Your favorite magazine has just called you. You have THIRTY SECONDS to come up with an idea for their next cover feature. They want groundbreaking long form journalism. GO
>my favorite magazine
Hahahahahaha
Travelogue with a minor league baseball team of aging veterans. The sport is dying and so is their ability to save it. Empty bleachers. Dingy hotels. The end of American local pride.
feature story on the death of an outdated medium
What do you guys think of Sylvia Plath? i havent read any of her poetry but just started reading the bell jar but am not terribly impressed. its getting more interesting as she is getting more manic, is her poetry significantly better than her novel?
>>7338043
Almost the same thing before when orson Scott card said he didn't agree with gay marriage. Suddenly the after uneducated feel this is grounds to in discount his in work. Troll harder, spades. Your writing for just isn't on with par with whitey
>>7338043
I liked it, but my impression is biased - I was awfully depressed when I read it (I'm still in therapy) so I found in the novel 'someone' who knows what shes's talking about.
I highly prefer her journal though. Her downfall is more accurately portrayed, I think it gives a good insight of how clinical depression looks from the inside. It's a shame that her last journal was burned by her husband.
>is her poetry significantly better than her novel?
Yes. Ariel was a fine work, impressive craft for someone as young as she was.
Her poetry is well crafted - people who dispute that are dilettantes or have Procrustean programs of poetics - but it shows evidence of both her mania and her youth.
She uses imagery and abrupt utterances in a very opaque, lightly surreal, psuedo-prophetic way that I feel is characteristic of mania, having experienced people with it.
I'm neutral on this. I prefer poetry more like Auden's and Stevens where there is a sort of gradual building up of meaning. I also really like the open, emotional poetry of Snodgrass and Larkin. Your enjoyment of her may vary with your taste.
Her youth shows through in the edginess of a lot of the poems. Use of Nazi imagry, that kind of thing. I think it flaws the poetry.
Was Tolkien a genius or an absolute madman?
Neither.
>>7337837
What do you mean by this?
>>7337874
I wouldn't say he was a genius, and, based on my interpretation of the meme, I wouldn't say he was a madman either.
Can /lit/ help me list a few writers who had an education in a STEM field? So far:
Dostoevsky - Military Engineering
Gene Wolfe - Mechanical Engineering
Lewis Caroll - Math
Kurt Vonnegut - Biochemistry
Arthur C. Clark - Physics
Asimov did research in chemistry, then became a full-time writer, then back to chemistry, then back to writing
He even wrote a fake chemistry paper with SF parts to prepare for his return to chemistry
Ted Chiang is foremost a technical writer in the software industry
There are numerous biologists who were also great essayists - Modawar, Gould, Dawkins, Lewin, Lewontin etc.
Primo Levi worked in chemistry too, which is all over his work
William Carlos Williams was an MD. I think Nawal El Sadaawi is too.
>>7337753
>Dostoevsky - Military Engineering
I had no idea - how interesting.
Can we have a humorous /lit/ thread? Would love to change the pace of what I'm reading and pursue some work of literary merit that's also funny.
P.G. Wodehouse, who Hugh Laurie credits with helping him through his depression, is tremendous and his works do not rely on any continuity between novels. The Jeeves novels are a great place to start.
And you?
>>7337740
For more contemporary stuff, the most common two novels are catch-22 and confederacy of dunces, both of which are top laughs.
The Blandings novels are also funny too.
Sage and hidden.
Finding things "humorous" is a sign of moral degeneracy.
Why must every bit of experimental or serious prose in this book be followed by some goofy, retarded drinking song or a passage about Slothrop doing something silly and dull?
I've gotta give Thommy Pinecone credit, though. Despite being periodically bored out of my fucking mind, about 400 pages in, I still won't stop reading because I'm curious what ridiculous or idiosyncratic shit might be in the next sudden passage, but it's still like I'm sifting through shit soup to get a few gold nuggets.Also, it has to say something about a work when the most viscerally exciting part, almost halfway in, is about literally eating shit.
>>7337675
A) so it's just 2deep4u schlock and B) because the subversion of low and high culture is a huge part of the book. What better way to do it than follow a passage on determinism with a dick joke?
>>7337710
*not
>>7337675
>Why
To bum out the squares
Any good bookstores in melbourne?
Preferably second hand with philosophical and ideological topics
just go to abebooks.com
>Alice's Books
In Rathdowne Street. A really good philosophy section, last time I was there they had an old copy of Being and Time in the original German, The Ego and Its Own, and a bunch of other stuff. There's also a lot of old leather bound type stuff and a fairly big foreign language section. There's heaps of subsections and a big range basically
>Red Wheelbarrow
In Brunswick. Pretty small, but has a decent philosophy section - nothing too out of the ordinary, though
>Collected Works
In the Nicholas Building above Retro Star. It's got the most interesting range. Lots of philosophy, critical theory, weird stuff you've never heard of, etc. Also lots of good lit from Africa iirc
>City Basement Books
Near Flinders Street Station. Bad philosophy section, but a pretty big fiction section with lots of nice old penguin paperbacks and that kind of thing
>>7337660
>good lit from Africa
/lit/, please recommend some books to improve conversational, debating and persuasion skills. What else is there aside from Aristotle's Rhetoric and Machiavelli?I already know about 48 Laws of Power and How to Win Friends and Influence People; the latter is terrible.
>>7337538
Just B Urself by A. Normie
>>7337542
this is the best book out there OP
you have to get it
>phil major
>become good at keeping the argument on topic when arguing with other men
>become completely lost arguing with women, baffled by their structureless diatribe
>don't know where to begin with refuting their non-point
>mfw they think they won because they didn't raise a point to be properly refuted
What's the literary equivalent of the Artist's Shit?
Ubi Roi - Jarry
Ulysses is the fountain.
Finnegans Wake is the shit.
>>7337421
That's a little harsh.
Let's tone it down a bit.
Ulysees is the pastry shell.
Finnegans Wake is the poop creme filling.
Is there any literature delving into feelings of horrible guilt?
Or dealing with it in ways that aren't suicide? I don't know what to do so maybe fiction will help me.
>>7337216
Start with the Greeks.
>>7337216
I'd say kokoro by natsume soseki, but honestly that would probably make you more likely to off yourself.
>>7337216
The Picture of Dorian Gray.
After reading Infinite Jest, Oblivion and The Pale King does he have much else to say that I won't have heard before in his other work?
>>7337157
Just ask him.
>>7337157
I really like his essay about the cruise.
David 'Career Move' Wallace had 0 things to say. Prove otherwise, please.
Why is notes from underground narrator/protagonist such a coward, blaming others, living contradiction and victimizing himself every chance he gets?
but he was right about everything
>>7337016
But he's so miserable.. I pitied him so much... Why is he like that? He couldn't accept his reality? It bugs me so much especially because my brother is exactly like him
Just finished pic related
It wasnt very good...
Congratulations! You're a boy.
NorWood is Murakami's single most overrated work
>>7336820
why is this shit so fucking praised? Its because of the forced sex scenes? Midoris cliche personality? The constant references to popular culture? Pls someone explain
/lit/ i want to read some classic fairytales, but i want the real deal not a disney-modern day friendly version of them, what are some editions of compilations that are the real thing? the ones that i find are dumbed down or censored.
Pic not related.
le wrong generation xd
Classic Fairy Tales by Maria Tatar ISBN: 9780393972771
The Bloody Chamber by Carter is good
Considering that world building is necessary to tell a good story (Tolkien invented languages!) is it possible to do too much world building?
>>7336755
No to your assertion and yes to your question. Move along.
>>7336761
What? How can a story not be helped by taking place in a fleshed-out world?
>>7336755
>world building is necessary to tell a good story
Wrong.
>world building
The most important thing a writer must build is an engaging story or at least an interesting character or two. At best, the author wants to communicate an important message to the reader.
And since the world is already built for you, you have only to research it.
–Oh, you wanted to make cheap Tolkien knock-offs. Fuck off.
![stem_scispotlight-700x270[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/3iKzyqw.jpg "stem scispotlight-700x270[1]")
