Gene Wolfe or Virginia Woolf
big gene
>>25334241James Joyce or Joyce Carol Oates?
>>25334271I do love oats.
Reddit thread
>>25334241don't care what anybody on /lit/ says, Virginia Woolf is the goat
>>25334241If the setting could've just been an entirely separate fantasy world, then why make it future earth?I tire of this shit. I GET that speculative history is not a big genre, so whatever piles of shit that come on that genre plate you have to eat. But still.
>>25334241What about Tom Wolfe?
>>25334321Based knower.
>>25334297because it's cool? Severian writing a book and sending it back through time, and Gene Wolfe acting as the pseudo-translator of it is cool. And with it being future Earth Gene Wolfe can do his religious symbolism stuff, like the Outsider in Long Sun being LITERALLY Jesus.You don't get things like this if it's just a separate fantasy world not connected to reality.
Yeats or Keats? Beats me.
>>25334397It's just retarded. What statement is being made here? What morals are being communicated? (and by that I mean, what real life lessons is the author trying to impart?)In good fiction you don't have to ask because it's already subconsciously asked and you answered. >its uhhhh a gorillion years in the future but also everything is le medievalsays what, exactly?
>>25334294A goat is a different animal than a wolf though.
>>25334405>muh statements and moralsholy fuck you're a faggot. It's a book meant to be enjoyed, not everything needs to be a morality lesson, especially from fucking science fiction
>>25334412no I mean the subjective moral lesson the author is trying to impart. i.e. "here is what i want you to learn from this story">It's a book meant to be enjoyedI don't enjoy my time being wasted by something with no meaning
>>25334297Have you (re)read it? It couldn't have been. >>25334405Many. Not the least of which is "no matter how things change, man is burdened by sin. You (you) the reader are not free of it." Read it and find out.>>25334406That's a good point actually, it wouldn't really make sense if she was named "Woolf" but was actually a goat. Really amateurish symbolism.
>>25334446>manand this couldn't be accomplished in some other fantasy world with "men" in it?
>>25334454I really don't understand what you're wanting. So instead of setting the story in future earth and allowing the author to draw on real-world concepts and meanings, you want a entirely new fake world but one that retains everything about earth, for example like the concept of sin (which is almost exclusively an Abrahamic religious concept so this fake world would also need an equivalent to Abrahamic religion)?What is the point in what you're arguing for? If anything this would make things feel incredibly contrived. "Yea my world isn't earth but it's exactly like earth, and the religion isn't christianity but it's exactly like christianity". Cool man, I guess.
>>25334454Not really. Read it and you'll probably see why. Or don't, it doesn't really matter. It isn't Proust but it's very good.
Why Gene, what big ears you have!It's my age Virginia as I grow older the skin sags and gravity decided to give them more length.Why Gene what big eyes you have!It's probably just the glasses Virginia, after years of reading and writing, perfecting the craft my eyes are starting to fail me an I lose focus, I'm just happy I can still see at all.Why Gene what big teeth you have!All the better to eat you with!
>>25334503Kekked
>>25334469>you want No, I just think if you're gonna have a le epic fantasy setting it should be strictly relevant. >the concept of sin (which is almost exclusively an Abrahamic religious conceptah, I see. I see the caliber of the person I'm dealing with.>If I attain Buddhahood and a sentient being aspires with faith and joy to be reborn in my Sukhavati Pure Land: if they recite my name just ten times and, in spite of this, are not reborn there, then may I myself not attain enlightenment [in the first place]. Two exceptions to this solemn promise are in respect of, firstly, those who have committed the five terrible offences [Ānantarika kamma] and, secondly, of those who have vilified the Sublime Dharma because such people cannot be reborn in Sukhavati.
>>25334533NTA, but you realize the phrase “almost exclusively” already acknowledges that exceptions exist, right? So already we know you’re illiterate, since you’ve tried to respond with an exception.And of all the belief systems you could have chosen, you chose the one that explicitly rejects the idea of sin (transgressions against divine law that require forgiveness). The Buddhas quite clearly don’t take offense when you engage in unwholesome conduct. To confuse the five precepts with the Abrahamic concept of sin, or to think they’re even remotely comparable, just shows how out of depth you are. You’re wrong on both fronts, how embarrassing…
>>25334241Virgene Woolfe
>>25334241
>>25334704This is it. Thread over. The question has been solved.
>>25334275>bröther...
Reddit.
Rank them>Portrait of a Lady>Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man>Portrait of Dorian Gray
>>25334968You forgot Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man
>>25334968Joyce > James > Wilde
>>25334968James Joyce Wilde
>>25334441You're a fucking retard.New Sun is about faith and the fact that bad men can do good things because we're all torturers(sinners).Also about how stories can be interpreted in many ways and they all have motives for telling stories some of which the writer doesn't even intend. There are many other meanings within it.Long Sun is about all the ways religion can be corrupted and the many ways that man tries to deny God but in the end it always comes back to God.Short Sun is about how the soul cannot be destroyed among other things.
>>25335038In what way does this require a far future earth setting? Do you really think it has to be "literal" earth for someone to tell human stories?Lest you think I'm just being obtuse. I will give an example of a setting that exists to serve both the plot, as well as the morals and themes of the story: Middle-Earth. Many people know of Middle-Earth and think they can make their own reddit quirk chungus "setting" replete with "world-building" but they fail to understand how this is meant to be used.
>>25335046It needed to be set in the future because it's about the decay of civilization and human hubris. How technology is like magic but that is not the power of god. Technology will not save humanity. God will. We went to the stars and colonized other worlds and it didn't result in saving humanity. Only faith in God can save us.Fantasy is about the past and sci fi is about the future. While this takes place in the future Severian actually dies in the ancient past. It's about the past and the future, black and white, good and evil, fulligan and argent, black holes and white fountains, life and death, the end of the universe and the beginning. Severian was taught to take life but through faith decides he wants to bring life and save humanity. And in order to save humanity be must travel to the end of the universe which is also the beginning of the universe. Contradictions and paradoxes. The paradox of the future being much like the past.
>>25335069>It needed to be set in the future because it's about the decay of civilization and human hubris.And yet Middle-Earth mogs in its presentation of this idea. >inb4 I am comparing a 10/10 setting (perfection) to what you consider an 8/10 setting, so it isn't fairpossiblyI see you are a big fan of the book. I will refrain from criticisms of the themes of BotNS specifically. But I will reiterate that the setting feels arbitrary. Now, all settings are technically arbitrary, but they should be in lock-step with 1. the plot 2. the themes 3. the morals. all without being in-your-face about it. Dune is also very good at making its setting not feel arbitrary. Dune directly addresses people's hopes about a utopian far future of endless ease by way of things like the Butlerian Jihad. But the prose is nowhere near Tolkien. Giant worm emperor is where it goes off the rails but it at least feels like a natural escalation from galactic shah to galactic shah-han-shah, so to speak.
>>25334704There's also the 'You Can't Go Home Again' guy.
>>25335076Middle Earth and the Earth of the Autarch are apples and oranges. The actual *physical constraints* of the two worlds make their contra-respective stories impossible. Which is funny since, technically, their authors indirectly said that they *are* set in the same universe.
>>25334984Correct
>>25335076I love Lord Of The Rings as well. It is better than BOTNS but for different reasons. I think LOTR is the only fantasy masterpiece and BOTNS the only sci fi masterpieceEverything I say seems to have no effect so I will refrain from elaborating.
>>25334984beat me to it, thank you based anon
>>25335076>Now, all settings are technically arbitrary, but they should be in lock-step with 1. the plot 2. the themes 3. the morals.You've clearly never read BotNS, because it fits your requirements. It's not arbitrary that it's future Earth, it's a major plot point routinely addressed throughout the entire Solar Cycle, where the themes and morals people have replied to you about are addressed throughout too. The Solar Cycle would never be able to work without it being literally future Earth and its decayed civilizations and religions.
>>25335988Explain your thesis and give supporting evidence.
>>25335997No. It's already been explained in the thread enough.
>>25336024I'm sure you could explain it in your own words, cite the book, and explain how the setting is 100% essential to the plot, no? Are you saying I couldn't write a story of sin and redemption in a fantasy world completely apart from literal Earth?
anyone "can" write a story in any setting, the argument is about what setting enhances the story
>>25336041I have already replied to you multiple times in my own words, you just continue being obtuse.Does your story of sin and redemption include LITERALLY Jesus? Not a metaphor, the literal Jesus? Because that's who the Outsider is in Long Sun. Do you see a way to fit this plot point in a fantasy world not connected to real Earth without it being contrived?
>>25334241The real question is the minimum sufficient height from which dropping Gene on her would kill her. It would be better if they were both naked when this happened.
>>25335997>>25336041Read the book yourself retard. If it could, as a work of art, be summarized then it would have no reason to exist.
>>25334294this, is it even a question?Gene is good but he wrote elevated genre fiction.Virginia is probably one of the greatest authors of the 20th century, period.
Woolf is broadly-canon-significant with diffused influenceWolfe is domain-specific significant with concentrated influence
>>25336100Was Frankenstein or Dracula genre fiction or Dantes inferno genre fiction? Are they canon significant? Is Grimms Fairytales or Aesops Fables canon significant? What about Beowulf? Canon significant or just genre slop? Is Homer's Odyssey just fantasy slop or is it canon significant?
>>25335076Did you only read the 1st sentence of what he said dipshit?Thinking Dune has a better reason for being set in the future is ridiculous lol. It's literally just an allegory for the middle east and oil.You are a perfect example of the Dunning Krueger Effect.
