Tuned in to Literature!

>>236
I don't think they're intelligent enough to write literature. When has a weed smoker ever been known to be a great writer? It's just not a /lit/ drug like tobacco or opium are.

>>237
Rastas don't smoke nearly as much as the stereotype. A significant minority don't smoke at all.

>>237
I’d tell you to fuck off but 4can’t is down

>>237
What have aussies written that is of any value in the past 50 years?

>>244
Comparing an Advanced Western country with Rastafarians for literary output? LOL! I could name the Nobel Prize winner Patrick White's later works, or Gerald Murnane, but it's not like it matters much, since literature on the whole has radically declined in the last 50 years.

I think Rasta or Jamaican literature is interesting to learn about. They'd probably have something better than what country one assumes to be "Advanced".

>>251
>They'd probably have something better than what country one assumes to be "Advanced".
Objectively nonsensical. Even if we ignore the obvious reflection of a culture and populace's intelligence in basic economic florescence, it is still a self-evident fact that higher cultural achievement depends on a certain level of economic support. Without industry there is no education.

But please, let's follow through with your statement, and think of all the countries typically considered 'advanced', like Germany, France, America, Japan, and now let's compare Rastafarian literature against the literature of those countries…. Do you see how insane your statement is?

I'd be shocked if the Rastas produce good literature on a number of levels. First, literature is more typically a European or Asiatic pursuit. Second, Rastafarianism is not terribly serious as a religion. Third, it takes an unusual talent to produce great literature to begin with, so it can't be assumed that every group (even with advantages) will produce it.

>>248
Australian literature, how well known… probably the worst of the British colonies in terms of literature next to New Zealand. Canada is better. Nigeria is better. America is better. All the Aussies can do is get sunburnt and get raped by crocodiles.

Australians have produced so little in terms of historical litearture, a completely fake country with no real history aside from being the penal mining colony of England. How many verses of the Bible do you have memorized anon? I imagine the Rasta knows more of the Bible than you.

Any American siding with an Australian is not an American, you are a rotted Benedict Arnold.

>>256
What benefit is it to know a Bible verse if you manifestly don't understand it? There's no defense for the role the Emperor of Ethiopia plays in their theology.

>>258
You say this as if you know they don't understand the Bible, how can you positively demonstrate that? Are they not practicing the Word? Is it because they are poor? How much of the Bible have you personally read and interacted with, how much of it do you live with each day? Rastas are essntially Ethiopian Church Mystics, why do you get to define their place in the world and God? Why does there have to be a defense for Haile Selassie when everywhere he went good abounded in Jamaica? Get thee behind me, Satan. Jah is living and real, and Rastas seem to fear and love him more than you ever could.

>>255
>Australian literature, how well known… probably the worst of the British colonies in terms of literature next to New Zealand.
Well durr, Australia is the youngest and the smallest Anglo country with the exception of New Zealand. That doesn't mean it's not superior to third world shitholes. And, frankly, claiming Nigeria to be superior to Australia in literary achievement is just a joke and most likely driven on by a hipster desire for a multicultural taste in literature.

It's better to be unassuming and modest about what you lack, instead of LARPing as wealthy and superior while dressed in rags, like America does with its literary heritage. No, your Whitman cannot compare with Goethe, your Twain cannot compare with Cervantes. Ezra Pound called America a 'half savage country' and he was right.

At least we can piggyback off England's ancient culture, to whom we are considerably closer than the Americans. A positive byproduct of being a colony not so long ago.

"the real American writers so far have all been minor writers, such as Jack London, Bret Harte, Robert Service in Canada and such like, and it will take a long time before they produce any art which is worthwhile. What they want in my opinion is a few more wars…"
- James Joyce

>>259
The Rastafarians with their Afro-supremacism and worship of marijuana, very Christian. It doesn't take a genius to see that their new age interpretation of the Bible is completely unfounded.

>>259
Show a single passage of Holy Scripture that supports the idea that Haile Selassie is the Second Coming or God incarnate. To the contrary, Luke 24: "Then he said to his disciples, “The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, but you will not see it. People will tell you, ‘There he is!’ or ‘Here he is!’ Do not go running off after them. For the Son of Man in his day will be like the lightning, which flashes and lights up the sky from one end to the other. But first he must suffer many things and be rejected by this generation."

The Rastafarians are one in a long line of many to twist the Gospel to suit their temporal needs. It's quite possible that there are many among them who are good in a worldly sense (as indeed it was so even amongst the heathen in Paul's time) but that does not make them Christian or worthy expositors of Holy Scripture.

>>260
I'd contend that America has produced great authors, I will defend Cormac McCarthy in this regard. Australia is young, less populous, and great authors cannot be guaranteed by even the most favorable circumstances. Despite what our Rasta friend might assume as well, I don't hold it against cultures that do not produce great writers, they very well may have other virtues worthy of admiration.

>>260

Ozfren here. I tend to agree with >>255

There are a few reasons for it

- The country was made by bureaucratic agreement rather than the rifle; great writing often emenates from popular galvanization and pushback against authority. How does anyone achieve that in a society that formed by permission? It's often been said it's a mistake to think of Australia as having been built by convicts as opposed to prison officers.

- Climate. Great literary traditions often have a lot of indoors time by necessity.

- Bad incentives and top-down narratives. AU publishing only wants to print a few specific types of novel, and lots of attempts to subvert that or deliver it something outside the mold will be met with attempts to fit it back into the preferred molds. Being corporations, you've also got the state continually reinforcing the idea that the most noble 'intellectual' pursuit of our literature is addressing Le Reconciliation. That, or forcing WW2 memes like Kokoda

- Lack of imagination. This may well be the least exclusively applicable to Oz - most Anglophone industrial nations suffer this b/c their education systems simply prepare bodies for the university system - but it's still a contributing factor. Australian society is extremely materialist, and the best path to succes with values like that is conformity to rules, often for conformity's sake

I want to revisit local writers. I've read Malouf, White, Carey, etc in the past but it was 10+ years ago. But I go to bookshops in current year and nothing with an 'Australian-writer' coded cover piques my interest

>>283
Of course Australia has a shit literary culture. I don't disagree with most of your statements, although I do think you underrate the potential of the Anglo cultural heritage and its inevitable preservation among the talented individuals of the populace. Any country with such a heritage is going to produce a certain quality of literature just as a byproduct. I don't see much that is significantly holding down the literary potential of our country, other than the same problems faced globally, since elements like climate do little in shaping the cultural life of an advanced people. Certainly, there is quite a dearth of positive elements to INSPIRE literature, but little in the way of restraining it, other than, again, the global-modern elements everyone knows about. For our small population and short history there is no reason why we should be producing anything more than we have. Australians tend to be very neurotically self-critical of their own culture, but there's no reason for it. South Africans don't cry and shit their pants because South Africa isn't competing with German literature.

What I was criticising in that anon was the ridiculous claim that Nigeria, or any black-African country, has produced superior literature to Australia. It's just a matter of objectivity.

>>284
>What I was criticising in that anon was the ridiculous claim that Nigeria, or any black-African country, has produced superior literature to Australia. It's just a matter of objectivity.

I knew you were gonna bite!

>>284

i found a copy of Tsiolkas' book Barracuda. Gonna read and report back (this thread will still be alive by the time i do lel). It's 500 pages so my filler senses are tingling, but he's supposed to be a decent current writer