Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 176. page
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>HB: I spend a good part of my life in bookstores – I give readings there when a new book of mine has come out, I go there to read or simply to browse. But the question is what do these immense mountains of books consist of? You know, child, my electronic mailbox overflowing with daily mesages from Potterites who still cannot forgive me for the article I published in Wall Street Journal more than a year ago, entitled "Can 35 Million Harry Potter Fans Be Wrong? – Yes!" These people claim that Harry Potter does great things for their children. I think they are deceiving themselves. I read the first book in the Potter series, the one that's supposed to be the best. I was shocked. Every sentence there is a string of cliches, there are no characters – any one of them could be anyone else, they speak in each other's voice, so one gets confused as to who is who.
>IL: Yet the defenders of Harry Potter claim that these books get their children to read.
>HB: But they don't! Their eyes simply scan the page. Then they turn to the next page. Their minds are deadened by cliches. Nothing is required of them, absolutely nothing. Nothing happens to them. They are invited to avoid reality, to avoid the world and they are not invited to look inward, into themselves. But of course it is an exercise in futility to try to oppose Harry Potter.
>Byatt - Ms. Rowling's magic world has no place for the numinous. It is written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip. Its values, and everything in it, are, as Gatsby said of his own world when the light had gone out of his dream, ''only personal.'' Nobody is trying to save or destroy anything beyond Harry Potter and his friends and family.
Your hatred (and love of course) for the series, fans, the people being quoted and Rowling
Are Bloom and Byatt correct?
Yay it's time for one of my favorite kind of /lit/ threads!!!!!!!!!
of course they're right. the thing is, people think they're standing on a treestump screaming these things, trying to stop people from reading Harry Potter. no, reporters ask them their opinion and they give the obvious answer: Harry Potter isn't great literature. what do you want well-read people to say? I think McDonald's hamburgers taste great, but I would expect a food critic to be more discerning than I am.
the problem is that people think opinions are all equal, when really how much you know about a field gives your opinion more or less weight. if you've read only twelve books in your entire life, you may think your favorite one is extraordinarily powerful, innovative, thoughtful, until you read two hundred more and realize your old favorite is actually, in the grand scheme of things, mediocre. Bloom and Byatt are experts of literature. you don't have to agree with them, but make sure you're not overestimating your own expertise when you disagree.
If this is something /lit/ does I'd like to have this story critiqued, and maybe I could critique others.
page 2
>the lot
What lot? A parking lot?
like the lot of them. Is that an antiquated expression or just stupid shit?
>read ligotti it's fun
thanks faggots, forever a puppet now
Who pulled that cruel prank on you?
>>8204999
probably stirnerfags or something
Anyone who's reading this thread and hasn't read The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, do it. You won't regret it.
Does anyone have any books that can help me not give a fuck about anything ever again?
I have always been shy and anxious since I had a speech impediment until I was in high school, and it basically stunted my communication skills and made me never talk to anyone ever. Recently I am okay at talking to people, but I still get scared and anxious.
I am literally so tired of the feeling of anxiety in my stomach, I am just constantly worried about my future and about what people think of me. I have tried moodgym and it helps, but the anxiety comes back. I have gone to music festivals to get it out of my system, but even when I am there and drunk as fuck I still think about what other people think of me.
Is there a book that can cure me being a pussy and also putting everything in life off to mindlessly watch youtube videos? Like at night time I write myself notes because I become super motivated at night, but in the morning I wake up and just watch youtube videos for hours. Also I am heavily addicted to a "legal" opiate for 2 years and it fucked up my bodies reward system, but too hard to quit :\
>>8204869
>Does anyone have any books that can help me not give a fuck about anything ever again?
Choose between:
Stoic/Epicurean texts.
Rational-emotive therapy texts.
"The Ego and It's Own"
>I have always been shy and anxious since I had a speech impediment until I was in high school, and it basically stunted my communication skills and made me never talk to anyone ever. Recently I am okay at talking to people, but I still get scared and anxious.
>I am literally so tired of the feeling of anxiety in my stomach, I am just constantly worried about my future and about what people think of me. I have tried moodgym and it helps, but the anxiety comes back. I have gone to music festivals to get it out of my system, but even when I am there and drunk as fuck I still think about what other people think of me.
Have you ever considered anxiolytics?
>>8204869
>pic related
Persian detected
>>8204883
>not knowing who chestbrah is
i wish i was persian desu, from what I've seen the men are essentially the most attractive a man can be imo.
>>8204875
will look at all of those, I started epictetus discourses, and also the ego and it's own but I will try to finish them
also I don't really have proper medical coverage to get anxiolytics, but thanks for the advice
>Ideas are grades of objectivity of the will
What did he mean by that?
were his eyes erally that color?
>>8201811
Yes
Schopenhauer was pure aryan master race
How does /lit/ organise their bookshelves? Publisher, author, genre, chronologically? What do you believe is the superior method?
Also, post your bookshelves.
>>8196941
I sort by country of author's birth, then author's birth year. Non-fiction's got its own shelf, not as much order to it, just generally flows from topic to topic.
>>8196941
Last name > chronological order of release > oldest edition
Pic related is my mess
I have mused on the aspects of kek, the growing meme phenomenon as of late, this new incarnation of an old god, and I feel that perhaps it is a sign of the coming antichrist, or the antichrist itself.
I have come to this conclusion not the typical way, where any god in opposition is the antichrist, and the obvious idolatry problems, but more from the importance of its name, kek, sometimes called kuk, associated with the degeneracy of cuckoldry, a widely popular insult among these boards.
I feel that perhaps this name, Kuk, is a perversion of the christ himself, and have marveled at the concept of the cuckoldry of Joseph, husband of the virginal Mary.
Obviously a perverse warping of this arguably most important miracle in the history of man, the story of immaculate conception is transformed into a sinful story of treachery and deception, this Kek, and its rise of popularity alongside the mentioning of its alternate name, is the personification of slander against the Lord's greatest gift to mankind.
you got off on the wrong stop buddy
reddit is a few blocks down
You idiot. Kek is a shortening of keke, the Korean version of lol. Keke, or kek, has been a thing since the time of Starcraft.
>>8219124
lol + le = lel
lel typo = kek
?
They're of no help to me now
These words that shuffle about in my gulliver
I used to pull them out as they would quiver
While I'd shape them to sonatas long and slow
Like a cry in the night by the window
Staring at the moon in a lurid gaze
Soon enough they'd break though worn and torn
And tired and battered I'd start again
Like Sisyphus.
I always wondered what he would think
There at the top when the deed was almost done
Looking down at the drop with his heart almost lifted
A feeling of pride perhaps? Of a job well done?
And was he crushed when the rock rolled down again?
But he knew that would happen so why did he hope?
And even if he succeeded to hold it still
And the visages of victory became vistas
What would be there for him beyond?
He's only done that one thing for so long
That everything else you've already forgotten how
To do and your mind has hardened too
And isn't that exactly when they leave you to be
Free outside of the cage
That you've toiled to build so comfortably
You could live the rest of eternity
And that was what you really wanted, no?
You've ruined yourself thinking and rethinking
You've tied and untied the noose so much so
That when you hung yourself it came loose
So fast so quickly and a sign of God
I took it because I didn't even want to die
But I couldn't take the responsibility of being alive
And miracles, spectacular cheers and wreaths
And laurels I'd garnered just for you
So I could worship you, and then I understood
Why so many believe in you although
There's indications that the only intelligence around
Are us and we've even sent sounds out of bounds
That've allowed no signs of anything at all
And I understood that we're all lost at sea
Against a darkness that pleads to be left alone
But we
Like a child pestering an overworked mother
For a horseback ride though she's had a 12 hour shift
And hasn't had a good fuck in ages
We still gaze stooped and caught up
And
I realized I'd written nothing at all.
>>8218908
last line is horrendous
>>8218908
Idk if this is a joke or not... If not, this is hideous. You have no understanding of modern poetry. Poetry is based around imagery and depth. Start with an image, focus on this image. Look at the image in a way that no one has looked at it before, then use the description of this image to convey a topic. Read some poetry written this year. Dedicate at least a month to reading before you decide to write another poem.
>>8218919
>Read some poetry written this year
le current year meme
What is a book that will make me cry like Tobey Maguire in this image?
You people are fucking dumb. Stop asking these retarded questions.
>>8218866
The Road bc I have father issues and difficulty communicating my feelings and that's p much the whole book
It's midway 2016 and you haven't achieved anything noteworthy.
>tfw your power goes out and are forced to read at your desk, where you've placed two candles to illuminate your room from darkness
that's a comfy feel though
only time i'm undistracted enough to read without breaks
>>8218773
my reading routine is as follows
>come home from work
>take off clothes
>put on a black bathrobe purchased from walmart and Gandalf's wizard hat (Hobbit movie era tags, purchased at a magic and gag shop)
>place selected reading under pile of other books
>brush lint and dust from laundry room over pile of books
>turn off all the electric lights in house, turn AC down to 41F
>leave candle in holder next to matches by the door, exit apartment
>go to ground floor, hurredly climb back up stairs in haste
>burst open door, light candle in hand and walk to desk
>blow off dust over books
>pore over tome
>>8218813
>turn off all the electric lights in house, turn AC down to 41F
Kek
If it weren't for you guys, I would have never finished writing my first honest-to-god novel! (Maybe I should call it a novella, it's like 50,000 words, whatever. I FINISHED WRITING IT!) Finally, after seven long years, I can finally call myself an author. Thank you, eternally /lit/. Each and every single one of you have my eternal gratitude.
Have a wonderful day and God Bless!
>>8218596
God help you if this sorry bunch assisted but congrats famalam
Do you have any plans to self-publish it? Wouldn't mind checking it out.
Can you post a little snippet? I won't even tell you it's shit, I promise.
What are some great books that discuss/define/conceptualize consciousness?
>>8218549
k a n t
Descartes
List books which have good writing. Forget character development or plot or any of that other stuff, just writing which feels good on the tongue, and then give a sample (i.e a quote) to prove your point.
I'll start:
The Things They Carried:
“A true war story is never moral. It does not instruct, nor encourage virtue, nor suggest models of proper human behavior, nor restrain men from doing the things men have always done. If a story seems moral, do not believe it. If at the end of a war story you feel uplifted, or if you feel that some small bit of rectitude has been salvaged from the larger waste, then you have been made the victim of a very old and terrible lie. There is no rectitude whatsoever. There is no virtue. As a first rule of thumb, therefore, you can tell a true war story by its absolute and uncompromising allegiance to obscenity and evil.”
Just looking for some new books to read.
>inb4 my diary 2bh
Ulysses
Moby Dick
anything William Gaddis
>>8218506
The word you're looking for is prose, and that is not a good example of it.
>>8218514
This desu senpai
Any good literature involving copious amounts of fucking?
>>8218453
my dairy desu :^)
>inb4 butthurt /r9k/ frogposters
De Sade
>>8218453
the easter parade Richard yates
naked lunchlolita
Are Bret Easton Ellis' books as good as his podcast?
>>8218231
I think you meant to write
>Are Bret Easton Ellis's books as good as his podcast?
So I will answer that question.
The answer is no.
>>8218237
>he doesnt know
Jesus Christ, what a fucking pleb you are
Also not really, OP.
it baffles me that he uses his energy trying to understand the decline of film rather than directing his attention at least some of the time to literature, but I enjoy his podcast anyway, and his books are also decent. top 3 ranked by gr8ness:
1. American Psycho
2. Glamorama
3. The Rules of Attraction
