Start reading more classic literature

...

Don't listen to him. Franzen's a mediocre hack.

>almost all
That's true of any time period.

>svetlana alexievich

Awards and honors (mind you, I know I'm copying directly from wikipedia)

Order of the Badge of Honour (USSR, 1984)[32]
Saint Euphrosyne of Polotsk Medal (Meдaль имeни Cвятoй Eвфpocиньи Пoлoцкoй)[33]
Nikolay Ostrovskiy literary award of the Union of Soviet Writers (1984)[32]
Oktyabr Magazine Prize (1984)[32]
Литepaтypнaя пpeмия имeни Кoнcтaнтинa Фeдинa of the Union of Soviet Writers (1985)[32]
Lenin Komsomol Prize (1986) — зa книгy «У вoйны нe жeнcкoe лицo»[32]
Literaturnaya Gazeta Prize (1987)[32]
Пpeмия имeни Aндpeя Cинявcкoгo of Novaya Gazeta — «Зa твopчecкoe пoвeдeниe и блaгopoдcтвo в литepaтype» (1997)[32]
Friendship of the Peoples Magazine (ru) Prize (1997)[32]
Tpиyмф (пpeмия) (ru) (Russia, 1997)[32]
1996 Tucholsky-Preis (Swedish PEN) [34]
1997 Andrei Sinyavsky Prize [35][36]
1998 Leipziger Book Prize on European Understanding [34][35]
1998 Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung-Preis [34]
1999 Herder Prize
2005 National Book Critics Circle Award, Voices from Chernobyl
2007 Oxfam Novib/PEN Award [37]
2011 Ryszard Kapuściński Award for literary reportage (Polish) [14]
2013 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade [38]
2013 Prix Médicis essai, La Fin de l'homme rouge ou le temps du désenchantement (Bpeмя ceкoнд хэнд)[39]
2015 Nobel Prize in Literature[40]

You're saying someone with this many honors from this many distinct award organizations isn't good.

That's fuckin stupid.

>journalist
>won because they thought he was pro-Chinese freedoms
>Canadian purveyor of MFA cliche fiction
The others are gud

There's degrees of criticism you can make, but the people I listed are some of the top minds in their fields currently, and have recieved award after award. I feel like you can level criticism of their work without saying reverting to the age old "if there's flaws it's schlock". Because it's not schlock.

Stephen King is schlock. There's no reason you cant' go out and read them for yourself.

Your logic is trash, that means that pilez of plebian trash like Stephen King are actually great writers.
She got most of her awards for journalism, not literary quality anyway.

>>Your logic is trash, that means that pilez of plebian trash like Stephen King are actually great writers.

Stephen King hasn't won a Nobel Prize, or any prize parallel to those listed? I'd be hard pressed to ever think of King winning a Nobel.

Is your argument you shouldn't use awards at all because hacks get awards? That doesn't take into account the level carried by different awards.

Stop being fuckin stupid.

>award
>so many awards
>objectively good

your mind is simple, user.

>every award is the same
>awards judged by top minds, for top minds, actually don't matter at all

I think you're pretty dumb.

Except they really aren't. You think that the peolle who give awards don't take into consideration anything more than their work. It's good PR for an awards committee to award a well known writer as opposed to an incredibly talented nobody. Also, if you don't know how political the Nobel committee is then you're woefully ignorant. They'll avoid awarding the greats to award people based on how well they align with their agenda, many others work the same.

What is "objectively good" literature that hasn't won any awards at all? Curious.

Objectively good lit doesn't exist. People who think ot can be objectively good are idiots.

>. It's good PR for an awards committee to award a well known writer as opposed to an incredibly talented nobody

Do you think anyone on Veeky Forums knows any of the people I just listed until five minutes ago.

No, they have not.

>Also, if you don't know how political the Nobel committee is then you're woefully ignorant

Yeah blah blah blah the Nobel Prize is actually for hacks and everything is black and white its liberal bias everywhere you have to look out for

Give me a break

>They'll avoid awarding the greats to award people based on how well they align with their agenda, many others work the same.

I'm going to trust Nobel Laureates a lot more than anons on nu-Veeky Forums, user.

Joyce never won any awards as far as I know.

I'm not suggesting talent isn't unrecognized, but people winning a metric shit ton of awards who still write, shouldn't be thrown to the side as not counting for good recent literature. If the criticism is the Nobel's ignore people due to ideology, aren't people too, ignoring potential talent due to the politics you have related to Nobel Laureates?

I think it's absurd to throw these authors to the side. Was John Steinbeck a hack for having leftist influences and winning a Nobel? Would you make that argument were he here today?

No, not at all. The idea you shouldn't read award winners is just plain bonkers.

>awards from different people and organizations
>top minds
>not hierarchical world
>not know that award awarded only the best in his own ideas

What?

nobody here said that you should not reading. just that they don´t be automatically the best in her show.

OP did that by straight reading the classics. I'm assuming Steinbeck was among them, and he won a Nobel.

By the same token that award winners shouldn't automatically be disregarded, they shouldn't automatically be considered worthwhile just because they won an award, or even an entire pile of awards, no matter how prestigious any of them are.

Is anyone else stuck in the middle ground of having read enough to find the writing of most books, especially genre fiction enjoyed by proles, to be awful, yet not having the attention span / reverence / knowledge to enjoy any classics above entry level tier?

>objectively good

The Nobel Prize is a joke. There's no way members of the Nobel committee all master the languages the authors they award use. They can only read translations or listen to what people that actually know the language think of the author. Therefore they can't judge works on the main criteria: style. They have to judge according to secondary criteria: is the plot interesting? Are the author-s political opinions in line with my own center-left opinions? Is the author a woman or a minority?

Who are some contemporary writers that are actually doing nothing something new? Even the competent ones seem to just be retreading old ground (neo-Victorian or just plain old modernism or postmodernism)

That's what happens when your parents allow you to be raised by computer games.

>By the same token that award winners shouldn't automatically be disregarded, they shouldn't automatically be considered worthwhile just because they won an award, or even an entire pile of awards, no matter how prestigious any of them are.

That doesn't make sense. Some of these authors who won the awards you disagree with for "bias", are fucking cherished and shouldn't be disregarded. The awards were won for reason, and that's outstanding literary capability. It doesn't cover all, but it shouldn't be ignored, and the fact it shouldn't be ignored shouldn't be debatable. For political reasons or otherwise.

It's like weight lifting; you just have to work your way up. You're no more stuck than some elephant, who's finally decided to turn his life around and bought a gym membership, is stuck when he doesn't immediately become lean and muscular.

>The Nobel Prize is a joke. There's no way members of the Nobel committee all master the languages the authors they award use. They can only read translations or listen to what people that actually know the language think of the author. Therefore they can't judge works on the main criteria: style. They have to judge according to secondary criteria: is the plot interesting? Are the author-s political opinions in line with my own center-left opinions? Is the author a woman or a minority?

Stop throwing swathes of authors, many cherished, to the side because of long tired "liberal bias" meme. Just stop.

There aren't even that many good far right literary masterpieces as of the last few decades anyways. Tom Clancy isn't going to win a fucking Nobel for a reason.

Well Spooked, mein property

Well communicated my semiotic friend.

im only 12 but modern music is crap i listen to bob dylans

This.

Agreed with Cormac was a fukkin nobody when he won the MacArthur. Still was for years and years until his books started getting into made the movies

>are fucking cherished and shouldn't be disregarded
>swathes of authors, many cherished

He's cherished too, you shouldn't disregard him.

He wrote a self absorbed propaganda piece he forced everyone to read, and made mediocre art and was a contrarian prick.

He also had so many authors and artists and musicians killed for not towing the party line.

In any other time, then, you would have accused him of being a politically correct nightmare, and had he been around today, a narcissistic tumblr nobody.

Mein Kamf was self mastrabatory trash

But he was and still is CHERISHED by millions. By your criteria that's all that actually matters.

>But he was and still is CHERISHED by millions

Political figures are not writers and Mein Kamf won nothing outside of Germany.

He should be explored however, yes. He should equally be critiqued.

The argument you're making is fucking ridiculous.

Just shut up and read literature and come to your own conclusions, but not without self criticism and not without input from others throughout time. .

I'm not making an argument. I'm giving you a taste of your own bullshit.

You're doing an awful job and your argument sucks.

For most books i've read the quality takes a significant drop directly after the 50s and 60s.

You notice the art of the novel has disappeared largely and there's constant mockeries of people like musil floating about with revolutionary airs in 3rd world countries.

>outstanding literary capability
do you remember why start the nobel in first place?.

Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. Technically it came out in 1996, but more technically it belongs to every century, era, eon, whatever you want to say. It is the most formidable piece of literature ever written, and therefore I think it isn't violating your rules here to mention it. Actually, any system in which talking about Infinite Jest would violate its rules would be by definition a tyranny, since reading the novel, yes, is freedom itself. It is literary freedom. It is intellectual freedom. It is political freedom. It is even, I dare say, existential freedom.
We are lucky to be alive right now because we are almost as close as you can live to the epicenter of the earthquake that Infinite Jest created upon its release in 1996. It is not an exaggeration to say that its release marks the beginning of a revolution of consciousness. The heady and disruptive '60s were merely a prelude to Infinite Jest's arrival, and if you're willing to go further, if you're willing entertain ideas that are a little off the beaten path, you may see a connection between David Foster Wallace's birth in 1962 and the way the decade unfolded. Very interesting.
But you have to understand something. We're not here to read the book. The book is here to read us. In truth, it already has. But we have to read it reading us. That's our task. As Wallace said in 2005, "There has to be a reason why we're alive and conscious at this point in history." Wink wink. Nudge nudge. He was dumbing it down for the folks sitting cross-legged on the floor when he said that. Yes, there is a reason. To read Infinite Jest. To allow it to teach us. Who we are. Where we're going. What art is. What life is. What love is. Wallace was saying: "Read the damn book!"

Yes. The literary establishment is a liberal conspiracy and all the people here who likes those people's books are lemmings who fell flr the hype. But you user have seen through it all.

kys. Or stop posting here, same thing from my perspective.

Dynamite maker had bad conscience and wanted to pay his way into heaven.

"contemporary is bad" is the brainlet way of coping with the inability to understand current artistic concerns. the same people can't interact with others, surprisingly

Coetzee is not obscure, and while he's good, he's hardly 'objectively good' when using classical literature as your framework

>this won awards so it's good!
Holy fuck this is embarrassing

>Holy fuck this is embarrassing
I don't follow. How does winning numerous awards over a long period of time, decades even, make something bad?

Should I bother with Coetzee? I've read Boyhood and found the plot interesting, but I felt as if he used a Thesaurus every 5 paragraphs.

This is false, this is the first time in hundreds of years that classical literature education is largely discarded, that children don't read from a young age anymore and aren't cultivated to read, that latin and greek have finally been discarded as wastes, as well as the latin and greek works.

I can go on and on, there's a shift whether you want to admit it or not, good works will continue to be produced but we can't go back anymore to what once was, quality has dropped drastically on what are now considered "classics" like franzen and zadie.

you can see through it all too. it´s not a conspiracy. it´s fucking natural.

>Coetzee

>peasant children learned greek in school

Of course you don't, you're a retard. He's saying your fixation on awards as metrics of quality is infantile.

You're looking back at thousands of years of "cream of the crop". The canon has a smattering of writers across great swaths of time that end up being a tiny portion of what was available at the time, and frequently clashes with the popular opinions of their periods.

You're looking at the popular opinions of 20 years and claiming they pale in comparison to the sum of human artistic achievement up to that point.

You guys are wearing whatever the opposite of rose-tinted glasses is.

>For most books i've read the quality takes a significant drop directly after the 50s and 60s.
same with films

No.

The 50s, 60s, and 70s objectively had more great active writers than the past three decades even if everyone else was still shit.

Shit-tinted glasses, where the past is always bad and change is always good.

No.