Hi everyone! Last year I was feeling depressed and someone recommended I read this so I looked it up on Google and saw a lot of people talking about how the book changed their life for the better/made them happy and that Camus was a super famous recent philosopher so I just assumed that contained within the work was a reason to live. I didn't read the work then (because I'm not a nerd lmao who even reads nowadays) but I was happy and just assumed that there existed reason to live, hidden within the book that I had no hope of getting to without first starting with the Greeks and going up the chronological chain. Well, I actually read the book/essay/whatever yesterday and thought it was pretty shitty and devoid of insight and, as a result, am depressed again. Anyone have recommendations of books that will make the reader want to live?
>>7647424
Literature doesn't really solve your problems. And anyway, expecting it to do this will simply ruin whatever pleasure you do get from it. If you have real depression, get diagnosed and treated. If you're just white-guy sad, get some friends and hit the gym.
How about Bible?
Is it gay to admire his work?
>>7649887
Sure
>>7649887
Like sucking another man erect nipples and to admire his wonderful and muscular back.
Wouldn't it be the exact opposite? most of his work was about how homosexuality is in fact degeneracy and will eventually lead to ruin.
I'm interested in orthodox Christianity.
Most of my life I've been agnostic, tending toward atheism. I grew up in a Baptist / Pentecostal household, but rejected those teachings as bereft of true spiritual communion.
I embraced a scholarly lifestyle and have since studied many different ideologies, religions, philosophies and faiths - however orthodox Christianity was not one of them.
At this point in my life, for very personal reasons, I am seeking a spiritual rebirth. For some reason, orthodox Christianity seems to be an incongruously recurring theme despite my neglect of it's mysteries.
I was hoping any of you might be able to recommend...anything. Books, teachers, prophets, apologetics and even your own personal experiences.
I'm also open to opinions which would have me not embrace Christianity again. I'm thoroughly acquainted with the historical hypocrisies and sins of all religion, so perhaps you have a more nuanced view.
I need to leave in about 15 minutes to visit my grandmother, so please just post what you will and I can participate more upon my return.
Thank you.
>>7645533
I'm not orthodox and there doesn't seem to actually be a lot of orthodox writings.
From the ones mentioned you have Philokalia, Way of the Pilgrim and everything Dostoevsky wrote. Timothy Wheare or something like that was being mentioned.
Constantine smells the mention of word orthodox like sharks do blood and will probably have more.
>>7645562
Thank you.
You may want to read some Tolstoy -- he was excommunicated for being an anarcho-pacifist, but you should still read him.
Ready:
'What I Believe'
'The Kingdom of God is in You'
'Letter to a Hindu' (letter he sent to Gandhi, which heavily influenced the latter)
How would you see someone who writes aphorisms instead of novels, or poetry? There is less probability to being published?
>>7644651
The moustache man wrote 7 hours a day everyday for decades and destroyed about 80% of his work while he worked because he thought it was shit.
He financed his publications with his own money, was never taken seriously in his lifetime and ended up crazy.
This form of expression is not a thing you do because you want, its a thing you do because commiting your thoughts to paper keeps insanity away for one extra day.
In the age of twitter, the aphorism is the most natural medium to write in.
But yeah you're never getting published.
Favorite sections?
I'm personally a fan of his career as a hot-dog vendor
>>7643838
I wish I had a hot dog machine.
storming the levy office
>>7643838
i hated that fucking book, but when the bartender is trying to get a book for her dirty pictures was funny. also that black ass mofuggah.
Infinite Jest was first published February 1st 1996. Its the 20th anniversary, what are you going to do to celebrate?
I'm going to read it
I started reading for the very first time yesterday
:)
Nothing, because the only reason it is considered good is a lack of proper competition.
I'm looking for deep and thought provoking books about isolation and loneliness.
The book of Disquiet
Oblomov
>>7640338
Moar pls
>>7640369
One Hundred Years of Solitude
What does Rene Descartes mean by 'intentional being'?
t. dumb shit
Oh yeah, and this doesn't really deserve its own thread. So this can be a thread for questions that don't deserve a thread.
Where do I start with Ballsack? Does /lit/ have author charts like /mu/ does?
I'm specially interested in his works that reflect his time the best.
I've only read Lost Illusions but it's one of my very favorites by anyone, ever. People would tell you to start with Le Pere Goriot.
The Balzac rule of thumb seems to be that we should just pick any of his notable works, because they're all good.
>>7649838
>Where do I start with Ballsack
Well the generally idea is that you start with the shaft
>>7649862
you always have to work the balls, though. start with the shaft, but for god's sake work the balls.
"It just goes to show yuh that no matter how biggity a nigguh gits, the white folks can always cut him down."
>>7649804
Good.
>>7649804
It's a great book, stop getting triggered every time you hear someone saying something bad about muh white race, you inverse tumblrina.
It's true.
Where would I go to download newspapers, magazines, periodicals? I used to use stopthepress.es for that but they vanished a while ago. I'm assuming there must be other sources since most of the content over there was (presumably) lifted from elsewhere
attached image not directly related
Unz.org
You can find old and new magazines there.
What's the common connection in each one?
>>7649735
I only have a couple of DFW ones (Oblivion and Brief Interviews with Hideous Men) and Pinecone's.
The common connection is that they're all short stories.
>>7649735
I have ~180 short story collections/anthologies of short stories.
The only common connection I can think of is that they're written by humans and <2000 pages.
What do you guys think about sylvia plath? I never see her work discussed here
She was a qt
The Bell Jar is ok but lots of people here will say it's shit because it's popular and women like it.
not very good
her reputation is buoyed by subject matter (can't talk shit about depression!) and life (can't talk shit about suicide!)
Daddy issues.
I'm only a few pages into IJ, so my initial reaction might be wrong, but I already can't stand DFW's writing style. It sounds so try hard and pretentious. He actually sounds exactly like one of my pseudo-intellectual friends who tries way too hard to say basic things in some really convoluted or "poetic" way.
I mean so far the characters are simply sitting in an office, which sounds like an incredibly easy scene to describe, but the way DFW describes everyone in the room forces you to re read a few times just to get what he's saying.
I'll continue to read this, because writing style isn't everything, I'm mostly just wondering if anyone else shares my opinion.
>>7649520
That scene is from the perspective of Hal, a kid who brags about memorizing dictionaries. It's not all like that.
>>7649536
Ah, so the pretentiousness is a character trait, and not DFW's style in general?
maybe, get this, it's symptomatic of some certain lack on your part (now I'm not saying cognitively per se, it could very well be imaginatively) rather than of some ostensible bogeyman pretension on his--
Or not, welcome to pomodernism.
Sir David Attenborough, in an interview with the folio society, describes all books as memes
Skip to 2:43 in the video
Will we let this egregious offence go unpunished?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi01gyThiSc
Are you actually retarded?
holy shit
You're a special kind of stupid aren't you?
