Unpopular Opinions

The Great Gatsby has a shit plot

Joyce was the epitome of style over substance; The substance he intended in his work is obscured behind his play (in the most childish sense of the word) with language.

Ethan Frome is worthless as a work of literature, and functions only as a masturbatory fantasy of an upper-class woman imagining the lower classes suffering under the same social rules she does.

Marlowe's Faust is more compelling than Goethe's.

Jorge Luis Borges is the greatest writer not only of the Spanish Language, but of any language.

The only Japanese writers worth a damn committed suicide.

There's merit to the works of the Beat generation, but not the merit they intended.

If we're going to compare him to "other modern philosophers" then we're lowering our standards. I don't see him as an actual philosopher, but then again, I haven't read any of his written works, so I'm pretty much pointless here.

I see him as a commentator and critic of popular media. Nothing wrong with that, but watching A Pervert's Guide to Ideology left me annoyed and with no recognition of a tangible argument.

youtube.com/watch?v=ktCyKIcdZAo

Bukowski was profound

>>the weakness is obviously that it is a loop of hegelian psychoanalysis, but the rational threads he sews are quite impressive
Which works of his go in this direction at all? I've read a couple of articles and one of his most recent books, and it was all just regurgitated tripe that wouldn't feel out of place on HuffPo. It wasn't even "bad philosophy" or anything like that; it was just vapid political rhetoric.

>that interview where he kicked his girlfriend like a petulant child

The novel has been dead as a public art form for almost a century and will vanish from public consideration in the next 50 years as people turn to film as the “cultured” medium and video games as the “lowbrow” medium. Already kind of happening, normies only read if they want to appear smart and even then it’s only Lord of the Rings three times in a row and they study useless descriptions of frodo’s Sword thinking they’re doing literary research

Lord of the Rings is simultaneously reprehensible in its morals and coddling tone and poor writing, and yet still rises to be engaging despite this. It’s literature because the bar is set pretty low by a bunch of literary novelists who produce equally simplistic works with bigger words.

The gradient between “literature” and “genre” will disappear because there are too many mediocre literary novelists and too many decently nontrivial fantasy writers. And it’s entirely the fault of Dave Eggers sorts and not fantasy nerds

American postmodern lit is largely not fun to read and if it is then it’s largely humanistic e.g. Mason and Dixon. The more experimental works in the “canon” will be decanonized within three decades when people realize how dated the tone and philosophy of those writers are and how they’re not relevant to future generations in the same way that the best modernists were

Joyce got lucky with Ulysses, talent wise

Ezra Pound was the best thing to happen to poetry, but he also killed it and it’s hardly worth reading anyone who comes after him except for the more talented ones with popular/populist appeal

Eliot is an ok poet but nobody feels any emotion reading his works. If they do then it’s because they feel they have to in order to appear intellectual

Everyone, secretly or not, loves Robert Frost

I determine whether to avoid poetry freaks based upon whether they liked Blake or Plath. If it’s the former then I avoid them because they’re usually very narcissistic men and if it’s the latter then I approach them first because they’re usually cute girls who are freaks in bed but who just happen to have mediocre poetry taste

Poetry was a mistake

Adding my unpopular opinion, the great gatsby is often read too much like it’s a third person account of gatsby rather than the first person experience of Nick. Read from the former it’s a period piece and from the latter it’s an interesting but still slightly lacking Character piece

Just an alpha displaying his dominance. Nothing to see here.

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>Freud was the worst thing to happen to critical and creative thought since the dark ages
I think that's not an unpopular opinion

Well, the overall argument isn't his relation to the greatest philosophers but to what is stated in this thread:
>nonsensical
>never had an original thought
>waste of time, etc.
The argument regarding other modern philosophers is due to the grounding in pure rationalism, while he at least leaves a trace of possible escape (although perhaps this is worse).

Genette and Barthes were assholes. All English majors should be gassed.

Flannery O'Connor was hot

>Freud was the worst thing to happen to critical and creative thought since the dark ages

Why do you think so? Just curious.

>poetry is dead but due for a resurrection that will only happen when a new group comes through who return to the beautiful and profound simplicity in poetry or everyone currently involved pulls their collective head out their extremely tight butt holes to realize that all this nonsense and bullshit and self indulgent masturbation they call modern poetry is worth nothing more to the human spirit than the last shit I took in a rest stop outside of Dubuque, Iowa after eating bad taco bell washed down with shitty craft beer and fireball the night before and no I'm not talking rupi kaur simplicity
>the internet is not only a new technology that we're literally just barely beginning to comprehend and understand the intimidating and, quite frankly, scary Brave New World we are now all collectively living in but we are witnessing the birth of an entirely new medium for art itself in the same way those who witnessed the birth of photography and film and this new medium will transcend, encompass, and go beyond literature, music, sculpture, architecture, film, and any other artform you'd like to bring up and artists have barely dipped their toenails in let alone taken a swim to see if the water's fine
>similarly to what I was saying about poetry, religion is in trouble because artists have abandoned it, not entirely of their own fault, but mostly of their own fault because they're too pussy to challenge themselves and others about the experience and complexities of life and religion is art and art is beauty and beauty is life and when that dies life dies
>Wallace was the greatest writer of his generation and yes he was an autist that deserves all the memes but only as a constant reminder to the dipshits and enablers who wanted to ride his coattails around him who never grabbed control and told him no you don't have to do an interview with Charlie rose and put yourself out there like that and be made to feel that he's personally attacking you based on your favorite movie choice and you don't have to feel overwhelmed that future people are going to read so much into whatever movie you tell Charlie rose you like that it will affect your future reputation and I also include his editors who never said God damn it dude why the fuck are you even thinking about including all these footnotes let alone writing them no no no no
>hunter thompson wasn't a hippie and hated his generation, particularly hating that he became a sort of spokesman for them and preferred the generation that came before and came after, save for a few friends
>Twain should have never become famous because then he would have worked to get better and probably would have gone down as the best American and likely finished standing head and shoulders above Melville, who currently holds the title
>Zelda was Fitzgerald's Yoko
I could go on

>Tolkien brought the death of Fantasy.

Heidegger was a Jesuit-cum-gnostic mystic and played his political hand correctly.

>Slavoj Zizek has never had an original thought in his life and the only time that anyone should ever consider reading a piece of his writing is if they're in confused in their Philosophy 101 class
this

>and religion is art and art is beauty and beauty is life and when that dies life dies
Insufferable.

agreed with everything but joyce

wanted to say that western film is entirely derivative of the western novel in nearly every aspect of its form.
I agree absolutely about literature/genre distinctions vanishing and disagree with everything below it.

I bet she was great in bed honestly. That smile spoke volumes. I'd drop my geranium out her window any day if you catch my drift. Maybe she'd call me a nigger.

Technically correct. Your mom killed you by creating you too.

The entirety of human-produced media can be broadly divided into those works of Anthropological value and those of Psychological value; the entirety of the latter can be discarded and nothing lost (not that works within the latter are inherently poor or unenjoyable).
Also, the intent behind the work generally does not inform the value of it as defined by these two categories

Define your terms.

well go on then

>This kills the pseud

Infinite Jest could have been shorter and arranged more coherently

wrong. Heidegger was a ecstatic monist of the lowest kitschy variety.

>One Hundred Years of Solitude's half is the only reason the book is so famous.Second half is meh. Even Borges himself became bored after certain point saying it was like "a long anecdote".

>One Hundred Years of Solitude's first half is the only reason the book is so famous.Second half is meh. Even Borges himself became bored after certain point saying it was like "a long anecdote".

sure
>any writer of fiction who can't do comedy can be ignored
>any one who thinks thucydides was a more objective historian than herodotus is fooling themselves and literally every single work ever has bias one way or another and all of history needs to be read with that in mind and the sooner you realize that the better off you'll be and to imply anything in any way shape or form otherwise is enormously stupid and anyone who tries to convince you of objectivity is likely a liar, a cheat, and a thief
>anyone who does not try to be as objective and honest as they possibly can is likely a liar, a cheat, and a thief
>The da Vinci Code is the poor man's Foucault's Pendulum which says more about Eco than it does about Brown
>Cormac McCarthy has done more to get the modern reader into better books than Pynchon, Delillo, and Roth combined but only partly because the movies of his books have been better and because Oprah and you can see how much this pisses off Pynchon because he knows it's true and that's why he's made the decisions he's made in his last 2 novels, arguably the last 3
>modern literature would be in a better place if Oprah were still around and anyone who says Oprah wasn't good for the overall quality of the industry is absolutely batshit crazy fucking retarded
>the americans, the english, the irish, the russians, and the germans are in the highest tier of western literature, their environment they grow in give them a natural gifts and advantages over everyone else, they're followed by the italians, the french, the spanish, and the argentines, they're followed by everyone else
>to clarify above, yes, the russians belong to the west and canada doesn't exist they're just americans and yes that includes the fucking quebecois unfortunately
>writers like shel silverstein and roald dahl, whose work generally falls in that stage of life where a child is first developing some sort of concept of the world and their initial identities and their concept of art has an enormous impact on the artistic development of children and there desperately needs to be more research done in this arena particularly at this stage of life and parents need to focus and be particularly vigilant during this time if they want to develop a well rounded creative and artistically capable person

I agree with literally all of these.

You don’t even need her to do it if that’s the sort of attention you crave, I’ll do it on her behalf

nigger

Yeah, right, because modern literature's main pillar is oprah and her US audience.

>he said, after angrily setting down today's copy of the guardian

>tolkein created fantasy
Are you happy with being this stupid?

>Freud was the worst thing to happen to critical and creative thought since the dark ages
You've never even read Freud. This is evident by your use of 'dark ages', which were actually the brightest time until the 19th century.

>muh original thought
kys neo-liberal

>lowering our standards
You've never read any modern philosophy besides Zizek. You're an illiterate little autodidact. You couldn't think if you thought.

Unpopular opinion threads are a way for the emotionally needy to gain validation by spouting opinions that were created in anger towards people that have wronged them. Most of the unpopular opinions are contrarian in the public sphere but entirely accepted on here and they are just a way to fit in with the edgy Veeky Forums narrative.

For some real unpopular opinions.
>I think promiscuity is fine and I literally don't care how many men a woman has been with
>HP lovecraft makes good horror
>every single person should keep their shitty opinion to themselves because they do nothing to aide discourse and only encourage public and private circle jerking.
>mixing cultures is a good thing and Canada is the best country on this planet.

The Pre-Socratics were retards.

>human spirit
kys

>t. actual 14 year old who just found out about this place on twitter.com

greentext stories are one of the highest forms of literature

There is literally nothing wrong with cuckoldry. In a way the cuckold holds all the power while one must be left feeling sorry for the bull who is just used for their body.

Whatever your father tells you to help you sleep at night user.

user, that man has been a proud christian for 3 whole months, show some respect.

Are you happy falling for obvious bait you actual retard

I'd like to read some modern philosophy, can you point me anywhere. I really am a horrible little autodidact though. Not sure about the other user.

Socrates and Plato fucked up. The Sophists were cool.

>Oprah
>good for the industry

Here, watch this:

youtube.com/watch?v=y3kpzuk1Y8I

Nobody ever gave a smoking flying fuck about that fat nigger in Europe and we are doing just fine.

Liking Shakespeare is akin to liking Radiohead, ie your taste is dependent on external validation and not quality of content.

Plebian faggots how's that for a fuego take. Eat my truthful ass.

Ah, ok. You too. Fag.

What's wrong, Balrog got your ankle?

>There's merit to the works of the Beat generation, but not the merit they intended.
I feel this pretty strongly but can't quite put it into words.

Every beat writer is just the story of narcissus drowning in his own reflection of a false self. They unintentionally showed the world what happens when you lead towards beauty with your ego instead of your heart. That's really not even to discredit them though.

What do you mean by using their ego and not their heart?

Invisible style was a mistake

But Shakespeare's kino and you're gay. So is Radiohead for that matter.

Yes Radiohead is gay

Every 19 year old that just discovered contrarianism expresses this exact opinion.

Moby Dick is shit.

>says the 20 year old

Wrong, faggot.

Well... I think Moby Dick was literally a white sperm whale dude - I've heard a few interpretations of the story but saying it's about a particularly difficult shit... that's a bit of a stretch. I'd only concede that the ship was a toilet if it was called the Peequod.

Who else but a 20 or under gets mad in an unpopular opinion thread

Accusing someone of being mad online is a sure sign that you, in fact, are the mad one.

I see what you're saying but you're also accusing me of being mad haha

The deflection, even with a followup "haha". Textbook fuming mad.

You're right. I'm hopping mad.

Well played.

>he said as he bit into his muffin with a scowl, sipped his tea louder than usual and changed to channel 4

Stream of consciousness in writing is an unreadable gimmick

>Marlowe's Faust is more compelling than Goethe's.
Defend yourself heathen.