/lit/ - Literature

>>22665249
My girlfriend says she’s the man’s women’s writer.

>>22665288
Then who is the Women's Women writer?

>>22665298
I don’t know, I didn’t ask.

>>22665298
Chicks really seem to dig Sylvia Plath.

>>22665249
I personally prefer Charlotte Brontë, Sigrid Undset and Flannery O'Connor regarding female authors, but I haven't read much from Austen desu. Only Pride and Prejudice because I bought a physical copy for my mom some years ago. Thinking about checking out Emma and Persuasion one of these days

>>22665249
You're right, Emma is a great read and one of my favourite books.

>>22665288
Did she hold up a spork while saying that? And drooling from her mouth like a dog and it got all over the nice carpet.

>>22665249
>>22665396
I'm quite persistent when I've begun reading something. Emma is one of two books I had to drop because it was too boring. Can you say what it was that you liked so much about that book, maybe I have to give it another chance.

My favorite book by a woman is Wuthering Heights

>>22665249
That would likely be Sappho though she only exists in fragments from Catallus. Austen has dissenters though I can’t even think of anyone criticizing Sappho.

>>22665249
Austen is genuinely good at writing prose. Charlotte and Emily Bronte are great too.

>>22665298
Colleen Hoover
>>22665249
She's definitely a cut above

Middlemarch might be more praised than any single Austen novel, but Austen as a whole beats Eliot as a whole
>>22665459
Why did you find Emma boring? There isn't an ounce of fat on it - every paragraph, almost every sentence, is moving the novel forward.

>>22665298
JK Rowling

>>22665249
Watch clueless now

>>22665303
Hahaha. "I don't know, I didn't go into Burger King."

>>22665249
>Is Austen the most universally praised female writer?
She's certainly one of the most widely-praised. Emily Bronte might be another candidate, but she isn't read anything like as much, mostly because she didn't produce as much. And no-one serious badmouths Sappho, who was probably far better, but we'll only know for sure when her Collected Poems turn up in a cave in Turkey. (And even then, you're gonna need to be fluent in Aeolic Greek to experience her properly.)

>Even Nabokov, who famously thought women couldn't write, admitted begrudgingly that she was a genius.
Indeed, although this doesn't mean that she's *universally* admired. Mark Twain famously couldn't stand her, and he's twice the writer Nabokov is.

>Emma, in particular, is a very good book.
Yes it is, although it's very hard restraining oneself from reaching in through the pages and slapping the self-satisfied smirk off Miss Woodhouse every now and then. Mansfield Park is my favourite. Everyone hates Fanny Price because she's the diametric opposite of the present-day macho "strong woman". But that's why she's great.


>>22665288
>My girlfriend says she’s the man’s women’s writer.
Not an absurd statement. JA is not just a female writer that men like; she's a *quintessentially feminine* female writer that men like. (Emily Bronte, for example, might be more widely-admired by men, but she's a funny mixture of the female and male. Wuthering Heights is quite a masculine book in many ways.)

The funny thing about Jane Austen is that she appeals to a lot of men you might not expect. e.g. Ezra Pound (in The ABC of Reading, IIRC) said that if you want to learn to write English prose, just read Fielding and Jane Austen and that's it. On a personal level, I know of a very hard-bitten, cynical guy in London who makes his living partly as a poker professional (he's a friend of a friend); I discovered by chance recently that he runs a serious Jane Austen Appreciation society.

>>22665249
>Is Austen the most universally praised female writer?
Sadly, I'd say it's J K Rowling

>>22665298
Who cares

>>22665298
EL James

I have only read Pride and Prejudice but found it surprisingly enjoyable.

Her characters which exemplify certain people you will meet in society are accurate and applicable even today. For example Mr and Mrs Bennett.

I found them pretty funny cause they reminded me of people I know irl. She’s pretty clever and witty honestly which is rare in a woman.

>>22665249
Similarly, even the incredibly misogynistic men of Ancient Greece acknowledged that Sappho was good.