Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 227. page
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I posit that the fundamental inability for a middle aged woman to understand and create a realistic young male has contributed to the destruction of the idea of "male" and male-identity in younger generations.
>>8196829
I posit that OP is a faggot and sage goes in all fields
>>8196878
I'll fuck a guy and accept a blowie from anyone, but won't reciprocate.
The middle-aged woman can't create a realistic character of any gender.
Badly developed characters have existed in popular books long before Harry Potter.
"Destruction of the idea of "male" and male-identity in younger generations." This phrase is metaphorically a cloud. You sound like a /pol/ack who sees "degeneration" of your spooks everywhere. You can easily find the cause of this situation in a hundred other places.
Books can't influence a civilization's mindset that much anyway.
kys
Where can I download ebooks for free? I know of bookzz but it rarely has any books and when it does they're deleted by "copyright owner". What's the best way to download ebooks for free in this case? If anyone's wondering I'm looking for Dune by Frank Herbert.
>>8196818
literally just wrote "herbert dune epub" into google and found it on the first page it gave me
>>8196849
LMAOOO YOUMAD BAROOOOOOOO
>>8196818
gen.lib.rus.ec has mostly anything you want/
Soulseek is quite good also
There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"
If at this moment you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is to you younger fish, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude-but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete...
A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. Here's one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: Everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self centeredness, because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default-setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: There is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute center of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real-you get the idea. But please don't worry that I'm getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called "virtues." This is not a matter of virtue-it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default-setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centered, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.
By way of example, let's say it's an average day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging job, and you work hard for nine or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired, and you're stressed out, and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for a couple of hours and then hit the rack early because you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home-you haven't had time to shop this week, because of your challenging job-and so now after work you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the workday, and the traffic's very bad, so getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping, and the store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be, but you can't just get in and quickly out. You have to wander all over the huge, overlit store's crowded aisles to find the stuff you want, and you have to maneuver your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts, and of course there are also the glacially slow old people and the spacey people and the ADHD kids who all block the aisle and you have to grit your teeth and try to be polite as you ask them to let you by, and eventually, finally, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush, so the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating, but you can't take your fury out on the frantic lady working the register.
Anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and pay for your food, and wait to get your check or card authenticated by a machine, and then get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death, and then you have to take your creepy flimsy plastic bags of groceries in your cart through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and try to load the bags in your car in such a way that everything doesn't fall out of the bags and roll around in the trunk on the way home, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV- intensive rush-hour traffic, et cetera, et cetera.
The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to foodshop, because my natural default-setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way, and who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem here in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line, and look at how deeply unfair this is: I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid goddamn people.
Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious form of my default-setting, I can spend time in the end-of-theday traffic jam being angry and disgusted at all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUVs and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, who are usually talking on cell phones as they cut people off in order to get just twenty stupid feet ahead in a traffic jam, and I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and disgusting we all are, and how it all just sucks, and so on and so forth...
Look, if I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do-except that thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic it doesn't have to be a choice. Thinking this way is my natural default-setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities. The thing is that there are obviously different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stuck and idling in my way: It's not impossible that some of these people in SUVs have been in horrible auto accidents in the past and now find driving so traumatic that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive; or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a way bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am-it is actually I who am in his way. And so on.
Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're "supposed to" think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard, it takes will and mental effort, and if you're like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat-out won't want to. But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line-maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Department who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible-it just depends on what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important-if you want to operate on your default-setting-then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will actually be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars-compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: The only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship...
I went to the bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Ulysses." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Joyce's mind is so governed by cliches and dead metaphors that he has no other style of writing.
Taking a pasta and simply replacing ~3 words doesn't make for a good meme. However, this is the first edit of this pasta I've seen on /lit/, and it might start a new trend.
2/10, one point for originality
I saw James Joyce at a grocery store in Los Angeles yesterday. I told him how cool it was to meet him in person, but I didn't want to be a douche and bother him and ask him for photos or anything. He said, "Oh, like you're doing now?" I was taken aback, and all I could say was "Huh?" but he kept cutting me off and going "huh? huh? huh?" and closing his hand shut in front of my face. I walked away and continued with my shopping, and I heard him chuckle as I walked off. When I came to pay for my stuff up front I saw Joyce trying to walk out the doors with like fifteen Milky Ways in his hands without paying. The girl at the counter was very nice about it and professional, and was like "Sir, you need to pay for those first." At first he kept pretending to be tired and not hear her, but eventually turned back around and brought them to the counter.
When she took one of the bars and started SCANNING it multiple times, he stopped her and told her to scan them each individually "to prevent any electrical infetterence," and then turned around and winked at me. I don't even think that's a word. After she scanned each bar and put them in a bag and started to say the price, he kept interrupting her by yawning really loudly.
>>8197115
that was actually pretty fucking funny anon
>>8196733
What's this about, a capitalist distopy?
>>8196733
Top tier book. It doesn't get the recognition it deserves.
What is the most highly recommended (English) translation of Dante's Divine Comedy?
>how highly does Douglas Neff's translation rate?
Bloom recommends Sinclair's prose translation above all, and Binyon's poetry translation for poetry.
>>8196714
i love this chart
Who here likes this book? Any thoughts on it?
>>8196648
reported
>>8196656
Newfag, I probably fucked up in some way. Any recommendations?
>>8196667
yeah, read zizek
Who is the most /lit/ publisher and why is it NYRB?
>>8196639
NYBR, Pushkin Press and Every Man are top tier.
I only own Skylark and Warlock when it comes to NYBR but do you recommend picking up anything else by them? I plan on getting a good amount but I own the Vintage edition of Stoner.
>>8196643
I've bought nyrb classics with no prior knowledge of the books and have never been disappointed. 12/12 so far with this method.
They're fine but jesus the circle jerk for NYRB on this board is unbearable. It's a way for hipster pseuds to get their "obscure" novels literally spoonfed to them.
What are some of the best autobiographies you ever read?
my book that I write bits about my daily what not desu
another bullshit night in suck city
I've signed up for a "Major British Writers" course for my next year at uni to see what it would be like; why not, ya know?
Listed authors are Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Pope, Austen, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson, Browning, Bronte, Dickens, Joyce, Eliot, Woolf, and Yeats.
Any recommendations for materials to read beforehand?
the bible
the greeks
the romans
>>8196418
>greeks
>romans
Specifics?
Read Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Pope, Austen, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Tennyson, Browning, Bronte, Dickens, Joyce, Eliot, Woolf, and Yeats most famous works.
Over the course of 5 years I wrote six shory stories, each and every one of the was distinctively pessemistic and usually had a cruel twist ending. I would like to hear your intresting ideas for a short story.
You can throw in a general description, or you can elaborate on the story as much as you want.
1) The first short story was more of an ode to Jack London. I borrowed a lot of the expressions and writing style from "To build a fire " and "The Love of Life"
It was a story about two gold miners. One of the is young and vigorus, leading the duo through the tundra and the second is an aging weak individual.
When they take a break the old timer asks his compnion to give him more time to rest claiming he will soon get up and follow him. After a short dispute the young miner levaes him a gun to protect himself from wolves.
He marches on, also carrying his firend`s gold. After a excruciating walk he suddenly sees the settlemnt realizng he had miscalculated their route and it was a lot closer than they expected.
Meanwhile the old timer gets lost and in a dying fenzy convinces himself that his companion planned to leave him for dead all along.
When the man returs looking for his friend, he gets shot by him. And of course the shooter dies later due to hypothermia.
2)A scientist comes hom excited about his impeding marraige. He quit his job a the lab and took out a loan to go with his wife on honeymoon.
Inside he is greeted by his double. They share a drink and he explains to him that his ex coworker managed to invent time machine, based on the theory that the main character proposed as a thought experiment, but never took seriously.
Seven years In the future his wife hates him because he threw out his career and his life is in shambles. He beggs his friend for a job at the lab with time machine and uses it.
The time travel simply creates another reality without distorting current time flow. You can send an atomic bomb back in time for a milisecond and feel zero effects on present reality.
The characters thinks that he had come to warn himself. But turns out the drink they shared was poison, and his double "takes his life back " from a younger and weaker versions of himself.
First of all he disposes of the body, tell his bride to go fuck herself. As he begins to work on the time machine project he instantly recieves a bomb through time travel. As it turn out, it was once again from his future self; those seven years that he lost could have given him enough time to live long enough for the cure of his rare illness. So he kills "himself" just out of sheer frustration.
>tfw I never get great ideas for short stories anymore
When I was younger I used to get that "Hey I should write about that" thought all the time
3) A monster a plaguing the village. It hunts down and devours peole, leaving horrible raveged remains.
Bounty hunters and monster slayers begin to gather near the village.
Story followes some of the brifely but all of them end up at the same night at the same tavern
It quickly tuns out that most of them are connected to each other:
(1) Ex - garrison commander almost hanged an (2) escaped convict, which also confessed his sins to the (3) Ex priest, who used to rape (4) girl who joined bandits, who robbed and killed family of an (5) ex soldier, who used to kill innocent elves, and one time spared a (6) half blood, who worked with the (2) convict
There`s also a barkeep and his daoguter in the tavern.
The flashbacks unfold, and evntually they draw their weapons.
Long story short, a priest and the elf remain alive and they threathen the barkeep to keep his mouth shut.
The twist is the monster is ashapeshfiter who can assume the identity of the it devoured. the daughter of barkeep turns back into her true from and slaughters them all, before leaving to the night.
>5 short stories in 6 years
prolific lad
So what does /lit/ think? We already know what reddit thinks.
>>8196289
/lit/ loves it for its descriptions being so vivid and lustful
>>8196289
It was a fun book overall, but some of the parts where he's describing them driving all over the country drag and feel like laundry lists.
They aren't vivid and lustful. They're extremely subtle. There's nothing overly obscene. What the fuck are they talking about.
>pick up this book because of the /lit/ memes
>not sure what to expect
>start reading it
>it's actually fucking incredible
I'm still reading it bros, I know some of you guys might see this as a shitpost, and it probably is, but I gotta thank you guys for getting me to read this book. Pynchon's writing is amazing, and the way the novel flows is incredible to me. This passage I was reading I really liked:
“And one cried wee, wee, wee, all the way—” Jessica breaking down in a giggle as he reaches for the spot along her sweatered flank he knows she can’t bear to be tickled in. She hunches, squirming, out of the way as he rolls past, bouncing off the back of the sofa but making a nice recovery, and by now she’s ticklish all over, he can grab an ankle, elbow—
But a rocket has suddenly struck. A terrific blast quite close beyond the village: the entire fabric of the air, the time, is changed—the casement window blown inward, rebounding with a wood squeak to slam again as all the house still shudders.
Their hearts pound. Eardrums brushed taut by the overpressure ring in pain. The invisible train rushes away close over the rooftop. . . . They sit still as the painted dogs now, silent, oddly unable to touch. Death has come in the pantry door: stands watching them, iron and patient, with a look that says try to tickle me.”
Damn that was nice
Now I wanna read it too
>>8196249
yeah its the best
>>8196249
After +- 500 pages Pynchon really gets on my fucking nerves.
philosophy departments with a continental focus
>populated by laid back, experienced students who come from a variety of disciplines and european states, who are generally well cultured and up-to-date with modern fashion and trends
>use of recreational drugs and alcohol tolerated and even encouraged between doctoral students and faculty, both as a means of social relaxation and facilitating research
>female colleagues generally more sexually free and promiscuous due to adhering to radical notions of femininity
>looser restrictions and less emphasis on red tape due to the radical anti-authoritarian nature of much critical theory
>great inter-department bro relations with other arts and social sciences due to significant discourse overlap
>more potential for fame and media publicity in culture due to the strong grounding of critical theory in modern events
philosophy departments with an analytic focus
>filled with cultureless degenerates, ruthless no-fun careerists, ignorant wannabe STEMfags, and legitimately autistic people (sup Kripke)
>female colleagues generally ugly, sexually inhibited, and attempt to mimick the mannerisms of the men in their department for a greater claim to authority
>generally sober and baseline, engaging in drug use typically only results in spouting some pseudo-mystical bullshit about the universe and its inherent godel,escher bach beautiful mind mathematical structure and various other embarrassing forms of bullshit
>terrible relations with other departments due to the insistence on empirical methodology and naturalistic definitions
>up-to-date with modern fashion and trends
>>use of recreational drugs and alcohol tolerated and even encouraged between doctoral students and faculty, both as a means of social relaxation and facilitating research
>female colleagues generally more sexually free and promiscuous due to adhering to radical notions of femininity
Are these supposed to be positives?
>>8196259
yes if you're a well-functioning human being and aren't socially crippled
Does anybody else move their head when they read? It's supposed to be really bad but I can't stop doing it. Whenever I try it feels like my eyes get really jerky and I read the words really unevenly.
thats a cute twink
>>8196222
>move their head when they read
wtf?
>>8196228
I know a lot of people find it really weird. I've been reading up on it and apparently it is something that is supposed to be stopped in early childhood when people just learn to read. However, for whatever reason no one ever stopped me and I'm so used to it now
![ulysses[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/qLdinHF.jpg "ulysses[1]")
![76171[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/NquwgiS.jpg "76171[1]")
