Archived threads in /lit/ - Literature - 481. page
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Finnish guy here, I can read and write English fairly well, but complex literature is still a bit too much for me. What English language books do you recc that are challenging without being completely overwhelming?
>inb4 Finnegan"'"s Wake
>>8036407
Have you read the standard recommendations like 1984 and Catch-22 yet?
Have you read the kavela epic
>>8036407
Gravity's Rainbow. After that, The Recognitions.
I dont get it
your pleb
>>8036293
He's writing about his depression, it's 3000 pages of him exploring all the melancholies.
Why is NYRB so goat?
I read pic related in late August a few years ago and, just, the memories of reading this book on a park bench in the shade of an old tree during an outing to the park was so comfy... every time I evoke this memory I'm always filled with a feeling of warmth. What are some fond memories /lit/ has concerning reading books?
i never understood what NW's point was
for me it was just japanese autism - the book
>>8036240
That's not the point of this thread. We're talking about good and memorable times spent reading.
>>8036232
As I was reaching the end of In Search of Lost Time, I was desperately trying to find the perfect place to finish it. I became anxious, left my room and went downstairs, to the attic and back in my room again. Nearing the end, my heart was beating fast and I felt uneasy. After I had read the last page in bed, I couldn't really believe that that book, in which I was invested for such a long time, had finally come to an end. I then decided to reread the last page for a while. Rereading it moved me deeply, and I only stopped reading when the tears in my eyes blurred my sight. Unable to read any further, I put the book away and began to cry.
It was also my birthday.
Please help me to understand Steppenwolf
I have read this book 3 times now and have gained more of an insight into the symbolic nature of it. I have never related to a protagonist as much as I do Harry Haller. I love this book.
As I understand, the various characters in the book are representations of different aspects of Haller's psyche. However, the Jungian influence is difficult to understand for me. The the recurring theme of the "Immortals" and exactly why he had to kill Hermione, albeit symbolically. He had to kill his ego?
>>8036215
>Harry
>Hermione
Hesse confirmed as a hack.
>>8036793
hoooooly shit what a fucking plagiarist
>>8036215
Why do you relate to the character so much?
>finished writing my first novel
>didnt write anything else for 6 months
Has this happened to anyone else?
>Dreamt about writing a novel for a decade
>Can't think of a single idea
>Haven't written a single line
Stop complaining
Yep. Finished editing a short story one month ago after two months of work. Didn't write shit since then. It's exam season tho, guess I'll go back to writing after that.
>decided I want to stop studying STEM to pursue my original passions, literature and philosophy
>play vidya all day
slightly hyperbolic, but basically true. FML
>be 13
>go through some weird emotional crisis related to puberty
>mom tells me reading the Three Musketeers calmed her down when she was my age
>I do it
>read a bunch of Dumas novels over the years (Musketeers trilogy, Count of Monte Cristo, Ascanio, Queen Margot)
>they are long and I was always a slow reader, so they took me a while
>a consistent event in Dumas novels is that a character falls in love at the first sight
>tells love interest "if you won't be with me, I'll kill myself because life's won't be worth living!"
>this is presented as noble and romantic
>get the idea in my head that this is how love works
>spend years 15-21 "falling in love" with girls and then daydreaming and obsessing over them without even asking them out
Only recently did I manage to realize (truly realize on a deeper level) that this is absolutely retarded and that "don't put her on a pedestal" isn't a bitter view of the world but rather a very reasonable and even optimistic one.
I know a lot of Dumas romances were also very pragmatic, but still - the "soulmate" ones were presented completely seriously (or at least that's how I saw them). I guess if my parents taught me this shit instead I wouldn't be in this situation, but their romantic histories were so traditional and vanilla that I think they believe in those ideas, too.
>spend years 15-21 "falling in love" with girls and then daydreaming and obsessing over them without even asking them out
i wonder how you missed that part that dumas heroes immediately asked their love interests out
also it's not an unique conception to him, it's named courtly love and is mostly a medieval conception
>>8036144
you know who's a medieval conception?
>used to read enid blyton's and other author's various series like the Famous Five, the Secret Seven, Swallows and Amazons etc
>thought when i became a teenager i too would have tons of exciting adventures with my close friends who i would eventually find somehow
is alt lit still a thing? where can i read some gr8 alt lit, who's hot right now
>>8036030
Your picture is the definition of Autism. If you don't think that you're interacting with people behind these Anonymous labels then you're mentally ill. We are people, each and every one of us.
>>8036035
relax, you are looking at what is most likely a nugget of 2009-2012 golden age alt lit alt art
>>8036030
its dead
Is gerard manley hopkins supposed to be extremely difficult to read through or am i just lacking in my early 1800s English comprehension.
I can hardly understand most of his descriptions, and have to constantly resort to googling, whether it's architecture or mentions of a 100 gems and flowers.
I'd like to enjoy him but I find it difficult with my lack of knowledge.
i remember reading some of his poetry (tfw jesuit education) in high school and not really struggling with it but he is meant to be kind of experimental for his era
I found Hopkins really difficult, too, but not for the word choice (although of course there are words I have to look up). I just find the style tough to decipher. I recognize he was innovative and all that, but it sounds so strange and almost quaint to my ears.
maybe its just me. but i think the idea of a book "changing your life" isnt real. It can change your opinion on something for sure, but no book is gonna make you a different person. at least, to me it doesn't seem reasonable.
>>8035669
What if you would have met a qt3.14 if you went outside instead of reading it?
This post changed my life, im going to become a fisherman.
Welcome to third grade.
Is this good? Share some thoughts
>>8034808
no he sucks. empire of the sun is his only good book.
movie was pretty good
>chief among them
<Queef ah mong damn
<Chief amon tat ianity EH
<chef mong domme
Part I:
When was the last time someone wrote a sincere secular outline for a modern citizen,
effective well-intentioned spooks for the masses, model spawned by some optimism, or at least motivated by the possibility?
Part II:
Let's do this.
So for starters, who are we to support? Where to draw the bound? The border?
Then, can there be some guiding principle for individuals. Can they be motivated by one thing? Today.
>>8034603
Are you memeing? Please kill yourself either way
>>8034624
I'm not.
I want to improve the world.
What's your issue?
Maybe we first have to level peoples wealth (or at least remove the poorest class), but given how poor the poor really are, and how many of them there are, this will not be possible
Does anyone have any actual idea what this old cunt is on about? Particularly regarding duration, elan vital, and multiplicities?
Read Heraclitus first. Much clearer.
>>8034268
He's talking about big black dick cucking the white man.
>>8034971
fucking kek'd
Are there any fans of David Milch here?
Even outside of his television work I found his lecture series on the Idea of the Writer to be the most profound account of the pathology of writing I've seen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85FYtguoxEs
Deadwood is one of the best television shows ever
Not familiar with anything else he's done
>>8034382
John from Cincinnati is great, too
>>8033469
why are his hands so small
Just finished the Dhammapada. What are other major works of Buddhism?
my diary desu
Another collection of verses is the Sutta-Nipata. Here is a good series of talks on them by Bhikkhu Bodhi:
http://bodhimonastery.org/sutta-nipata.html
(same content different layout:)
https://discourse.suttacentral.net/tags/bbsnptalks
Both Sutta-Nipata and Dhammapada are from the collection "Khuddaka Nikāya"
https://suttacentral.net/kn
This Nikaya contains mostly verses, some very old.
The suttas in the rest of the canon have a different feel, there are the long discourses
https://suttacentral.net/dn
the middle length discourses
https://suttacentral.net/mn
the connected discourses
https://suttacentral.net/sn
the numerical discourses
https://suttacentral.net/an
For an important sutta with a very different feel to the short verses of the Dhammapada and the Sutta Nipata, try the Mahaparinibbana sutta, number 16 of the Long Discourses:
https://suttacentral.net/en/dn16
Here is a good introductory essay on the Mahaparinibbana Sutta:
https://discourse.suttacentral.net/t/dn16-the-record-of-the-great-transcendent-emancipation-by-alexander-duncan/535
I'm currently reading the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
It's very good.
![alexandre-dumas-3[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/z4FTFln.jpg "alexandre-dumas-3[1]")
