When can one be considered an intellectual?
After reading DFW.
>>7622585
after you've made a minimum 1,000 posts on /lit/
>>7622598
What differentiates a real intellectual from a pseudointellectual?
It's AD 1969
What is hip and making a splash on 60's /lit/?
Hit it
Nabokov just dropped a new novel about a love story between siblings.
Tom Wolfe
>>7622225
Charlie Manson is a groovy fuckin alpha
>>>/a/136578542
>>7622084
i would buy a dvd of this anime just to shit on it, and then sell pictures of it as modern art.
>>7622084
what did it say?
There seems to be an actually pretty decent taste in the thread.
Hey, Anons. Today, I've finished the "Telemachiad" of Joyce's Ulysses, or, the first 45 pages of the Gabler. I've been using Gifford's Ulysses Annotated only for Latin and French quotations I can't derive any meaning from on my own, but I'm wondering if maybe I shouldn't be doing this at all? If maybe I should only look at annotations at the end of the chapter? Or maybe that not understanding what's going on is maybe part of the intended effect—especially in the third episode. Any Ulysses vets care to weigh in?
picture unrelated
>>7621959
I should clarify—it's not that I don't understand what's going on at all. Only that the book, no more powerful than in that third episode, oscillates between a space of having a narrative foothold, of events and sensations to latch on to, and densely allusive free indirect discourse that I sometimes will have to go back and read two, three, four times to get anything. It's taxing, I'll admit. But it is rewarding already.
it is easier to read, especially if it's your first time, if you don't try to get every reference and just treat it like a novel. come back to it afterwards and analyze it to death with a million commentaries but the first time just turn your brain off lmao
>>7621959
other than the shape of his head maybe, that's an incredibly ugly face
i like to read things that repulse, disgust me or shock me, due to the intensity and vividness of the description. it's kind of rare when i read something and get that kind of visceral reaction. anyone have any tips for writing really graphic things? is there a certain way to do it?
>>7621893
http://chuckpalahniuk.net/features/shorts/guts
Like this.
>>7621893
>find those rare pieces of writing that shock or disgust you
>copy the style
?
>>7621893
don't look to other people for tips on how to write something jesus
if you knew how to write then writing a vulgar scene would come naturally
just write what you feel is real
What are some good books about music? Not necessarily music theory, but about genres or musicians?
>>7621739
None
i have always considered music to be the most entry-level of the arts
>>7621774
@GuyInYourMFA I didn't know you posted here
Is it essential to read some Russell and Frege before jumping in Tractatus ?
If yes, which works I should read of those two
You should read your trash day schedule t-b-h
What do you think you'll get out of reading the Tractatus? Are you interested in meta-logic? No? Then you might as well pass it over.
>>7621532
1. No.
1.1. The Tractatus is easily readable once you understand the format.
2. If I was a betting man I'd say Russell because he's more readable and he famously corrected/undermined Frege.
What the fuck is with black people and heavy-handed race metaphors? Between this nigger and Toni Morrison, everything is so blatantly muh slavery and muh oppression.
Seriously, he has a white character disguise himself in black face to try and mind control the black population into destroying their magical cultural energy.
Are black authors a meme?
Steinbeck and Huxley were heavy handed as fuck but you don't see me saying that about all white writers.
It's not aimed at you. If you don't recognise the power in the writing, consider the idea that you went into it unconsciously expecting not to like it.
I could rattle off black writers who run rings around you, but what's the point.
>>7621526
dont like steinbeck
dont like huxley
black writers are shit
go back to tumblr
>>7621526
you should rattle them off
the point is you're not only talking to one idiot
the problem seems to be that heavyhanded black writers are disproportionately pushed into the curriculum because they're to enter the thick skulls of freshmen, not be a show of art
this is not a black problem, but a white people being pussies problem
Why is this considered a great work of science fiction?
This is the lamest fucking book i have read in a long time.
>Slow narrative
>Uninteresting characters
>Confusing descriptions
>"Tanj it!" is worse than the plonks or whatever from Maze Runner
>Nothing to be gained, nothing to analyze, nothing to think about
I stopped reading at around page 200. They've just been flying around the ring and bitching at each other for the past few chapters or so. I simply can't continue.
Has anyone else read this? How did it win a Hugo? Am I just missing something?
Please /lit/ , enlighten me.
Self Bump
I do appreciate the cover art though...
On a side note: Can anyone recommend me some really good, underrated sci-fi?
>inb4 Dune
>>7621473
Obligatory Hyperion.
>>7621473
The Time Machine is a good and quick read if you haven't read it before. Dune was awful. I stopped reading it at about half way as well. It's sad really that so much science fiction is so terrible.
Holy shit, HOW DARE HE BTFO HITCH
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/jan/24/and-yet-by-christopher-hitchens-digested-read
He was a gigantic egotist, a drunk, an atheist and a Neo-Con who wanted to help Industrialists destroy the Middle East and naturally saw that it would lead to other countries like Russia, and China.
I'm still surprised that certain people take so much of his flattery at face value. He was more of a hawk than Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, or McCain, but far more dangerous in some respects.
>>7621480
you use the term "an atheist" and mean it disparagingly. I suggest you return to reddit, friend
Can anyone recommend a book on the origin and/or nature of human morality and ethics? Are all our morals the product of socialization?
What writers do you think handled this issue well?
What are your own personal thoughts on this topic?
>>7621053
Nietzsche - Genealogy of Morals.
>>7622939
Just because Judeo-Christian morals were born out of resentment does that necessarily mean they are of little value? Isn't that just mixing up cause and effect? Anybody care to answer?
>>7621053
For an overview: Mark Timmons - Conduct and Character: Readings in Moral Theory
Thoughts on Thomas Merton?
he's awesome
I think he has a lot in common with the so-called Traditionalist school of Perennial Philosophy: the best reaction to modernity is to rebuild the connection with man's past via an established tradition's spirituality (as opposed to neo religion or new age practices).
His pioneering of (a slow, careful, patient) religious dialogue with the Buddhists and his emphasis on creating a society that reflects traditional mores (ie, without the stifling poverty and warfare of modern industrial nations) are probably no less important (one of his students was Ernesto Cardenal).
His writing is great and he had the kind of knowledge one finds in the heads of professors of religion.
>>7621093
Do you have any suggestions of where to start with his work?
>>7621155
Seven Storey Mountain of course.
Anybody read pic related?
Started it today (chapter 6) and it's pretty interesting in how fucking vulgar and corny yet entertaining it is. Haven't read much cyberpunk, is this one iconic of the genre or a oneoff?
Also pretty shocked to learn this oddity was released in '86.
This can be a guilty pleasures or a cyberpunk thread, first come first serve.
>>7620947
It's relatively obscure as far as cyberpunk goes I think. I tried finding it in ebook a few years ago and failed. You just reminded me about it and I found it on bib. Thanks, gonna give it a read.
>>7621039
I got it .mobi from a friendly pondering bot on irc. Have a read, it'll be an experience at any rate.
>>7620947
got it on my shelf but haven't read it yet
there is a second book called The Exile Kiss and I think the writer started a third one but died before it was finished
>that feel when the girl you like asks you to review her bad poetry
>>7619994
Tear it up, homeboy
Try to avoid commenting on the work as a whole, then.
try the "this is good; this is bad" approach, where you emphasize best and worst parts.
>>7619998
if youre attractive, rip it to shreds and act nonchalant about the whole process. if youre unattractive, dont even review it, just say yeah its fine and be smug internally.
>bla bla life is absurd
>so just don't kill yourself
He never actually answers the question. Okay, so life is absurd. Why not kill myself?
Sisyphus was destined to roll the rock for eternity: but we can quit rolling ours whenever we want (suicide).
>>7620629
To be fair, you don't know if suicide means you get to stop rolling the rock
Suicide is the negation of struggle, the myth is just a way to conceptualize the universal process of effort
Basically a lazy Frenchman makes a big deal out of everything
