Have you ever had to stop reading a novel, because it appeared to be beyond your intellectual capabilities? If so, which book was it and why?
>>8294657
There is already a thread on this. Go to the catalog
>>8294657
didn't we just have a plebbit thread with this exact subject matter?
anyways when I first started reading I thought Age of Reason was really dry and couldn't finish it. Read it twice now and can confirm that Sarte is just dry as fuck.
also Mrs. Dalloway put me to sleep the first 3 attempts. Reading it now and loving it.
Pride and prejudice bored me to stop, I just think you have to be a woman to enjoy it
I Know There's an Answer - The Crying of Lot 49
I Just Wasn't Made for These Times - Vineland
Caroline, No - Inherent Vice
is it a coincidence that Pynchon's Califronia trilogy is perfectly summarized in the titles of every second song on the second side of Pet Sounds?
http://thomaspynchon.com/thomas-pynchon-and-brian-wilson/
yo this album kicks ass. wouldn't it be nice is the shit.
I wish Pynchon would write a novel about Sloop John B I love that song
>>8294652
there are rumors he was tied to the music scene
at the time
like he was the best man at Joan Baez wedding
and left the place in a wood box because there was press outside taking photos
What are the best philosophy books about death? I don't want to distract myself from death all my life only to shit myself when it comes. I want to learn about it while I have time to face it properly without having regrets.
>>8294641
Being and Time
Sadly it's too dense to waste your precious time on
>>8294643
Nice, the original is even in my native language.
Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
What do you think about people who come on /lit/ and have you do all of their thinking for them?
i.e. Someone makes a thread with a book cover and simply asks "discuss, or thoughts?" and doesn't really contribute anything in the OP.
I think it's a pitiful practice. However, sometimes it can fuel a decent conversation if enough people are interested in the book being discussed.
>>8294636
Should be a bannable offense
>>8294636
who is this girl
>that guy who says 'he reads for prose'
posturing little shit
>that guy who thinks having a plot is bad
cant write a plot to save his life
Has browsing lit improved your conversational ability?
>conversation
>>8294589
Reading has enabled me to speak more confidently about literature and philosophy.
No one wants to hear it though
Yes, I am now able to shut them down at the opening the mouth stage with only my librarian stare and nearly half of all cases will close it again without my raised eyebrow. I hope to make ascended patrician master status by the end of summer where I shall be able to silence entire train station tea rooms by merely once fingering the next page of my reading loudly in displeasure.
Check out my analysis of Metamophosis by Franz Kafka. It's the best, most thorough analysis of Metamorphosis to-date.
Okay, post it.
>>8294588
One moment, okay?
> I went bookstore
> Find nabokov book shelf
> lolita
> Carry register
> Cashier called police
> Interrogated in the police station
> Say is one book
> Call my parents
> Let go with a warning
> Read more parents leave
I do now my parents will not...
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>>8294535
This. Delete your thread now op and spare yourself the embarrassment
> I went bookstore
> Find Houellebecq book shelf
> soumission
> Carry register
> Cashier called les gendarmes
> No interrogation
> Dragged outside
> "Allahu Akbar"
> Beheaded in street
Any thoughts on this? How does it compare to the rest of his oeuvre?
>>8294482
>reading nonwhites
Ugh
>>8294482
I read the first two parts, then I droped it.
Just could not handle even one more making of ''simple meal'' in it. And then he made simple meal of blaabblbla he went home and then made simple meal, they ate simple meal of!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAA¤T9dfdngi
The whole book is just fucking beans and tofu.
>>8294504
I like beans and tofu
Mine was pleasant. Really hot here. I sat outside and read chapter 112: The Blacksmith. Really interesting example of mise en abyme and it helps expand on the draw of the sea as a metaphor. I can feel the end of the book coming, it's been a hell of a journey.
>>8294328
The Funeral is one of my favorites, but it's been so many years since I last read the whole novel. It's one of the few books you can open anywhere and find gold. Last night, I read The Sphinx:
>A short space elapsed, and up into this noiselessness came Ahab alone from his cabin. Taking a few turns on the quarter-deck, he paused to gaze over the side, then slowly getting into the main-chains he took Stubb's long spade--still remaining there after the whale's Decapitation--and...
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Favorite chapter is tough; I'll answer instead with a favorite passage:
>And how nobly it raises our conceit of the mighty, misty monster, to behold him solemnly sailing through a calm tropical sea; his vast, mild head overhung by a canopy of vapor, engendered by his incommunicable contemplations, and that vapor- as you will sometimes see it- glorified by a rainbow, as if Heaven itself had put its seal upon his thoughts. For d'ye see, rainbows do not visit the clear air; they only irradiate vapor. And so, through all the thick mists of...
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>tfw when haven't written anything today because I've been on /r9k/ lamenting the existence of women
How the fuck do you guys do it?
Is Sociology a legitimate science?
>>8294234
medicine can be used by an individual to treat disease
physics and computer science can be used by an individual to create devices that organize matter or information
sociology has been used by universities to get funding when the vast majority of problems encountered in both primitive and modern life are the result of people who had babies they couldn't provide for without heightened interaction with other people or tribes
name some societal accomplishments by someone who called themselves a sociologist
What's the term for a hero who is prone to fainting spells, nervous fits, etc.?
My English professor mentioned the term in a discussion of Frankenstein and said it was a fairly common archetype for Romantic writers, but I can't recall what the word is.
Shrinking violet
Syncope is a condition where people feel faint. A person could be syncopic, or feel syncopal.
I'm aware of the gothic archetype of women being faint. My guess is it's to do with corsets and tuberculosis.
>>8294191
I specifically mean the use of fainting and fits of madness to characterize a hero as emotionally sensitive, such as Victor Frankenstein.
I want to get started with Nietzsche. I liked Stirner and want to read it now that I've covered Kant.
What should I read first?
>>8294076
>What should I read first?
Plato.
Twilight of the idols
Start with Human, all too Human
Contains most of his good points while still being the most accesible as well
Did Mary Shelley create the science fiction genre with her book "Frankenstein"?
>>8293994
No, that was Paul with the bible
>with Connections
wtf is that shit? and no, she just started modern sci-fi.
What about Gulliver's Travels
Does anyone else feel sort of annoyed by paperback books? They wouldn't be so bad if there wasn't an incredible alternative known as hardcover. The problem though, is that hardcover is usually much more expensive and out of print. So, if you want a first edition of on the heights of despair or gravity's rainbow in hard cover, you have yo pay hundreds (I have a hardcover copy of heights of despair haha). Both of those pale in comparison with the god tier of leather bound books.
>>8293948
Fuck off Lucy
>>8293948
What exactly is the problem, lass.
You never said anything about why you dislike paperbacks.
>Does anyone else feel sort of annoyed by paperback books?
No? I find the flexibility of paperback is much more convenient, especially for pocket-size novels. Of course, there's going to be wear and tear, but that's a given. If you're particularly concerned about the condition of a book's cover, you can always rebind it.
Which book will make my life meaningful?
never let me go. it will make you realize how short your life could be .
>>8293856
Kant
>>8293862
>le retarded rigid morality man
Ebin m8