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/lit/ - Literature

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8621453 No.8621453 [Reply] [Original]

ITT: The most overrated authors of your country. I'll start.

Not because 1984/etc were badly written (although certainly not the 'masterpieces' they're made out to be), but because Orwell was an ideologue at heart. Kipling, whom Orwell strongly criticized for example, was much better.

>> No.8621480

>>8621453
Fair enough

>> No.8621487

ITT: Retarded OP

>> No.8621488

>>8621453
we already know that, but many people had to read those books during school and enjoyed them - that's why you see so much love for him

>> No.8621495

>>8621453
I am from the States and I genuinely believe they're all overrated except Poe. The mediocrity of American literature is astounding. If they are not vapid, they are excessive; it seems to me that in their juvenile attempt to protest the purpose of literature, they succeed only in creating works that offer nothing to the reader besides diversion.

>> No.8621502

DIS fag!
such a gayboy writing about love and shit,
who even fuckin' cares amirite guise xD

>> No.8621506
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8621506

>>8621502
retard website didn't attach image

>> No.8621508
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8621508

>>8621495

I wouldn't say Melville's overrated desu.

>> No.8621514
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8621514

>>8621453
Mikhail Bulgakov

>> No.8621529

>>8621453
>Kipling, whom Orwell strongly criticized for example, was much better.
Not really fair; Orwell's essay on Kipling is critical but takes a middle ground between those trying to completely politically whitewash him and those who dismiss him completely, who Orwell seems to have much more contempt for. It's clear he really has real respect for Kipling- I think the last paragraph is quite good, a reminder of Orwell's clearsightedness and seriousness, it makes you wish more of the left thought that way. Definitely worth reading, if anyone hasn't:

http://orwell.ru/library/reviews/kipling/english/e_rkip

I'm not a huge Orwell fan, but his essays are very good and I would consider 1984 a masterpiece of a kind- what piece of political fiction even comes close to its effectiveness, or has become such a part of political language? His works have no huge scope, but they never claim to, he's solid and unpretentious. It's infuriating when complete hacks like Will Self shit on him.

>> No.8621553

>>8621495
>thomas pynchon
>kurt vonnegut
>mark twain

?????

>> No.8621565
File: 39 KB, 310x390, dostoevsky310.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
8621565

>> No.8621571

>>8621495
>they're all overrated except Poe.
this is the joke, right?

>> No.8621573

>>8621565
he's pretty neat, but solchenytzin or however the fuck i spelt his name is arguably neat-er from what i've read of him

of course, i'm not well versed in russian literature and merely a pseudo intellectual

>> No.8621574

>>8621514
How is he overrated?

>> No.8621577

>>8621553
The other anon made a good point about Melville but you are either ignorant of what literature is capable of or you simply don't care if you think those three you mentioned have contributed anything that is of any use to the reader. Sure you might argue that they offer a glimpse into the period by which they were formed, but the same could be said of literally any author and I do not hold this to be sufficient in justifying the efforts of an author. They might be amusing at best, but so are the works of popular fiction that offer only a moment of escape. In a word, the works of those you mentioned and other Americans is undifferentiated in value from video games.

>> No.8621578

>>8621453
>Orwell was an ideologue at heart

What is that even supposed to mean? Dystopian novels tend to be political.

>> No.8621580

>>8621577
depends on what you consider merit- does a work necessarily need to have huge, far reaching philosophical implications to give it more literary merit?

brave new world gave me a lot to chew on, but thomas pynchon is the better technical writer, and that's worth something

>> No.8621581

>>8621565
You are a petty contrarian if you think you believe Dostoevsky is overrated.

>> No.8621583

>>8621577
>the works of those you mentioned and other Americans is undifferentiated in value from video games.

This is a horrible sentence

>> No.8621584

>>8621574
May be in Russia only.
His book "master and margarita" is about nothing. There are no any sense in it.
But I do like his work about morphine addiction.

>> No.8621589

>>8621584
it's about that time Stalin told him he really liked him and he was saving him

>> No.8621592

>>8621584
Master and Margarita is not about nothing. It's a satire on communism and vicious society of those times. You'd understand it better if you knew what communist russia was.

>> No.8621598

>>8621580
It depends entirely on the scope: I place value in those works that portray the individual in such a way that the reader learns from him as he would from a neighbor or friend. The subject matter explored is of pivotal importance and this I think is among the reasons the Americans are mediocre. Their works seem to me to be an emphasis of form or stance as opposed to the philosophical investigation we see in 19th century literature, for example. There is an egoism in American literature that is as much palpable as it is detrimental to the work itself, which might have risen as a significant contribution to mankind if there was more effort allocated to the personal, human development instead of the presentation itself, which is of no use to the soul of the reader.

>>8621583
Needless to say, there was a typo. But it is important to state that you are a trifling person if that is all you can say to my post.

>> No.8621615

foreigner here

what American writers after Faulkner and Hemingway are memes, and which ones arent?

>> No.8621669
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8621669

>mfw literally all my country's authors are middlebrow at best
australia why

>> No.8621694

>>8621565
Nabokov would agree.

>> No.8621741
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8621741

>>8621565
Dostoevsky is one of the best, I understand why some people don't like him though. As a Russian-American I'd go for this nigger.

>> No.8621753

>>8621669

Your whole gene pool consists of abos gooks and criminals that's why

>> No.8621779

>>8621573
Well he did get famous for political resons

>> No.8621785
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8621785

>> No.8621787

>>8621669
Greg Egan is great in the space he's working in.

The guys who win the major awards are terrible, though. Looking at you Richard Flanagan, your ancestors should have died in the Great Famine

>> No.8621789

>>8621785
he had nice hair

>> No.8621793

>>8621565
Kill yourself, troll.

>> No.8621794

>>8621793
no u

>> No.8621909

>>8621785
What is this thing on his left eye?

>> No.8621910
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8621910

>muh womyn
>muh modernism
>muh psychology

>> No.8621924

>>8621577
>have contributed anything that is of any use to the reader.

What the fuck does that even mean? Reading, just like everything, is supposed to be entertaining you sperglord. If it isn't entertaining to you, simply stop doing it instead of whining like a fucking child.

>> No.8621977
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8621977

>>8621453
Victor Hugo

>> No.8621991

>>8621909
eyepatch lol

>> No.8622008

>>8621615
DFW, Franzen, Green are the best examples of memes.

Mccarthy and Dick are the only ones I can think of that aren't memes. I like Pynchon but I think if he was more popular he would be a meme author.

>> No.8622018

>>8621495
Poe? He might be the best example of an overrated American author. He's like Wordsworth in that he was extremely inconsistent, and when he was bad, he was truly terrible. That isn't to say I don't enjoy some of Poe's work, but sometimes I'm shocked by how clumsy his writing can get. As someone else mentioned, Melville isn't overrated. Moby-Dick overshadows most of his work, a lot of which is better than the magna opera of many of our other revered writers.

>> No.8622021

>>8622018
phhshaw
he is one of the best american poets of 19th century whom american themselves can't even appreciate

>> No.8622033

>>8622021
Are you even American? Everyone here knows him, and usually if they don't appreciate him it's because they don't appreciate poetry, period. In a college course I was given the unfortunate task of analyzing some of Poe's lesser known works, and it was really a chore, some of it is so amateurish.

>> No.8622053

>>8622033
i don't see you particularly appreciating him when you call his works 'amateurish'
what's are those, something like al aaraaf? imo it's pretty

anyway a plenty of americans on lit dislike him, i even heard some american claiming here that baudelaire's translation of raven is better than the original... it's when baudelaire ruined the meter (since french is crap for english meters), rhymes and generally everything which he could ruin

>> No.8622095

Günter Grass

>> No.8622134

>>8621785
>tfw ywn look THAT cool

>> No.8622202

>>8621977
excellent

>> No.8622639

>>8621924
No, you utter imbecile. You have deluded yourself if you believe reading is meant to entertain. In fact, it's such a ridiculous, childish and banal idea that I'm genuinely cringing as I type this because it means I'm wasting the effort needed by my thumbs to respond to a child.

Reading is meant to educate. Just because people are naturally inclined to prefer diversion and writers have satisfied this tendency, does not mean that is the purpose of reading. You really have a lot of work to do if you are content to spend your precious time in idleness, entertaining yourself as one would expect from a savage. Sure it's possible to derive entertainment from some works that are profound, but you are mistaken if you think all profound works must entertain because that is the purpose of literature and if they don't fulfill that purpose, they are somehow inferior to others that do. By your despicable logic, one might argue that Spinoza's Ethics is inferior to a Harry Potter book since the latter is sure to entertain many more readers. It goes without saying that such a claim would be an objective falsity, but your logic allows one to make it! Grow up and stop reading genre fiction, for your sake.

>> No.8622732
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8622732

Dreadful

>> No.8622739

>>8621924
Why not both? Are you saying you can't enjoy something and also be entertained by it? Or what about being entertained by the act of learning itself?

This is the foundation of the inferiority of genre fiction. Literature can be both entertaining and educational, while genre fiction can only be entertaining. Why then, would you ever choose genre fiction?

>> No.8622755
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8622755

>> No.8623009

>>8621506
>shakespeare
you're goddamn right

>> No.8623014
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8623014

>> No.8623032

>>8622732
I haven't read her but considering it. what's so bad about her?

>> No.8623039

>>8621453

I love Orwell's prose, I think he does an incredible job of describing the character's inner monologue. Winston was fiercely relatable

>> No.8623050

>>8621453
Deutschfag here. Goethe.

>> No.8623052

Harper Lee

>> No.8623762
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8623762

>>8621669
You guys can probably claim picrelated at this point, desu

>> No.8623764
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8623764

>>8621785
I think you meant

>> No.8623783

>>8621453
You're Indian?

>> No.8623976

>>8622755
Are you mad?

>> No.8624310

>>8621910
lol I did not realize that's what he looks like. damn, I knew he was a cuck but jeeeez

>> No.8624319

Octavio paz
fuck that cunt, i am not even going to post a picture of him

>> No.8624591

>>8622053
Poe's short stories are good, but his poetry is embarrassing. Compare Israfel to what Poe is ripping off, Shelley's To A Skylark, and you'll notice the gigantic gulf in craft and talent.

>> No.8624597

>>8624319
bolano pls

>> No.8624598

or try to get through Annabel Lee without laughing uncontrollably.

>> No.8624620

>>8624319
José Revueltas seems more overrated nowadays with the whole "Menos Paz más Revueltas".

>> No.8624632

>>8622639
>Reading is meant to educate.
>Aesop's Fables are the height of literature

>> No.8624697

>>8621669
I'm related to Nancy Cato somehow and have inherited a pile of her books all signed by her. Are they worth reading?

>>8621787
I just looked him up now. He sounds like he's got his head up his ass and his writing I suspect might be that annoying Asimov trick of devoting one story to explaining one scientific idea, making everything sound like 'X for retards' rather than real literature.

>> No.8625712

>>8621529

I'm glad someone took the time to explain it to OP like this.

>> No.8625716

>>8621584

Fukken what?

>> No.8625722

>>8625712

It's just a shame how no one took the time to explain to Orwell how imperialism/colonialism/etc are good things.