I am looking for novels in which the protagonist has been rejected by society, hates society and all it's people generally or just feels very disconnected from everything. I liked Perfume but I like the free flowing rage of Henry Miller too despite his joy for life. I don't mind if there is misogyny or misandry. I like sadness, despair, bleakness, isolation and melancholy. I don't care what the story is about and I don't care how it ends. Violence is welcome. If there is a random act of kindness that may throw me emotionally, I'm ok with that too. Occasional hope is also acceptable.
Not a novel but Jimmy Corrigan by Chris Ware. Isolated 30-something dead inside shut-in travels cross-country to meet his estranged father and learns he's descended from a long line of timid, sad men.
beautifully illustrated and captures all the little details of rejection and awkward conversation like no other comic before it.
You should look into growing up instead of books.
>>7395245
this
I was browsing through the magazine section at Barnes & Noble today and I stumbled upon this New Philosopher magazine. Has any one picked it up/read it before? Is it worth getting it?
>>7395226
>smiley in a black turban
any interesting philosophy magazines that one can buy in the States?
>>7395279
Philosophy Now is a great one. I'd also look at New Philosopher. It's fairly new but what I looked at in the issue I picked up was pretty engaging and stimulating to be honest with you family.
I'm a literary pleb, because I have a pretty bad attention span for reading, yet I would like to spend more time with books. Can /lit/ recommend me some novels or short story collections that move at a blazingly fast pace? I enjoy abstract imagery and I'm mostly a sci-fi short story fan (e.g. Dangerous Visions, Ballard's works), but other genres are also acceptable.
>>7395195
fanfiction.net
>>7395199
niceme.me
>>7395195
Lovecraft
Is it a bad a idea to write a fantasy novel with a setting in which non of the sentient races are human, human-like or even mammalian?
>Is it a bad a idea to write a fantasy novel
yes
The only thing you're gonna change from writing a book featuring humans is descriptions. Whatever you write is gonna end up having basically human sentiments and thoughts in a different body.
Readers will relate to men.
That's why the hero is John Carter and not Tharrs Tharkass.
If you want to learn how to write an alien psychology, read Vance. He writes a lot of aliens or races of men with very different thinking patterns, and those stories are often very droll.
Is it possible to write about a city without having actually been there? Writing is no more than a hobby and I don't feel like packing up and moving to NYC or Paris just to write a novel.
>>7395161
yes, as long as you don't presume to talk much about the city itself, no one will notice.
>>7395161
no. the police come around and cut off your hands if you try.
>>7395202
dude, we need to found the Patrician State, with a brutal legal system to punish shitty writers
>he didnt go to Oxbridge
I got my Oxford rejection letter today, rec me some books about killing yourself for stupid reasons. I've already read Young Werner.
I don't know about Werner but you might like to try The Sorrows of Young Werther
Excellent Sheep by William Deresiewicz
>>7395121
thats what I meant. Honestly though the book was fucking trash and doesnt deserve to be remembered.
>tfw it's coming true
hold me bros
world war 3 is finally popping off now that Turkey is pulling NATO into a war with Russia? or you meant someone actually published your scribblings?
>>7395122
The book, you retard
>>7395113
Fuck, i know that feel
I'm fascinated by the world and I want to learn as much about it as I can. Art, philosophy, politics, economics, social movements.. you name it.
However, I'm daunted by the sheer number of subjects to study, works to read, and authorial biases to consider. Specialization, not generalization, rules the day, and that's fine, but I want to learn about everything.
How does one do that?
I've had some ideas. I fantasize about launching ambitious reading projects, like methodically reading Bloom's canon or the St. John's syllabus, but I fear that I would never reach the end, which would be frustrating because I'm impatient to learn about the contemporary world. I also consider using Wikipedia to read summaries of major ideas, events, and movements, but even that project might become a frustrating mess without a good enough plan. Then there's the idea of creating my own syllabus of survey texts--an idea that I like--but I've struggled to identify the appropriate texts (although I did just read Ancient Greece: A Political, Social, and Cultural History which was pretty apt). None of these approaches seem quite right.
Maybe I should just spurn chronology and context and dive into interesting subjects with reckless abandon?
Anyway, I'm very curious if there are other people here that have tried or are trying to self-teach themselves about the world and the forces that shape it. What's worked for your? What hasn't? Do you have any general advice about this kind of life-long learning project, or specifically how to balance breadth and depth? Specific recommendations of readings lists, online courses, or individual texts or authors?
I welcome your insights!
start with the greeks, friend
>>7395098
I pretty much just dived into anything I could find. The real problem is deciding which subjects simply aren't worth studying.
And keep in mind you won't actually learn everything.
>>7395098
>Maybe I should just spurn chronology and context and dive into interesting subjects with reckless abandon?
that is the only way to do this and stay sane.
>What's worked for your?
i got a smart friend to tell me what context i need to understand stuff i wanted to study. i.e kant etc to understand hegel.
>Do you have any general advice about this kind of life-long learning project, or specifically how to balance breadth and depth?
breadth is worthless. focus on specific things you like, disconnected as they may be.
>Specific recommendations of readings lists, online courses, or individual texts or authors?
no
Hey /lit/
I'd like to ask for recommendations about literature (be it narrative, philosophical or non-fiction) about friendship or the lack of it
Recently in my life I've noticed that I don't have very strong relationships with people from my age, or rather, I give too much but recieve less and this leads to sadness (have a group of 'friends' but be ostracized or looked down upon, for example).
I don't mean to make this thread about wojack and frog posting, or how people misunderstand me and I'm not the problem, because more often than not I should be the reason as to why I'm not having good meaningful friendships. I know the literary lifestyle might lead to loneliness, but I don't mean to follow it for now.
I feel like I'm oblivious about social interactions and analysis at the moment (and I don't want to make this a thread about 'lmao u an autist lad'), even more than I did before when I was a kid, so the first step should be to educate myself and then apply what I've learn. Yet I don't think that reading pop-psychology and self-help books will do anything (i.e. How to Make Friends and Influence Others) because it's not about 'faking' a behaviour until I do it right, I really want to comprehend this type of things since I (and society) has placed comradery so high, yet it seems distant and alien to my life. Even if this leads into very technical psychological books, it might be fun and rewarding. I know the answer for many of you might be something along the lines of 'friendship is a spook, care only about yourself', but still I want to know.
Thanks in advance
>I feel like I'm oblivious about social interactions and analysis at the moment
Tell you the truth, if you don't do drugs and party every weekend the closest you'll get to contemporary social interactions is shitposting on this website and chatting on Facebook.
Not even being ironic or trolling here, I too feel really disenfranchised from today's social scene, but it mostly boils down to it being you laying on your bed texting with your friends...
fortress of solitude by lethem
don quixote
probably something victorian written by a woman too
>>7394986
Cool topic. I taught a class with this as a major strand. Here are a few readings that I'd recommend.
- Cicero, from De Amicitia (44 B.C.).
- Michel de Montaigne, “Of Friendship” (1580); - - Francis Bacon, “Of Friendship” & “Of Followers and Friends” (1625).
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Friendship” (1841)
- C.S. Lewis, “Friendship,” from The Four Loves (1958).
- Jacques Derrida, The Politics of Friendship (1991).
- Renaissance literature of friendship: William Shakespeare, sonnets 29, 30, & 104 (1609); John Donne, “Meditation 17” (1624); Amelia Lanyer, “Description of Cookham” (1611); Ben Jonson, “Inviting a Friend to Supper” (1612); Richard Lovelace, “The Grasshopper” (1649); Katherine Philips, “Friendship’s Mystery, To My Dearest Lucasia” & “To Mrs. M.A. at Parting” (1664).
- William Deresiewicz, “The End of Solitude” (2009). http://chronicle.com/article/The-End-of-Solitude/3708 (A cool and provocative essay about friednship in the facebook era).
In summary: friendship up until the Renaissance was incredibly intense and often described in a vocabulary that sounds to us almost like falling in love or finding your other half. Just now, we're a bit more isolated because we all have 1000 facebook friends but not much intimacy. Take care of yourself, OP, and make time to get close to those who seem important.
How seriously do you take peoples' opinion if they haven't even read something like Being and Time? Seriously asking.
>>7394778
I don't know if this book had anything to say or it was merely a giant bluff, but i know that it doesn't prove anything. Heidegger provides no proof whatsoever for what he claims. Even if he is saying something, he doesn't prove it. So it becomes a little pointless to try to figure out what he said.
To me Heidegger's convoluted and unscientific style seems to have more in common with psychiatrists than philosophers. I shudder at his grotesquely naive analyses of existence, fear, anxiety, the uncanny, conscience and death.
If you pick up this book at a library or at a second-hand bookshop, you will notice that only the first few pages have annotations and bear signs of having actually being turned. Virtually nobody had ever read this book to the end. But it is routinely listed as a milestone of philosophy. I personally think it represents a milestone of everything that gives philosophers a bad reputation: unscientific, incomprehensible, incompetent, and, ultimately, just plain silly.
Be suspicious of any philosopher who hailed this as a great book. Heidegger stated that Sartre had misunderstood most of his ideas, and that's the biggest compliment ever paid to Sartre.
>>7394782
Agreed. He's like the Beatles of philosophy.
It's pretty necessary for understanding the direction of 20th C. philosophy. But honestly, the most important idea is of ontological difference (check SEP for clarification) and you can get many of the main ideas from some slightly easier reads like the Introduction to Metaphysics.
basically my mom didnt give a shit about me and dad was always at work, so all i did through age 0-20 was stare at the walls / computer screen and rot.
now every time i pick a book i either get too tired or annoyed because my lack of concentration. ive been forcing myself to read for 3 years now, and i still read slow as fuck with loads of breaks. (1 small book might take a month or two)
i dont have ADHD because i can sit at class and listen for 5 hours straight, but when it comes to books and educating myself, instead of pleasing the teacher - my brain just tells me to gtfo,
so how do i reprogram myself from pleb mentality to a book reader?
excuse me for retard language, its bcos i cant read
>>7394746
Just fucking sit down and read stuff that you think you'll care about. Some of the really good stuff, like Dostoevsky or Camus. Aim for reading at about 30 pages an hour. Make sure you do it for a couple of hours a day minimum. Soon enough it should absorb your imagination enough that you realize you need to know more about Raskalnikov's mind and about what happens next. Then you'll be just fine.
>>7394746
You're like me but worse.
Watch films then read then watch films then read, repeat ad infinitum.
anon, help
What the fuck should I read?
>>7394745
The Recognitions
>>7394748
Latest meme trash. Fuck off and read some realism.
>>7394752
Nice bait. 6/8.
Just read this
Is it any good?
>>7394724
dropped it 1/3 into it.
>>7394724
>Dickens.
>Good.
nigga p'lea'se
You tell me, now that you read it.
can you suggest me good far-right essays? I'm not very fond in politics and I need to know!
What do you currently consider as "far right"?
>>7394676
You're probably a really dumb meme conservative and probably just upset about girls or something, so it's probably for the best you stick to the other libertarian neo-nazi meme catholics on /pol/ until you forget what you were upset about in the first place.
>>7394802
tmi dude. didn't ask for your life story.
Stephen King once said authors who write "plots" in fiction are boring, instead the book should be all about character in order to make it more organic or believable , I guess.
So when world building is such a central topic to the genre what is the take away here?
PS: Stephen King killed this guy.
>>7394675
wow stephen you took care of that fucker.
no such thing as a mafia wink wink
I do like King's character development. He includes so much backstory to his characters but none of it feels forced or uninteresting. It all adds something.
>character development
>plot progression
pleb-tier concerns
