Is there a difference between a good story and a well-executed story?
Seargant Johnston didn’t quite make it out of the crater where he died.
In the damn observatory, up against the window, and elephant had thrown herself, into the river and was stuck against the window. Half submerged, it’s unclear how long the elephant has to live. A man, John, decideds he must do something about it, everything he can do about it. There is no way to get the elephant to float out against the current and the debris that make up the damn. Almost accepting defeat the man looks out through the window, past the elephant, to another room in the observatory. A little girl there is signing to the man to try and open the window. Opening the window would destroy the damn observatory, but it might give the elephant a chance to avoid drowning to death. The window is open and the baby elephant looks at the man in a sad and happy way and asks, “have you ever met my mother?”
The man is now in an airplane many thousands of feet above the sky. He is thinking about
while he chooses a song to jump out of the airplane to. The hatch door in the back of the little plane opens and all the man has to do now is jump. He waits an additional 45 seconds, timing the jump to just before the lead singer goes into a beautiful solo and sings with energy and pru.
The man is outside of the airplane free falling to the ground. The ground is at first not approaching very quickly and the man feels like he has quite a bit of time, which is good because the man has never jumped out of an airplane before. He has a parachute backpack which is not adjusted properly. The man must hold the backpack in a way that will ensure the parachute will open above him. He is looking on the left and right shoulder for a straps and decides the left strap will open the parachute. The ground is beginning to move in very quickly. The man pulls the strap that he hopes will open the parachute and it is unclear weather he is slowing down now or not. In any case the man is moving in more of a slant and not straight into the ground.
He passes either just above some trees or through them and into a field. He is too focused on the ground. The man lands, still in a slant just outside of a crater, with his head propped against an old ammo box like a pillow.
fuck
is death of the author wrong?
I don't think it's really "wrong", but I do think it's too, intense you could say.
I think that the truth is that what the author meant for the text to say is very important, but it's not the only important thing. A writing cannot be separated from it's author, or from it's culture, or the time period it was written in. All of these things matter, but they are not the ONLY things that matter.
If in the Iliad you somehow find a criticism of modern day America, you aren't necessarily WRONG (unless you're absolutely bullshitting), but what you're saying is still not actually what the text meant.
The point of 'death of the author' is not that the author's opinion/interpretation of their own work isn't fundamentally and totally meaningless and arbitrary and useless but that their opinion/etc is equally as valid (as long as it is as cogent and coherent and ... logical) as any other's (under the same criteria).
>>7694729
Only if you take it too literally and start thinking that it means all extratextual context is irrelevant.
Trying to reorganize my bookshelf
i haven't been this anxious in years
Why? Just arrange them by color like every other patrician on this board.
Dewey decimal system. There's no other possible answer btw.
Do it in order of what you've read/plan to read in
Your favorite books about significant historical figures that struggled with severe mental illness (not meme tier depression, something like severe schizophrenia or actual bipolar disorder) yet still made something of themselves.
I'll start with a somewhat controversial, yet widely praised biography, "A Beautiful Mind" by Sylvia Nasar.
What are your thoughts on an unauthorized biography (while the person of subject is still alive)? Something necessary for the sake of historical records, to ascertain the truth with as minimal bias as possible?
>>7694667
Why?
>>7694703
Do you mean why I'm interested in this topic? Why we should discuss this (implying there's even a good reason for that)? Why I named the file that (for shits and giggles but the thread is serious)?
>>7694708
First option
Storytime /lit/,
This is my first time ever coming here and I guess I just want to share a neat little story that you are a part of.
2 and a half years ago or so I was spending every day on [s4s], then a quite young board on 4chan (and at the height of it's quality I might add) and the frequency of my posts and perhaps the amount of thought I used to put into them then did bring me some considerable notoriety for my association with [s4s].
During sometime in 2013 I was doxxed and my grandma's address (the house I was staying at) was posted and circulated a bit for a couple weeks and then fizzled away. The only thing I received in the mail was a letter from another [s4s] user, one who I would even go as far as to call a best friend as far as anonymous/pseudonymous interaction goes. It was a poem-
At the edge of town there is a gorge,
On a cliff overlooking that gorge is a tree
And this tree bears many fruits, none of them the same.
I grew on this tree, overlooking the gorge;
Today I will fall onto the sharp rocks
That line the bottom.
My skin will split, exposing wasps and stones and rotted mold,
The dirt and rocks will be stained bright with juice.
I hope you won’t see me like that.
I hope the birds and ants strip my flesh
Until all that’s left is the gleaming white pit.
I hope you plant me
Someplace I can be reborn and grow my own tree,
My own fruit,
To drop on the ground,
Where they can open up hearts of their own onto the sharp, red rocks.
continued...
So I keep the poem (titled "Fig") and read it fondly from time to time, I even sent a poem of my own back to the return address. A few months later I has been spending alot of time working with acoustic guitar and writing songs for [s4s] albums that were being created at the time. Around this time I reread the poem that was sent to me and it really had a profound effect on me.
I felt like I understood it in a way I hadn't before, it had a voice so to speak and I could hear it. I began to make up chords I had never used before, in progressions I had not thought of before and singing the words over them. Over the course of one night I turned "Fig" into a song and recorded it.
I submitted it for the next [s4s] album and it was the second to last track and it got alot of positive reception. I credited my [s4s] friend (who has a name that i will not say to protect his anonymity) as having written the words. Though he never stated that the poem was written by him in the hand-written letter of it sent to my grandma's house in the mail, I assumed it for sure was his and he went with it.
https://soundcloud.com/captainkek/fig
Fast forward to somewhat present day.
I often perform at open mics and pretty much anywhere that someone let's me get onstage and one of my favorite songs to play and sing is "Fig" it touches people and everyone relates to it.
I received this message into my inbox on Soundcloud a couple weeks ago.
Hey,
This is *******. I didn't write "fig" I stole it from somebody on /lit/. I said a lot of lies, especially lies to flatter myself/make myself look good. I'm sorry. Places on the internet such as 4chan contribute to moral and spiritual bankruptcy and should be avoided. I encourage you to pray the 15 decade rosary, each day if you can. Guide + website with important information to look at for eternal salvation: www.mostholyfamilymonastery.com/rosary.pdf
So I googled a bit of the lyrics and after a good bit of sifting, I confirmed through cached index results or whatever they are from Warosu Archive of /lit/ that it was indeed posted here, twice, by an anon. I couldn't open the threads because that archive was down and now I can't even find the results again.
I have never claimed to be the author of the lyrics, sometimes before I perform it I say that the internet wrote it or it was sent to me by a friend on the internet.
I don't know whose words I have been singing for the past year or more but if you are out there I want you to know just pretty much that I love you and many people have heard your words sung on top of my music and I didn't know they were yours and pretty much yeah, thank you for these two posts.
>>3652999
>>3748579
>>7694660
They're my lyrics and you owe me BIG TIME for the extensive wealth you have accrued via your unlawful appropriation of them.
You'll receive a missive from my legal team in due course.
Have any of you ever tried setting up your own publishing company? I don't mean for your own work; I ask because my friend writes such amazing stuff that I think it's an absolute crime not having it out there.
>>7694615
Is there really even a point these days? Your friend can just self-publish on Amazon and spend the money that'd go into establishing a company into promoting the fucking thing. Buy a review from Kirkus or something. Every major publisher does that.
Name a better book
Protip: you can't
>>7694536
>greatest king of the bongs
>cucked by best friend
lol bongs
Wow, that was easy.
>>7694564
Pft only has 3.9 on goodreads with 800 votes. Pleb shit.
What are the essential philosophical novels?
I've read and enjoyed Camus' big three and want more.
Sartre's novels?
>>7694563
Anything not from french existentialists?
>>7694523
What are your thoughts on the books, OP? I have read The Stranger recently and I really don't know what to make of it.
It's supposed to be meme trinity not meme trilogy you fuckin plebs they're not related stories reeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEE
Someone say...
Meme Trilogy?
>>7694521
Meme was a meta arbiter, and had no discernible value. He was shitposting, and is literally genre tier meaning. clearly a juvenile device.
Ulysses, Gravity's Rainbow, Infinite Jest— it's all one novel, albeit by different authors.
Post em. Anybody have the expanded Greek one?
This one?
>>7694479
>mfw I've read at least one book from every level in that chart
11 philosophy charts please family.
hello lit. in pic related, what was the significance of the "wall"?
The wall is truth you can't just existentially will away, but which you don't have to make peace with. Like the atheist in hell mentioned in The Brothers Karamazov.
>>7694485
hmm what do you mean by "can't just existenially will away"? thanks
>>7694513
Not him, but he is talking about concrete laws.
I think the exact term in the book is "the laws of nature."
You can't chance the laws of gravity just by wanting things to float. That kind of thing.
The fact that upsets him in the book is that people have no free will. All the anger and effort will not change this fact.
If he were to rage against these laws he would be metaphorically banging his fists on the wall (which of course would not damage the wall in any way).
what does /lit/ think of marxian or neo-marxian literary analysis? Is it useful? Do you use it for classes and papers? Do you use it in your personal reading?
Eagleton
Jameson
Adorno
Benjamin
(who else do you like?)
and all the rest of the old boys.
>>7694393
>that image
Dear God, why?
>>7694393
ketchup was a meme author, and had no discernible talent. He was shitposting, and is literally genre tier fiction. clearly a juvenile author.
>>7694488
>why not ketchup was a meme fondue, and had no discernible flavor. He was shitflowing, and is literally genre tier nutrition. clearly a juvenile condiment.
What are some good books that are about loneliness?
not specifically loneliness, but there is some of that
>>7694302
of human bondage
>>7694302
No Longer Human is about as good as it gets
I've checked it myself. Read it whole in a day.
Skimmed through the tedious.
>simple literature
>straight-forward
>one or other character is likeable
>juvenile but decent in comparison to Harry Potter
>it is inspiring for people who don't know literature
I did not hate The Hunger Games. It is just average. Like most commercial literature.
Why is it always hated by the critiques in /lit/?
(Honestly I've enjoyed it more than Parts 1 and 2 of The Idiot)
Let me guess, The Idiot is the only other book you read.
It is just a bad book with an unoriginal story and bad writing. Something that is easily sold to kids/"YA readers".
It is the average crap you can expect from mainstream literature.
Of the young adult books I've read I thought they were some of the worst, and then quality when downhill dramatically with the last book
Posted this in QTTDDTOT but figured it was more appropriate as a thread.
I'm almost done with this. For context, next up is Story of Philosophy by Bryan Magee before going to The Presocratics and Sophists.
I want to go through it again and take notes of each story to remember them well enough that I can reference them from memory. However, I find myself a bit overwhelmed by all the links between the stories and the characters. How should I structure these notes? Should I make a list of all the people referenced in it? Or perhaps should I only list the stories (Trojan war, creation myths, golden fleece, love myths, etc)?
Any pointers would be appreciated, thank you.
>>7694267
Seconding.
>>7694267
If you want more intimate familiarity with the myths, read them again from a new source; Hamilton is really only a primer to sow those first seeds of recognition, which won't help too much with rereading the same text.
Consider Graves' mythology, Apollodorus' library of mythology (available from Oxford), and possibly skim some of the relevant (early) books of Diodorus Siculus for alternate tellings of the myths based on culture and geographical region, e.g., Greek connections with earlier Egyptian myth, Roman Latinized adaptations, etc.
But you really don't need to be that familiar with the myths for early philosophy. PS read Homer before the pre Socratics, especially since you want to understand references. You may also wish to read Apollonius' "Argonautica" about the golden fleece, although it was written long after the pre socratics.
And please blame any of my typos on my phone.
>>7694405
Oh and read Hesiod for creation myths. But don't even try keeping track of what's what and who's who; let the unnecessary content fall away from your mind as it ceases to be relevant by lack of reference in later texts. For example, there are about a thousand fucking nymphs mentioned; pretty much the only important one is the mother of Achilles, and even she remains relatively minor.
![[smoking intensifies].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/Tga6MQe.jpg "[smoking intensifies]")
![camus[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/A4D9nl8.jpg "camus[1]")
