>>5045
Why the long face, JD Salinger?

I've no idea.

There's a list of 97 frequently banned books here:

http://www.ala.org/advocacy/banned/frequentlychallenged/challengedclassics

I was thinking if I take all the male and caucasian authors (because ethnicity and gender might have some bearing on face shape) and make a grid of them then it might overcome my confirmation bias.

I have a lousy attention span though so I'm not sure I'll actually do it.

Goodness. Truman Capote is a combo-breaker.

>>5049

Plus half of these guys grow big beards. That's just cheating!

>>5051
I'm quite fond of this homage.

Wow, literature is like the X-Factor for ugly wankers.

>>5053

These are hardly the worst examples.

>>5054
Although I don't suppose it's very fair to post a picture of a pensioner and say

>Ewwwww look, he's ugly.

>>5054
Take it! Take it away! Gods, Gideon, fetch me the tonic!

This is safe for work, right? I mean you can't REALLY see anything.

>>5049

I think he was actually pretty handsome in his youth.

I won't lie, I've noticed this myself. Maybe something to do with the lifestyle of the writer? Or similar aesthetic values (choosing clothes/hairstyles that emphasise long features)? Maybe it goes deeper than that to a genetic level? God knows.

Add Joyce and Beckett to the list. The latter especially is stuck in my mind as the archetypical gaunt artist.

>>5059
Aldous Huxley was a fan of William Sheldon and his theory of endomorphs, ectomorphs and mesomorphs which went way beyond the way bodybuilders use the words. He thought your build had a huge bearing on your whole personality and I think the ectomorphic (skinny) type would be more likely to be intellectual going by that theory.

>>5060
I kind of expect intelligent people to have higher foreheads too. Maybe I think they can fit a bigger brain in there or something. Very low hairlines look a little neanderthal.

>>5060>>5061

I was deliberately reserved with the 'genetic' comment, because I'm not sure about either of those theories. Maybe there is some truth to it, but I don't know enough about it to accept it on those terms.

>>5062

It's considered to be an iffy pseudoscience these day.

If you google up "Ivy League nude posture photos", Sheldon got nine ivy league universities to take mandatory nude photos or all their new students for decades to support his "research". They included George Bush, Hillary Clinton and Diane Sawyer. The whole episode was considered to be an embarrassment later on and the photos were quietly destroyed.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/1995/01/15/magazine/the-great-ivy-league-nude-posture-photo-scandal.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

>>5063
but if I go and look at Greater Manchester Police's most wanted, all of those people look positively subnormal. Intelligent-looking people look distinctly different from subnormal-looking people and I'm sure your perception of it is right most of the time.

If there was a quiz called "GMP most wanted or author you don't recognise", I'm sure it would be incredibly easy to tell those categories of photos apart even if the people were doing similar poses somehow.

http://www.gmp.police.uk/content/wantedallmobile?OpenView

>>5064

I'm thinking this owes more to lifestyle than anything specifically genetic. Consider the relations between socioeconomic background and crime, drug and alcohol abuse, how that affects someones appearance, etc.

Somatotypes appear to be pseudoscientific, but not being knowledgeable about genetics, I'm taking care in not ruling anything out completely.

>>5063
>but if I go and look at Greater Manchester Police's most wanted, all of those people look positively subnormal. Intelligent-looking people look distinctly different from subnormal-looking people and I'm sure your perception of it is right most of the time.
Nature vs. nurture comes in here. A lot of those people look "abnormal" to a greater or lesser extent as a consequence of growing up in rough environments with poor diet, consuming alcohol/cigs/other drugs from a very young age etc. It takes a toll.

>It's considered to be an iffy pseudoscience these day.
Eugenics is almost completely off-limits. It's a career-ruiner.

>>5059

It's because authors spend so much time stroking their chins in thought, the resultant friction pulls their faces out of shape. It's what Beckett is doing in that image, as was Joyce: As the photo was being taken he stroked his chin a little too hard and his hand slipped off and overshot.

>>5053
Excuse me.

>>5068

I guess Lovecraft and Self must compulsively yank on theirs with great force.

>>5068
I have a ridiculous history-crush on photos of Camus. Look at that face, he's clearly a playa.

Oh, Albert, appelle-moi ta Francine...

Number* of authors.

Wyndham, Wilde and Gaiman are a bit long faced.
Vogt, Tolkein, Palahniuk, Pynchon and Pratchett don't look abnormal.
Asimov, Greg Bear, E.E. "Doc" Smith, China Mieville, Larry Niven and Arthur C Clarke have quite compact faces.

What the fuck am I doing

>>5073
Perhaps we need to start grouping these by genre.

sci-fi/fantasy = smaller rounder faces.

horror/social commentary = longer faces

>>5074

I wouldn't expect pulpy horror authors to have long faces somehow, apart from Stephen King but he just looks mongoloid.