I have never read any Philosophy book.
How bad is the idea of starting with Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra?
Tips fedora and memes aside.
That's actually a pretty cool painting
>>7456358
A better place to start might be with Beyond Good and Evil, especially the Preface, and Chapters 1 ("On the Prejudices of Philosophers"), 5 ("Natural History of Morals") and 9 ("What is Noble?") (though the whole book is worth reading). That might be followed by Nietzsche's On the Genealogy of Morality, which could be read in conjunction with the chapters of my Nietzsche on Morality discussing each essay.
From there one might go in two directions: backwards to The Gay Science, one of Nietzsche's earlier works, or forward to The Twilight of the Idols. I'd probably recommend the latter: this is a late work, not as overwrought as The Antichrist or Ecce Homo, but philosophically substantial, covering most of Nietzsche's main concerns.
>>7456358
Bad idea. You need to read other stuff Nietzsche wrote before reading that. If you really want you could read him if you understand some basic ideas of other philosophers, mostly Schopenhauer and Kant as well as the Greeks. He's accessible because he writes very poetically and non-technically. But Nietzsche is not really a good starting place if you want to understand all of philosophy.I started with him though and I didn't die.
>muh women's rights
why do you people even like this SJW bullshit?
>>7456291
anna karenina was about making sure women stay loyal and subservient. if anything, the rights that anna would have desired would be irrelevant, as a result of the incompatibility of her character with vronsky, and their selfishness. if anything, given rights, they'd still fall under the same problem. the woman who played good housewife and shut the hell up was rewarded. i don't know if it's all that sjw, really.
It was the big Russian doorstopper of yesteryear. Remember, the 1920s-30s were a period of great curiosity about Russian culture for the West, and Tolstoy fit the bill for what Westerners sought. Add onto that the fact that Communism in Russia produced practically no novels of note, and you find Tolstoy "the" Russian novelist for 100 years.
Of course, we now know that it's not a particularly excellent novel on the level of a Moby Dick or a Gravity's Rainbow, but for readers in the 20s and 30s, it must have been something refreshing, to know that Russians in the late 1800s were grappling with similar issues as the West.
>>7456291
when you say SJW as a pegorative the implication is that for social INjustice, which makes you on the wrong side of your own argument.
What do you people call yourselves? Gamergaters? Can you define yourself in any other terms that what you are not, i.e. you arent reddit, for whatever glory that graces you with...but what are you?
Asking for a freind.
I read NW first and loved it. Made the mistake of assuming the rest of his work would be like that.
I liked parts of Kafka, TWUBC, After Dark and BWSW. Really enjoyed SOTBWOTS, Sputnick and Colorless. Couldn't Finish AWSC. Currently reading The Elephant Vanishes, also pretty hit and miss so far.
Do you guys prefer one or the other? Anyone who enjoys both?
>>7456227
Slowpoke who hasn't read Murakami here. Where should I start?
>>7456227
I like all murakami but his character writing is what I appreciate more than anything else, and oftentimes the surrealist elements of the plot function as commentaries on the characters. I really liked 1Q84 for its leads, and A Windup Bird Chronicle for the side characters.
>>7456416
Norwegian Wood or Wind Up Bird
is Harold Bloom right to worry about the future of literary theory? English departments seem overtly focused on certain social issues that have nothing to do with literature or aesthetics
>>7456186
this girls knows nothing about logic and grammar. Do not bother to reply to me, because you will be wasting your time.
I think Bloom is a classist, poncy snob who never stopped being mad at hippies.
in other words, the honorary king of /lit/
>>7456186
Yes.
Was Pierre a kek?
A kekold, I mean.
>>7455867
cant remember, i read it so long ago. are you literally asking if his wife slept with other men? i think he was the guy who survived when everyone else died and I never really liked him as much as I liked Andrei. but I'm really in no position to discuss, I read it once and never looked at it again. It would require so much commitment to reread and my reading list is always booked for months (no pun intended (that was kinda faggish))
>>7455889
He thought Dolokov slept with Helene and dueled him
So, what comes after the Greeks?
pic unrelated
>>7455744
nothing
you find Stoicism then quit before you get bogged down in what is essentially intellectual masturbation
>>7455837
But muh Epicureanism
>>7455837
or, if you're a cynic, literal intellectual masturbation
looking for teen romance novels with graphic sex scenes. any help?
>>7455735
looking to see what you missed out on or what?
>>7455801
kek fucking rekt
>>7455801
say that to my face, im not even mad, premarital sex is a sin.
Where do I start?
>>7455692
In the trash.
>>7455692
Chronologically, as always.
>>7455695
I'm afraid it's full of Nietzsche
hey /lit/ i'm going back to university because being a wagekek is awful
should i learn (hellenistic & ancient) greek or latin for literature? or both? which first?
pls respond
I'm Catholic by the way, so I'm leaning towards Latin only, so I can at least be competent enough to read well and thereby continue to learn.
Plus, shouldn't Greek be easier then?
>>7455564
If you don't want to be a wagekek why do you want to learn a dead language? Shouldn't you be focused on something practical so that you'll earn a better living and then have more free time.
>>7456323
I'm already an upper-middle class wagekek working as an engineer. I'm 28 in January.
I've had little time to write as of late, and have become unsatisfied with my ability. I'm essentially planning 4 years of philosophy, with supportive intermissions and another visit to India.
Just found this on an old shelf and looks interesting. Is it worth a read?
>>7455537
yes, it is.
read it and find out
>>7455537
It most certainly is. Not a very good starting point for Dostoevsky though.
Which author had the most depressing life?
Which literary character?
me desu
Me on the left.
>>7455479
Not sure if glasses is man or lesbian. Presuming man, in which case: nice harem.
What are some books that focus on normalfags hate?
I've read some that have social retards as protags, but none of them tackled the theme of envy and hate for socially successful people.
>>7455828
My first thought as well.
>>7455429
My twisted world
So what does /lit/ really think about this beyond it being "genre"?
>>7455421
Book of the new sun is killer. It's the only sci fi i've ever read that really ages well. Not embarrassed to put it on the book shelf.
People talk about how BOTNS, and all of Wolfe's work, "transcends the genre," as if that's some amazing thing.
It's not really THAT hard, though. If you want to rise above the normal tedium of science fiction and fantasy, you just need to write science fiction and fantasy that's influenced by stuff that isn't OTHER science fiction and fantasy. You need to treat it as actual literature, and draw on other literature when crafting it.
Wolfe is a prime example. He has influences in science fiction and fantasy, of course--BOTNS owes a huge debt to Jack Vance--but Wolfe also draws a lot of influence from more literary writers, like Borges, Proust, Chesterton, and Joyce. Tolkien's another example. He was influenced by some other fantasy writers--notably Robert E. Howard--but also by Beowulf, by the Eddas, and, of course, by the Bible.
The trick to writing science fiction and fantasy that stands as literature is to get out of the noxious, insular atmosphere of the genres. Read other shit too.
Probably my favorite book. Gene Wolfe is an excellent writer.
Ayo lit - any good Yakuza book / Jap crime stuff?
Nope. Sorry.
>>7455434
Are you sure?
>>7455371
That's Tracy McConnell.
She has good feet.
Any thoughts about The Cosmic Race (La raza cósmica) by José Vasconcelos, /lit/.
Is globalization really creating a fifth race which is destined to dominate the world and bring human kind to the path of cosmic glory?
why do people imagine that the human race is destined for "glory"? or even "cosmic glory"?
what is "glory"?
it's where the other apes in the tribe celebrate something cool you did. like killing that hyena with a stick.
i can only guess that "cosmic glory" is where you kill a hyena with gamma radiation channeled from a pulsar.
>>7455340
No, I think it's a completely unrealistic project doomed to failure.
I do not think man can possibly achieve such a glory in a universal manner, in any way. With the exception of following an eschatological event such as the return of Christ.
>>7455340
Yes, but that race will not be a human one.
![Anna-Karenina[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/e06k03G.jpg "Anna-Karenina[1]")
![War-and-Peace-w001[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/E5K9syM.jpg "War-and-Peace-w001[1]")
