Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 879. page
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Have you ever noticed that the people who think the Brave New World universe is worse than ours are always the ones who live tremendously privileged lives already?
>>7776564
>privilege
>>>/r/books
>>7776564
People who have good lives are miserable, didn't DFW teach you that
also stop using that meme word, people who use the word privilege all the time don't know what the fuck it means
>>7776564
Ayup, I have indeed.
On a similar note, one of my least favorite things is talking to christians or atheists who tell me 'I would get bored in heaven because there's no challenge or struggle ya know?'
Or alternately 'no I could never accept a virtual reality paradise because it's not REAL, there's nothing at stake!'
And then these hypocrites go to their air conditioned homes and watch escapist media or partake in leisurely sporting competitions, completely unaware of the irony.
I dont get it, f am. I like the writing but I just dont understand what this guy is going on about. I might have fucked up by choosing this as the first FN, but is there any text online that breaks it down? what should I have read before hand?
He is not a regular philosopher. The point of reading him is meditating his work.
>>7773284
that's a terrible answer. leave.
>>7773266
did you forget to start with the greeks, anon?
I didn't get it.
>>7769418
Dude water lmao
>>7769418
>lol dude theres like no truth man, only opinions
That book is shit, the fact that people here recommend it just shows how clueless this board is.
/LIT/ GOOD WRITING CRITIQUE THREAD
RULES:
1. Critique someone else's writing before you post yours
2. Only post something that you have proofread and reasonably reflects your writing ability
If you want relevant feedback, it's generally a good idea to post some questions or areas you'd like the focus to be on.Let's see how long we can make this a good critique thread before it devolves into shitty navel-gazers just splurging their free/automatic writing shit for validation
Well how the hell am I supposed to post if I can only critique and you've given me nothing to critique, OP?
Anyway, here's a villanelle of mine. Enjoy.
Do you suppose that roses even know
How lovers give them meaning quite beyond
Their humble place in nature’s greatest show?
If titles meant a thing, as Shakespeare shows,
As singers must eventually give songs,
Do you suppose that roses even know?
As goldfish swim in decorated bowls,
Or flowers sit in vases, do they long
A humble place in nature’s greatest show?
If...
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>>7763143
It felt sort of jumbled I guess. Take some time to revise and rewrite and it'll be good.
Here's an excerpt from my latest endeavor, first draft.
Anonymous strips of meat lay wizened and black underneath the sun. Vultures squawk from their rookeries, occasionally filching the droppings like hungry dogs.
Rhett watches at the gate, running his fingernails along the jags.
The alleys are pervaded with marred wickerwork and sprouting prickly pear and twist underneath the gleam of saloon...
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Two-hundred feet to his left a a cluster of leafless trees stood out against the early morning sky; their brown bodies like extensions of the muddy earth reaching skywards in a vain attempt to claw their way out of the hellish landscape. These trees had fallen victim to the clouds of death that slowly sulked their way across the landscape, shriveling and distorting man, flora and fauna alike. At the beginning of the war the gas had been much less of a threat. Where once a man could have expected temporary loss of sight or vomiting, these days he could expect blindness, death...
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Post your best greentext etc.
>>7756601
>>7756602
>mfw this actually happened
>>7756602
>greentext for ants
From a strictly prose perspective, is Dostoyevsky a bad writer, or am I just reading a shit translation?
I've read all Dosto's major works, translated by P&V, and I got deeply involved with his characters and themes, but I always found his prose to be incredibly rambling, like he was writing insistently in a fever, without much structure. I've heard mixed things on P&V, so perhaps that's the reason why it feels that way?
I've started reading Tolstoy--finished Ivan Illych and 50 pages into Anna Karenina--and I'm already enjoying...
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>>7776265
The P&V prose for Dostoevsky and Tolstoy are pretty much exactly the same thing
you probably just have some sort of acute internal bias, not to be offensive of course, we all do
human condition, motherfucka
I think you're right in saying that it's easier to read Tolstoy. Reading Dostoyevsky is also enjoyable but a lot of the dialogue feels autistic. His delivery is also scattered.
>>7776337
>The P&V prose for Tolstoy
>The translator is Joel Carmichael.
Why don't SJWs appreciate this guy?
>>7776125
>SJW
well spooked, my property
>>7776141
I really really like this meme
>>7776125
Because he is an anti-Spook justice warrior by definition
Is this as cringy to /lit/ as the "I am a gamer, I don't have a life, I have many" photos of Master Chief/Gordon Freeman/Geralt you see on >>>/v/?
>>7776012
Yeah, especially with those pleb-tier books.
Reason I ask is because this cute girl has this as her banner on Facebook and it has like 50 likes. If a guy put pic related up as his banner, people would laugh at him and call him a gigantic faggot
>>7776017
It's all about stereotypes, like you probably know. A girl playing video games is "cool", because it's uncommon.
What's a good book to help me understand depression? I know lots of people with it and I just don't get it. Thanks
People will tell you it's a meme, but, no kidding, David Foster Wallace. Particularly Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. The most on-the-face example is a short story in there, The Depressed Person, but there's a general portrait of depressed psyche in the highly self-conscious and self-deprecating style.
Some of it is funny, too. You should give it a try, OP.
>>7775443
Thanks anon I'll give it a go
Not necessarily depression but surely worth looking into: Al Alvarez wrote a book called The Savage God attempting to understand suicide from a variety of perspectives. It starts with a brief recollection of his time with Sylvia Plath before she passed, but if she doesn't interest you or hold some resentment for her work it's fine to skip. The chapter on the history of suicide from roman antiquity through the rise of christianity is particularly interesting.
William Gaddis taught it in a course called Literature of Failure for a short while as a professor,...
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Hey /lit/, I was wondering if any of you guys can suggest some books that can introduce me to politics and government. Anything you have that you want to suggest would be more than accepted even biography's of some famous politicians would be appreciated
Find a right-wing professor who teaches American History at a college that you do not attend. Ask them if they could tolerate you sitting in on their lectures for a semester.
>>7775236
literally Start with the Greeks.
Btw your thread might get deleted, so heads up: the lot of political/gubernatorial study is dominated by _____ who will tell stories of people in attempts to make them up as either heroes or villains.
Hey guys so I'm a newfag to /lit/ and I've really been interested in getting back into reading. I lurked through this board for a couple of days and picked a book that I thought looked and sounded interesting and that book happened to be Stoner. Did I just goof? Is the book particularly challenging for someone who doesn't usually read a book for fun?
>>7774723
DUDE WEED LMAO
It's not one of the more challenging reads on the lit approved list but does it's job well enough. You said you were new so why is difficulty such a concern to you right now?
Is the meme that it's not about weed at all? I enjoyed it, but I typically read Hunter S Thompson and William Burroughs, so it was kind of like "Ohhhhhh k, you got me" when I realized it was just gonna be about this guy's boring life.
Hello /lit/, I need a book recommendation. I have to choose a contemporary novel, written by an author, who's a native speaker of the English language. The book has to be at least 200 pages, but not longer than 300-400. I need that for my classes at university, the last semester I chose A Million Little Pieces, but now I'm looking for a lighter novel. Mind it that it has to be a novel, not a collection of short stories, poetry, etc. My choice for now is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, but i'm not exactly sure if it is a good choice, so I'm open...
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>>7773147
>measuring books in pages
I only read books greater than 500 grams
>>7773147
>choosing to read hitchhikers guide
>>>/reddit/
define "contemporary"
Sylvia Plath:
>wahh I'm so depressed, notice me, feel sorry for me!
Camus:
>yeah shit's absurd lol, just gotta face the absurd [stating the obvious, babby's first existentialist thought]
>Joyce: muh pretty prose and deep themes
JUST FUCK OFF
>>7773143
>joyce
>pretty prose
>deep themes
keeek
>>7773138
DFW
>oh look at me, i'm so sincere and profound, i'm gonna kill myself now.
Pynchon
>...
Has /lit/ set aside their $550 for the ultimate writing tool?
>what is a pencil
>>7772800
What's the benefit over a cheap laptop that's a fraction of the price?
>>7772800
Why not just buy an old typewriter. You can get a decent one for 20$ and restore it with minimal effort. Waste of money buying this imho. Consumerism at its worst.
I want to read the bible as a work of literature, I was hoping you guys could help me out.
What is the best written English version of the bible?
What are the most beautiful or compelling books of the bible?
ESV. King James is the most quoted but its overrated
>>7771996
Oh, but this is mostly an aesthetic judgement. Just go to bible.com and see which one you personally like best. I'm more prone to the updated NASB but I'm of a minority on that
>>7771990
Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes are the best.
