Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 1473. page
Images are sometimes not shown due to bandwidth/network limitations. Refreshing the page usually helps.
Is it worth a read?
Despite all the DFW memeposting that goes on here /lit/ never brings this book up.
if you like dfw already
i wouldn't go out of my way to read it if you don't
Personally I found it fucking intolerable. I liked Infinite Jest and I get that DFW has a stream of consciousness-y style sometimes but this read like a bad imitation of it by some girl on Tumblr.
>>7431176
Finished IJ a couple months ago and really enjoyed it. Knocked off a couple books from my backlog since then and wanna read more of his fiction.
Deciding between this or The Pale King but all I hear about TPK is that it feels so broken and unpolished (cause it is I guess)
What's so bad about ideology? Is it just the fact that people don't often recognize its influence on their thoughts/actions, or is there a valid argument to be made for a person's thoughts or a society's culture to not be driven by it?
>I see a fair amount of posts here deriding "le ideology" which, without a solid grasp on their answer to the question above, seems very fedora-ish.
>>7431160
The former is a major reason and because of that influence, it can lead them to make foolish decisions. The latter is more of spookbusting.
>>7431160
>What's so bad about ideology? Is it just the fact that people don't often recognize its influence on their thoughts/actions
it's not bad in and of itself, it just means you're stupid. explicit articulations of thought that happen to agree with current ideology is fine.
> a society's culture to not be driven by it?
this is incoherent, read more on what ideology is.
>I see a fair amount...
Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
People's world view can be distorted by their ideology. There is tons of psychological research on bias. Many people do not even read opposing views.
Now, there is nothing wrong with a person having a good ideology or a society having a good ideology, but it becomes detrimental if that person or society cannot escape a particular ideology when environments change or new information is found.
Its this a forgotten gem of the english lenguage?
>>7431056
yes
>>7431056
>forgotten
Yes.
>gem
No.
>lenguage
Kek.
>>7431056
No, but this is.
I'm trying to read A Clockwork Orange but I keep getting stuck flipping back and forth to the glossary in order to understand the Nadsat language. Does it ever come naturally or should I give up if I dont understand 10% of the way through?
>>7430964
You might. A lot of it is just logical inference.
I didn't really like the book. Mostly because of the message, which is a bit fucked and a perfect example of the dangers of extreme liberalism. That being said it's worth trying to push through.
>>7430964
You should be able to figure out most of it from context.
>>7430964
wew lad, i didn't need the glossary once
Does this mean my IQ is above a certain point? I think so
>he's 20+
>he's reading Catcher in the Rye/1984/Lolita/Great Gatsby/Scarlet Letter/Robert Frost/Brave New World/Lord of the Flies/Old Man and the Sea/Vonnegut/The Road
>he's 0+
>he shits up /lit/
>>7430925
>she's 20+
>she still has the mind of a 15 year old because women stagnate mentally at a young age, whilst men continue to develop into their late twenties.
Let's not forget that 99% of women read YA.
>>7430925
>everyone has the same privilege of studying in an anglo country
check it, shitlord.
I'm at the bar watching a football game and there is seriously a guy sitting alone at the bar reading Infinite Jest. Not even kidding. He's drinking a LIIT or something.
Should I say something to him? If so what?
>>7430724
Ask him if he's a pleb.
>>7430724
Say
>Why are you all alone?
When he replies, say
>There's something terribly sad and banal about that.
Tell him DFW had no discernable talent.
>he skips the introduction
>>7430710
The introduction to mein kampf was about 30 pages of the guy going on about how bad a writer hitler was and how hard it was to translate something written so poorly.
I didn't even fucking read the book.
>>7430734
Which translation was that?
I can never remember which one was the contemporary Englishman (Murphy?) and which is the generally recommended one (well, by right wing dudes).
I'm not reading some fag not related to actual writers, probably a lit posting non steam fag
This is a trivial thought but I want an answer. Why should I care about almost everything when, at the core, almost everything wants to take from me in order to benefit itself?
>Zizek ranting about late capeetalism
He makes relative shitloads from his books, talks, movies, articles, infinitely repeating himself, not being rigorous a lot of the time. He's a great entertainer disguised who passes as a philosopher most of the time (not to comment on his actual philosophising). He does this all for the sweet sweet money.
I...
Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
I feel you Anon, I've realized this during different moments of my life.
I've also come to the conclusion that you gotta live you life without giving a flying fuck about who's what, and do not respect someone without a reason. I've also tried to become more Anarchist with my life, seeing how pointless and futile is following a group or an authority figure when they will get benefit out of yourself.
However, you can't simply go to the other end and act like those you criticize, you must try to find the middle ground on this. There are plenty of...
Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>le why does anything matter
You seem like a complete pseud. Re-examine your reasoning and your pathetic life.
>>7430711
Oh fuck off. /lit/ is so pathetic when it comes ot this. They flip flop straight to the "le everyone who is le religious is so le sophisticated and le intelligent in le every way le le le le how can you even le question le axioms of le ethics or le thoughts"
nah
Any book similar to this comic?
Naked Lunch
>>7430554
thanks for the comic. style and content reminded me a lot of 'The Prophet'. (There's a dude called John Prophet that this ailing empire clones a fuckton of and shoots off to a billion planets in order to recolonize the galaxy when the empire fails. Story follows the fratricidal arc of these eponymous prophets as they struggle with identity and power in an alien world.)
my journal
![draxler-zine-9-620x413[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/92ZInYm.jpg "draxler-zine-9-620x413[1].jpg")
This year I've written a few short stories and I have an opportunity to reserve half a table at a zine fair that is happening in a couple of months.
I've never been to one before but I thought of putting a zine together with some of my short fiction, some illustrations, maybe poems too. I would charge maybe $3 just so the work didn't seem cheapened by a lower price.
Do you think this could be a good idea?
![Petrified-Zine2-Cover[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/0zvsayZ.jpg "Petrified-Zine2-Cover[1].jpg")
Bump
>>7430527
I think it sounds cool and fun but charging X amount so that work doesn't seem "cheapened" at a fucking zine fair is kinda stupid.
>>7430576
Well, maybe I'm thinking about it wrong, I've never been to one, but basic economics is that if a product is undervalued, nobody will buy it
There's a story about how a business owner left instructions for her employee to heavily discount some artworks that hadn't sold in a long time, but her employee accidentally increased the price by 10, and over the weekend they all sold.
Books are expensive. Where can I buy cheap, preferably new books?
No ebooks please.
>>7430375
>Books are expensive
No they're not.
Amazon
>>7430381
10-20$ a book is extremely expensive considering I can get through a moderately lengthed book in a few days.
>>7430398
books are "free" on amazon if you sign up for Amazon unlimited, $9.99/month
People often lie about reading classic novels, survey finds.
http://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-people-lie-often-about-reading-classic-novels-survey-finds-20130906-story.html
the British survey are:
1. "1984" by George Orwell -- 26%
2. "War and Peace" by Leo Tolstoy -- 19%
3. "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens -- 18%
4. "The Catcher in the Rye" by J.D. Salinger -- 15%
5. "A Passage to India" by E.M. Forster -- 12%
6. "Lord of the Rings" by J.R.R. Tolkein -- 11%
7....
Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
no i'm actually patrician
> the single most common strategy people employed to look smarter, followed closely behind by wearing eyeglasses or changing the color of one’s hair (52%)
People change the color of their hair to look smarter? How does this make sense.?
Funny how those books are literally the meme books among normies.
>>7430247
>People change the color of their hair to look smarter? How does this make sense.?
Blonde to brown presumably.
What are some good books to give away for christmas?
I bought If You Give A Mouse A Cookie and Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See for my cousins' almost 1 year old. IYGAMAC was the first book I ever read, and BBBBWDYS was the first book my little brother ever read.
>>7430217
Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
>>7430217
Infinite Jest.
Which books have the same man-versus-the-unbeatable or man-versus-nature theme/feel as Moby-Dick?
Definitely the Iliad.
Don Quijote (fuck you English speakers) sort of
Notes of a dirty old Man,
>everywhere we hang onto the walls of the world, and in the darkest part of hangover, I think of two friends who advise me on various methods of suicide. what better proof of loving camaraderie? one of my friends has razor scars running all along his left arm. the other jams pills by the bucketloads into a mass of black beard. they both write poetry. there is something about writing poetry that brings a man close to the cliff’s edge. probably, though, all three of us will live into our nineties. can you imagine the world...
Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>reading bukowski
>>7430054
>one-liners
>>7430049
Thanks, definitely looking it up
I enjoyed ham on rye, factotum and post office, but i can understand how /lit/ dislikes Bukowski
