Warning! This is not a PC post!
Continue on your own responsibility!
The owner of my current flat warned me that this section is heavily moderated but I think sometimes we could discuss deeper themes. I try to stick with literature and leave politics out of this post/rant.
"what have the Romans ever done for us except sanitation, medicine, education..."
"The past is a far away country, they do things differently there."
QuoteXiaolu Guo: American literature is massively overrated, our reading habit has totally been transformed by the mainstream, our reading habit has been stolen and changed, for example I think Asian literature is much less narrative … but our reading habit is more Anglo-Saxon, more American … Nowadays all this narrative [literature is] very similar, it's so realism, so story-telling driven … so all the poetry, all the alternative things, have been pushed away by mainstream society.
"I love your work, Jonathan," she told Franzen, "but in a way you are smeared by English American literature … I think certain American literature is overrated, massively overrated, and I really hate to read them," she said.
Jhumpa Lahiri: I was looking at [an Italian paper's] 10 best books of the year, and they chose seven books written in English. This was astonishing to me, I can't imagine the New York Times ever choosing seven books written in a language other than English as their choices.
Anne Enrigh: The figures are shocking and incontrovertible. It's a moot point whether we 'need' a women's prize. Maybe women should have a prize, just because they can.
Quality doesn't matter anymore, one has to be PC... (By the way, the typical Social Justice Warrior is just a hypocrite, nothing more.)
QuotePrizes of any kind in any artistic endeavour are ridiculous. Serious writers should be ashamed of themselves being involved with that milieu. Unless it is for the money. Take their money and run. But be honest and open about it. It is all so terribly childish, like Sunday school prizes. The purpose there is "magical"...a ceremony the purpose of which is to arouse emotion, to ensure that the disciples return stronger to worship. Writers of any literary integrity should have realised by now that their work is not of this sort, unless it is, and therefore not literary, but a poor relation to that activity, the "manufacture of stories", and like myths, the purpose of which is the generation of useful emotion. Writers who now this and yet still participate in the prizegiving ceremonies know this, but their vanity prevails.
Definition:
Political correctness = you have to be a liar; plus, you have to hate white people (as you know whites are racistfascistracistfascist. And they are wondering that the (far-)right parties are getting more and more popular in Europe...)
A humorous approching (ok, this is self-describing but right now the word 'fat' is not PC):
One problem with internet dating is how women describe themselves:- Cuddly=fat. Voluptuous=fat. Bubbly=fat and talkative. Homebody-fat AND lazy. Loves dining out or eating at home-Fat and greedy. Men are no better:- Sporty-- atches football on TV Strong, silent type....inarticulate bum with tattoos Tall--medium height Stocky--short. Physically active--walks to the job centre Looking for a meaningful relationship---sex starved.
Maybe this example is better:
2014 is the current year. This is not PC in the Offended Age.
This is more PC-y: wiki/Template:Year_in_other_calendars
Contemporary 'literature' is very weak, or rather it does not exist. Poetry is dead, novels hit the end of the road 30-35 years ago. No one can achive anything new anymore. The new battle-cry: been there, done that.
Like it or not, the greatest writers were white males. You can eliminate their work but then what's left? (Especially in philosophy...) (It must be hard to see/accept that Tolkien was not an Asian lesbian woman, or Martin is not an African writer but you know life is not fair - just ask Hermione Weasley -, deal with it. Elizabeth Bennet is not an Indian male? Austen, how dare you?)
Ok, they don't want to read any works written by Mailer, Hasek, Zola, Canetti, Bulgakov, Joyce, Unamuno, Krasznahorkai, Pirandello, Melville, Pynchon, Kipling, Woolf etc. etc.
Please, tell me, where is the Korean equivalent to Hasek? Where is the Chinese Zola? Bulgakov in Zimbabwe? Mailer in India?
That reminds me:
from the NYTIMES
QuoteHaven’t we learned by now that removing books from the curriculum just deprives children of exposure to classic works of literature? Worse, it relieves teachers of the fundamental responsibility of putting such books in context — of helping students understand that “Huckleberry Finn” actually stands as a powerful indictment of slavery (with Nigger Jim its most noble character), of using its contested language as an opportunity to explore the painful complexities of race relations in this country. To censor or redact books on school reading lists is a form of denial: shutting the door on harsh historical realities — whitewashing them or pretending they do not exist.
Mr. Gribben’s effort to update “Huckleberry Finn” (published in an edition with “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” by NewSouth Books), like Mr. Foley’s assertion that it’s an old book and “we’re ready for new,” ratifies the narcissistic contemporary belief that art should be inoffensive and accessible; that books, plays and poetry from other times and places should somehow be made to conform to today’s democratic ideals. It’s like the politically correct efforts in the ’80s to exile great authors like Conrad and Melville from the canon because their work does not feature enough women or projects colonialist attitudes.
Authors’ original texts should be sacrosanct intellectual property, whether a book is a classic or not. Tampering with a writer’s words underscores both editors’ extraordinary hubris and a cavalier attitude embraced by more and more people in this day of mash-ups, sampling and digital books — the attitude that all texts are fungible, that readers are entitled to alter as they please, that the very idea of authorship is old-fashioned.