The book is done, now we're waiting for copy editing to finish.
In the meantime, artfag here could use some help. Need a few things for the back cover:
>Book blurb/summary
For a novel (brief, enticing introduction to the plot) and/or for a short story collection (description of the author's skills and credentials, touches on overarching themes and specific scenes).
>About the author
self-explanatory
>Reviews/quotes
One-liners are best, a sentence or two is fine. There are lots to pull out from last thread: >>7418113 >>7418124 >>7418124 >>7418149 >>7418155 >>7418159 >>7418262 >>7418881
What I really need is the sources of the quotes, critics and magazines etc.
PARTS 1-5:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TIdoWxLOs7tVlO8MHISFAm1stJ7FEta-fL0dBe88J1g/edit?pli=1
FINALE:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AnRcYxfBIcVv7NRgIgvVtq1wSSudoIs39qurTi_IW-M/edit?pli=1
>>7428665
I compiled the Death Orgy with the Parts.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TIdoWxLOs7tVlO8MHISFAm1stJ7FEta-fL0dBe88J1g/edit?pli=1
All that's left now is:
>Insert the BedroomPunishment story that got deleted in Part 5.
>Capitalize some 'the's from Part 5 - some rapscallion changed them to "nigger" in the process.
>Adjust paragraphs, proper alignment.
Otherwise, it's dandy.
>>7429139
I also came upon this secret chapter in TLOTIAT that sh/d explain some refs, for the confused.
Hi /lit/. Christmas is coming up and I want to find a good present for my older brother. He's the guy that really got me into reading and overall acted more like a father than even our actual father, so I think a really good book would be perfect. Some stuff about his taste:
>huge on russians, has some of every russian author I've ever heard discussed on /lit/
>we're american but he taught himself to be mostly fluent in russian and german, can understand some spanish, polish, serbian, and old church slavic
>majored in history, got a law degree
>loves anything related to 20th century cold war/russian history (but he's probably too well read here for anything to be new to him)
>non-russian authors he likes would be vonnegut, heller, hesse, very very big fan of faulkner
He's probably the most literary person I know and one of the smartest, but I simply don't know what he would like that he doesn't already have. Does /lit/ have any ideas?
Do you know if he owns/has read Vonnegut's Wompeters, Foma, and Granfalloons? Even among his fans, it's a lesser known/read work, consisting of a collection of essays, speeches, and interviews. He would undoubtedly enjoy that. For Heller, if he hasn't read both Picture This and Something Happened, I would highly recommend those, but I would guess he has if he is as well-read as you suggest.
For something similar to some of his tastes that you mention that he may not have read, I would also suggest Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis. It is very similar to Heller's Something Happened, a satire on the middle/upper middle class American bourgeoisie.
One last recommendation would be Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson. Fantastic novel comprised of a series of short stories centered on the various people of a small town. Wonderful look into what makes different people tick, their desires, their flaws, etc. Regarded as one of the most highly influential works for modern American authors including Faulkner.
>>7452050
Thanks anon. Winesburg especially sounds like something he might like. I'll look into all those
>>7452050
>Regarded as one of the most highly influential works for modern American authors including Faulkner.
I probably could have worded that more precisely. It's regarded as one of the more influential works for those authors in terms of setting the foundation for the styles, themes, etc. that you find to be common amongst the modern American authors like Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Hemmingway.
And one more random rec that someone like him would get a kick out of: The Professor and the Madman (or The Surgeon of Crowthorne if in UK). Very intriguing history of one of the most significant contributors to the original Oxford English Dictionary. He was highly intelligent but also highly insane, to the point he thought people were kidnapping him in his sleep and forcing him to have sex with children, and he spent the majority of his adult life in an institute for the criminally insane after killing a guy he thought was after him but was really just on his way to work. Oh yeah, and he alsohacked off his own dick while institutionalized.
Sup /lit/
What is the equivalent of A Thousand Years of Solitude for the Middle East? I am looking for a magic realism book to write about and I am particularly interested in the Middle East with an Arabic speaking background. So far I can only think of a 101 Arabian Nights.
>>7450786
why's james cryin? cuz he just got dunked on.
midnight's children maybe?
>>7450786
I unfortunately haven't read Marquez yet so I can't make a direct comparison or link. Maybe you'd be interested in Ibn Tufayl's Hayy b. Yaqdhan and Ibn an-Nafis' Fadeel b. Natiq (Theologus Autodidactus)?
1001 Nights definitely is a good place to start too. You can read the Arabic online from here:
https://ar.wikisource.org/wiki/%D8%A3%D9%84%D9%81_%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%84%D8%A9_%D9%88%D9%84%D9%8A%D9%84%D8%A9
What texts would /lit/ recommend for learning about Buddhism?
use the archive
>>7437210
Check the archive before you make such a common request. Here's one thread:
https://warosu.org/lit/thread/S7096422
You can use the search function to find more if that's not satisfactory.
A dead white European male was teaching a class on English literature, known tool of imperialist oppression.
“Before the class begins, you must get on your knees and worship King Leopold II, greatest monarch the world has ever known, even greater than James Monroe!”
At this moment, a black, female, transgendered, cis-hetero-homoflexible Latino transvestite man who has over 20,000 Tweets and 12,000 Tumblr posts stood up and held up a novel.
“What is this book?”
The professor smirked oppressively and smugly replied “Heart of Darkness, by Polish-British writer Joseph Conrad, an intelligent and insightful study of the primitive mind of the African peoples.”
“Wrong. The book is a racist and oppressive piece of propaganda designed to dehumanize the proud peoples of the African continent. Conrad is a bigot. If the book truly had merit as you claimed, Oprah would’ve reviewed it on her show already.”
The professor was visibly shaken, and dropped his chalk and Iron Cross. He stormed out of the room crying those DWEM crocodile tears.
The students applauded and all registered Marxist that day and accepted Martin Luther King Jr. as their lord and savior. An okapi pounced into the room and stood next to a south-up map centered around Africa. The students joined hand in hand and sang Toto’s Africa several times, and Jesse Jackson, king of all black people, showed up to enact affirmative action across the country.
The professor lost his tenure and was fired the next day. He died of a giant black nigger dick up his ass was tossed into the Sahara desert for all eternity.
That student’s name? Chinua Achebe.
Hakuna Matata.
>>7449892
Thanks for showing us that you know how to copy-paste and search through the archive. :s
>>7449892
This didn't really happen.
People seem to be confused about what a Marxist is on this board
What can I read to build self control in myself? I've looked online but everything seems like unhelpful self-help stuff. I really struggle to maintain habits which I impose on myself and my life is really a mess right now because of me.
>everything looks like unhelpful self-help
>give me more self-help
On a related topic, what kind of books can I read to learn how to move my hand?
Help
>>7449768
If your life is a serious mess and you think you have actual mental problems, a book won't help you and you should probably seek professional help.
>Mother tells me,
>the immortal goddess Thetis with her glistening feet,
>that two fates bear me on to the day of death.
>If I hold out here and I lay siege to Troy,
>my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies.
>If I voyage back to the fatherland I love,
>my pride, my glory dies . . .
>true, but the life that's left me will be long,
>the stroke of death will not come on me quickly.
Must all great men choose between these two fates? A life of danger that promises fame and a short life. Or the idyllic life that promises many happy days at the cost of being forgotten.
Is it a spook? I meditate on this question from time to time, and I have never come to a conclusion.
Hmm, well, no. Typically the hero is subject to fate or Fortune, such as in The Aeneid and Greek epics and has no 'choice' but to succumb.
Historically perhaps, but the way things are now the only platform for "great men" to live up to that potential is probably politics, and even then if you have any radical opinions you won't make any ground there.
Also, check out Tennyson's Ulysses.
You'd like it. It, in some senses, reinforces your thought. Im sure it's online
lit likes Zizek or not?
Sort of.
I like him but I'm really right wing
>>7449630
I dont like anything
How do you even start promoting your book?
Is it stereotyping to say that most fiction writers are naturally introverts who don't like the art of the sale?
Every bit of advice says to get a mailing list, Facebook, twitter, Website. To promote your upcoming book.
Do they have a point? Otherwise, you'll just write it, release it to the winds, and in a best case scenario someone will stumble upon it.
Any thoughts on this?
The fact is MFA culture promotes "networking" and "self-promoting" to the extent that unless you're willing to go with it you are literally less than scum to these people. The best thing a committed writer can do in 2015 is write something worthwhile and hope his mother discovers it in the basement after his heart explodes.
>>7449409
What is MFA culture?
Also, I think you might be right.
I have artist friends, painters, illustrators, photographers, and it's so much easier for them. Sure some of them try to play the "I"m so shy, self doubt" thing too, but their work gets an immediate feedback. They post a painting on facebook, or draw on Twitch, and instant validation.
Besides the logistical reasons for not sharing writing this way (copyright, sites and magz counting this as already published) I can't get feedback the way they can.
>>7449434
MFA is some sort of program in the US that churns out "writers". Professional, schooled "writers". Results are what you'd expect. It's mostly used as a derogative on this board.
Help I have a 500 word essay about Ulysses due in 6 hours what do I do??
>>7449361
even though this obviously b8, 500 words? A fingerless autist could bust that out in ten minutes.
"brekkek kékkek kékkek" said anon
JAMES JOYCE WROTE LOVE LETTERS ABOUT FARTS. There's your intro. Expand on that. That's all anybody wants to know about anyway.
I may be forced to get a job again soon, what do I read that will help me become every employer's worse nightmare?
local labour law
zarathustra
the art of being right
>>7449155
industrial society and it's future
>>7449155
Bartleby the Scrivener
Looking to read up on Freud, Lacan, and psychoanalytic theory generally.
Please recommend me texts for essential understanding. Reading order suggestions also welcome.
Understand that my knowledge is at the level of watching a few Zizek meme videos and the Pervert's Guide films.
>>7449115
Start with Anti-oedipus
>>7449120
Is this a mock suggestion, or for real?
Definitely have it in mind to read Deluze and Guattari
>>7449115
Just popping in to say that Wittgenstein's book on Aesthetics, Psychology and Religion (not necessarily in that order, can't remember) has a fascinating discussion of Freud and psychoanalysis.
A lot of translations of Lacan are really shitty so my advice would be to pick up as much secondary literature as possible from the library and find a writer that explains it half decently. There's a book called 'Lacanian Dictionary' or 'Dictionary for Lacanian Theory' or something like that which is really lucid and easy to get into.
Freud is usually not too difficult. Interpretation of Dreams is probably the most essential work, although 'Beyond the Pleasure Principle' is also up there.
Zizek is insubstantial garbage as far as I can tell.
I'll admit it I'm only 18 and I while I always liked reading I never really used to do that much, I was a big reader as a young kid, but I put it aside in middle school for shit like vidya and only read what was assigned to me in school.
Now that I'm in uni and realized I'm actually not that intelligent, I'm trying to start seriously reading.
After reading a few novellas that I really enjoyed, I've been trying to read some of the greeks.
My problem is I really am having trouble reading it. I'm reading Epictetus now after seeing it getting recommended by /lit/ as a good book for a young adult who wants to better themselves.
But I feel like I'm not grasping the meaning of what he says as much as I could. It's very slow and tenuous reading and I feel like I need to re-read everything 3-4 times before I actually understand what's being said.
How do I educate myself on how to read difficult works? Should I not even try with the greeks until I read more first.
>>7449051
>It's very slow and tenuous reading and I feel like I need to re-read everything 3-4 times before I actually understand what's being said.
This is fine OP, read with a pen in your hand and underline something you find interesting or what you'd like to know about a section and ask someone who has read it or ask online, even a professor
There's a shit ton more Greeks to read before you get to Epictetus... Read the Edith Hamilton's Mythology, then Homer, then probably the Tragedies, then maybe Plato. If you're going to read Stoics, then Senneca is the obvious entry point (once you've read all the other stuff). For general lit, the starter kit in the sticky is actually pretty good, or as good as any. Read all that & a year from now you'll be doing great!
>>7449056
If that's the one with Siddhartha, Brave New World and Great Gatsby then I've read pretty much all of them.
Everything besides catch 22 and Lolita.
Have you read this book? if so, what do you think of it?
No
It was shit.
It was all right. I didn't think it was as notable as most people make it out to be, but maybe it was. I'm not in the field.
>>7448863
Yes.
Gene theory is overly reductive. Read pic related and "Sex and Death," instead if you want to get a handle on how evolution works and is discussed among professionals.
It's cool to talk about children's literature here right? I just don't see anybody talking about this. I feel like I'm the only person I know that's even read these.
For those of you that have actually read them:
Do you think that the movie would have been as successful if they did a more faithful adaptation of the books? Would it have been too intense to be marketable as a children's film?
>children's literature
Generally, only when it actually is literature and not just books. "The Little Prince" gets mad play here but stuff like your OP not really. Seems like a mere book (not literature proper).
http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/539168-the-difference-between-books-and-literature
>>7448679
You just reminded me of /tv/. I don't mean that as an insult, but what you just said is awfully reminiscent of what they'll describe to you as the distinction between a "film" and a "movie". With the former, of course, being the /tv/ equivalent of "literature" as opposed to the latter, which would be the /tv/ equivalent of a "book".
Still though, I've seen more off-topic discussion on the front page. Surely this is close enough so that we can discuss it?
>>7448679
What do people think of Watership Down? I loved that book when I was younger. Re-reading it I can now notice all the various themes and devices throughout.It's also weird / interesting how when you break it all down it's just a pretty typical adventure genre fiction
