>Most influential figure in American lit of the past 50 years
>You don't even know who he is

>>24541047 (OP)
Lish is an autistic cunt. Fuck him. Read Ligotti.

Do books matter anymore?
perhaps it's an antiquated artform; like the phonograph.
/lit/ has become increasingly irrelevant.

>>24541050
>Ligotti
You cannot be serious.

>>24541073
Yes, Ligotti was a senior editor at Gale publishing for 25 years. He is one of ten living authors to get published in penguin classics. The greatest horror writer alive. Read Teatro Grottesco.

>>24541087
>10 living authors
Massive marketing ploy. They wanted to cash in on true detective season 1.

>>24541098
Lots of films are based on books with way bigger productions and fame but those authors don't get published by penguin classics I wonder why.

>>24541047 (OP)
he isnt a yale-educated black lesbian in underwater lesbian feminism who is complaining about her upper middle class upbringing

>>24541072
The phonograph is a technology. Music as an art form is timeless. So is literature.

>>24541098
>>24541108
Writer of the show talked about the influence AFTER it got released and he mentioned 5 other authors alongside Ligotti. Not sure why people repeat this cope.

>>24541119
books are technology.
the printing press is technology.
the boat that carries the books is technology.
the ink is technology.
the vellum is technology.
...

>>24541131
the stories are not.
the stories are metaphysical.
how they get transcribed & disseminated materially into our world is technological.
technology can be artistic. just as someone invented pigment and a canvas; or a caveman figured out he could transcribe the images in his mind onto the wall using dung and ash.
there is creativity in technology.

>>24541131
Is the spoken word that sang Homer a technology?

>>24541149
Yes. Language is a technology and an artform (much like oil based painting or digital design).
Languages have been improved and refined over history to the point where we can translate Homer into culturally related languages and create new meaning from his work using neologisms like "Homeric" to describe things that are related to Homer's works (the existence of Homer is as illusory as Shakespeare btw but we have "Shakespearean"). A primitive language of clicks can't achieve the level of semiotic complexity.
I think we can improve language, understanding, and meaning construction as a technology.
Memes help.

>>24541149
singing is a technology.
i'd be more apparent if you could hear how humanity sang like pre-discovery & development of Music Theory. very atonal, off beat, inconsistent.
we take for granted the simple musical inventions like the Leitmotif we hear movies all the time introduced by Wagner just a couple centuries ago.
now we just call them "themes", like "James Bond's theme". it's been normalized to not seem technological to us and to seem "natural".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBR-jSg9PIc

>>24541190
he's a classic post-modern example that required a ton of technological innovations and references to "get it"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nCUsWoP1uM

>>24541190
>Leitmotif
he's a classic post-modern example that required a ton of technological innovations and references to "get it" without having to process and unpack everything that went into it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nCUsWoP1uM
I got it as a kid.

>>24541213
Or my personal favorite the Axel-F leitmotif spoof:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAH88YtvrMI
again, all artistic technological inventions we take for granted.
what other technologies we assume are separate from art?

>>24541087
>one of ten living authors to get published in penguin classics
Sounds impressive, until you remember one of them is Morrissey.

>>24541149
if you were to play modern music to an ancient greek, or show him Avengers: Endgame with all the capeslop CGI, or somehow got him to a David Foster Wallace novel/phonebook, that greek's brain would melt...
how do you explain to that man what a synthesizer is/does/works let alone an orchestra of various complicated stringed instruments conducted harmoniously with melody & bass & percussion. the movie screen would clearly be interpreted as a window to another reality given how hyperreal it is to someone with no context. Infinite Jest may as well be written in translated greek gibberish; wtf is a tennis camp or "weed"?
all this shit is technology that's a posteriori fused into our reasoning that it seem natural (it's not but feels so). Of course everyone should be able to understand everything today. We all can. Surely the past could. We're all human...

>>24541232
>DeLillo and Pynchon are in penguin classics due to their merit but Ligotti heckin isn't because...because he isn't okay
kys

>>24541262
.

>>24541108
>>24541121
They don't have as big an influence in publishing?

>>24541262
>delillo and pynchon
Hacks. They are just well connected. Besides, their books weren't selling in the 2000s, so the publishing house did that to generate interest

>>24541269
This is hilarious dude. Fucking Morrissey has billions of views on his YouTube channel while Ligotti published in obscure weird fiction magazines and limited edition of 500 copies type shit his whole life.

Ligotti is on fucking merit.

>>24541047 (OP)
Lish was a genius and I'm surprised more /lit/ anons don't revere him. Compare Carver pre-Lish to Carver post-Lish and you immediately understand.

>>24541269
Now that the Nobel has rightly deemed song /lit/ (a very Homeric realization), Mozler needs his prize. And Mozza counts as American /lit/ because he is obviously an Angelino and a rockabilly-American. His novel is also set in Boston. Is Morrissey the greatest living American?

>>24541087
>He is one of ten living authors to get published in penguin classics.
Didn't Morrissey insist that his autobiography was published as a penguin classic and he held out on the deal until penguin agreed?

>>24541073
NTA, but Ligotti is a great genre writer, even if his philosophy is wrong

>>24541552
Bowie deserved it if he hadn't already passed

>>24541747
God bless you, anon

>>24541047 (OP)
This guy can talk. He has two good bookworm episodes:
http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/bookworm/gordon-lish

>>24541175
>Languages have improved and refined over history
Except that they haven't. Classic Greek's a far more sophisticated and ultimately useful language than any modern European language. If anything, language peaked a couple thousand years ago and has been in decline ever since

>>24542235
Ok that should be easy to demonstrate its superiority then.

>>24541098
Seething