let's talk about rimbaud
Looks like trap material
did somebody say rimjobs?
So I thought Id give some of the free books on amazon a try,
http://www.amazon.com/Unforeseen-Circumstances-Book-Ethan-Newman-ebook/dp/B01BAC84AE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1455162721&sr=1-1&keywords=ethan+newman
I thought this book sounded promising but god awful, How can this even be considered a book? Please someone give me your opinion on this Im dying to see what you think, btw Im not trying to post spam, I honestly am disgusted lol. When I recieved the book it was free btw, it must of changed price.. RIP
OP here
Really enjoying the homoerotic undertones of most male characters being described as muscular and sharing "cool" secret handshakes with him. Ethan Newman you must be a very lonely man.
Ah, self-publishing.
Does anyone have those leftist reading recommendations things?
One is a really nice infographic, and another one I've seen was a "How to Read Freud" full of good stuff.
t. right winger bored in university library and want to see the other side
>>7686373
Freud isn't left wing.
dude, if you read that sh*t you're get cheated on
>>7686661
I meant Marx but I was in a rush
Fuck
Thoughts?
I think you should put more effort into making better threads
This thread had no topic. Now it is officially about Ursula le Penguin.
>>7686116
kek
"E. T. 2" is an immensely excellent short film; it comprises a mythologically consolidated narrative which is memetically compressed and encapsulated by my selected OP image.
The OP image's author hacks Deleuze with Bataille: schizo-death via narco-capital: Nick Land provides a virulent nihilism grafted upon mad black Deleuzianism (essentially a philosophical mapping and foundation for analyzing "E. T. 2").
"E. T. 2" begins with a lonely Eurasian man roaming an unidentified city and lamenting his torturous loneliness. An extraterrestrial space-craft crashes as intentionally bad special effects satirizes low-budget science-fiction.
The Eurasian man (comically Naruto-running) approaches alien wreckage and discovers its extraterrestrial erstwhile occupant.
The extraterrestrial reveals his history: he was chased from Earth and thereby never experienced Human life and its innumerable pleasures. The Eurasian man asks if E. T. will become his friend. E. T. acquiesces insultingly.
E. T. begins his tragicomic trajectory: E. T. requests: "Show me a good time: sex, drugs, and women".
What follows is an Aronofsky-esque montage depicting E. T.'s ascension: his life reaches an nigh incomprehensible zenith: intoxication, prostitute-utilization, and friendship. The montage perfectly encapsulates E. T.'s ecstasy and life-maximization.
Yet E. T.'s satisfaction is non-culminated and his thirst for life is nigh incalculably insatiable:
"We can take over the crack game. We can sell the coke on our own." E. T. imperiously intones.
E. T. prepares for his joyous building of his narco-empire and receives a warning regarding these aforementioned narco-imperialistic aspirations.
Another montage commences and encapsulates E. T.'s final orgasmic life-maximization before his demise. The montage is tragically tinged as it depicts E. T.'s coke-snorting hyper-intoxicated apex and his fall's origination.
Temporality and causality are momentarily engulfed by E. T.'s life-maximization as an epic trap composition resounds rapturously.
E T's annihilation actualizes as a primitive Human aggressively brutalizes E. T. as retaliation against E. T.'s narco-imperialism and xeno-encrypted insultation. As brutal blows crash chaotically against E. T. he realizes various philosophical revelations which majestically mapped upon his own terrestrial-experiential experiences...
Part Two:
>"We are born to live. From the moment we are thrown into the universe, we breathe, eat, drink, procreate. It is what we do as living organisms."
E. T. realizes and simultaneously accepts reality's directionless chaos and nihilistic biological imperatives as organic origination.
>"But why would one procreate, let alone find a reason to stay alive, without something to stay alive for?"
E. T. becomes anti-nihilistic: if intrinsic meaning is not reality's inherent nature, then it must be discovered for justifying continued existence.
>"We as humans don't stay alive for the sake of survival , but rather for things that bring purpose; religion, art, music, love. in a endless oblivion of darkness and space, humans are the only species primitive enough to care, You must do what you love."
E. T. finally understands humanity as organisms driven by empyrean purpose rather than mere survival.
>"The best things in life will always end in conflict, that is why we humans are primitive."
E. T. believes life without conflict wherein sheer survival is its sole imperative is not life at all and thereby justifies his narco-sexual life-style of life-maximization.
His philosophy culminates as he intentionally induces annihilating delight of nigh incalculable immensity via over-dosing on cocaine: a fate which may initially appear tragic but was accepted as true life's price by E. T..
The trap soundtrack of "E. T. 2" is also enormously excellent.
Here is "E. T. 2" for your cinematic and analytical enjoyment:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OsRPWRJ7PY
Good analysis, OP. However, I would like to get deeper into E.T.'s relationship with the Eurasian man.
To begin with, the matter of the human's race is important: he's a mongrel, not one race or another, and likewise his sexuality is as mixed ("filthy"), and so with his humanity. It's not coincidential that he becomes friends with an alien--it is actually the only possible conclusion for him to connect with some living on the outside.
But that friendship has concequences: firstly, he contracts space herpes after having sex with E.T. It is pretty clear that their intercourse is actually also the only possible true intercourse for them, despite not being homosexual, as in their attempt to obtain the female subjectivity they lack, they have only objectified femininity[1].
Likewise, when E.T. goes missing, it is a doppelgänger of the Eurasian dressed in pink, representing not necessarily his homosexuality, but his soft, penetrable side (like the vaginal or the anal), that searches for him in plead; ironically, he's asking for an alien, being an alien himself, looking for himself.
It becomes obvious then why the Congoloid man becomes so easily enraged when the alien questions his sexuality--not an incidental ad hominem, as his relationship with the Eurasian began in the same way--however unlike the Eurasian, the Congoloid can only reject being called a "faggot"; i.e. lives in fear of his inner, "pinker" side, and so becomes incapable of embracing that which is alien, for good and bad.
It is only through this rejection, the rejection both E.T. and the Eurasian are so accustomed to, that the meaning of life can be found; but not before coming into contact with another reject, a mirror of their own[2]. So the Eurasian is given Truth by his friend, but that Truth is also a reflection of himself; therefore the film ends at a before-skipped, but essential, scene: the touching of the Alien Phallus, in which E.T. shows his true penetrative nature, as a representation of the unknown ingressing into normal life and dirtying, therefore creating new life (and therefore death[3]) once again, in a xeno-paederastic relationship[4].
______________________________
[1] A meta-callback to Proust who was said to make prostitutes torture rats as a way to show them perversion which they weren't accustomed to, E.T. becomes the "ride" and the "rider" (a through bisexual, also referencing the Frenchman's sexuality).
[2] A reference to end game Naruto, in which the protagonist friend/lovers are revealed to have been, all the time, the incarnation of two eternal opposing demi-gods, descended from extraterrestrials.
[3] A reference to E.T. causing the end of North American domination in the videogame market due to bad production, that is to say glitches, signifying incompatibility with present reality-systems.
[4] Much like humanity is expected to be children in comparison to space-faring civilization.
>>7684235
Fascinating (perhaps I shall respond with greater intellectual fibrousness later).
Why do literature professors obsess about guessing what the "author meant"?
Like with lord of the rings, tolkien had to go around telling people that "no, it wasn't meant to be a war allegory, please stop saying that".
What purpose does it serve? Without the author confirming it, there is no way to 100% tell whether one view is correct or not and even if you are right, you win no prizes. It has about as much effect as guessing which sports team is going to win the upcoming match.
It's just for the students to do something instead of it being a class where you read a book every week.
They need to justify shit.
They don't. Not since Roland Barthes' "Death of the Author" at least. Seriously, how can people read literature and not have previously heard of Barthes’ ideas before. God, /lit/ has gone to complete shit!
Help me out /lit/, please.
I am a STEM student from a country that has no connection to English literature, but I want to understand and enjoy the greatest works of the English canon to the fullest. The one I'm more hyped to read is Ulysses, because everyone says it is incredibly great and I loved the Iliad and the Odyssey. Even though I'm in STEM for a carreer path it is from literature that I take the most pleasure in my life and to literature that I owe the molding of my character. I would go through great effort to understand a book like Ulysses.
I have read Dubliners and travelled to Ireland for two weeks (if that helps), and enjoyed it, even though I don't get what the rave about it is (maybe because I'm not Euro). I also have read the plays from Wilde and Dorian Gray.
The question I'm getting to is this one: Since I will not be able to attend to classes about Ulysses (because of where I am), how would I go about certifying that I am completely ready to understand it and enjoy it to it's fullest? And where would I go to learn and understand more about Ulysses after I read it? Thank you.
>>7684889
start with the greeks
>>7684889
Read Portrait first, shakespeare, the bible and the divine comedy.
And then read ulysses and get the companion book.
>>7684893
Already have, I'm also through the process of going through almost the entire western philosophy canon, but I can attend to classes about those and /lit/ already has loads of detailed guides with links to lectures.
What is the most American book?
>>7684158
Art Of The Deal
>>7684158
anything by Jack London
I'm looking to order The Master and Margarita by Bugakov next, but I don't know which translation to get, sounds like there are 4 main ones, and each people are very opinionated about.
Which has /lit/ read and recommends?
>>7684035
The Burgin and O'Connor translation is widely considered to be the best one. It captures the humorous tone of the novel quite well.
>>7684043
I recently read M&M for a Russian lit book club and this was exactly the suggested edition. Apparently at least one of the other translations not only isn't as good, but actually has some missing content as a result of being drawn from an incomplete manuscript.
Also OP a cursory understanding of the early Soviet Union would help a bit when reading, but if you read the notes after finishing the book, most of what you miss will be made clear pretty quickly.
The best translation is the one you get without much research
So, I was thinking about Freud tonight.
Do you think he's onto something?
I've been thinking a lot lately about different approaches to psychology, and it occurs to me that I think the value of psychoanalysis probably lies IN the fact that it's not truly scientific.
I know, that sounds weird.
But it seems like there is a persistent ethical problem with biological-reductionist conceptions of psychology in that they implicitly undermine the 'humanness' of the human being. Human life is by definition conditioned by things that can't be measured: language, ideas, symbols. It seems that efforts to reduce psychology to neuroscience end up dismissing too much content that you need to study the subject properly. It seems to lead to viewing chemical imbalances as a 'a thing' in themselves, that need to be treated with chemical therapies. It seems to lead to favoring chemical therapies as first-order treatment instead of investigating whether (e.g.) the person could have a behavior pattern that is causing the imbalance, or whether there is some sort of problem in the broader society that's causing these imbalances to crop up frequently.
Basically, the 'reductionist' schools of psychology end up reducing the human being to mere matter, devoid of social significance.
This is where I think psychoanalysis may have some value. True, it's not science. But I'm not sure the field of human mental life CAN be scientific. Whether Freud's ideas are right or not, his project at least favors the idea of open communication as a potential solution. This seems preferable to the current 'prescribe amphetamines to the 6 year old after talking to him for 5 minutes' culture of mainstream psychiatry. Like, it at least is on board with the concept of human dignity, and it's not opposed to the idea that the problem might be with the broader society rather than the patient.
>>7683780
Freud is thought of a le kray-kray pseudoscientific sex fiend psychologist in pop culture, but that reputation is largely built off attempts at discrediting/disowning his weirder ideas by those in the field to legitimize psychiatry and psychology as serious medical disciplines so it wouldn't go the way of mesmerism. While some of the things he said are patently absurd, he was onto more than the average modern prescription-happy psychiatrist would care to admit.
OP get the Peter Gay Freud Reader and read 50 pages of it
>>7683780
>Do you think he's onto something?
Are you from the 1890s?
Is he right?
>>7682937
He's an idiot for thinking there is such thing as a "better" or a "worse" writer which would imply some kind of aesthetic realism he doesn't even agree with.
no. Pushkin and Chekhov are better, and he hasn't read Lermontov
>>7682941
Hey. I'm looking for some interesting books on psychology.
It's an almost endlessly broad field, and a very interesting one.
I used to read quite a lot related to this subject. Body language, some stuff featuring case studies, about the dynamics of organizations (from Scientology to businesses to communes and autocratic regimes). I've also read very little Jung and some evolutionary psychology, which I found fascinating, and perhaps I would like to explore it further.
Anyway, please recommend me all good books related to psychology (even if only tangentially related!).
Even fiction is welcome as well. I love Dostoevsky (a master of psychology).
Anna Karenina
Yeah /lit/ loves Jung I think
No memes, just your favorite top 10, any genres. Here's mine:
Kafka, Franz: The Trial (1915)
Bulgakov, Mikhail: The Master and Margherita (1940)
Witkiewicz, Stanislaw: Insatiability
Mann, Thomas: Buddenbrooks (1901)
James, Henry: The Golden Bowl
Bronte, Emily: Wuthering Heights
Nabokov, Vladimir: Ada
Pynchon, Thomas: V
Gogol, Nikolaj: Dead Souls (1852)
Faulkner, William: Light in August
Good list, OP. Here are my favorites:
Stendhal: The Red and the Black (1830)
Dostoevskij, Fyodor: The Idiot (1869)
Joyce, James: Ulysses
Musil: The Man Without Qualities(1933)
Woolf, Virginia: To the Lighthouse
Conrad, Joseph: Nostromo
Gombrowicz: Pornography (1960)
Tolstoy, Lev: War and Peace
Zola, Emile: Germinal (1885)
Flaubert, Gustave: Madame Bovary
>>7682023
you know?
I can't list 10 books.
I never understood the idea of favourite. I can choose a favourite song or even a type music, I could listen the same song 1000 times and say that it isn't my favourite.
How could I do it with a book?
>>7682040
Some people are just able to do it I think, books for me are very much in the moment and it subtly changes me I think. I can't even list the last 10 books I read I'm so disorganized.
Has anyone read this book? I'm trying to change my attitude on life and have read a few reviews in praise of it. Group therapy isn't helping much because girls are just talking about how slutty they are and their daddy issues.
Go back to whatever board you came from, friend. We don't talk about this stuff here.
>>7681418
Yeah, because all of your threads involve scholarly discussion, right? Like your YouTube book review waifus and DFW memes.
>>7681377
Yeah, I've read it. The content is very good for what it is. It's probably not going to help you if you're dead-set against self-help as a genre on a philosophical level.
Where does /lit/ get their books? I'm looking for several old-school sci-fi titles.
Bookdepository
Local libraries
Fuck amazon
>>7688208
got it, lad
thanks
ebay
