Bookshelf

Why are the authors overwhelming white, male Europeans or imperialists?

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European men held greater economic power (colonialism and slavery) and greater freedoms than women, giving them the marge de manœuvre to write literature. As materialists, we must examine the material conditions of literary production. Tolstoy could not have written Anna Karenina if he was one of his peasants he so enjoyed writing about. Plath would never have written The Bell Jar if her parents couldn't afford to send her to Smith College. Perhaps the most poignant quote is from Virginia Woolf herself, as she famously wrote: "A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."

While there are outliers, women were systematically excluded from literary circles. It has only been less than a hundred years since Beauvoir and Lorde smashed essentialist ideas about women being biologically inferior to men. Women creating art is not a new phenomenon. But it is an emerging one.

Who to Avoid

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David Foster Wallace & Assorted Postmodernists

PoMo literature is all style and zero substance. You can throw Joyce's later work in here. It's all written for academia. Essentially intellectual masturbation. if literature is "words charged with meaning", you would find more meaning making conversation with the homeless in your area.

Yukio Mishima

We've read and studied many of his works in the original language. And come to the conclusion that he is an ethno-nationalist fascist and a self-hating pederast. Despite his self-professed love of the Japanese samurai tradition, this coward dodged the draft because he was too afraid to die for his beloved fascist overlords. He spent the rest of his life LARPing as a Gravy Seal with young boys on Mishima Island. Release the list, Mr Trump!

Haruki Murakami

Atrocious depiction of humans (why does he have to describe every time his male protagonist swims and washes his foreskin...?) His novels are best described as Nouvelle Vague adapted for a Marvel movie audience.

Medieval Literature (Beowulf, Gawain etc)

There is a notable thousand year gap between Shakespeare and Sophocles in the list. That's because medieval literature had huge constraints regarding Christian orthodoxy. It was a huge step backwards from the Greeks. A lot of this chivalric novel trash was satirised by Cervantes. In short, you are better off reading literature from the Islamic Golden Age.

George Orwell

A propagandist and a traitor. Animal Farm bizarrely equates the Nazis with the USSR, alleging corruption and mistreatment. A relic of Cold War propaganda, it exaggerates all the bad of the USSR and none of the good. Naturally, it is taught in all neoliberal countries. After the Spanish Civil War, he also created a list of Communist sympathisers and assisted in persecuting them.

JK Rowling

An old racist hag who hit it big. We read and reread your books when we were kids. You practically taught us English when we reread Goblet of Fire 7 times. You're a billionaire now. Why in the world are you harassing trans people online?

Ezra Pound

A fascist hack who licked Mussolini's boots.

HP Lovecraft

Another European racist who couldn't comprehend non-whites being better than him.

TS Eliot

If the average IQ keeps increasing, maybe we'll stop seeing antisemitic writers.

Any video game recommendations?

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Planescape: Torment

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Kingdom Come: Deliverance 1 and 2

Mass Effect 1-3

Metro and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series

Outer Wilds

Pentiment

Return of the Obra Dinn

The Case of the Golden Idol

Civilization VI

Divinity: Original Sin 2

Baldur's Gate 3

Fallout 1 and 2, New Vegas

Shadowrun Series

Atom RPG

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

Cyberpunk 2077

Disco Elysium