Hey /lit/, I’ve got a project I’m working on for myself and after having a few other people express an interest in it, I’d figure I’d extend the invitation to you guys. I’d especially love your input, as though I may be considered well-read by the general public, I’m pleb-tier compared to all of you.
The project is this: I’m trying to put together a “Bible” so to speak, comprised of literature from the Western tradition. When I say Bible, I don’t mean the texts must be Christian or anything explicitly religious, though being such would not exclude anything. I mean I wish to compile a large sized book with small print, in physical form, leather bound that I can take with me physically, as Christians do their Bibles. Essentially, a physical collection of spiritual wisdom I can keep away from the computer and other electronics.
I’m looking for ideas of what would be most essential to include in this home-made Bible of sorts. Ideally, I intend to cover a lot of ground (history, poetry, philosophy, proverbs, songs) and need to boil down just which works I’m going to include. I will mostly be limiting this to the Western canon, and mostly works of English, French, German, Latin, and Greek authors. However, exceptions are most certainly welcome.
One final caveat: since books of the Bible were necessarily shorter than novels, I cannot include many works of that length. As for my own ideas, I intend to include parts of Aristotle’s Nichomachean Ethics and Rhetoric, Plotinus’ Enneads, certain poems by William Blake, Excerpts from Nietzsche and Heidegger, Emerson’s Walden, and a few other lesser known essays from blogs that I’ve found particularly moving.
Well /lit/, what would you include?
>>7843323
The amount of replies you have shows how much anyone on here really knows
>>7843411
Haha, that could very well be the case. I'll take the blame for this one for leaving essentially a Great Wall of text.
>>7843323
> though I may be considered well-read by the general public, I’m pleb-tier compared to all of you.
I'm sorry anon, but I think we must be familiar with different /lit/'s. Nobody on here actually knows how to read.
As for what I would include... I'm not entirely sure, although I have thought about doing something like this before. There would be a few short stories, and some poems, and excerpts from philosophical texts, but the main thing I read is novels, and particularly large ones at that. They tend to be the holders of passages that affect me the most, and so a lot of "books" in my "bible" would probably be excerpts from them. (from Within a Budding Grove) Elstir's talk to Marcel on the repudiation of past selves or Shimamura's watching of the 'couple' on the train in Snow Country are examples that come to mind.
You say you'd avoid long novels, but plenty of novels have one or more sequences in particular that're concentrated droplets of the things the novel encompasses.
I do still quite like the idea of this. I know some people collect passages in notebooks or on their computer or else have bookmarks always in, but something like this strikes me as a different level of respect for these writings.
>>7843323
why not just read a lot of books that have already been in print? Why do you want this book? I know you want to carry it around, but why? You'll probably get a lot more out of memorizing passages that you find meaningful than what you would just by carrying an anon-inspired book around. Try to cultivate your mind with authors that you enjoy and then use that to write your own philosophy on life.
M E T A M O R P H O S E S
>>7843323
>Emerson’s Walden
>>7844138
This really needs to be read in full to get the full effect. It might be short enough for op to include though.
>>7844150
Honestly I read part of an English translation earlier, and you lose a lot of Ovid's jokes in the translation
Some of Kafkas short storys or parables.
why do you want this? what interests you about spirituality? without knowing answer to both these questions, can't make meaningful selection criteria, and even then it will amount to little other than random recommendations ("totally get boehme in there" = you will go read boehme and decide whether you like him enough to take up space in your book, so why not just make it a recommendation anyway)
and in any event, the esoteric path (channeling plotinus) should be a process, not a single book. only a few people really say "it's all in the book" and mean it in the sense of "just read this actual one book and you're set." and on top of that, emerson: "here is a book one could read for a thousand years in paradise" re: plato, rabelais, boehme, et al., same could be said for shakespeare e.g. you can't exhaust or contain them, you can only experience them and a thousand other things.
there's nothing wrong with having a small selection of things that really spoke to you powerfully but random faggos on /lit/ probably can't help you with that without knowing you much better. hayy ibn yaqzan, emerson, vis-a-vis plotinus on contemplating nature? or 400 pages of esoteric ramblings? or a commentary on frye's spiritual writings? coleridge, or barfield on coleridge?
gdggaghgnfhdfd
>>7843323
I like the idea, but it's hard to give you suggestions. If by spirituality you consider texts that must elevate your soul,and mind... well then, it would take you a very long time to distinguish all of them. Spirituality can be found in different works fiction or non fiction. They can be a small paragraph, or a sentence - you can try to collect all of them. If you do then good luck to you.
I think I get the idea of what you are trying to do but at the same time how would it work if you don't share the same believes as other people do?
I have 3 books I've made with a similar idea.
Compilations of my own thoughts and quotes
One of empowering/spiritual stuff, my own religion that is a mix of the best of every religion, existialism, absurdism, occultism, magick etc book I've read.
Another my bible of writing advice
And another for filmmaking, half advice/philosophy hald technical stuff.
But I wouldn't share any of it, only I think it's any good, it works FOR ME alone.
