Have many people on /lit/ read pic related? I know, it's not an actual book, but I'm curious what you guys think about it since it seems more on the /lit/-end of weebshit, with the way it handled all those Divine Comedy references and the entire meta-aspect of the narrative.
>>7677063
>with the way it handled
You mean poorly? Because it was a fucking mess.
>>7677069
I disagree. I thought the story was paced horribly, and Ryukishi could really use a lesson on pacing, but the way the levels of the metanarrative worked were incredibly interesting, and it's what gave the story a huge re-readability factor, disregarding the length.
>>7677063
Read episodes I and II. Never read the others because I didn't have the time. I liked it, but I didn't get to read the best parts yet. I watched the anime and the last arc adapted seems interesting, although the adaptation doesn't seem to be very good.
The whole premise of the island looks taken from Agatha Christie Ten Little Niggers, plus the occultism and the time loops that were seen before in Higurashi, all of that makes an interesting mixture and promises the possibility of a good story, I don't know if it achieves that because as I said, I haven't finished it.
“Only one man ever understood me, and he didn't understand me.”
The absolute madman
If I were to say that the so-called philosophy of this fellow Hegel is a colossal piece of mystification which will yet provide posterity with an inexhaustible theme for laughter at our times, that it is a pseudo-philosophy paralyzing all mental powers, stifling all real thinking, and, by the most outrageous misuse of language, putting in its place the hollowest, most senseless, thoughtless, and, as is confirmed by its success, most stupefying verbiage,
literally tldr: the book
>>7677032
Literally Shitpost: the post
>>7677032
I bought this book and I have no idea what's inside. Please inform me
Thought this series of novels required its own general. What exactly do you think inspires Greg Heffley to go on? What is his underlying, intrinsic motivation? Is his cognizant of his perception of a wimpy kid stereotype? He is acutely aware of his journal's existence, but is he aware that it's known as "Diary of a Wimpy Kid?" Does this cognizance encourage him to become a better person? To become a persona more valued?
Diary of a Wimpy Kid general discussion I guess.
What was your favorite book?
>>7676958
I really enjoyed "The Third Wheel" as the events Kinney portrays within are quite relatable and the somewhat postmodern narrative has a near perfect balance of absurdism and realism. It's a modern day Shakespearian comedy of mishaps.
>le over-analyzing children's literature may may
>>7676958
My favourite scene was when he participated in the big swim race, and because of his lack of knowledge regarding the nature of the pop-gun, dove under in fear of the bullet raining back down. No doubt the instinctual motivation to quite literally plunge himself into greater threat in fear of a danger that didn't exist - but he thought existed due to his own fear and ignorance - is a symbol for the modern man's lack of knowledge resulting in further societal and mental danger.
What did he mean by 'autistic dark'?
>>7676940
What's the first thing you think of when you think of autism? Sonic the Hedgehog? No, more autistic. He's alluding to Shadow the Hedgehog, who is a very dark and disturbed character.
>>7676957
o i am lafin
>>7676957
10/10
Why do girls like Neil Gaiman so much?
>>7677118
Why is Jonathan Franzen so goofy looking?
>>7677118
Why does coffee make me have to shit? I thought it was a diuretic, not a laxative.
What is some good literature with/about homosexuality?
Not in modern terms. I feel modern day mainstream homosexuality is far too influenced by Freudian thought/anxiety and has become a pop culture 'lifestyle'. I'm referring to actual homosexuality, all of its good and bad sides, positives and negatives as compared to heterosexuality.
start with the greeks
Demian
Narcissus & Goldmund
>actual homosexuality
You were good up until that point anon. There is no "actual" anything on that matter in that sense you are looking for, the very term "homosexuality" can be argued not to be a thing in certain contexts, just because it's older doesn't mean it is "more true". What we have today IS actual homosexuality, just as much as any other forms in which it has developped throughout the world. Each civilization had its own way to deal with sexual behaviour, taboos and norms, ideals of gender, ideals of marriage and what constitutes a home or a family, way to handle jealousy and so on. In some places, even to this day, passive homossexuals are thought as gay, but active ones are not. In some places lesbians were accepted, but gay men not. In some places, it was fine to be a homossexual, but not marriage material. There is wide scope of things to be said on the matter and I certainly don't understand your way to approach this on "positive and negative sides", on what grounds would that even begin.
Any of you have read this? How is it? Everytime i see someone talking about it sounds like shilling.
People said it was good but flawed, didn't sound like shilling to me
Kinda felt like making a thread about it yesterday. Read it about like three years ago and it was decent, bordering on the good. Bunch of pretty good ideas and esthetics choices that I'd like to see in other books, interesting writing style that you may enjoy or not (ask yourself, would you like a less messy version of Blake Butler?) - burdened by a fairly meandering plot and some general aimlessness. Overall, I'd rec it. If I can find the book I can post the first minichapter, it's like four pages.
>>7676874
Scratch that, it's who th fuck knows where and I don't feel like looking for it. Pretty sure you can find a sample on VICE, in that article Butler wrote about the book.
Post in this thread best books written in english language in your opinion. Im going to only english bookstore in my city, huh i mean embracing translations meme is diffcult ;)
>>7676828
>>7676838
nigger what?
>>7676838
the memes are out of control these days.
>inb4 the shitstorm, the language of this book is impeccable, sustaining and increasingly resonating throughout the whole novel.
Are there any good literary critiques of socialism?
human nature
it's bad becuz da state takes away muh guns and muh freedums
thoughts on naked lunch?
>>7676732
I can think of at least two things wrong with that title.
shit, desu
The quirky adventures of le edgy beat gayman
Post poems about poets or literature
Emerson by Borges
EMERSON
Closing the heavy volume of Montaigne,
The tall New Englander goes out
Into an evening which exalts the fields.
It is a pleasure worth no less than reading.
He walks toward the final sloping of the sun,
Toward the landscape’s gilded edge;
He moves through darkening fields as he moves now
Through the memory of the one who writes this down.
He thinks: I have read the essential books
And written others which oblivion
Will not efface. I have been allowed
That which is given mortal man to know.
The whole continent knows my name.
I have not lived. I want to be someone else.
>>7676639
IN MEMORY OF W. B. YEATS
by W.H Auden
I
He disappeared in the dead of winter:
The brooks were frozen, the airports almost deserted,
And snow disfigured the public statues;
The mercury sank in the mouth of the dying day.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
Far from his illness
The wolves ran on through the evergreen forests,
The peasant river was untempted by the fashionable quays;
By mourning tongues
The death of the poet was kept from his poems.
But for him it was his last afternoon as himself,
An afternoon of nurses and rumours;
The provinces of his body revolted,
The squares of his mind were empty,
Silence invaded the suburbs,
The current of his feeling failed: he became his admirers.
Now he is scattered among a hundred cities
And wholly given over to unfamiliar affections,
To find his happiness in another kind of wood
And be punished under a foreign code of conscience.
The words of a dead man
Are modified in the guts of the living.
But in the importance and noise of to-morrow
When the brokers are roaring like beasts on the floor of the Bourse,
And the poor have the sufferings to which they are fairly
accustomed,
And each in the cell of himself is almost convinced of his freedom,
A few thousand will think of this day
As one thinks of a day when one did something slightly unusual.
What instruments we have agree
The day of his death was a dark cold day.
II
You were silly like us: your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives
In the valley of its saying where executives
Would never want to tamper, flows on south
From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
A way of happening, a mouth.
III
Earth, receive an honoured guest:
William Yeats is laid to rest.
Let the Irish vessel lie
Emptied of its poetry.
In the nightmare of the dark
All the dogs of Europe bark,
And the living nations wait,
Each sequestered in its hate;
Intellectual disgrace
Stares from every human face,
And the seas of pity lie
Locked and frozen in each eye.
Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vineyard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let the healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.
>>7676639
>translation
Shelley's Adonais is GOAT
Other good ones:
On Shakespeare. 1630
BY JOHN MILTON
What needs my Shakespeare for his honoured bones,
The labor of an age in pilèd stones,
Or that his hallowed relics should be hid
Under a star-ypointing pyramid?
Dear son of Memory, great heir of fame,
What need’st thou such weak witness of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hast built thyself a live-long monument.
For whilst to th’ shame of slow-endeavouring art,
Thy easy numbers flow, and that each heart
Hath from the leaves of thy unvalued book
Those Delphic lines with deep impression took,
Then thou, our fancy of itself bereaving,
Dost make us marble with too much conceiving;
And so sepúlchred in such pomp dost lie,
That kings for such a tomb would wish to die.
Keats
BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
The young Endymion sleeps Endymion's sleep;
The shepherd-boy whose tale was left half told!
The solemn grove uplifts its shield of gold
To the red rising moon, and loud and deep
The nightingale is singing from the steep;
It is midsummer, but the air is cold;
Can it be death? Alas, beside the fold
A shepherd's pipe lies shattered near his sheep.
Lo! in the moonlight gleams a marble white,
On which I read: "Here lieth one whose name
Was writ in water." And was this the meed
Of his sweet singing? Rather let me write:
"The smoking flax before it burst to flame
Was quenched by death, and broken the bruised reed."
Obviously practice yields better product, but I'm curious how well I did with this one.
https://docs.google.com/a/plcc.edu/document/d/18IhPmC1tYJVRJzvU1EJEmEaUyZRC-YdjkA-0YTJL5xk/edit?usp=docslist_api
It's shit.
Now give me a few minutes to read it
>You need permission
>link sharing is ON
gg, GoogleThe aged man's cherry face hid behind a thick balaclava, with only tired eyes being visible, peering over a wintery field.
Daylight was still breaking out; warm rays piercing snow and foliage in the large pines. The long, inky fingers of night were being batted away by shafts from the Sun. The cold air snuck into the crevices of the man camouflaged garb, leaving a familiar ache in his bones. To his side was his faithful shotgun, received as a gift, and from a time before his prime. Resting besides the man's fragile frame was also a sack with the name "HARV" crudely embroidered across its front, containing a filled canteen, compass, rations for the day, binoculars, additional slugs for the firearm, and a Kansas Deer Tag. Today was the last day of the hunt. The final day of the legal hunt, at least. The man had not been known to partake in the hunt of days and game restricted by the law, and he would make no exception after today.
The carefully observed field had a calming stillness. Trees lay bare, alongside scattered potentially alarming crisped leaves. The coarse wind aided the biting cold air in making the man as miserable as possible. The man was wrapped in a large dark green coat on top of overalls and thick wool sweats before that. He peered into the emerging sunrise for tracks and evidence of local prey. He panned his view across the field, in hopes to find any movement. The thick layers of cloth only helped so much in stopping the restless quakings from the rigid cold.
What does /lit/ think of Wallace Stevens?
bump 2
>>7676463
i understand all his predecessors, contemporaries and followers but not him eh
I feel about the same way as I do about Yeats. Some really gorgeous poems, some which get bogged down in his particular conception of what poetry should be (return to the things themselves yadda yadda)
I want to read pic related but I have no idea where to start. I tried reading the standard Middle English version but I felt I wasn't getting the best experience. I had to make a lot of inferences about the meanings of words based on context and which modern words they resembled, and I was often wrong.
Is there a translation worth reading? Or should I read the original with some sort of companion?
>translation
>of Middle English
Lad didn't your edition come with a glossary?
>>7676397
Read Riverside's Chaucer.
Thank me later.
smug_nun.manuscript
