Lads we gotta let go of this reading the classics bullshit. Everyone knows what classic books are good...

>We need to read contemporary authors

I need to read about 20 000 books before that

You post too much.

I think there is a certain intellectual cowardice about the refusal to read contemporary literature. Those who exclusively read the classics only concern themselves with questions of understanding.

>what does this mean?
>how does this relate to that?
>what was the author trying to say?

That is all well and good but when it comes to how you personally experience the work, the classics reader defers to the test of time. He doesn't ask himself if he thinks the novel is good, he doesn't ask himself if he thinks the prose is well written, he may not even ask himself if he likes it, because he decided the answer to all those questions before he opened the book.

When you read recent publications, there is no authoritative voice to guarantee the value of what you're reading, and so it requires a far greater degree of introspection. If we read to learn more about ourselves then you do yourself a great disservice by ignoring contemporary literature.

>implying making threads about classics means people do not read contemporary authors.

Maybe if the contemporary authors were actually good, then threads would be made about them.

spookiest post in ages

This is what I'm getting at. We could be that voice.

You want to feel like an authority?

No I just want someone to tell me what new books are actually good and have trust in them.

How would you know when they're good if you never read them?

i like you user

>he decided the answer to all those questions before he opened the book

That's a lot of assumptions and generalizing. Maybe you are right when it comes to scholars and academics, literature degrees and so on, but not for everyone that reads classics.

To me, only works of art/books that have stood the test of time are worth investing time and energy into.

People here need to read the classics because they haven't read at all, like 50 books tops. How are we supposed to engage in conversation about anything, including contemporary lit, when most of you fuckers have zero experience. It's not that you cannot appreciate good lit by itself, isolated from context, but context is a common tool to discuss it. All the references, historical context, literary historical context, etc.

Nothing wrong about reading contemporary lit, but most of you need to do your homework first. If there's a lot of talk about classics it's because some of you are doing your homework and asking questions here, it's normal, most thread openers are questions about a work new to a new reader.

Milk and honey

>He doesn't ask himself if he thinks the novel is good
Wrong, it can be a bad novel of a classic author (for example, the first novels of Balzac).

>he doesn't ask himself if he thinks the prose is well written
Wrong, some classics are not very well written (for example, Kafka, Zola or Dostoevsky are not "good stylists", that's not the point).

>he may not even ask himself if he likes it
Wrong, no one likes the entire canon.

Your post is entirely wrong.

But for them to pass the test of time, people had to invest time and energy into them even though they did not know if it was worth it.

>discussing books on Veeky Forums

That's a myth. All that happens here is a bunch of people posting "what should I read", shitposting a bit, then leaving once they realise they like the idea of reading more than the activity itself.

If you haven't read the classics yet there's no point commenting on new literature. You have to realize that contemporary writers are being outdone by literal peasants who wrote hundreds, if not thousands of years ago. The contemporary literary sphere is really that bad. You can't truly say what's bad until you know what's good.

t a o l i n
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Tom McCarthy, Ben Lerner

> contemporary classics
> no Under Tiberius
i'm out

forgot pic

Yes but by the time we find this place we should be past that and if you aren't stop fucking posting here.

>More books are being published now then ever before

>not the classics, like dfw, mcelroy, gaddis
proceeds to
>these are the books you have to read: dfw, mcelroy gaddis

kek

>and all of them are shit.

we have nadia now.

Goes to show just how little new lit I've read.

god damn i want to fuck liv tyler so bad. i want to fuck that mouth and fuck that ass and ignore her pussy and make her feel like a used whore as she begs me to go balls deep, shoot cum, and breed her, but i never give it to her how she wants it. fuck it and fuck it and fuck it and fuck it and fuck all night long and all day too until she falls madly in love with me and my dick

little you've read? nigga i didn't recognize a single one of the names of either authors or books mentioned in this thread except jon franzen, who i also haven't read

I would like her to grow a dick and do the same to me tbqhwym

But the current books aren't worth it for the most part. If I read Plato and after it a given current century book, I know that it can't provide a bit of knowledge, wisdom or depth in comparison and I'm in fact wasting my time.

Saunders, gtfo please. That guy should be dragged in the street and shot for torturing the english language like he does.

Plus his fucking whole attitude is nauseating, his being twee but also 'rebellious" at the same time. A leather jacket, a daisy in his hand and a weird resemblance in appearance between Ginsberg and the other curly guy in the kings of convenience.

When I read 10th of December and I saw the success it had I got disillusioned with the literary community. I saw what they were, meek, ugly, normies who seek from literature nothing but pre-digested comfort food.

And there he is, with his sentimentality, with his little colloquial sentences, looking at the reader and just flattering it.

Bullshit. Speak for yourself, not all classics readers are indiscriminate readers

>When you uread recent publications, there is no authoritative voice to gaurantee the value of what you're reading

Nobody lives in a vacuum. When books like Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest were released, they were met with widespread academic acclaim. When you read a book, any book, you cannot escape knowledge of the critical reception of the book, regardless of whether you agree with what that reception was or not. You read a book because either a) you hear it's good, b) the criticism of a book made you curious to see if it's really that bad, or c) the response was mixed and you want to see if the good outweighs the bad for you personally.

>4 3 2 1
>Jerusalem
>never let me go
>witz

if you think those are good books honestly just fucking kill yourself

Why aren't they good books faggot. I could see why someone wouldn't like witz. I liked it for its ambitions more than I liked it for its execution. But please tell me about the other 3.

Also what newer books should I read then famalam?

You're mad because he's right, and you're lazy.

Just leave pseud.

I meant Ethan cohen btw lol