Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 241. page
Images are sometimes not shown due to bandwidth/network limitations. Refreshing the page usually helps.
To those who have read David Sedaris, what do you think of him? I picked this book up for 50¢ at a library bookstore and really enjoyed it. It was an unexpectedly entertaining collection of stories to read.
tl;dr: discuss David Sedaris
kept my sane during my awful fall semester in texas when i was 18, will always be thankful. not the worst popular author to read for the sake of being able to talk about him with others
>>8189448
He's got some pretty funny stuff out; his books of essays are great. My favorite of those I've read is When You Are Engulfed in Flames. He's got a good Christmas book, which if I remember right is about a time he worked as a stoner mall Santa.
>>8189458
Santaland diaries was the final essay in OP pic, perhaps thats what you're referring to. And I want to read another Sedaris book now, would you recommend that I go with When You Are Engulfed In Flames?
Hey guys, I thought this was just a meme, but are people actually fluent in at least 3 European languages/other languages with a significant literary canon? I mean I took 2 years of French in high school(from Canada), but I barely retained anything, probably because I'm a retard, but that's besides the point. I can't even imagine becoming fluent enough to be able to appreciate good prose/poetry in their native tongue. Can someone please explain to me how you're supposed to know not one, but maybe 2 or 3 other langages?
I'm in uni atm btw
>Pick language
>Study/Practice
>Know language
Wow.
I know 4.
You need to practice every day. Go through a structured textbook, read, listen, speak. There's no magic tricks.
>>8189408
And you do need to continue practicing all the languages forever (even your native language needs practice).
Who is your favourite zen poet, /lit/?
>inb4 Basho
>>8189329
Ryokan
>>8189329
Basho
i want to read zen poetry, but is it worth it to read in translation?
i've read some han shan in translation and liked it, but i always am wary of reading poetry in translation, especially poetry in an eastern language that has religious significance.
are there recommended translations?
">We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.
what did he mean by this
>>8189299
We see things the way we want to see them. Pretty basic man.
>>8189299
dream symbolism and shit
innernet says bertrand didn't say it. but i assume it means that our perception of things depend entirely on our own sensation of them.
50 pages in.
Not sure if I want to finish it not sure if it will get better.
What do?
read some spoilers and decide if you want to go the rest of the way?
>>8189250
Wolfe is kind of a hack. The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test was the only even halfway decent book he ever wrote.
>>8189264
the painted word is a serious, vital piece of late 20th century art criticism
i've also heard good good shit about the right stuff
My mom told me that I'd be a good writer
How do I make my mom proud /lit/?
>>8189177
>How do I make my mom proud /lit/
i'd start by not being a writer.
>>8189181
Hey, you stole that plan from him!
Give it back!
Write something. If you write enough, eventually something will be, rightly or wrongly, considered good.
Isn't this a great book?
>>8189146
it has a pretty significant plot hole since after all the currently existing children were snatched into the united mind, w/e it was named, people clearly could conceive children again and iirc there is no mention if people tried to do it or not, if newly born children were snatched too (it could make quite touching parts of the novel... but it was never written), if humans became sterile or w/e etc, it's only said that they all died out before the earth was destroyed
>>8189153
I thought they all just transcend this plane of existence.
don't remember it that well desu, so probably not that great. whichever movie that's from looks better—i'd rather have just watched it
Enter a writing competition that requires a monetary entry fee?
I mean I'm not poorfag status here /lit/, but I think I speak what everyone here thinks when I say that shit sounds like a bad deal. I mean, I like to think my writing isn't THAT shit, but technically, if a competition has upwards of a hundred to literal thousands of participants, what are the odds?
This isn't even considering the fact that your piece, or work may be objectively great, but the tone, style or message just pisses the judge off, because honestly who the fuck isn't...
Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
just remember that you are participating in a rich kid sport and consider the ways entrance fees distance publications from the artistic present
>>8189130
So you're saying these competitions are just for rich fucks to circle jerk each other?
Come on anon, it can't be that bad? Is it?
>>8189131
there's a very specific demographic of gullible, aspiring writer who submit works to contests with an entry fee.
it's not people who are at the level where they can just get published, and the publication is not at the level where they can actually make up their operating expenses by selling copies
just a bit of a racket
Do you read and enjoy authors that you disagree with?
disagree on what?
i don't make it a point to look up an author's every opinion before reading them, so i probably do.
I read ride the tiger recently. The first 100 pages were garbage but I quite enjoyed the rest which amounted to old man complaining in the best possible way.
So yes
Evelyn Waugh, one of my favourite authors, was a reactionary aristocracy-wannabe tory racist catholic who disliked anyone who hadn't been to Eton. Just about any opinion he had, I'd probably disagree with it, but he could write, and his novels are fantastic.
What is the best English translation of Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum?
>inb4 "translations are a spook"
>>8189050
To clarify, I am referring to the work itself, and not specifically the title.
>>8189050
From Cambridge Press.
>>8189050
There is literally only one you nonce, you didnt even check.
The way you would in a novel.
Even if you're not gay.
Hegel already did for me
>"I saw the Emperor - this world-spirit - go out from the city to survey his realm," he wrote on October 13, 1806. "It is a truly wonderful experience to see such an individual, on horseback, concentrating on one point, stretching over the world and dominating it."
myself
any half-assed description of a twinky twinky trap would do
a qt commented on the book i was reading at work and i couldn't continue he conversation because i had a line of other customers
just fuck my shit up lads
When's her funeral?
>>8188738
Well no self-respecting individual ever conducts business at the same establishment more than once, so rest assured you'll never see her again.
>>8188738
>reading at work
>WHILE WORKING
>WITH PEOPLE THERE
wow, what an attention seekin faggot you are.
What's some white man's literature that isn't poisoned by SJW and cultural Marxist cuckery? I usually don't read (though I did pick up 1984 after playing Metal Gear Solid V and thought it was kind of pretentious but alright I guess? I thought Oceania was really cool and a good allusion to how great America could be like under a god emperor like Trump) and since most men I know that do read are nu males I have to be really picky lest I be brainwashed by the textual Jew.
And please, don't rec me any modernist work. It's degenerate, based pope...
Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
/pol/ go home
Infine Jeff
Plutarch
Can someone give me a summary of some pros and cons of the communist manifestos ideas.
Just a short summary, no it's not for a class, I'm not marxist or communist or any of that, I was having a discussion with my brother in the car and he's recently been reading theology and philosophy aka a few religious books and a pihlosophy of the west book, and he got on me and my parents in the car when I mentioned how on a state level as far as politics are concerned religion is useless, no I didn't mean it in regards to a fedora tipping manner, more the effects...
Comment too long. Click here to view the full text.
>>8188720
The Communist Manifesto is short. Why don't you just read it?
>>8188801
I didn't even get through adam smiths book since the corn talk was too mundane for me, not the concepts, just the corn comparisons.
I like to do things in order I figure you wouldn't want to read something like that ahead of the others.
>>8188720
but the communist manifesto is seriously one of the worst things marx ever wrote. it doesn't even really say anything about his beliefs except that he dislikes capitalism
ITT: post an image to go with the book you're currently reading.
>Love in the Time of Cholera
Milkbottle H
Fanged noumena
