi authors maybe

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 08:40:14 2015 No.6003597 >>5998705 crowley and roth are so much better than gene wolfe. the quotes about wolfe being the greatest living writer get hilariously laughable when you realize that many of those quotes are from before garcia marquez and saramago died.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 08:45:03 2015 No.6003606 >>6003588 >a Michael Swanwick quote on wikipedia From this irrelevant, awful amateur-grade shlock writer? Seriously?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 08:45:55 2015 No.6003609 >>5996811 michael swanwick said that and nobody cares what he thinks

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 08:52:38 2015 No.6003626 >>6003606 >>6003609 Obviously the only quote from a "professional" he could find to fit his assertion. Wiki quality as always

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 08:55:57 2015 No.6003632 >>6003626 there's also a quote from a patrick o'leary, someone even more irrelevant

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 08:59:42 2015 No.6003639 The Gene Wolfe fanbase on /lit/ has been quietly even more laughable than the DFW and Nabokov fans for a while now.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 09:00:19 2015 No.6003643 >>6003639 >dfw, wolfe, nabokov one of these is not like the other

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 09:03:17 2015 No.6003648 >>6003643 I don't mean to malign the authors themselves (I've read and enjoyed all three), it's just their representation on /lit/ that is frequently cringe-inducing.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 09:18:14 2015 No.6003677 >>6003648 nabokov consists of people reading lolita for the first time or CORN FATHER

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 09:29:57 2015 No.6003704 Gotta love how this board is more concerned with one-upping each other than with discussing literature.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 09:30:35 2015 No.6003707 >>6003606 Swanwick is actually one of the best SF/fantasy writers of the last 30 years. You don't know what you're talkin about.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 09:56:24 2015 No.6003760 >>6003704 I'm trying to get a coherent criticism of Wolfe, but I can't get it. I'd like to see what other people see as his flaws, but all I get is >he isn't as good as x

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:12:38 2015 No.6003791 >>6003760 You don't recognise great literature by the lack of criticism addressing it. That said, common criticisms of Wolfe are on the orchestration of events in his plots, and general catholicism / traditional misoginy seeping through his writing.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:21:07 2015 No.6003814 >>5999527 Didn't Bloom once write a Novel? Oh, and wasn't that a sci fi novel? Fucking hilarious.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:35:09 2015 No.6003851

>>5999527
bloom probably knows of gene wofle, he's friends with thomas disch who is a big gene wolfe fan, he likes le guin, he also knows and loves john crowley, a less well known author than wolfe probably. he's been pretty receptive to sci fi in general, probably more than the average "serious" critic.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:38:23 2015 No.6003859 >>6003851 Bloom is smart enough to know that the distinction between "literary" and "genre" is bullshit. There are only good books and bad books.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:41:38 2015 No.6003867 someone should email bloom about gene wolfe so we can have more shitposting material

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:44:29 2015 No.6003872 >>6003867 Yeah because Bloom would surely respond, right?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:46:08 2015 No.6003878 >>6003872 i've heard of him responding to similar questions before i emailed chomsky once and he responded lol you'd be surprised

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:46:10 2015 No.6003879 >>6003872 Tell him it's important.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:46:45 2015 No.6003884

>>6003791
Which are bad criticisms because they are based on not liking his religion.
Critique on Catholicism is like saying something is wrong with Dante because of it. His plots are often exploring free will and determinism so of course they will be orchestrated. Misoginy is nowhere to be found.
And I don't recognise him as great literature because he hasn't been propperly critiqued outside a few fans (Ultan library mostly), I recognise him as a great writer because of his prose, theme exploration, great characterisation and him outstanding imagination.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:47:21 2015 No.6003886 >>6003878 here's my source for him responding to this stuff: https://theanxietyofinfluence.wordpress.com/2009/07/27/harold-bloom-on-2666/

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:47:34 2015 No.6003887 >>6003878 >i emailed chomsky once and he responded lol >you'd be surprised Really I study Linguistics so Chomsky is something of a god-like figure in my field What did he say?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:49:01 2015 No.6003892 >>6003887 i barely even remember. i was in high school at the time. i asked him something about college. his reply was really kind and polite. if i could remember my old email password i'd dig it up

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:50:29 2015 No.6003898 >>6003791 I've never read his work but what does it mean when someone lists "Christianity" as a criticism? Is using elements found in older religious mythology actually a negative or is it just hipsters being hipsters?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:52:32 2015 No.6003907 >>6003898 I fear it's hipsters. I had no problems enjoying BOTNS and LOTR as an atheist. In fact, I find Christian imagery and allegories to be fascinating.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:55:35 2015 No.6003917 >>6003907 >le hipster bogeyman

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 10:58:12 2015 No.6003924

>>6003907

I was reading reviews for Divergent when it was inexplicably popular and the complaint that I read a lot was "Christianity in how the houses were divided" or some dumb shit and all I could think was "Wow, all the things to complain about in this book and you complain about the system being based on some of the seven cardinal virtues."

From then on I just disregarded anyone who says "Durrr X religion" as a critique, as if religious themes haven't served as a backdrop for most of the greatest art ever produced by man.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 11:11:32 2015 No.6003976 >>6003898 Criticism is taste. Some find the catholic aesthetic to be too prevalent in Wolfe, though it can be something of a big red herring.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 11:12:58 2015 No.6003984 >>5999308 lol. keep telling yourself that. it's pleb crap that even redditors love.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 11:13:17 2015 No.6003986 >>6003976 It's bad taste and a bad criticism based on being too far up your own ass.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 11:14:36 2015 No.6003994 >>6003986 >It's bad taste and a bad criticism ironic shitposting is still shitposting

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 11:16:21 2015 No.6004001 >>6003924 or just to prop up their work.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 11:20:34 2015 No.6004013

>>6003976

I dont really understand this but I'm not the one making the criticism so I guess that doesn't really matter. Fortunately it doesn't seem to be a prevalent criticism among people, and some Christian allegory seems to have superceded the bounds of strict religious connotation anyway.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 11:25:40 2015 No.6004034 >>5996724 Some interesting videos and links on Wolfe http://ultan.org.uk/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKw_xUI6fDE

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 11:50:35 2015 No.6004098 >>6004034 thank you kind anon, this guy seems really helpful.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 11:55:03 2015 No.6004112 >>6004098 A booktuber we need, not the booktuber we deserve.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 11:59:34 2015 No.6004128

>>6003984
Egad! Redditors love this book? Why have you forsaken to tell me this before? I have already enjoyed a good portion of this tripe, should I have read further my patrician status might have been tarnished indefinitely!
Thank you, fellow patrician, I must now re-read Lolita's summary to regain some of my lost honor.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:03:09 2015 No.6004142 who gives a flying fuck about what reddit likes or doesn't the book is good end of story

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:05:11 2015 No.6004146

ITT: Shitposters who've never read Wolfe stroke their own ego by trying to downplay his brilliance while Wolfe fans are baited incessantly.

It's like every other Wolfe thread. There's some helpful discussion of the text and then faggots who can't handle the fact that Wolfe is actually a good writer come in to tell everyone who enjoys Wolfe how stupid they are, even though they haven't read Wolfe before. It's like clockwork.

Protip: ignore the shitposters.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:07:01 2015 No.6004150 >>6004146 I was enjoying the discussion on why religious allegory would be considered a negative criticism. Most of the shitposting has died down.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:07:30 2015 No.6004153 >>6004146 Well it's the shitposting that keeps the thread on the front page

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:10:21 2015 No.6004164 File: 79 KB, 626x460, 0Dwd0W0.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] BOTN was a strange experience, it's like it took all I thought I knew about sci-fi and smashed it under a steel boot. >mfw Loyal To The Group Of Seventeen's Story

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:12:25 2015 No.6004173 >>6004146 it's not that wolfe isn't good or talented, it's that his fans constantly make ridiculous claims that he's the best living writer and totally incomparable to anything else

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:21:41 2015 No.6004192 >>6004173 Because the claims are very valid anon.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:24:53 2015 No.6004199 wolfe is generally an sf&f babby's first exposure to something resembling real literature, hence their idolisation of him.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:24:55 2015 No.6004200 >>6004173 Wolfe is pretty well acknowledged as the greatest literary writer alive, bro.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:26:20 2015 No.6004204 >>5996811 >the greatest literary writer alive Literally no one who matters thinks this At most he's "pretty alright for a fantasy writer"

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:27:11 2015 No.6004205 >>6004199 >real literature I expect better from /lit/ than a vulgar true scotsmen fallacy. Step up nigger.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:29:04 2015 No.6004209 >>6004205 >I expect better from /lit/ I see. How new are you? >vulgar true scotsmen fallacy Never mind that, just make sure to gtfo as soon as possible.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:30:40 2015 No.6004217 >>6004205 http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/literature

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:33:27 2015 No.6004228

>>6004199
He was hardly my first exposure to real literature, I was a reader years before I even heard of him. I idolise him because he is one of the best writers I ever read.
>>6004200
Nah, while I do think he is he isn't acknowlaged as one. Some do love him, but it's hard to have a consensus on something like that.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:35:16 2015 No.6004231 >>6004228 >>5996859

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:36:00 2015 No.6004237 >>6004200 haha

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:37:52 2015 No.6004244 >>6004231 A wiki quote is very iffy proof, especially since it's really hard to find any criticism on wolfe, outside the one I linked earlier.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:39:44 2015 No.6004253 >>6004200 is this post serious

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:44:50 2015 No.6004273 >>6004200 Repeating this on every occasion isn't going to make it true. Not that I expect good conversation on /lit/ but, for decency's sake, please at least find something better than a quote from Swanwick next time you come to shitpost Wolfe threads.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:46:27 2015 No.6004277 >>6004273 >the Swanwick hater again What the fuck do you have against him m8? I for one think The Iron Dragon's Daughter is one of the most original and groundbreaking fantasy novels to come out in the last three decades.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:46:41 2015 No.6004280

I found TBotNS juvenile as hell despite its metaphysical pretensions. Its heavy focus on subverting genre conventions actually only serves to reify its place within the sf&f tradition, since by defining itself in opposition to those conventions it of course necessarily binds itself to them. The little Easter eggs like Dorcas's relation to Severian are neat but they are ultimately just embellishments that are of no real use in advancing the series' driving narrative or themes. The Borgesian asides like the endless library and the stuff with mirrors also feel like mere furnishings rather than earnest theoretical investigations.

I do feel like Wolfe would make a top notch fabulist or children's author, though.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:47:01 2015 No.6004283 >>5996724 anabasis

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:47:23 2015 No.6004286 >>6004277 >one of the most original and groundbreaking fantasy novels to come out in the last three decades impressive

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:48:38 2015 No.6004294 >>6004286 >I don't like genre, but I post in genre threads nevertheless. Oh God, why am I better than everyone else?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:48:40 2015 No.6004295 >>6004280 this.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:49:34 2015 No.6004299 >>6004164 That's because 90% of the cycle is fantasy.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:50:35 2015 No.6004310 >>6004299 Wolfe fans get really mad when you call BOTNS fantasy, even though it clearly is, at least partially.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:51:32 2015 No.6004314 >>6004294 That is so beyond the point it's almost sad. We're talking about how valid it is for him to claim someone is "the greatest literary writer alive", no need to get defensive.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:55:06 2015 No.6004340 >>6004310 It's SF that due to heavy focus on perspective looks like a fantasy.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:56:09 2015 No.6004345

>>6004314
>We're talking about how valid it is for him to claim someone is "the greatest literary writer alive", no need to get defensive.

Well of course it's only his opinion, duh. I don't even agree with him but I think that as an established SF&F author he has at least the right to express an opinion on a colleague's work, exaggerated as that may be.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:56:27 2015 No.6004349 >>6004280 Wow, a coherent criticism of Wolfe. Didn't think it's possible.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:56:57 2015 No.6004350

I'm hijacking this thread back from the shit posters.

Let's talk about the inset narratives within BotNS and their effect on the narrative as a whole. Specifically, Eschatology and Genesis, tales from the Brown Book, and the story-telling stories from the Citadel.

How do they effect the overall narrative and which stories are meant to represent characters or events in Severian's journey?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:59:01 2015 No.6004355 >>6004340 Being set on Earth in the future doesn't make it science fiction. Having spaceships doesn't make it science fiction. Having aliens doesn't make it science fiction.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:59:06 2015 No.6004357 >>6004350 Could you post your own views first? The book has so much content that I didn't focus on that as much as I should have.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 12:59:12 2015 No.6004359 File: 455 KB, 210x210, 1357897979909.gif [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6004310 No, Wolfe fans are fine with it, it's just the one faggot here. /lit/: where fans are even more obnoxious than haters and trolls.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:00:00 2015 No.6004361 >>6004204 don't give your opinion if you haven't read him, you just look like a moron he's only written one fantasy series, most of his stuff is science fiction

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:00:37 2015 No.6004366 >>6004355 So you have your own definiton of SF?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:01:27 2015 No.6004370 >>6004359 >/lit/: where fans are even more obnoxious than haters and trolls. that's everywhere really

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:02:09 2015 No.6004375

>>6004349
I should add that I didn't find the series a waste of time; it just didn't quite live up to its billing nor transcend the boundaries of its genre. It's been a while since I read it, otherwise I'd go into more depth about what I perceived as its flaws. Basically I found it overly dependent on narrative slights-of-hand and its themes seemed to linger nebulously in the periphery of the story rather than ever being tackled head-on. And most of the characters were no more convincingly drawn than those in any other run-of-the-mill sf&f epic.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:03:42 2015 No.6004382 >>6004034 I wish Marc Aramini was faster at making those videos

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:03:56 2015 No.6004385 >>6004375 I found on my second read that any flaw I percived the first time was indeed intended and excused with a certain element he put in.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:04:57 2015 No.6004391 >>6004382 Well we can expect one more soon enough, the last one came 2-3 weeks ago I think.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:05:20 2015 No.6004393

>>6004366
No, I'm just saying those factors aren't going to inherently make something science fiction. Especially when the writer brings in a lot of fantasy elements--magic talismans, resurrection, homunculi, supernatural monsters, etc. It's not NOT science fiction, but it's more fantasy. There are some people that say it's entirely science fiction when they ignore other elements of it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:07:18 2015 No.6004407 >>6004393 I understand you but every element in there, even the Claw is not of supernatural origin.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:08:40 2015 No.6004412 >>6004407 magic science explained etc come on, this is elementary stuff

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:11:13 2015 No.6004420 >>6004412 Yeah but Asimovs definition of Sf is that it's fantasy if the devil on your shoulder is from hell and if it's an alien it's SF.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:22:15 2015 No.6004451 >>6004350 The Ascian's story and the Ascians in general are clearly about how the Chinese are mindless drones who will end up enslaved by a giant sea-monster in the far future.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:47:38 2015 No.6004531

>>6004280
This is somewhat fair but relies on a really narrow idea of "the SF&F tradition" that might as well include the Bible and Greek mythology. Severian is a subversion of classic hero archetypes, but that does not just mean classic hero archetypes that exist in Conan novels.

>>6004340
I think this is about the correct take on the SF/F debate, which is silly in any case. But if you have to slot it into a genre, BotNS is a science fiction work, but Severian writes a fantasy novel because he doesn't understand the science.

>>6004451
Dunno how much you care about the author's statements but he has repeatedly said this is incorrect and he would have given the Ascians a different name if he had realized people would scan it is "Asians."

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:52:04 2015 No.6004540 >>6004531 >unno how much you care about the author's statements but I think it was a joke, anon

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:55:50 2015 No.6004557

>The word "Ascian"

>Although unfamiliar to most readers, this is not a word invented by Wolfe, nor is it a form of "Asians". It means 'Tropic-dweller', and it came into English by way of medieval Latin as an adaptation of ancient Greek ἄσkιος, literally 'without a shadow'. In the Tropics, the sun is exactly overhead at noon twice a year, and at that time a person standing straight up will cast no shadow.

Wikipedia to the rescue

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 13:59:31 2015 No.6004568 >>6004540 oops, give me the autist hat and let me sit in the corner

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 14:00:48 2015 No.6004571

>>6004451

The Ascian's are the logical conclusion to a society devoid of art, God, creativity, etc. The irony of the Ascian's, as is evident by the Ascian storyteller, is that their creativity and imagination is not limited, even though they are bound by their linguistic limitations. It harkens back to Lewis' Abolition of Man idea; namely that human beings may someday become so debased from human experiences that they would essentially become highly intelligent animals. Wolfe takes this concept and applies it to its end and the result is a fully fleshed out character with imagination and feelings but is hampered by the society in which he has been conditioned by.

The Ascian's display the terrifying ends of truly secular communistic society. Namely one where all thought and emotion is dictated by a small group of powerful dictators. At the same time, Wolfe shows his readers that human imagination and emotion can not be contained, no matter how debased a society may become.

It's a really hopeful little piece of BotNS and something I didn't really expect when I first read it.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 14:06:16 2015 No.6004588 >>6004571 Very nice anon, go on please :)

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 14:31:52 2015 No.6004676 >>6004571 >>6004571 I like how you subtly slipped God in there between art and creativity A society can be artistic, creative and humane without the need for God.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 14:33:54 2015 No.6004683

>>6004676
>A society can be artistic, creative and humane without the need for God.

Show me one society in which this happened?

The closest you'll get is the society established by the Jacobins towards the end of the French Revolution and that turned into a total degenerate and violent shit show.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 14:36:22 2015 No.6004696 >>6004683 >Show me one society in which this happened? Northern Europe.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 14:41:42 2015 No.6004724 >>6004696 Are you saying Age of Mythology lied to me?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 14:46:44 2015 No.6004741 >>6004724 Now I meant Northern Europe NOW you silly goose :^)

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 14:47:53 2015 No.6004748 >>6004741 They worship feminism and black cock.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 14:48:58 2015 No.6004752 >>6004696 and what of value have the produced as of late?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 14:50:31 2015 No.6004757 >>6004752 What have God-fearing communities produced as of late that isn't at least equally represented in secular ones?

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 14:50:56 2015 No.6004759

>>6004748

Yeah right.

>>6004752

A functioning model of social democracy and welfare state with way less wealth inequality than, say, the US.

Besides, Africans very much believe in God and yet they have "produced" even less. Correlation and causation.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 14:58:24 2015 No.6004777 >>6004759 >Africans very much believe in God and yet they have "produced" even less Oh, hum, how many countries do you know of that have proven homosexuality to be evil using magnets? gb2/tmblr/

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:00:25 2015 No.6004787 >>6004777 >how many countries do you know of that have proven homosexuality to be evil using magnets? ...what?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:06:16 2015 No.6004811 >>6004757 There are communities that claim themselves religious, but there is hardly anyone on Earth who has faith anymore.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:06:21 2015 No.6004812

Meh. Jack Vance did the narrative first, and better. If you're interested in the nature of a literary protagonist as it relates to the narrator, the point is better made in essay form, and has been done countless times. There's less shallow symbolism and fatass sexual wish fulfillment involved.

But I can see why /lit/ likes it so much. I'd give it a 6/10.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:06:24 2015 No.6004813 >>5996724 Not trying to jump into the meme bandwagon about the author being good or not, but I just read some excerpts and can't help but wonder who the hell would call this (stylistically at least) good writing? It's piss-poor at its best.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:07:51 2015 No.6004819 >>6004812 >fatass sexual wish fulfillment involved. You accidentally just gave me a new insight into ASOIAF. Thank you.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:10:57 2015 No.6004828 >>6004819 u didn't already have that one? c'mon bro get with it

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:11:08 2015 No.6004830 >>6004813 Catholics who are insecure in their love of genre.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:12:05 2015 No.6004840 >>6004812 Where did Jack Vance do it first? Please don't say the Dying Earth.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:12:51 2015 No.6004843 >>6004840 The Dying Earth.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:13:14 2015 No.6004844 >>6004787 io9.com/nigerian-grad-student-uses-magnets-to-prove-gay-marri-1326215449

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:14:12 2015 No.6004847 File: 128 KB, 308x308, 1420851044493.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google] >>6004813 What excerpts did you read?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:15:21 2015 No.6004852 >>6004844 ahahahaha oh man is this great

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:15:35 2015 No.6004855 >>6004843 Have you read the Dying Earth?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:16:09 2015 No.6004857 >>6004844 oh am I laffin

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:17:01 2015 No.6004862 >>6004847 Please don't. The "best writer in the world" guy will go on about how he's brilliant for writing a narrator who writes like shit and we'll all have to throw up again.

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:18:04 2015 No.6004867

>>6004812

Except the narrative isn't anywhere near what Jack Vance did with The Dying Earth.

If you were comparing settings I would agree with you but that's about as far as the Vance comparisons go. Wolfe's narrative is heavily focused on mythology, theology, history, and memory (whether personal or societal). These issues aren't what Vance was concerned with in his Dying Earth series.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:22:02 2015 No.6004883 >>6004813 >wonder who the hell would call this (stylistically at least) good writing? 1/10, lazy, lazy showing. Stop calling it in, bro, or you'll get your internet license revoked.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:23:07 2015 No.6004889 >>6004812 >Jack Vance did the narrative first, and better. Someone confusing 'style' and 'narrative'? In _my_ /lit/? Thanks for reminding me why I almost never visit this place anymore.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:23:09 2015 No.6004890 >>6004883 >Stop calling it in But then how would the Agency know of my flight plan?

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:23:41 2015 No.6004895

>>6004862
No one's claiming that Wolfe is the best writer in the world, pretty sure that guy was baiting.
However, can you really say Wolfe is a shitty writer? Though he's not the best, he's leagues beyond the average writer, and there is so much more to BOTNS than simply
>writing a narrator who writes like shit

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:31:28 2015 No.6004928 >>6004895 Of course, but the recurring good writer/poor narrator/good writing/bad writing debate is pointless and not worth approaching

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:33:28 2015 No.6004937

>>6004588

In contrast to the Ascians are the Man-Apes, who stand at the other spectrum of the civilization vs. barbarism scope. Whereas the Ascians are a society so regimented they've become essentially intelligent robots, the Man-Apes, from what little society we see, appear to be carnal, base creatures.

What's interesting about the Man-Apes is that they recognize and even are fearful of the Claw. This primitive society has some societal memory of the Claw as a relic of great power--whether understood or not. Contrast this with the Ascians, whose history, as far as we can tell, is dictated by the Group of Seventeen and thus appears to be devoid of mythology. The Man-Apes oral tradition have preserved the supernatural nature of the Claw and thus have been conditioned to fear it.

Again, Wolfe is playing with conceptions of societal memory, mythology, and history. The Ascians have concocted their own theology based upon what they need their citizens to believe whereas the Man-Apes have adopted their mythology from their forefathers.

In the end, Wolfe is making a statement on the nature of Oral tradition, written records, and the reliability of any one account. What seems to be most important for Wolfe is this idea that all of the players in BotNS have some notion of the importance of the New Sun. Some, such as the Ascians, view it as a negative and actively work to prevent the New Sun from ascending. This is primarily due to the fact that they are puppets and agents of Abaia who is opposed to the New Sun

Others, such as the Man-Apes, may not have an understanding of what exactly the New Sun is or will be, but recognize the important symbols the New Sun embodies.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:33:51 2015 No.6004940 >>6004811 >but there is hardly anyone on Earth who has faith anymore. Try visiting the third world some time.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 15:42:37 2015 No.6004993 >>6004811 >no true ever the last refuge of an intellectually dead breed

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 16:06:08 2015 No.6005077 >>6003791 I don't even like him that much and thsoe are probably the most bullshit criticisms of him I've read

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 16:09:16 2015 No.6005092 >>6003898 >>6003907 >muh hipsters hating christianity lmao do you actually think hipsters do this. can this board get any more retarded

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 16:12:44 2015 No.6005110 >>6004231 Hmm isn't it interesting how all of the praise seems to come from fantasy and sci-fi authors?

Anonymous Thu Jan 15 16:18:58 2015 No.6005143

>>6004867
Not that guy, but Vance was heavily concerned with theology and mythology. His works make a ton of allusions to Homer; in the Odyssey, Nausicaa is a girl Odyssey talks to, and the social boundaries are pushed a bit here because women aren't supposed to to be hanging out with men before marriage, and even then they're supposed to have their husbands around; in Cugel's Saga, the idea of the diffident girl interested in the travel is changed into a nightmarish island where the woman are practically rapists and the men have to wear veils. The captain's wife goes to a spring here where it's said she can renew her virginity by bathing in, which was something Hera supposedly did. The river Scamander, near Cugel's homeland, is the same river near Troy in the Iliad that tries to strangle Achilles. And certainly the pilgrims have much to do with theological commentary.

There's probably a lot more, especially counting all four books, but I haven't read them since I was a teenager so imagine I forget.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 16:22:03 2015 No.6005155 >>6004844 Kind of a cliche at this point to say this, but that reads just like something out of The Onion

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 16:36:08 2015 No.6005220 >>6005143 Oh, and obviously Cugel is based on Odysseus, who was considered rather a villain by Euripides and Pindar.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 16:49:10 2015 No.6005265 >>5996962 Writing isn't a contest you sperglord

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 17:13:33 2015 No.6005350 >>6005110 Does that make them less authors?

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 19:02:56 2015 No.6005888 So when people actually begin to talk about the work the thread begins to die. /lit/ truly has gone to shit. Back to your shitposting I suppose.

>>	Anonymous Thu Jan 15 19:39:41 2015 No.6006065 >>6005888 /lit/ has always been shit

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/lit/ - Literature