Which century wins?
20th = 19th (thanks to Melville) > 18th > 19th (if Melville didn't exist)
>>25037034Whoa a good take on /lit/? What is it opposite day? Have the americans not woken up yet?
>>25037052isn't melville peak americancore though
>>25037019The only good book in the 20th century is Ulysses, meanwhile all three of the 19th century are masterpieces, and the 18th century is just bizarre and only Tristam Shandy really belongs there. The selection for every century is pretty arbitrary and not doing them proper justice. Moby Dick does not belong in even the top 10 books of the 20th century and it's really only Americans that care about it so much or foreigners interested in the 'great American novel'. So many other contenders and I don't think Dostoyevsky is at the top, and certainly James wrote greater novels than Portrait of a Lady. 20th century has its meme trilogy because it's a meme but there are obviously much better choices than Pynchon and Wallace.
>>25037068There's a few other "meme trilogies" people used to talk about
>>25037064In theory but make a moby dick thread during American time and it will be all about how cetology is boring and ishmael and queequeg are homos
>>25037019Every artform peaked in the 20th century, prove me wrong.
>>25037075>other "meme trilogieNo there where not. Nobody has ever discussed them. It was always short lived cringe attempts by random anons who really liked one book like clarel or recognition to shill it to the rest of the board, hoping putting it in a trilogy format would convince anyone to check it outThat never worked because nobody in this board actually reads
>>25037113Not a fan of 20th century architecture
>>25037068Prelude is by far the best work up there
>>25037127It's not a novel and most people don't read the version written in the 18th century. If poems and plays are also accepted than where's Goethe's Faust or Baudelaire or Eliot? The Prelude, judged novelisticallly a la Crabbe, is not up there with Sterne or James or Joyce. Judged poetically it fluctuates between genius and dullness in its endless, structureless blank verse.
>>25037113Bach is still the GOAT, followed closely by Beethoven. But I agree the 20th century has some good shit, Penderecki's passion is almost as good as Bach's John+Matthew.
>Sterne>Wordsworth>Goethe>Best writers of the 18th centuryYikes
>>25037225I agree, however the classical composers weren't all secluded to one century, so I can't really count it. 20th century featured the peak of every other genre.
>>25037068Wallace might be a meme, but Pynchon's brilliant. And Moby-Dick is arguably the GOAT.t. Europoor
>>25037113The 20th century is when poetry became gay dogshit though.
Never heard anyone quote anything from these doorstoppers (talking of the 20th century exclusively). The only appeal is that they're dense and full of juice so people feel 'in awe' of them. I'd rather read Cioran or Burroughs. Concise, informative and entertaining. Burroughs even accused Joyce of 'talking down to his audience' with Finnegans Wake.
>>25037019Make way for the actual Trinity
>>25037075McElroy is too expensive for wide reading
>>25037019I'll vote for the 20th due to Joyce. You can remove the other two.
>>25037334He is also too shit
>>25037113You could argue that stylistically every artform peaked in the 20th century, in refinement and freedom and similar qualities. But it's impossible to claim that the very greatest exponents or examples of any artform appeared in the 20th century. No 20th century sculptor could rival Michelangelo, no 20th century painter could rival Rembrandt, no 20th century poet could rival Dante, no 20th century architect could rival the architects of the Siena Cathedral, etc.
>>25037228You know nothing about literature.
>>25037367Great point.
>>25037019Middle column absolutely embarrasses the others.
>>25037134I think many works are often inappropriately elevated due to their intentional experimentation with form, Ulysses, Tristam Shandy, and Moby Dick included. So the themes, language, imagery, and psychological insight of the Prelude exceeds any of those novels imo, making it the better work, regardless of some formal marker of importance. Not to say those works are bad thought.
>>25037374Just because you browsed wikipedia and found three eighteenth century novels (the prelude isn't even a novel) doesn't mean you know jack shit about literature, genre tourist.
>>25037512Lots of projection there
Faulkner, Mccarthy, Beckett or Borges are more deserving of being beside Ulysses than DFW or Pynchon.Sorrows of young werther seem a rather weak pick. If you're including poetry, Blake probably deserves a place beside Wordsworth.
>>25037526Damn I even forgot Proust
>>2503701919th.
>>25037068LOTR, Dune, and starship troopers are good
>>25037019One of these authors is worth a damn. The others are burning in hell.
>>25037526I'd easily rank Pynchon above McCarthy and Borges, as good as they are. Faulkner maybe, the Quentin section of TSATF is brilliant, but the rest is underwhelming. AILD is meh. Yet to read Absalom.I think Blake is a shit poet. Very imaginative, but sloppy verse.
ulyssess and moby dick are the only near-perfect masterpieces on this pic
>>25037575>One of these authors is worth a damn. The others are burning in hell.
>>25037677>fartslop and whale factsNot impressed
>I NEED PLOT AND ACTION BECAUSE I AM A MANCHILDkwab
>>25037759lol, chill out man. the pynchon, wolfe, grrm, tolkien, and mccarthy fanboys are gonna get pissed at you.
>>25037108Not every one of us thinks like that. You complain about calling you a monolith and then do shit like this
>>25037668I don't think pynchon can stand up to anyone I have named. Not the same caliber of talent, neither in prose nor storytelling. Far too dependent on the zeitgeist and careless sentimentality.You can have that opinion about Blake but Songs of Innocence is still a better overall work than Werther.
>>25037019Remove Henry James' work and get Madame Bovary in, next to the other great 19th century novels. 18th century is also under-developed imo.
>>2503701921stWe haveHarry Potter Twilight Game of Thrones
>>25037759>>25037767>replying to himself
>ME LIKE OGLE AT BIG WORDSkek imagine
wow, didnt realize how much of a meme dfw apparently was, absolutely no respect here
>>25037113Anime is at its peak right now with isekaislop.
>>2503779350 Shades of GreyMourning Glory Milking FarmMy Immortal
>>25037824Anime peaked in the 90's brainlet. My god you are tasteless ahahha
>>25037841You don't get the point of anime. It's not supposed to be a high art. Cute girls are the essence. Add to that the blandest possible mc thst any guy can self-insert into, have him get hit by a truck or something, give him op powers, throw him into a colorful fantasy world with cute elves, cute catgirls, cute lolipires, and voilà. People keep complaining about isekai fad, but this formula might stay unchanged for decades. There's just nothing to improve there.
>>25037788Pynchon mogs them.
>>25038219go back to /v/ kiddo
>>25038219You're not wrong, but to me the point is that most fans of anime don't get the point of anime.
>>25038242>samefags using his phonelol lmao even
>>25037075I only read 2666 & Infinite Jest. I bought 3/4 of the others because I'm a pseud
>>25038219This very same sentiment could be applied to any media. The point of reading is to provide entertaining plot everyone can enjoy, like Harry Potter. The point of video games is to be fun even with turned off brain, like some multiplayer shooter or roblox. The point of films is to tell a narrative engaging for most, thus capeshit. Because the true point of media as a whole is to make money. But that's an entirely different metric from what can be considered best. tl;dr you're retarded, and the best anime ever made is objectively Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu.
>>25038317>Because the true point of media as a whole is to make money.Telling stories, making music, dacing, theatre, and art are all innate parts of human nature and people do them whether they're compensated for them monetarily or not. Why is the "starving artist" or the "hobbyist writer" such a common trope? People do those things because they have an internal drive to create and leave a mark on the world. Being paid for it is just a bonus.
>>25037052>Whoa a good take on /lit/?>Praise for GR, Ulysses, IJ, and Moby Dick I think you'll very much enjoy the rest of your time here, newfag
>>25038378No I can already tell that this board is infested with anime consuming vermin who enjoy pretending to read.
>>25038385Was good while it lasted, yeah?
It's the Long nineteenth century for me
>>25038385I have a chart for you too big boy.
>>25037225Yeah Bach mogs everyone else and it's not even close. I study music and his works are structured in an insane way in that you can literally learn the essence of harmony just playing them. Music peaked early, architecture shouldn't have, but it did. Likely due to ideological interference.
>>25038378Post 2016 nobody cares about the meme trilogy. It's all dostoevsky whoe is me I'm a sinner punish me jesus, incel core stuff like dazai, and everything the 20th century has produced is degenerate artAt least the esoteric evola guenon phase has flavor
>>25038227pynchon can't even mog dfw, let alone actual greats.
>>25037507On your point about Rembrandt I think the painting as a medium peaked with the Dutch Baroque. Everything before feels like it was leading to Rembrandt and Vermeer, everything after feels like a pale imitation.
>>25039385responded to the wrong person meant to respond to >>25037367
And meanwhile I'm here, the only person on /lit/ who reads Theroux...
>>25037019Gravity's Rainbow because it's just so much fun
>>25038626You tell yourself this because you like them, but no, it's not true. Those 4 books are posted about all the time
>>25038246>most fans of anime don't get the point of animeso what is the point of anime?
>>2503701917th Century: The Holy Bible KJV - The Complete Works - Paradife Loft
>>25037241I’m new to books who is the third guy
>>25037668Absalom, Absalom! is absolutely phenomenal.
>>25037019I like the concept, but I am not convinced about the selection.
>>25041564Ulysses Grant
>>25041564Thomas Pynchon
>>25041564Hawthorne
>>25041564Walt Whitman
19th and its not even close
>>25041564It's a young Leo Tolstoy, portrait was painted during his time in France
>>25037019I agree with the other poster that 19th century needs at least 1 French novel. Madame Bovary would be good or something by Hugo, but personal pick would be Germinal, people who've read it would know
>>25041493The point of anime is pretty looking girls. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bijin-ga
>>2503701920 century is definitely F tier.
>>25043535I read it and there is no way it is better than madame bovary or Hugo. It isn't even a top tier zola honestly
>>25037019Fuck the US.Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF)The CIA (again via the CCF and related fronts) funded numerous literary magazines, journals, and cultural organizations worldwide. Examples include Encounter (UK), Preuves (France), Der Monat (Germany), and even ties to The Paris Review in its early days. These outlets promoted modernist, anti-communist, or "free" Western writers and critics.The U.S. government indirectly supported many leftist writers through the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and its Federal Writers' Project (FWP, 1935–1939).Outlets like Anvil, Blast, or early Partisan Review (1934–1936, when it was still CP-aligned via the John Reed Club)Partisan Review later (post-1937, as an anti-Stalinist leftist magazine) distanced itself from direct party ties and eventually received covert CIA funding in the 1950s–1960s (as part of Cold War cultural efforts), but in the 1930s it was still rooted in leftist circles without major external state backing.
>>25037019has anyone here even read Tristram Shandy?I read it in high school because it was the "hardest" satirical novel and it was pretty fun but I think 60% of it went over my head and of the parts I understood I only remember like 5% of it now
