Share your contrarian literary opinions

Share your contrarian literary opinions

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Minority writers writing about minority experiences is completely fine and can be quite enticing

My diary is not that good nor does it contain such a kaleidoscopic array of emotions as I make it out to be desu

Octavio paz was a faggot

>contrarian

That's how most people feel desu: hence the relative success of minority writers who do precisely that.

People who have a problem with minority writers tend to have a problem with minorities in general and tend to be functionally illiterate. Otherwise people like Diaz and Morrison wouldn't sell so many books.

Stream of consciousness isnt actually that good.

Dostoevsky is overrated

Shakespeare is better than all 20th century writers.

There has been no progress.

Reading is for eggheads.

The English language is a mess and terrible for literature.

Gravity's Rainbow is just long, not complex

dictionaries were a destructive force on creativity and we would be better off without them.

Horse girls really aren't that bad. Some of them are lovely.

Doors of perception made me put it down within about 20 pages because the descriptive language wasn't having any positive effect on me.

Not sure if this is a contrarian opinion, but analyzing in any way is idiotic and has no point other than spouting rhetoric and seemingly being right about things

1) Originality is not necessarily 'style' (see: Joyce/etc)

2) The Greeks are not a meme

3) With the possible exception of Quine and a few others, post-Nietzsche philosophy has fallen into two categories: Anglo Navel-Gazing, French Charlatanry and Pedantic Language Games.

4) Žižek is likeable, but we must admit that his work falls into two categories: Hegelian-Lacanian-Obscurantist Verbiage, and your typical Marxist bullshit.

5) Books are increasingly the most powerful information/entertainment medium, when you consider their authority in relation to the generally declining readership of books worldwide.

Nietzsche went insane because he didn't understand himself or others, and his superman philosophy was much the result of his hatred of others for making him an outcast despite his intelligence.

There is little point to reading classical Greek works -- generally speaking. For example, I haven't met a single person who wasn't familiar with the story of Echo & Narcissus. And not a one of them got anything from it other than a quaint little creation myth about some pretty boy who dies looking at his own reflection...and these people stood to benefit from better understanding their wn narcissism. Which I suppose precludes such...

Seconded.

No, he went insane because of a slow-growing tumour near his right temple that gave him a lifetime of health problems (migraines, failing eyesight, etc) and eventually drove him mental.

...

Don't think that's how mental illness works, user.

Seconded.

Turded. I also never raid Dosto, but he sure overdated.

Junot Diaz would be considered a highly "problematic" writer if he weren't a minority.

came here to post this

Starting with Greeks is detrimental advice to give to someone genuinely interested in philosophy rather than history of philosophy and it has probably killed the love for philosophy of hundreds that would have made a stop at some of the Greeks sooner or later on their own accord. It's like telling a kid intrigued by the properties of a möbius strip to start with trigonometry instead of demonstrating what happens when you cut the strip in half and going from there.

Nurture people's interest from their reference point, not yours, and everyone will be better off for it and ironically, even by academic standards, better educated in philosophy IF they have the kind of curiosity needed for philosophy i.e. love for reason and wisdom and not the historicist curiosity that only knows authority bias. I see this so often "You can't understand X without Y philosopher before". True here and there, but what about the majority of the work where he doesn't and what about the part that your confirmation bias perhaps makes you read X through Y but there is no logical necessity for this at all?

What if this person misreads say Nietzsche but it leads him to discuss animal ethics hopefully with people who aren't complete elitist pricks and he finds his way to the Greeks then through a reference in some modern work recommended to him and not a cookie cutter "interested in philosophy" user and he is actually stoked about reading the Greeks now with an actual, precise goal in mind that came from within?

I will tell you what if, he will retain, play and create BETTER. On the other hand you have user "avid reader copypasta" McSheep with no direction whatsoever but my God isn't he just so good at reading dense books?

Seriously choose one as someone you'd like to talk philosophy with or whose book you'd read. Ok I lied, there's only one choice because the sheep will never write a book worth reading.

Ree.

Jesus Christ. You belong on this board.

Pic related isn't nearly as good or impressive as people pretend it is.

>some of them are lovely
No

Protestant reformation is the worst thing to have happened to the world since the birth of Islam.

All writing is good.

"Mental illness" doesn't work in any specific way.
It's a legal criteria, you halfwit.

Do not speak in future.

Haruki Murakami is a good writer

The second half of the Odyssey is unbearable

Early Anglo-Saxon lit is really cool and interesting beyond the slow parts of some works like Beowulf

Poetry is by far the shittiest genre of literature out there and most acclaimed poets are boring beyond compare

shakespeare is a hack
bolano is not clever or smart
catcher in the rye is a decent book

Edgar Allen Poe's poetry is terrible

Henry James > Joyce

Jane Austen deserves to be up there with Shakespeare and Tolstoy

90% of famous philosophy books are useless (unless you're an insufferable philosophy major) and poorly written

Bob Dylan totally deserved the Nobel prize

>Poetry is by far the shittiest genre of literature out there and most acclaimed poets are boring beyond compare
Maybe one day, little fox.

You just read the wrong poems. Borge's Rubaiyat is god level. As is the real Rubaiyat.

>Henry James > Joyce
What did he mean by this

Blake > Shakespeare

By the same token, anyone who says it's bad is full of shit.

it's very good and impressive

I enjoy light reading like Murakami, Plath and Hesse from time to time.

books are gay

Science fiction is for losers and fantasy genre is trash except Tolkien and LeGuin.

Blake, Shakespeare

I'd say that Veeky Forums considers him an okay author, memes aside. He's just overrated and overshadows other Japanese authors.

If you want to become a better writer, don't read, but write

Is this bait?

In the same vein only a few retards consider things 'problematic' anyhow

David Foster Wallace had lots of discernible talent and was a very good essayist.

You need to do both you jolly idiot.

When I first started coming to Veeky Forums I had very little idea of literature in a general sense, but over the years for better or worse I've learned just how much stuff is out there, gone into post-graduate studies without becoming too narrowly focused and losing sight of everything outside my specialty, and generally read a lot. As a result I think I've finally gotten the general contours and outlines of it all, even though I'm still obviously a pleb in many things relatively speaking.

Whenever I see people posting Ulysses or Pynchon shit here, I feel really bad for them. It's like we both had the same original genuine passion for music, except I went and studied music theory and the history of music and they didn't. Whenever we both listen to some music, I can see this entire panorama of possible things to talk about, all kinds of influences and overarching historical and philosophical themes to potentially explore, questions of actual substance come up in my mind that I can ask more knowledgeable people and that will have real answers that really increase my understanding and appreciation, and meanwhile my other Veeky Forumsbro friend just goes "I REALLY LIKE THIS!" or something equally shallow, spinning his wheels in the mud.

But I don't know how to help him except by saying, maybe you shouldn't keep rehashing other people's recycled opinions about contemporary authors no one gives a fuck about, trying to figure out what the correct opinions to have about postmodernism are, and constantly trying to take shortcuts in everything you do? Maybe you should actually go and read deeply for a few years instead? Because I remember how unfulfilling and shallow it was to be like him, where nothing connects with anything else, and you never feel like you're climbing higher than your current collection of sound bites of derivative knowledge.

Cortazar had no discernible talent and is only read by alt girls and/or nerds who want to bang alt girls.

Borges is only considered good because he wrote so much shit, sometimes a few good things had to come out of his anus. I do love some of his work, but his percentage of good shit is terrible in comparison to other writers considered greats.

I fucking hate Sabato.

I think I just hate argies.

This but 'Up Simba' was annoying AF

The truth.

The more free is the press of a country the less democratic it actually is.

Take our continentalfags plz.

Henry V is the best play Shakespeare wrote.

Catcher in the Rye is still bad, despite Veeky Forums's backlash to the backlash

tolstoy sucks balls

Although I like Cormac McCarthy, some of his prose can be a bit long winded and bullshitty for no reason. Some of his writing comes off as masturbatory.

I don't like the English language.

What are horse girls?

Iliad > Odyssey

Philosophy that isn't about literature (i.e. works of fiction) is boring

Any kind of medieval epics or romance is GOAT

More stories would do better to have more condensed description of events and cram more storylines and characters into the book

Also, in general, books should have more side plots that focus solely on character development or characters' relations to each other with little or no importance related to the main plot

Postmodernism is laughable, especially if it is focused on artificial 21th century "mental problems"

Jane Austen is one of the greatest authors ever

Cinema and television will still be around and video games will become more popular, but the written word will become increasingly unpopular and elite aside from very brief stories

If I made a list of all works of art of any kind I really love, 85-90% of them would be music albums, and of those 95% or more would be metal albums.

Same but with P Y N C H O N

>Philosophy that isn't about literature (i.e. works of fiction) is boring

What do you mean?

I agree with everything else you said, except the last one, but that's okay.

Agreed with every line.

I mean as opposed to philosophy that talks about religion, science, math, etc.

Can you please explain, in explicit detail, why Jane Austen is a great author? How do you define "great"? I've read Mansfield Park and Pride and Prejudice.

P&V translations are the best, and read beautifully.

mill and kant as well as many other philosophers were idealistic and foolish in their views towards the human spirit.

The only real way to be a human is what hume noticed, and nietzsche polished.

youtube.com/watch?v=u1cafL0l-Mo

I like Cortazar but you are 100% right about the alt girls / nerds thing.
Borges is god-tier, kill yourself.

I do not understand how she is great either.

>im so deep you wouldnt understand mom!

Same on Iliad.

These threads suck balls, these are all popular opinions

Latin america has no discernible talent aside from Borges

i only have an issue with these people when they go on to shit on white people. theyre the people buying your books you fucking degenerates

/pol/ and the whole red pill thing is actually right

Start with the greeks is much more important in terms of philosophy anyway

I want to suck your balls

I dont want to start with the greeks but I dont know where else to start

They smell oniony and I wiped some of my sister's deodorant on them earlier to see if it'd make them burn

Really? Can you show me?

>Not reading Guy Gavriel Kay or Gene Wolfe

Alright, I know this is going to blow your mind, but stay with me here... pols whole original thing was they were smarter than both their parents and mass culture, but not smart enough to be scooped up by some teacher along the way and/or get a ride into college.

So they basically did kind of have their own, sad, sort of neo moment where they looked around their peerage and saw for the present moment that they were the smartest person around--and of course their first impulse, haveing been too smart for pop culture but not too smart for western culture, was to evangelise

>contrarian opinions
>Henry V is the best play Shakespeare wrote.
???

A lot of people would argue Hamlet

At least you tried

Seconded so hard it gives me a boner. Also you need a workshop with good culture.

You actually don't.

At the library.

You can honestly make an argument for most of his plays being the best without it being considered contrarian. Henry V is often put at the top of the list though.
To be fair though, I would say Hamlet.

She is witty and satirical that's about it

I really wish I had a dick to suck on rn

There is no objectively bad form of writing that exists. To assume so is the most purist version of elitism. This postmodernism era of believing that there are only chosen few who can bestow to you what is "good" because they are experts and the arbiter of what is the standard of quality, is the exact thing that chokes and murders creativity in modern Western writing.

*purest

*most pure

sounds better. My bad. I'm a grammar autist.

>grammar autist
>My bad.
are you even trying?